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THE BOOK OF ESTHER:
A SPECIMEN OF WHAT PASSES AS THE INSPIRED
WORD OF GOD.
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKB.
The Book of Esther ! What is there in that worthy of special notice ?
It is a part of Holy Writ seldom or never referred to in the controver
sies of the time, and rarely used to point an argument or adorn a tale
in pulpit sermons. Some may say, why drag an obscure, unimportant
book into prominence, and attack that which is not of much moment
even to Christians ? To this it may be answered, that to a true believer,
nothing in the sacred book is trivial—all is inspired, and therefore all
is vital truth. If we view it in that light, it will be found to be our
strongest argument. The Book of Esther is still retained in all autho
rised editions of the Bible, and the most orthodox members of the
Church maintain that you cannot eliminate a single word or passage
withoiit incurring the wrath of Almighty God ; and we see how even
a bishop may bring down upon his devoted head the severest eccle
siastical censure, and be maligned, and shunned, and prosecuted by his
brethren of the cloth for daring to doubt the accuracy of some accounts
of events which never could have taken place as there related. But it
is not necessary now to go particularly into the question of inspiration.
We will take the book as we find it, and see what passes as the inspired
Word of God, and by following the text closely see how much better it
is than other writings. It must strike any observant reader that there
is nothing whatever on the surface of this part of the Bible that can
account for its being placed as a canonical book. It does not relate
any of God’s doings among his favourite children ; the Lord does not
direct the massacres ; Jehovah is not the patron of Mordecai and his
amiable niece—in short, neither God, the Lord, nor Jehovah are men
tioned at all throughout the whole ten chapters. One might say, if he
possessed the confidence of a priest, that this book was never inspired
by God. There are thousands who believe this book to be inspired,
because they dare not doubt. They have been taught to believe, and
they do believe. The human mind, once given to a belief in the super
natural, is open to receive anything as truth, however absurd or con
trary to experience it may be. Where are you to stop ? What are to
be the bounds of belief? Is not everything possible to a God of infinite
power ? And shall petty mortals dare to limit the eternal ? If an oc
currence is not easily comprehensible, what a relief it is to one’s head
to say, “ God did it.” That is sufficient, with some people, to account
for anything.
The Book of Esther, if perused as a narrative, will be found to be a
plain, unvarnished tale, possessing but few of the graces of rhetoric,
and chronicling the doings of by no means brilliant characters.
In the year 518 before Christ, commenced the reign of Ahasuerus, a
very small hero in his way, but through whose influence and by whose
sanction many extraordinary deeds were done, and many atrocities com
mitted. He was a king reigning over a vast region, extending from
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The Book of Esther.
India to Ethiopia, and including a hundred and twenty-seven provinces.
Marian Evans, in her translation of Feuerbach, says something to the
effect that Christianity is a religion of gourmands, as throughout the
Bible there is a continual record of feasting and jollity. Even the
Lord himself was entertained at dinner by Abraham. Accordingly, the
Book of Esther opens with an account of a great feast given by the
king, in the third year of his reign, to all his princes and his servants;
the power of Persia and of Media, the nobles and princes of the pro
vinces being before him. This carouse lasted a hundred and four score
days, during which time he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom
and the honour of his excellent majesty. Not content with the first
feast, at the end of this time he commenced again, and made a feast
unto all the people that were in Shushan the palace, both unto great
and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the palace. The
number seven is frequently used in this book, and it is a favourite number
with Bible writers, and no doubt accounts for the fact that the whole
book is in a state of “ sixes and sevens 1” A minute account is given
of the upholstery of the apartments, and of the metal of which the
drinking cups were made. There was royal wine in abundance, and
the drinking was according to law—that is, every man was to do accord
ing to his pleasure, and no doubt many of them took more than was
good for them, for the king himself set the example. Also Vashti, the
queen, made a feast for the women in the royal house. Now, Vashti
is the only woman in the book who displays any virtues or qualities
worthy of admiration ; but her virtues, which should have been her
glory and protection, are her ruin, and the treatment she received can
not be justified in modern times upon any principle of justice or morality.
On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine
(in plain English, when he was intoxicated), he commanded his seven
chamberlains to bring Vashti, the queen, before him, with the crown
royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty, for she was fair
to look on. But, like a modest and sedate woman, she refused to pre
sent herself to the rude gaze of the king and his court. Therefore was
the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. He at once went
to law about the matter, by consulting the wise men who understood
the law, also the seven princes of Persia and Media, among whom wa$
one Memucan. The king asked what should be done with Vashti for
disobeying his orders, for he seemed terribly afraid of a disobedient
wife. Memucan answered and said, the queen hath not done wrong to
the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that are
in all the provinces, when it should become known, for the wives would
despise their husbands if they should learn that the king had allowed
the queen to disobey his commands without rebuke. This noble prince
ended his address for the prosecution by the following suggestion : If
it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, ana
let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it
be not altered, that Vashti come no more before King Ahasuerus ; and
let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.
And when the king’s decree which he shall make shall be published
throughout all his empire (for it is great), all the wives shall give to
their husbands honour, both to the great and small. . The queen was
never called upon to offer an explanation or justification of her conduct,
there was no speech for the defence, and the king, who sat as Judge
Ordinary, decided on his own case, and immediately pronounced a
decree nisi, condemning the respondent in all costs. And thus poor
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Vashti was divorced and disgraced for possessing a virtue which is
universally admired among enlightened and refined people.
Now if there is any meaning at all in this disgraceful transaction—
and of course there must be a meaning of deep import in every word
of the sacred book, for do not preachers and commentators weave won
derful discourses out of half lines and incomplete sentences, showing
what the inspired penmen meant to say, and even what the Deity him
self was thinking of, but which unfortunately the text itself in its
entirety furnishes no clue to ?—now if there is any meaning in this dis
graceful divorcement of Queen Vashti, it is, that women are to be
subject to their husbands in all things, whether their personal liberty
be endangered or their moral sense outraged or not. The translators
have called it “the decree of men’s sovereignty.” It is a transaction,
nevertheless, in which all the honour attaches to the queen who was
punished, and the odium to the king who is praised for the deed. It
is continually so with Bible morality—the good is put as the bad, and
the bad as the good. But, happily for humanity, they are rapidly out
growing such misleading teaching.
And out of this questionable transaction arise all the subsequent blood
and murder recorded in this delectable book. If any good is supposed
to have accrued to the world from the doings of Mordecai and Esther,
the Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways ! After the decree had
gone forth, the king cooled down, and when he became sober he thought
of Vashti, and how harsh he had been to her • but those who had coun
selled her banishment, not wishing him to relent, lest their own wives
might expect to be forgiven after having been condemned, suggested
that all the officers in all the provinces should be commissioned with
the very agreeable task of collecting together all the pretty girls they
could find and bringing them to Shushan, for the king to choose one from,
who should be queen instead of Vashti. This idea pleased him, and
he ordered it to be done. Now as the kingdom consisted of 127 pro
vinces, and all the pretty girls were collected together, the bevy of
beauties at Shushan must have been the finest ever seen at one exhibi
tion. But notwithstanding all these charms and counter-charms, the
king was really able to make a choice. The wonder is that the poor
man was not so overpowered, that he resolved to keep the whole of
them ! However, it took him nearly four years to make up his mind.
His choice ultimately fell upon Esther, the lady whose name furnishes
the title to the sacred book in which her career is recorded. She had
seven maidens to wait upon her, and was chosen in the seventh year of
thè reign of the king. We are not told what her age was at this time ;
but that is not remarkable, as it is generally very difficult to learn what
any lady’s age is I Esther was an orphan and a Jewess, but this latter
fact was carefully concealed from the king by order of Mordecai, the
“nursing father” of Esther, as he is called—as fine a specimen of the
cunning Hebrew as is to be found on record. The Jews at this time
were in captivity—a state little better than slavery. Mordecai and
Esther were first cousins, and Mordecai promptly availed himself of the
opportunity of selling his interesting relative to the highest bidder, but
with a shrewd eye to his own interests at the same time. During the
long while Esther was waiting her turn to be presented to the king,
Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women’s house, to
know how Esther did, and what should become of her. As soon as
Esther was crowned, Mordecai came forward, and “sat in the gate of
the king.” It is not clear what this means—it is very much like being
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The Book of Esther.
allowed to sit on the door step. Whilst he was thus “hanging about,”
he overheard two of the door-keepers express some intention of laying
hands on the king. This was an opportunity sent by Providence to
enable Mordecai to show his loyalty. He at once improved the occa
sion, and told Esther, who told the king, at the same time making the
king understand to whom he was indebted for the information. The
two conspirators were hanged, but Mordecai was not rewarded for his
zeal.
Haman was promoted to be chief over all the princes. All the king’s
servants, as in duty bound, bowed down and reverenced Haman ; but
Mordecai, being annoyed at being passed over, refused to bow down,
notwithstanding he was spoken to about it daily. He threw off his
reserve now that his cousin was queen, and told them that he belonged
to the “stiff-necked” race. This incensed Haman very much, and he
resolved to be revenged not alone on Mordecai, but upon his whole tribe.
Haman told the king that there was a certain people scattered abroad
and dispersed among the provinces of the kingdom, whose laws were
different, and who did not obey the king’s laws, therefore it was not for
the king’s profit to suffer them—mildly suggesting that they should be
destroyed, and offering ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of
those who should have the charge of the slaughter. As in the case of
poorVashti, the king without hesitation acquiesced, and seemed in a
hurry to get that bit of business off his hands. Letters were despatched
into every province, written in all the languages of the people, and
sealed with the king’s ring, with orders “ to destroy, to kill, and to
cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women,
in one day, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” After this,
“ the king and Haman sat down to drink.”
It is the fashion with some people to praise Mordecai for his stubborn
will and manly spirit in refusing to bow down to the First Minister of
State, as though he had done it from a wholesome contempt of the
pomp and pride of court hirelings. But there is nothing in the text to
warrant that interpretation. In fact, no word is vouchsafed in explana
tion of why he refused, except that he was a Jew, and that certainly
gave him no virtue in the matter, for if he objected to the pride of
Haman the Gentile, it was only with the greater pride of Mordecai the
Jew. Mordecai belonged to the “ chosen people,” and we see in our
own day how people will strut and plume - themselves when clothed in
the garments of self-righteousness.
When Mordecai heard of the sanguinary decree, of course he was very
much alarmed, and did that silly and dirty trick peculiar to the favour
ites of the Lord—he tore his clothes and put on sack-cloth and ashes.
He went before the palace crying with a loud and bitter cry, but he was
too dusty to be allowed to enter into the king’s gate. Information of
Mordecai’s grief was conveyed to Esther, also of the state of his ward
robe, when she immediately sent him fresh raiment, with orders to take
away the sack-cloth and ashes ; but he preferred his rags and dirt.
Then the queen sent her chamberlain to Mordecai to know what troubled
him, and how it was. He sent her a copy of the decree, together with
all the particulars, with a request that she would go to the king and
make supplication for her people. There was some danger attendant
upon the carrying out of this request, as a law existed whereby all who
came to the king into the inner court without being called, should be
put to death, unless the king pardoned them ; and as the queen had not
seen her loving husband for a month, she was afraid to go to him un-
�The Book of Esther.
5
called. This was conveyed to Mordecai, wno replied—“ Think not
with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all
the Jews.” This determined Esther, who told Mordecai to gather to
gether all the Jews who were in town, and with them to fast three days
and three nights, and she and her maidens would do likewise. This
species of praying for success, is at best but an empty supplication.
Paine says the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and
never for anything but victory, vengeance, and riches. But she said —
‘ ‘ I will go to the king, which is not according to the law : and if I
perish, I perish.” This was noble—this was daring, and worthy of a
heroine. One might expect from this that Esther was full of all noble
qualities. On the contrary, she had the smoothness of the leopard
with the ferocity of the tiger. Here she resolved, at all hazards to
herself, to beg for the lives of the Jews. But listen to the result of her
mission.
On the third day she ventured unbidden into the royal presence, and
to her great relief the king was overjoyed to see her, and said : “ What
wilt thou, Queen Esther ? and what is thy request ? it shall be even
given thee to the half of the kingdom ?” The king was a mighty man
at a feast, and Esther, knowing his strong point, and also anticipating
it would be favourably received, had prepared a banquet, to which she
invited him, including Haman in the invitation. Throughout Bible
history, it will be found that the pot and the platter formed either the
prelude or the sequel to nearly all great undertakings or events. Of
course the king accepted the invitation to dine out in his own house,
and Haman was only too happy and proud to attend him. After the
wine had gone round, the king again repeated his offer, that whatever
request Esther made, even to the half of his kingdom, it should be
granted. She was still cautious and hesitating, not being sure that the
roystering monarch was fed up to the proper pitch for her purpose; so
she said that if the king and Haman would come to another feast on the
following day, she would then make known her request. This was
agreed to. Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad
heart. But his exultation was of short duration, for he had not gone
far before he nearly fell over that obstinate old Mordecai, who refused
to get up or move out of his way. This filled him with indignation,
but still he restrained himself till he reached home, when he sent for
his friends and for.Zeresh, his wife. “ And Haman told them of the
glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things
wherein the king had promoted him,” for he was a man of great self
importance, and was quite overpowered if he did not receive a proper
amount of deference from his presumed inferiors. After recounting
his wonderful position, he said : “Yet all this availeth me nothing so
long a,s I.see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” His wife
and his friends told him to cheer up, and get a gallows made fifty cubits
high, and at the morrow’s banquet to speak unto the king that Mor
decai might be hanged thereon. This humane suggestion pleased
Haman much, and, like a modern Governor Eyre, he thereupon issued
his order for the erection of that neat piece of architecture—an instru
ment still used in this country to finish the education which the priest
begins.
It so happened, and very fortunately so for Mordecai, that the night
before this second banquet the king was not able to sleep, so he thought
he would read awhile, and therefore ordered the book of records to be
brought, and in this he found chronicled the name and services of Mor*
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The Book of Esther.
decai in informing of the two doorkeepers who had got up a little con
spiracy agaifist himself. The king asked what honour and dignity had
been done to Mordecai for this. He was told nothing. He exclaimed,
Who is in the court ? He was answered, Haman. Now, Haman, un
fortunately for himself, had gone there post haste, not waiting till the
morning, to crave the boon of being allowed to elevate poor Mordecai
fifty cubits high. It was an ominous moment for him. He was ordered
into the king’s presence, who, not giving him time to speak, asked :
“What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to
honour?” Now, Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the
king delight to do honour more than to myself? He therefore resolved
not to underdo the matter, and modestly proposed that the happy indi
vidual should be decked out in the royal apparel, the crown put upon
his head, the whole mounted upon the king’s horse, and led through
the streets of the city by one of the noblest princes, and to be pro
claimed before him, “ Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king
delighteth to honour.” But what was Haman’s utter astonishment and
consternation when he was told to make haste and do all he had said
unto Mordecai the Jew, the man whom he hated above all other men.
But this was not the last time in which Haman was destined to be
caught in his own trap. He hurried home hiding his head, and told
his wife and friends of his disappointment. He was a fallen Minister,
and they all felt that Mordecai, the Benjamin Disraeli of his time, would
lead the Opposition on to the Treasury benches. And while they were
talking, the messenger came to summons Haman to the second banquet
which Esther had prepared. But he was in no mood for eating. He
had not yet digested the bitter pill of Mordecai’s advancement. The
king again asked Esther what boon she craved. She said : “ Let my
life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we
are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.”
Though five years had elapsed since their marriage, this appears to have
been the first time the king knew that his wife was a Jewess. He
asked, ‘ ‘ Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart
to do so ?” The king had forgotten all about the decree he had made
and signed with his own ring, for the utter destruction of the people
who were scattered throughout all his provinces. That was too small
a matter to dwell in his memory. Esther answered and said, “The
adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman.” Thq king rushed into
the garden in great fury, and whilst he was gone Haman became much
alarmed for his own»safety ; and when the king returned he found
Haman on his knees beseeching Esther to intercede with the king on
his behalf. The king mistook the meaning of the supplication, and
became jealous as well as angry. This sealed the fate of poor Haman,
who was immediately seized and his face covered. An obliging cham
berlain who was standing by, with the usual readiness of court syco
phants to help a fallen favourite, told the king that Haman had got
a gallows already erected, which was intended for Mordecai, the rising
minister. Upon this hint the king spake, and told them to hang Haman
thereon. “ So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had pre
pared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.” Thus
Haman was literally the architect of his own fortune, and ultimately
graced his own structure. But the king was not blameless in the matter
—he was more to blame than Haman himself, for he signed a san
guinary decree at the first time of asking, and without making the
slightest inquiry into the justice of what he was about to do. Yet this
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is the man into whose hands God had committed the care of a portion
of his “ chosen people. ” This justifies the saying that Christianity is
much indebted for its preservation to the vilest and silliest characters in
all ages and countries.
The king, as is the wont of monarchs, bestowed the dead man’s pro
perty upon his favourite, and Esther became enriched by Haman’s
death. Mordecai also experienced rapid promotion, as he was for the
first time introduced to the king as Esther’s relative. And the king
took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto
Mordecai ; and Esther set Mordecai over Jhe House of Haman. The
Jews’ star was now in the ascendant. The queen then besought the
king to revoke his edict against the Jews, which had been issued at
the instigation of Haman. Being a most yielding man, and having the
amiable weakness of granting everything to everybody at the moment
of asking, whether it was the slaughter of a whole race, or the hanging
of an individual even on his own new gallows, he consented without a
murmur to reverse what he had done a short time before, and com
manded Mordecai, saying—“ Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh
you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring ; for the writ
ing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring,
may no man reverse. ” Mordecai’s patience and perseverance were at
length rewarded, and his day of triumph had arrived. Having carte
blanche from the king, he availed himself of it to the fullest extent. He
■sent proclamations into all the provinces, in which he said “ the king
had granted the Jews in every city to gather themselves together, and
to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all
the power of the people and province that would assault them, both
little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” Not
content with telling the Jews they might destroy, slay, and cause to
perish all who assaulted them, he ordered them all to be in readiness
on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month to avenge themselves on their
enemies. Mordecai then strutted out like a peacock to show his fine
feathers. He went out “ in royal apparel of blue and white, and with
a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple :
and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. The Jews had light,
and, gladness, and joy, and honour. And in every province, and in
every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came,
the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of
the people of the land became Jews ; for the fear of the Jews fell upon
them.”
V
Accordingly, on the fatal thirteenth of the twelfth month, the day on
which the Jews were to have been killed, the order of things was re
versed, for the Jews gathered themselves together in all the cities to lay
hands on such as sought their hurt ; and no man could withstand them ;
for the fear of them fell upon all people. All the king’s officials,
throughout the kingdom, like true time-servers and worshippers of
power, because the Prime Minister was a Jew, joined with the Jews
against their own countrymen ; and thus as bloody a coup a'état was
perpetrated in Asia in the year 509 before Christ, as that which took
place in France on the 2nd of December, 1851 years after this precious
Gospel came to bless mankind ! “ Thus the Jews smote all their
enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction,
and did what they would unto those that hated them. And in Shushan
the palace, the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men.” The ten
sons of Haman slew they, thus carrying out the barbarous doctrine
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The Book of Esther.
taught in this holy book, of visiting the sins of the father upon the
children. “On that day the number of those that were slain in Shushan
were brought before the king. And the king said unto Esther the
queen—The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan
the palace, and the ten sons of Haman ; what have they done in the
rest of the king’s provinces ? now what is thy petition ? and it shall be
granted thee : or what is thy request further? And it shall be done.”
Mark the fiendish answer of this tigress, sent of course by God to be
an instrument in the preservation of his favourite people. “ Then said
Esther—If it please the kin£, let it be granted to the Jews which are in
Shushan to do to-morrow also according unto this day’s decree, and let
Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows ! And the king com
manded it so to be done ; and the decree was given at Shushan ; and
they hanged Haman’s ten sons.” This was diabolical ferocity, prompted
by the direst spirit of revenge. Esther could not have forgotten that a
few minutes before the king had told her that the ten sons of Haman
had been slain, and therefore to hang them on the gallows was not with
the idea of killing them a second time, but merely for the gratification
of gloating over the ghastly corpses of ten men who had never injured
her, but who had the misfortune to be the sons of her enemy. This is
Bible morality, of which there are innumerable instances in this sacred
word of God. And so the slaughter went on, and the Jews gathered
themselves together on the fourteenth day, and in Shushan butchered
three hundred more men, and those in the provinces made up the total
number of victims seventy-five thousand. After this the Jews fell to
feasting and rejoicing, and called it a day of gladness, and resolved, at the
suggestion of Mordecai, to celebrate both the thirteenth and fourteenth
of the twelfth month as a festival every year. “ Then Esther the queen,
and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this, and
sent letters unto all the Jews in the 127 provinces, with words of peace
and truth.” “For Mordecai the Jew was next unto King Ahasuerus,
and great among the Jqws, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren,
seeking the wealth of bis people, and speaking peace to all his seed. ”
And thus ends this eventful history.
We close this blood-stained Book of Esther with feelings of loathing
and disgust. There is not one principle of morality inculcated through
out the entire narrative ; there is but one estimable or worthy character
depicted therein, and she is a victim ; the incidents recorded are inci
dents of drunkenness, domestic tyranny, lust, ambition, vacillation,
revenge, and wholesale and brutal murder of innocent men, women,
and children. There is no inspiration, no instruction, no moral eleva
tion in it. It is one dull, dead level of brutality aud animal indul
gence. The first chapter commences with a gross outrage upon the
delicacy of a sensitive woman, and ends by her being divorced and
disgraced, that “ man’s sovereignty ” may be upheld and proclaimed.
This can be quoted as an argument in favour of the oppression of one
half the human race, for does it not tally with that other passage in the
Bible, which says that woman shall be subject to the man ? Chapter
ii. enters into particulars of the utterly immoral way in which the king
chose a wife in succession to Vashti, and the calculating manner in
which Mordecai brought his foster daughter and relative to the market,
and sold her to the highest bidder. Chapter iii. is an account of an
ambitious minister, who, on being irritated and annoyed by a man
belonging to a despised race, who presumed upon his relationship to
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the queen, seeks to have his enemy and his enemy’s race destroyed ;
and where a king, who should be the guardian of his people, condemns
to death a large number of his subjects at the mere request of one man.
Chapter iv. depicts the real cause of all this mischief and commotion
in a state of the most abject fear. There is no reason why Mordecai
should have hated and annoyed Haman, unless it was from a feeling of
envy at his elevation and good fortune. Chapter v. shows a man so
engrossed with a feeling of hatred, that he builds a gallows of his own
on which to hang his enemy. Chapter vi. pretends to relate how a
king can honour a subject who has served him ; but the story is so
overdone that it becomes outrageously improbable. Chapter vii. is an
attempt to pourtray an instance of retributive justice, but it is a failure,
for the wicked Haman, who dies on his own gallows, is not hanged for
seeking the lives of the Jews, but because the king in his mad fury
mistook the meaning of his subject’s supplication. Chapter viii. shows
a vacillating and sanguinary tyrant playing with the lives of his subjects
at the merest caprice, sparing neither women nor little innocent chil
dren. Chapter ix. contains an account of deeds worthy only of fiends,
the bear recital of which makes one shudder, but over which God’s
chosen cannibals rejoice and make merry, and call it a good day, which
they will celebrate with feasting and rejoicing through all coming time.
And Esther, the heroine of the book, God’s appointed agent to save
his peculiar people, when told of the glorious slaughter which her
brethren had had the first day, begged the boon of one more day of
the hellish work, that the agony might be prolonged, that more wives
might be made widows, that there should be more children made
orphans, that the desolation might be more widespread, and that the
wail of despair might again resound through the affrighted city. And
chapter x. closes the book with the pompous parade of Mordecai’s
greatness in the eyes of the multitude, and of his ‘ ‘ seeking the wealth
of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.” Oh, bitter mockery !
the peace he had won was the peace of the grave and the silence of
death.
And this is the inspired word of God ; and these are the people for
whom the Lord had an especial liking. What could have been the
object of the concoctors of the Bible in including this book among the
canonical gospels ? It could not have been intended as a compliment
to the Deity, because his name is never mentioned in it under any one
title by which he is known. It does not point the way to mansions in
the skies ; for though death, in all its ghastliness, is constantly present,
any supposed immortality is never alluded to. Even the most besotted
bigot could scarcely maintain that it was intended to convey a moral
lesson in any one chapter or verse. Nothing could be more ferocious
and imbecile than this king, who grants everything that is asked of him
by every favourite of the hour, and who not even by accident performs
a good action. The queen too, who to graces of person should have
added beauties of heart and mind, on the only occasion on which she
possessed the power of doing anything great or good, manifested a dis
position which would disgrace a North American savage when on the
war trail. Then what is the object of this book? It can only be in
tended to show the “providential” preservation of the Jews from a
great peril, and, being the children of God, it was necessary that they
should be spared to carry out God’s plans upon earth. Was anything
ever more monstrous than this ? If what is recorded of the Jews in the
Bible be true, they are as vile a race as ever trod the earth.
�10
The Book of Esther.
And this book is read in Sunday-schools, and these are the lessons
implanted in the young and tender minds of children. From the
earliest moment they are taught to reverence this volume as the sacred
word of God, and not to doubt or call in question, on pain of eternal,
never-ending torments, a single line or word therein ? What does
Theodore Parker say on this point ?—
“To the Bible the minister prostitutes his mind and conscience,
heart and soul ; on the authority of an anonymous Hebrew book, he
will justify the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, by the
thousand ; and, on that of an anonymous Greek book, he will believe,
or at least command others to believe, that man is born totally de
praved, and God will perpetually slaughter men in hell by the million,
though they had committed no fault, except that" of not believing an
absurd doctrine they had never heard of. Ministers take the Bible in
the lump as divine; all between the lids of the book is equally the
‘ Word of God,’ infallible and miraculous : he that believeth it shall
be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned ; no amount of
piety and morality can make up for not believing this. No doctor is
ever so subordinate to his drug, no lawyer lies so prone before statute
and custom, as the mass of ministers before the Bible, the great fetish
of Protestant Christendom. The Ephesians did not so worship their
great goddess Diana and the meteoric stone which fell down from
Jupiter. ‘We can believe anything,’ say they, ‘which has a “ Thus
saith the Lord ” before or after it.’ The Bible is not only master of
the soul, it is also a talisman to keep men from harm ; bodily contact
with it, through hand or eye, is a part of religion ; so it lies in railroad
stations, in the parlours and sleeping chambers of taverns, and the
cabins of ships, only to be seen and touched, not read. The pious
mother puts it in the trunk of her prodigal son about to travel, and
while she knows he is Wasting her substance in riotous living, she con
tents herself with the thought that ‘ he has got his Bible with him, and
promised to read a chapter every day !’ So the Catholic mother uses
an image of the ‘Virgin Mother of God,’ and the Rocky Mountain
savage a bundle of grass : it is a fetish."
Now, a God of mercy, and justice, and lovingkindness can never
approve of this. This delusion is perpetuated, and this evil is kept up
by some from interested motives ; by others from ignorance of the real
nature of the book they were taught in their infancy to prostrate their
reason before, and by most from a feeling of fanaticism and supersti
tion. Thomas Paine, who speaks as a Deist, says :—
“ It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible,
and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the
world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God ; they have disputed
and wrangled, and have anathematised each other about the supposable
meaning of particular parts and passages therein—one has said and
insisted that such a passage meant such a thing ; another that it meant K
directly the contrary ; and a third, that it neither meant one nor the
other, but something different from both—and this they call understand
ing the Bible. There are matters in that book, said to be done by the
express command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every
idea we have of moral justice, as anything done by Robespierre, by
Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France ; by the English Government in
the East Indies ; or by any other assassin in modem times. When we
read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c., that the Israelites
came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the history it
�The Book of Esther.
11
self shows, had given them no offence—that they put all those nations
to the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy; that they utterly
destroyed men, women, and children; that they left- not a soul to
breathe ; expressions that are repeated over and over again in those
books, and that too with exulting ferocity ; are we sure these things are
facts ? Are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned these things
to be done ? Are we sure that the books which tell us so were written
by his authority ? To charge the commission of acts upon the Almighty,
which in their nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes—
as all assassination is, and more especially the assassination of infants—
is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us that these assassinations
were done by the express commartd of God. To believe therefore the
Bible to be true, we must unbelieve all our belief in the moral justice of
God : for wherein could crying or smiling infants offend ? And to read
the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender,
sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for my
self, if I had no other evidence that the Bible is fabulous, than the
sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would be suf
ficient to determine my choice.”
What can be done to sweep this delusion from the minds of men,
which for nearly eighteen hundred years has been preached to them by
the aid of church and cannon, sword and surplice? For ages the
pioneer of truth was always its martyr, till despair almost entered the
heart of those who sought the service of humanity. But there still re
mained a heroic few who nobly passed the banner of truth from gene
ration to generation, till it has reached our time, and now waves more
freely in the breezes of awakened intelligence, which ere long will swell
i.nto a whirlwind of enlightenment, which shall sweep before it every
vestige of the dark clouds of ignorance and superstition which have
overshadowed the fair face of nature, and been the prolific parents of
all those calamities which have befallen poor humanity groping its way
through the darkness of ignorance, and stumbling at every step over
those things which might be turned into stepping-stones to assist their
onward march, if they had but more mental light with which to illumine
their path through life.
If I were a believer in a Special Providence answering the supplica
tions of men, I would kneel at the “throne of grace,” and importune
the Deity to end this war, and strife, and hatred among his children.
Not with a scoffing tongue do I now say it, but in all seriousness, as
becomes the solemnity of such a task, and I would offer up this
PRAYER.
O God, who art omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; allpowerful, all-wise, and all-just; who existed before time was, and who
made all-things ; who searchest the hearts of all, and knowest our most
secret thoughts—vouchsafe but one word that shall stop at once and
for ever all the horrors that are committed in thy name; utter it in the
thunder that all may hear to the remotest comers of the earth, or write
it across the heavens in characters that all, of every nation and every
tongue, may read and understand. Thou knowest, in thy infinite
wisdom, that men, groping their way by the dim light of ages past,
fail to see the truth they fain would reach. Some by accident find the
precious treasure; others clutch error, and, clinging to it with the
tenacity of despair, make war upon all around them. O thou bene
ficent Deity, one word from thee would open the eyes of all, making
�12
The Book of Esther.
the blind to see and the dull to understand. This Bible, for which men
lie, and cheat, and persecute—which inculcates doctrines the most con
tradictory, immoral, and revolting—which records deeds done in thy
name at which humanity shudders aghast—can it be thy message of
mercy to mankind? Didst thou, in thy boundless benevolence, in
spire its pages, and in thy immutable justice send it as a guide for the
human race ? Is it serving thee for the professors of Bible religion to
rend one another? In one country, Catholic Christians imprison and
torture their Protestant brethren ; in another, the Protestants tax,
persecute, and oppress their Catholio fellow-subjects, and all in thy
name. Eighteen hundred years ago a Jew who preached a new doc
trine was cruelly put to death. An effigy of his mangled and bleeding
body, nailed to a cross, is the emblem of Christians, under which they
have made war, and slaughtered tens and hundreds of thousands of
their fellow creatures. This murdered man is called thy Son, and all
are commanded to worship him, on pain of death in some countries,
and of social persecution and hatred in others. Are we justified, O
God, in thy sight in regarding this symbol of blood and suffering as a
sign of thy love for the family of man ? In England (this small speck
in thy immense universe), there are thousands of thy creatures steeped
in the deepest poverty and crime; thousands lolling in the lap of luxury,
extravagance, and wealth ; thousands of priests paid millions a year,
wrung from the hard earnings of industry, to preach what is called thy
“holy word,” which in one part declares “the poor will not cease
from out the land.” Is this, O Lord, the most perfect state of society to
which men can attain ? Every despot in Europe, who oppresses his
subjects, and slaughters them if they complain, is styled “ Most Chris
tian Majesty,” and he declares that he rules by right divine derived
direct from thee. The Pope of Rome, the head of an ecclesiastical
despotism, which keeps men ignorant and rules them as slaves, is called
thy Vicegerent upon earth. All claim Bible sanction for what they do.
My sense of right revolts at all this, and I beseech thee, O thou God
of justice and righteousness, to direct me in the right path, if I am
erring in my judgment of thy goodness and truth. Rather would I
say, the vast majority of the populations of the world are tortured and
enslaved by the dominant few who rule in thy name, because the
masses are ignorant and therefore helpless. In anguish I cry unto
thee—
“ When wilt thou save the people,
O God of mercy, when ?
Not crowns and thrones, but nations;
Not kings and lords, but men ?”
One word from thy everlasting lips would bind all hearts in one; would
reconcile man to man the world over; would inaugurate the reign of
love and peace, and banish hate and all uncharitableness. Speak this
word, O Lord, I implore thee, that man may go on his way rejoicing,
giving and receiving pleasure ; shed thy radiance on mankind, that they
may feel thy kingdom has come ; establish thy Paradise upon earth ;
and thine be the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
London : Printed and Published by Austin & Co., I7> Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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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
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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 book of Esther: a specimen of what passes as the inspired word of God
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Holyoake, Austin [1826-1874]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Austin & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
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CT16
Subject
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Bible
Atheism
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 book of Esther: a specimen of what passes as the inspired word of God), 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
Atheism
Bible-O.T.-Esther
Conway Tracts
-
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PDF Text
Text
mtltir tamtmits.
A BURIAL SERVICE.
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKE.
�I
�A BURIAL SERVICE.
The following is designed as one of the services for the little
Manual of Secular Ceremonies. Having lost the nearest and
dearest relatives a man can know—having passed, I may say,
through a baptism of bereavement, I know but too well the
agony of the grave side. I have endeavoured—but very
inadequately, I am sure—to produce a short service which
shall afford consolation and reconcilement to the sorrowing,
from a Secular point of view. The service as it now stands
is suitable to be said over the grave of an adult male; it
may, with slight effort, by altering the gender, be made
suitable for a female also. It is almost impossible to write
that which would be applicable to all persons of all ages. It
■can always be sufficiently individualised by some friend of
the deceased introducing a few remarks of a personal nature.
We this day consign to the earth the body of
our departed friend ; for him life’s fitful dream
is over, with its toils, and sufferings, and dis
appointments. He derived his being from the
bountiful mother of all ; he returns to her capa
cious bosom, to again mingle with the elements.
He basked in life’s sunshine for his allotted time,
and has passed into the shadow of death, where
sorrow and pain are unknown. Nobly he per-
�4
A Burial Service.
formed life’s duties on the stage of earth; the
impenetrable curtain of futurity has fallen, and
we see him no more. But he leaves to his
sorrowing relatives and friends a legacy in the
remembrance of his virtues, his services, his
honour, and truth. He fought the good fight
of Free Inquiry, and triumphed over prejudice
and the results of misdirected education. His
voyage through life was not always on tranquil
seas, but his strong judgment steered him clear
of the rocks and quicksands of ignorance, and
for years he rested placidly in the haven of selfknowledge. He had long been free from the
fears and misgivings of superstitious belief. He
worked out for himself the problem of life, and
no man was the keeper of his conscience. His
religion was of this world—the service of human
ity his highest aspiration. He recognised no
authority but that of Nature ; adopted no
methods but those of science and philosophy ;
and respected in practice no rule but that of
conscience, illustrated by the common sense of
mankind. He valued the lessons of the past,
but disowned tradition as a ground of belief,
whether miracles and supernaturalism be claimed
or not claimed on its side. No sacred Scripture
or ancient Church formed the basis of his faith.
By his example, he vindicated the right to think
and to act upon conscientious conviction. By a
career so noble, who shall say that his domestic
affections were impaired, or that his love for those
near and dear to him was weakened ? On the
contrary, his independent method of thought
�A Burial Service.
5
tended to develop those sentiments which have
their source in human nature—which impel and
ennoble all morality—which are grounded upon
intelligent personal conviction, and which mani
fest themselves in worthy and. heroic actions,
especially in the promotion of Truth, Justice,
and Love. For worship of the unknown, he sub
stituted Duty; for prayer, Work; and the record
of his life bears testimony to his purity of heart;
and the bereaved ones know but too well the
treasure that is lost to them for ever. If perfect
reliance upon any particular belief in the hour
of death were any proof of its truth, then in the
death of our friend the principles of Secularism
would be triumphantly established. His belief
sustained him in health ; during his illness, with
the certainty of death before him at no distant
period, it afforded him consolation and en
couragement ; and in the last solemn moments
of his life, when he was gazing as it were into
his own grave, it procured him the most perfect
tranquillity of mind. There were no misgivings,
no doubts, no tremblings lest he should have
missed the right path; but he went undaunted
into the land of the great departed, into the
silent land. It may be truly said of him, that
nothing in life became him more than the manner
of his leaving it. Death has no terrors for the
enlightened; it may bring regrets at the thought
of leaving those we hold dearest on earth, but
the consciousness of a well-spent life is allsufficient in the last sad hour of humanity. Death
is but the shadow of a shade, and there is noth-
�6
A Buriat Service.
ing in the name that should blanch the cheek
or inspire the timid with fear. In its presence,
pain and care give place to rest and peace. The
sorrow-laden and the forlorn, the unfortunate
and the despairing, find repose in the tomb—all
the woes and ills of life are swallowed up in
death. The atoms of this earth once were living
man, and in dying, we do but return to our
kindred who have existed through myriads of
generations.
[Here introduce any personal matters relating to the
deceased.]
Now our departed brother has been removed,
death, like a mirror, shows us his true reflex.
We see his character undistorted by the pas
sions, the prejudices, and the infirmities of life.
And how poor seem all the petty ambitions
which are wont to sway mankind, and how
small the advantages of revenge. Death is so
genuine a fact, that it excludes falsehood, or
betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that
proves the gold, and dishonours the baser metal.
Our friend has entered upon that eternal rest,
that happy ease, which is the heritage of all.
The sorrow and grief of those who remain,
alone mar the thought that the tranquil sleep
of death has succeeded that fever of the brain
called living. Death comes as the soothing
anodyne to all our woes and struggles, and we
inherit the earth as a reward for the toils of life.
The pain of parting is poignant, and cannot for
�A Burial Service.
7
a time be subdued; but regrets are vain. Every
form that lives must die, for the penalty of life
is death. No power can break the stern decree
that all on earth must part; though the chain
be weaved by affection or kindred, the beloved
ones who weep for us will only for a while re
main. There is not a flower that scents the
mountain or the plain, there is not a rose-bud
that opes its perfumed lips to the morning sun,
but, ere evening comes, may perish. Man
springs up like the tree: at first the tender plant,
he puts forth buds of promise, then blossoms for
a time, and gradually decays and passes away.
His hopes, like the countless leaves of the forest,
may wither and be blown about by the adverse
winds of fate, but his efforts, springing from
the fruitful soil of wise endeavour, will fructify
the earth, from which will rise a blooming
harvest of happy results to mankind. In the
solemn presence of death—solemn, because a
mystery which no living being has penetrated—
on the brink of that bourne from whence no
traveller returns, our obvious duty is to emu
late the good deeds of the departed, and to
resolve so to shape our course through life, that
when our hour comes we can say, that though
our temptations were great—though our educa
tion was defective—though our toils and priva
tions were sore—we never wilfully did a bad
act, never deliberately injured our fellow-man.
The reward of a useful and virtuous life is the
conviction that our memory will be cherished
by those who come after us, as we revere the
�8
A Burial Service.
memories of the great and good who have gone
before. This is the only immortality of which
we know—the immortality of the great ones of
the world, who have benefitted their age and
race by their noble deeds, their brilliant thoughts,
their burning words. Their example is ever
with us, and their influence hovers round the
haunts of men, and stimulates to the highest
and happiest daring Man has a heaven too,
but not that dreamed of by some—far, far away,
beyond the clouds ; but here on earth, created by
the fireside, and built up of the love and respect
of kindred and friends, and within the reach of
tlie humblest who work for the good of others
and the perfectibility of humanity. As we drop
the tear of sympathy at the grave now about
to close over the once loved form, may the
earth lie lightly on him, may the flowers bloom
o’er his head, and may the winds sigh softly as
they herald the coming night. Peace and re
spect be with his memory. Farewell, a long
farewell!
LONDON":
AUSTIN & Co., 17, JOHNSON’S COUBT, FLEET STBEET, E.C.
PEICE ONE PENNY.
�
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
Secular ceremonies. A burial service.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Holyoake, Austin [1826-1874]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Inscription in ink on the title page: "M.D. Conway for P. Truelove Dec 2/74". From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Austin & Co., Fleet Street, London. Tentative date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[Austin & Co]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1869?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT19
Subject
The topic of the resource
Death
Secularism
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Burial
Ceremonies
Conway Tracts
Funerals
Secularism
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HEAVEN & HELL: WHERE SITUATED?
A. SEABCH AFTEIi THE OBJECTS OP
MAN’S FERVENT HOPE & ABIDING TERROR.
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKE.
Heaven ia the hope of the Christian —Hell is his dread, his fear, his
abiding terror. What would Christianity be—that is, the modern faith
of Europe—without these two ideas, or sentiments, or beliefs, or whatever
they may be called? Simply a mild kind of superstition. The hope of an
eternal reward for doing right, appeals with much force, there can be no
doubt, to the selfish; and the fear of eternal, never-ending torments, will
keep many a wretch in awe. But all who are swayed by such motives
must be inferior morally to those who do good because it is right to do so,
and because it will benefit men individually, and society generally, regard
less of all consideration as to whether the doers of good will receive
advantage themselves. Man’s clear duty is to do right, to speak the truth,
not only without reward, but even at his own cost if need be.
I say at the outset, that I do not believe in the Christian’s Heaven. It
involves too many difficultiss and contradictions for me to comprehend, or
for anyone to explain. To disturb the Christian’s greatest hope, to destroy
his fondest illusion, to rob him of his sole consolation, without giving him
an equivalent in return, is denounced from every pulpit and every religious
tract, as a deadly sin. But if the Christian is trusting to a delusion, if
he is self-deceived, who is to blame? Surely not he who points out the
error—the blame lies rather with those who have deceived him, or, it may
be, with himself, for not having examined more closely the foundations of
his belief. Ministers every day in the year preach about and promise to
their devotees a heaven of bliss, when they have not the minutest particle
of evidence upon the subject to justify their promises. Thus is the world
deluded; and out of the delusion thousands thrive and fatten, while the
bulk of the nation are taxed to uphold the deception.
For many centuries, and in many countries, the idea of a future state,
or world beyond the grave, has existed. How this idea first arose, we have
no clear conception. That it has varied in different countries, according
to the amount of intelligence or civilisation possessed by each, is certain.
The poor savage, whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind,
has pictured to himself the happy hunting grounds of the Great Spirit,
covered with boundless herds of wild buffaloes and other animals dear to
the heart of the child of the prairie, which he will be always chasing and
always catching. The Mahomedan of the East believes in and hopes for
a Paradise where all his sensuous enjoyments will be increased tenfold—
shady groves, refreshing springs, and beautiful houris. The Christian
believes in a future state of spiritual existence, where all his earthly
wants and necessities will leave him, where hunger and thirst, pain and
sorrow, will torment him no more. In short, he expects to live in a state
of ecstatic delirium for ever and ever. We will examine how far this
belief is warranted by facts.
�2
Heaven and Hell.
What is the Christian’s Heaven? Where is it situated? In what part
of the so-called Sacred Writings shall we find a clear and intelligible
description of this abode of bliss—this promised land of never-ending
pleasures, which is to be the reward of all true believers ? It appears to be
situated, by common consent, up above—beyond the clouds—beyond im
measurable space—and yet in the clouds. Whether in the torrid or the
frigid zone, we are not informed. What its climate will be no man
knoweth. Will there be there the severe winter, with its snows and
chilling blasts; the genial and budding spring, giving promise of the
warm and sunny summer, when all nature, in the plenitude of her wealth
and beauty, showers her blessings on mankind; to be followed by the mellow
and glowing autumn, when the seasons, resting as it were from the labours
of production, smile upon the bounties scattered broadcast over the earth?
Men of all climes are to go to Heaven, who believe in the proper number
of orthodox nostrums, but how will the Laplander fare in a climate which
is suitable to the Asiatic ? How will the Englishman live and be happy,
where the African can thrive, or the Russian of the wilds of Siberia will be
at home ? Are all to be dumb there, or are all to speak one language ? If
all are to have the power of articulation, are those only of one country to
talk together, except the happy few who may possess the gift of tongues ?
If so, it will be but a repetition of the educational inequalities of this
world, which the schoolmaster is now making strenuous efforts to rectify.
Will all retain the same intellectual power which they possessed when on
earth ? If so, what gratification will the change bring to the idiots from
birth, who are not capable of comprehending anything ? They cannot be
restored to their senses, seeing that they never possessed any. After death
they would have to be reorganised. Will the cripples be made perfect, and
those who have lost limbs have them restored to them ? These may seem
to the Christian considerations beside the question, but on reflection he
will be bound to admit that they are questions needing an answer.
It is in vain for the Christian to say that man in Heaven will be a
spiritual, and not a material being. In the first place, we have no con
ception, and cannot possibly convey to another, an idea of what a spiritual
being is. There is a contradiction in the very terms, and we have no
analogy by which to judge. This involves the interminable controversy
about spiritual substance, etherealised bodies, and so on. But is it not
manifestly absurd to promise to man eternal happiness in a future state of
existence, when you take away from him all those faculties whereby he
will be alone capable of feeling either pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow? See
the insurmountable difficulties involved in this notion of life after death.
I am promised all this bliss; then, unless I go to that land beyond the
grave as I am—that is, with all my human faculties unimpaired—1 cannot
enjoy it ? I am known from others to all who see me by my outward form,
and by what they hear me say and see me do. I receive pleasure from certain
things, and experience pain in virtue of being what I am. Destroy my
individuality, my body, and where am I ? Ano longer exist. That same
principle of life which animates my body has animated countless millions of
other human beings ; but my form as it now exists has never been pos
sessed by another. What attraction is it to me to be told that when I die
I shall go to another and a better world, if I am not to be I when I get
there ? It is a place clearly intended for a different race of beings or exist
ences, whose happiness will depend, not upon what they may have believed
or disbelieved here, but upon the suitability to their constitution or
organisation of the circumstances surrounding them. No Christian can
imagine himself to be other than he is on this earth. Disguise the fact as
�Heaven and Hell.
3
they may, those who desire a life after death believe it will be one calcu
lated to promote their own special enjoyments.
Some time ago, the Rev. J. C. Ryle, B.A., Vicar of Stradbroke, pub
lished in the Quiver—a publication issued by Cassell & Co.—an essay en
titled “ Shall we know one another?” in which he singularly confirms this
view of the matter. He is a Churchman, and of course quite orthodox.
He quotes three short passages from Thessalonians (1, iv. 13,14), which he
says “ all imply the same great truth, that saints in heaven shall know
one another. They shall have the same body and the same character
that they had on earth—a body perfected and transformed like Christ’s in
his transfiguration, but still the same body—a character perfected and
purified from all sin, but still the same character. But in the moment
that we who are saved shall meet our several friends in heaven, we shall
at once know them, and they will at once know us.” But this declaration
complicates the subject farther than ever. What does he mean by the same
body ? How can it be the same body if it be “ perfected and transformed?”
It is as unintelligible as Daniel’s dreams or St. John’s visions. The rev.
gentleman candidly remarks:—“ I grant freely that there are not many
texts in the Bible which touch the subject at all. I admit fully that pious
and learned divines are not of one mind with me about the matter.”
The best Scriptural description to be found of Heaven, appears to be in
the Revelation of St.John; and as it is put as the grand climax or perora
tion to the sacred writings, we must accept it as the only authoritative
account to be had. St. John “ writeth his revelation to the seven churches
of Asia, signified by the seven golden candlesticks.” What light
does John put into these said candlesticks, which is supposed to
illumine a benighted and ruined world ? This revelation is the most in
coherent jumble that perhaps ever came from the mouth of a sane man.
In fact, it is only equalled by the insane ravings continually heard from
those unfortunate creatures, now too often to be met with, who have been
stricken with the revival mania. We shall be told that some parts are
symbolical, and are not to be taken as written. As they stand, there is
no earthly meaning in them; but where does the symbolical end, and the
literal begin ? There is no internal evidence to guide U3; then who is to
be the sworn interpreter ? The Catholic Church has settled that question
for itself, but in the Protestant Church we go upon the principle, if not the
practice, of each judging for himself. We in England have some thousands
of ordained and self-appointed ministers and expounders of the Gospel, who
do the interpretation business for the multitude, and for such as are too
indolent or too much occupied to think for themselves. What light do we
get from them to guide us through the perilous paths of life which lead
from the cradle to the grave? Too many of them are like St. John’s seven
candlesticks—they are merely sticks, and have no light in them, not even
so much as the glimmer of a rushlight to shed on the dark pages of Gospel
history.
Any one who takes the trouble to search for authentic information
about the locality and nature of the Heaven in which all Christians pro
fess to believe, will find a total absence of any knowledge upon the subject.
Like the alleged existence of God, it is simply a belief, and not a reality.
Yet all the Churches speak of this phantom of the imagination with as
much confidence as though the “ celestial regions ’’ had been surveyed and
mapped like a tract of country, and their boundaries placed beyond the
possibility of dispute. But so long as people will not think, but content
themselves with believing, there will be no lack of traders upon their cre
dulity.
�4
Heaven and Hell.
We now turn to the second part of our subject. What shall we say
about that other place of abode for departed spirits, the climate of which is
so warm that the natives of centraPAfrica will find it uncomfortable ? Where
is it situated ? Ob, down below, of course; all Christians say so, and they
alone know. Did not Christ descend into Hell ? And yet it cannot be far
from Heaven, for did not Dives and Lazarus hold a conversation toge
ther from their respective abodes ? We are not quite sure that Hell is not
in Heaven itself, for in Revelation xiv. 9 and 10, it says, “ If any man
worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in
his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is
poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be
tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and
in the presence of the Lamb.” We are not to suppose that a little hell is
kept among the holy angels for special use, or that they often go where
Lucifer alone is King; and yet we cannot tell how men are to be tortured in
their presence unless Hell is in Heaven. However that may be, we are
assured that God himself is in Hell. If you doubt it, you need do no more
than go to that royal prophet, that inspired writer, that man after God’s
own heart, who, in one of those sacred oracles which the Holy Spirit itself
has dictated to him, acknowledges and owns it. “Whither shall I go,”
says David, “ from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence 1
If I ascend up into Heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in Hell,
behold thou art there." We have Psalm 139 for our authority, and no
one dare dispute that.
There seems to be no doubt in the minds of Christians, that the brim
stone pit is somewhere within the interior of 7 A is planet, but that the
Abode of Bliss is up in the clouds, or beyond them. Now if the other
planetary bodies are inhabited by human beings—and scientific men are
not aware of any reason why they should not be—if the Maker of all things
punishes his children with burning torments who do not believe in Christ
and Him crucified, where are the inhabitants of other planets to be sent
when their hour comes? Are they sent here, or has each of the other vast
worlds in space a nice little Hell of its own in which to put its erring sub
jects ? If they come here, an enlargement of the premises must be con
stantly taking place. If Heaven is not upon this earth, and is never to be
realised here—I prefer believing that Hell also is far up in the clouds, and
a very long way too, so that the journey thither may take as much time as
possible in its accomplishment.
The warm world beyond the grave is popularly known by many names.
Hell is perhaps the most general term used by Christians; though it is
sometimes designated by the appellations of Infernal Regions, Perdition,
Abode of the Damned, and so on. Most orthodox Christians mean by the
term Hell the everlasting lake of brimstone and fire; though there are still
some in the Church, and we believe they are of the best, who do not believe
at ali in a literal Hell of fire. The Catholics have a place which they call
Purgatory, which is a sort of House of Detention, and not the penal settle
ment our Hell is supposed to be. There sinnerscan be released on tickets-ofleave after certain regulations have been complied with; our religious
convicts are condemned for life (or death, whichever it may be) without the
slightest hope of pardon. The Catholics themselves admit, that once in
Hell, you are in it for ever, Michael Angelo, the celebrated painter,
executed, by command of Pope Julius IT., a splendid picture representing
the Day of Judgment. Now Michael Angelo had placed among his other
figures in his scene of Hell, several cardinals and prelates. They had pro.
bably been guilty, like Bishop Colenso and some of the most intelligent men
�Heaven and Hell.
5
of our Church, of thinking for themselves, and, worst of all, of publishing
the result of their thinkings. And this, we know, has been sufficient in all
Christian ages to render any man quite unfit for the company of saints.
However, some of the dignified and proper churchmen of Julius’s time, who
had probably never been guilty of an original thought in their lives, were
extremely enraged at the picture, and made complaint of it to his Holi
ness, and entreated that he would lay his injunctions on the painter to
efface them. To whom the Pope replied—“ My dear brethren, Heaven
has indeed given me the power of recovering as many souls from Pur
gatory as I think proper; but as to Hell, you know as well as I do, that
my power does not extend so far, and those who once go thither, must
remain there for ever!”
What is Hell? Where is it? Is it really the lake of fire some repre
sent it to be? You will be eternally bewildered and completely con
founded if you try to determine this question from the Bible itself. If
Hell be below, it must be contained within the earth, for wherever you
go en the surface of this globe, you will find the firmament still above and
around you. If within, which is the way to it? Strange that no one has
ever even by accident discovered it. The only entrance one can imagine
to it, is the mouth of Vesuvius. But that cannot be the way, as it is not
a brimstone pit, though sulphurous exhalations arise from it. No devil
that we ever heard of, was seen to emerge from it—not even by the
miracle-working monks who infest the country round about. We know
the right place has a door or grating, and that St. John saw the angel who
kept the key. But it is bottomless, and therefore who knows but that
Vesuvius is the other side—the front door in the rear, out of which the
Devil pops when he wants to go roaring up and down the world ? A
bottomless pit full of liquid must be like a pot without a bottom filled with
water, where all things are not only in a state of solution, but the solution
itself is held in suspension 1
We continually hear pious Christians say that the souls of unbelievers
have gone, or are going, to Perdition. But there is a consolation in know
ing that it is not Hell. Revelation xvii. 8, says that the beast which was
so obliging as to carry the scarlet lady of Babylon, ‘ ‘ shall ascend out of
the bottomless pit and shall go into Perdition.” Perhaps Perdition is the
Catholic’s Purgatory 1 Who knows ? But then there is no mistake that
Hell is Hell, and that the Freethinker will go there 1 Not quite so sure.
Read Revelation xx. 14 —“And Death and Hell were cast into the lake
of fire.” Where does this lead us? We have heard of a house being
turned out of window, but we never heard of a pit being thrown into
itself 1 This is one of those mysteries which “ passeth all understanding.”
We still have the lake of fire, where human beings are to be burnt for
ever and ever, and yet never consumed. Now this is simply an impossi
bility. The human body, if thrown into a large fire, would be utterly
destroyed in a very short time, and nothing could prevent it. “ Men
cannot live in fire. It is the nature of fire to burn up, to destroy, to
decompose any animal or vegetable substance that is cast into it. It would
require the properties of life to be altered before men could live in it for
ever. Some will say, God can work a miracle. But we have no reason
to suppose that he can. We know nothing of what God can do—we only
know what is, and miracles do not take place.” We must discard the
idea of a burning Hell as a fiction conceived by a brutal and revengeful
monster in human form, and afterwards taken up and added to by fanatics,
whose minds had been worked upon by superstition, till they believed as
a reality, that which existed only in their own disordered imaginations.
�6
Heaven and Hell.
The believers in what is called philosophical religion, to the credit of
their better nature, reject the brimstone part of the Bible, but cling to the
fascinating hope of an abode after death of everlasting bliss. But they
occupy a wholly illogical position. They have no more reason for
believing in the existence of the one place than in the other, as both rest on
precisely the same foundation—that of belief anti. not knowledge. They
say that the Heaven of the Bible is real, but that, the Hell is figurative,
and that the suffering will be only spiritual, and not material. But it
is in vain to say that men in Hell will suffer all the torments promised to
the damned, in the spirit, and not in the flesh. This is absurd. Besides,
the Bible, with its usual disregard of probabilities or possibilities, says that
in the regions of the damned will be heard weeping, and wailing, and
gnashing of teeth. These are material operations, and who knows what
are phantom grinders, spiritual molars, or immaterial jaws ?
There are some sects of Christians who reject the brimstone Hell as a
fiction, but they scarcely go so far as to say that all mankind will go to
Heaven. They firmly believe that man is immortal, therefore he must go
somewhere after he leaves this earth. Wherever it may be, it must be a
region inhabited by the choicest spirits the world has produced. By
painters, poets, sculptors, orators, statesmen, warriors, authors, reformers,
philanthropists, beautiful and gifted women, and innocent children, who
died without the redeeming blessing of Baptism. Every man, woman, and
child, without exception, born before the Christian era, must be in this
glorious land. They had no Christ crucified to take them to the Heaven
of St. John, inhabited by angels and beasts. In this new world (assum
ing that men live after death), may be expected to be met with, all the
most grave and gifted personages of antiquity — Aristotle, Socrates,
Plato, Demosthenes, Pythagoras, Epictetus, Seneca, Pliny, Herodotus,
Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Suetonius, Tacitus, Plutarch, Anaxagoras,
Ptolemy, Cicero, Homer, Pindar, Euripides, Sophocles, Ovid, and
Horace, all assembled in one grand philosophic academy. And what a
glorious phalanx of earth’s mightiest intellects and greatest benefactors
have been sent thither since their day! And only think that of all those
who are alive now, and who adorn the age in which we live, how few will
find their way into the heaven of Revelation. St. John and his beasts
will have none but the saints, the hypocrites, the miserable sinners, the
priests, the criminals, both on the throne and in the hovel. They will
reject John Stuart Mill, and accept Richard Weaver; shut the door in the
face of Bishop Colenso, but open it wide for Wright the converted thief;
receive Louis Napoleon with a flourish of trumpets, but hurl anathemas at
Garibaldi; welcome the Pope with incense, but threaten with brimstone
and fire the noble Joseph Mazzini.
Who, with human sympathies and affections, would like to go to a place
where the nearest and dearest ties are broken? Where the husband is
separated from the wife, the parent from the child, the brother from the
sister ? And not only separated, but where you will know that those you
loved are writhing in agony unutterable. It is a doctrine which requires a
fiend or a saint to believe it. We are told that a certain king of the
Frisons, named Redbord, when on the very point of being baptised, took
it into his head to ask the Bishop, who was preparing to perform the cere
mony, whether in the paradise which had been promised him in conse
quence of his changing his religion, he should find his ancestors and pre
decessors. The Bishop having told him, that as they had all died Pagans,
they could enjoy no portion of the heavenly inheritance, but were all in
Hell, “Nay, then,’’ replied the King, lifting his foot out of the font into
�Heaven and Hell.
7
■which he had already dipped it, ‘ ‘ if that be the case, take back again
your baptism and your paradise; I had much rather go to Hell, and be
there amongst a good and numerous company, with my illustrious ances
tors, and other persons of my own rank, than to your Paradise, from which
you have shut out all these brave people, and filled it up with none but
paupers, miscreants, and people of no note.”
And is not Heaven filled with miscreants, if the Christian theory be
correct ? Who is the most acceptable to Heaven ? Is it not the repentant
sinner? Have not men of the most notoriously abandoned and profligate
lives, who, when they were too ill to sin any more, expressed their sorrow
for what they had done, in the hope of being rewarded with happiness in
another world ? And have not priests in all times assured these monsters
of a sure and certain resurrection to eternal bliss ? How forcibly, how
beautifully has Thomas Moore depicted this hateful doctrine in his en
chanting poem of “ Paradise and the Peri.” A Peri in the East is sup
posed to be one of those beautiful creatures of the air who live upon per
fumes, but still is a kind of fallen angel, who mourns after Paradise—
“ And weeps to think her recreant race
Should ere have lost that glorious place.”
The Peri is represented as hovering about the entrance to heaven, and the
angel who keeps the gates hears her weeping, and taking pity on her, gives
her a chance of re-entering Paradise. The angel imagined by Moore, who
is a much more estimable person than St. Peter, speaks thus:—
“ Nymph of a fair but erring line!”
Gently he said—“ One hope is thine.
’Tis written in the Book of Fate
The Peri yet may be forgiven
Who brings to this eternal gate
The gift that is most dear to heaven!
Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin—
’Tis sweet to let the pardoned in.”
She then starts on her mission, and with a true human instinct, thinks that
the patriot who dies nobly for his country, will be a welcome guest among
the blessed. She goes to the field of carnage, where a battle for freedom
has been raging, but where might and not right has triumphed. She
catches the dying sigh of the patriot, who has fallen in his country’s
cause, and takes that to the celestial gatekeeper:—
“ ‘ Sweet,’ said the Angel, as she gave
The gift into his radiant hand,
‘ Sweet is our welcome of the Brave
Who die thus for their native Land.
But see—alas!—the crystal bar
Of Eden moves not—holier far
Than e’en this drop the boon must be
That opes the gates of Heav’n for thee!’ ”
Oh no! Heaven is no place for patriots. They are disliked there. They
have been meddling people, disturbing the reign of divinely-appointed
rulers — a thing very obnoxious to the ministers of God’s holy word.
Lazarus, as soon as he got to heaven, refused a drop of water to cool the
parching lips of Dives, showing what moral effect that place had upon him.
Now comes the orthodox climax to this tale of injustice. The Peri takes
�8
Heaven and Hell.
her last flight over the vale of Balbec.
from his horse, with a brow—
She there sees a ruffian dismount
“ Sullenly fierce—a mixture dire,
Like thunder-clouds of gloom and fire 1
,
In which the Peri’s eyes could read
Dark tales of many a ruthless deed:
The ruined maid—the shrine profaned—
Oaths broken—and the threshold stain’d
With blood of guests—there written, all,
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel’s pen,
Ere mercy weeps them out again.”
This guilt-stained wretch sees a child at play, who, when the vesper calls
to prayer, begins to pray. He thought of his own childhood:
‘ * He hung his head—each nobler aim
And hope and feeling which had slept
From boyhood’s hour, that instant came
Fresh o’er him, and he wept—he wept!”
And it is with this crocodile tear that the Peri returns to the Gates of
Light, and instead of its being spurned’with^contempfifit is pronounced
the gift most dear to heaven, and she is rewarded with admission into the
Eden which is made up of such characters as this. Well might Redbord
exclaim, that such a heaven is filled with none but paupers, miscreants,
and people of no note.
This Heaven, for which Christians yearn, and for which they fight, per
secute, and murder, is a creation of the brain, appearing to each what
each desires. There is no line in the Revelation which will warrant the
belief that it is the abode of bliss some would have us believe. There is
no love, no sympathy, no warmth of affection, which can alone make life
endurable. Who would be happy in the presence of angels, who pour out
the vials of the wrath of the Lord upon all mankind? We have had too
much of this wrath from his ministers on earth, who seem never able to
exhaust the vials.
The Bible, or any other book, which teaches the doctrine of Hell tor
ments, is not, cannot be, a revelation from a God of mercy and love. It
is the crude production of an ignorant, a superstitious, a priest-ridden, and
brutal people. The Bible alone, of all books in the world, first promul
gated the monstrous, the fiendish doctrine of eternal, never-ending tor
ments prepared for all men, not one-millionth part of whom ever saw or
heard of it. This doctrine, so far from keeping men good, makes good
men bad, and brutalises all who believe in it. It distracts men’s minds
from the duties of this life, and deludes them into the belief of another
which, when looked at calmly and with reason, will be seen to contain no
element worthy of their acceptance, or capable of promoting their perma
nent happiness.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court,
Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Heaven and hell: where situated? a search after the objects of Man's fervent hope and abiding terror
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Holyoake, Austin [1826-1874]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July Nineteen hundred & eight.
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Austin & Co.
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[187-?]
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CT18
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Heaven
Hell
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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 (Heaven and hell: where situated? a search after the objects of Man's fervent hope and abiding terror), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Christian Doctrine
Conway Tracts
Heaven
Hell
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Cil
DANIEL THE DREAMER:
A BIBLICAL BIOGRAPHY.
BY
AUSTIN HOLYOAKE.
The study of biography is at all times a pleasing occupation, and
generally an instructive one. Poets afford us glimpses of the ideal life;
statesmen of the real and the practical. The warrior teaches the lesson
of heroism and daring in danger ; the navigator, the pioneer, the ex
plorer, sets examples worthy of imitation’of perseverance, of endurance,
of courage in secret, which, when known, ennoble the character and
strengthen the will, and enable us to look with calmness upon the daily
annoyances and trials of life. We learn how men can labour and en
dure ; how friendships, formed in the quiet of social life, will yet survive
the strongest shocks. We learn this from the lives of the great and
good men of all ages and of all countries. Men in every rank of society,
from the highest to the lowest, may be found whose lives will teach
Some lesson for our instruction—who have set some example worthy of
imitation. We turn to Bibles heroes expecting, as we have a right to
expect, that in their lives we shall find everything worthy of emulation.
These characters have superlative advantages over ordinary men. If
not endowed with the attributes of Gods, they have what stands them
in as much need—they have the special instruction and guidance of
Heaven. In Daniel we shall find one of these highly-favoured mortals
—a man of a peculiar calling in life, but one who nevertheless excelled
in his profession. He followed no industrial occupation, neither did
he cultivate letters or the fine arts. He was a sort of psychological
curiosity. At first he dreamt other men’s dreams, and found out their
interpretation; and afterwards he dreamt dreams for himself. The
wise men who some centuries ago determined for us, and for all future
generations, if the priests can make it so, what was canonical and what
apocryphal or spurious Gospel, agreed that the Book of Daniel had
about it the genuine ring—bore upon its face the unmistakable stamp
of inspiration. We must therefore accept it as such, and try how much
good we can extract from it. Those who worship and defend the Bible
as a sacred book, may say it is much easier to make bad jokes about it
than to point out its errors—to ridicule, than to refute it. I do not
desire to indulge needlessly in ridicule or levity when dealing with a
book which so many have been taught as children to regard as some
thing holy; but when I read in it the account of certain men, whose
doings appeal forcibly to my sense of the ludicrous, I must be excused
if I laugh so loud that people at a distance hear me. Some reviewers
have charged me with being “flippant.” Now, I have no desire to
earn such a reputation. With things calling for serious consideration,
I can be as serious as any man. But it is not always necessary to be
dull to be instructive. Has not Voltaire abundantly proved that an
argument may be contained in a witticism ? Besides, the Bible has
different effects upon different minds. Some it has made misanthro
pical hermits ; some gloomy, brooding lunatics ; others fanatical per
secutors j and others bloodthirsty, ferocious exterminators. I am not
/
�2
Daniel the Dreamer.
sorry that it only makes me merry. It not unfrequently makes men
silly, as witness the following passage from a book published a few
years ago, entitled “ What is Faith ?” by “A. B., a Layman.” Thus
he expresses himself: “Moreover, the author declares positively that
he perfectly understands all the mysteries of revealed religion, and can
demonstrate them as he could so many mathematical propositions, and
show, and make others also understand, that if God is God (who is
eternal and unchangeable, and whose truth is, therefore, eternal and
unchangeable), so those things must be which have been revealed to
us, and which are as eternally true and self-evident as the axiom
that ‘a whole is greater than a part.’ He declares that there is
not one mystery hidden from him, and that he knows many which are
not alluded to in the Scriptures, and which, if the Apostles knew,
they have not mentioned.” This man ought to have lived at the
time of Nebuchadnezzar, when he would have found fine scope for his
genius. Had he been in Babylon then, we should never have heard of
Daniel—there would have been nothing left for him to do. We will
at once proceed to our biography, which is made into as connected a
narrative as possible, giving dates for all important events; and I assert
that I have not knowingly misrepresented a single incident, or wrested
a word from its legitimate meaning, so far as I could understand it. I
would despise the man who attempted to snatch a triumph at the ex
pense of truth. It would be no gratification to me to receive the approval
of others unless I were satisfied in my own conscience that it had been
legitimately won.
I do not stop to inquire whether Daniel was a real or a fictitious
character, or whether the acts said to have been performed by him were
real or metaphorical. The Bible says emphatically that Daniel did
dream and interpret dreams ; that he was cast into a den of lions and
came out again unscathed, and the Christian world believes it, and
artists paint the scene as they would any historical occurrence. And if
an infallible book makes assertions, who shall dare to doubt them ?
Certainly not the believers in that book. Many so-called sound be
lievers have tried to make sense out of the Book of Daniel, and to
find a deep meaning in its obscure jargon, but nothing but confusion
and humiliation have ever come of the attempts. If you agree that
certain passages are metaphorical, others prophetical, you open the
door to individual interpretations, and then where are you to stop ?
One man’s version may be as good as another’s, and yet all may totally
differ. I shall certainly not attempt to add to the embroglio, but shall
treat the book as a true history, knowing that I am sanctioned in so
doing by that Protestant Church towards whose support I am compelled
to contribute. When I was a child the stories of the three men in the
fiery furnace, of Daniel in the lions’ den, and the mysterious hand
writing on the wall, were taught to me as veritable truths, and they
naturally excited my youthful imagination, but I remembered little else;
when I became a man, I read the Book of Daniel as a whole, and the
following pages convey the impressions of my more mature years. I
think if Bible believers, after they have left school, were to take the
trouble to read the Scriptures through, a book at a time, and reflect upon
each, we should have, if not more sceptics, at least fewer intolerant
persecutors of unbelievers. I confess that the feeling of reverence for
the “ sacred record ” is not excited in me by readjng the Bible, and in
this essay I have not disguised my feelings.
The first intimation we have of the existence of Daniel is in the third year
�Daniel the Dreamer.
3
of the reign of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, 607 before Christ. Jehoiakim
was then at Jerusalem, but that singular man, Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, objecting to his continuing there, besieged him ; and the Lord,
who, throughout the Bible, is always on the side of the winner, whether
he be saint or rascal, gave Jehoiakim into Nebuchadnezzar’s hands. And
why the Lord made Nebuchadnezzar the victor we are ignorant, seeing
that he did not believe in him a bit, but had a God of his own whom
he vastly preferred, into whose house in the land of Shinar he carried
the vessels which he stole from Jerusalem. After this exploit, he
ordered Ashpenaz to bring certain of the children of Israel—children
in whom was no blemish, but well-favoured and skilful in all wisdom,
and cunning in all knowledge, and understanding science, whom they
might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. In these
days we do not expect to find all these acquirements and accomplish
ments in children ; but this was not at all an unreasonable requirement
for so sensible a king, as will presently be seen. These wonderful
children having been collected, the king appointed them a daily
provision of his meat, and of the wine which he drank : so nourishing
them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the
king. Why they were not able to stand before him when first found,
seeing that they possessed every requisite in the way of knowledge, is
not clear, unless it was that he required them to be not only sensible,
but fat, showing a very laudable anxiety for their physical well-being,
as he probably knew that generally flesh does not accompany great
learning. Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel,
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; but the prince of the eunuchs imme
diately re-christened them, and gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar ; and to Hananiah, of Shadrach ; and to Mishael, of Meshach;
and to Azariah, of Abed-nego. Now these last three play a by no
means small part in the life of Daniel, and ultimately immortalise
themselves as the three greatest salamanders on record. Daniel appears
to have been a lad of spirit, possessing a will of his own, and no doubt
smarting under the yoke of the new king, he determined he would not
partake of the king’s meat and wine, but would be a teetotaler and a
vegetarian. He therefore gave notice of his resolve to the prince of
the eunuchs, and requested that mighty man to allow him to change his
diet. The prince, instead of enforcing obedience by the aid of the bow
string, as eunuchs usually do, argued the point with Daniel, and told
him that it was more than his head was worth to disobey the injunctions
of the dread Nebuchadnezzar. This condescension had been procured
for Daniel by God himself, for he had early brought Daniel into favour
and tender love with the prince. In fact, Daniel had a happy knack
of making himself generally agreeable to all persons in authority over
him. This faculty enabled him to take office in every succeeding ad
ministration, regardless of politics or party bias. Daniel then applied
to Melzar, the prince’s deputy, and said: “ Prove thy servants, I be
seech thee, ten days : and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to
drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and
the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king’s
meat; and as thou seest, deal with thy servants.” Daniel seems to
have included Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in his request, though
it does not appear that they desired to be fed on such meagre fare.
However, Melzar, no doubt thinking that a ten days’ experiment out of
three years was no great risk, granted the request, and lo ! at the end
of ten days, their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than
�4
Daniel the Dreamer.
all which did eat of the king’s meat. This was remarkably rapid train
ing, and were it stated in any other book, one might hesitate to believe
it; but after this who can doubt that four persons, so highly favoured
even in their beans and water, were destined by heaven to work out
some great moral purpose ? At the expiration of the three years, all
the wise children collected together were brought before the king. And
the king communed with them ; and among them all was found none
like unto Daniel and his three companions; for these four children, God
gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom ; and Daniel
had understanding in all visions and dreams. And in all matters of
wisdom and understanding the king inquired of them, he found them
ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all
his realm.
In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams,
wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. He
gave orders for all the magicians, and astrologers, and sorcerers, and
the Chaldeans, to be called before him, to show him his dream. So
they came and stood before the king, and he said to them : “I have
dreamed a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.” The
Chaldeans said : “Tell thy servants the dream, and we will show the
interpretation.” This, it must be admitted, was a very natural and
reasonable request. Not so Nebuchadnezzar. He exclaimed, with all
the fury of a Nabob: “The thing is gone from me: if ye will not
make known unto me the* dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye
shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill. But
if ye show the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive
of me gifts, and rewards, and great honour.” They answered, as
honest and simple men would, that there was not a man upon the earth
that could do it, and that no other king, lord, or ruler ever made such
an unreasonable demand of any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean ;
that it was a rare thing that the king required, and that none could do
it except the gods, and their dwelling was not with the flesh. The
king then became angry and very furious, and sent out Arioch, the
captain of the guard, to slay all the wise men of Babylon, as though
that would mend the matter. It strikes one as curious that Nebuchad
nezzar, who had taken three years’ trouble to fatten up Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and when he examined them, found
them “ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that
were in all his realm,” should not have thought of sending specially
for these four wise ones, to see if they could remind him of that which
he had never told them. But, like his dreams, he had forgotten all
about them. When Arioch went to Daniel, Daniel asked him why the
king was in such hurry, and, being told, he went at once to the king,
and assured him, that if he would give him time, he would tell him the
dream and the interpretation, We must suppose the king acceded to
this request, though it does not say he did. Here Daniel’s wisdom
stood him in good need. He was not so dull as to say that none but
the gods could tell the king what he wanted to know. As Nebuchad
nezzar had no recollection of what he had dreamt, nothing was easier
than to tell him exactly what it was. I could have done it myself in
half an hour, without any training at all on beans and water. Daniel
went home and consulted his three friends, and they agreed to ask the
God of heaven to assist them, as they were naturally anxious to do the
thing well, that they might not perish with the rest of the wise men of
Babylon. And now occurred a most curious thing—what would not
�Daniel the Dreamer.
5
be stated in any book that was not really inspired. Daniel went to
bed and dreamt the identical dream that had so bothered poor Nebu
chadnezzar. “Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night
vision.” If we dared to doubt, we should say that this celebrated
dream of Nebuchadnezzar’s was not his at all, but Daniel’s. But that
would be a sign of Infidelity, which it is not prudent to manifest!
Daniel burst into raptures about the God of his fathers, who had given
him wisdom and might, and made known to him the king’s matter.
; He then went to Arioch, the captain of the guard, who had been com: missioned to do the cruel deed, and said to him: * ‘ Destroy not the wise
men of Babylon ; bring me in before the king, and I will show unto the j
king the interpretation.” Arioch took him at once, and said: “ I have
found a man of the captives of Judah that will make known unto the
king the interpretation. ” Arioch here seems to introduce Daniel as a
stranger whom he had just found, and the king receives him as one,
though it was only the day before he had been talking to both of them;
and notwithstanding that Arioch says he has found the man who can
tell the dream, and Daniel had told the king he would do so if he
would give him time, the king, when he sees him, asks : “ Art thou
able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the
interpretation thereof?” Nebuchadnezzar’s poor head seems to have
been so muddled, that he could not recollect from one verse to another.
Daniel answered and said : ‘ ‘ The secret which the king hath demanded
cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers,
show unto the king?” Now, he knew very well that they had “given
it up,” and that in consequence they were all to be cut in pieces. But
it served to enhance the importance of his own achievement, so without
waiting for a reply he proceeded to inform the king that there was a
God in heaven that revealed secrets, and made known to Nebuchad
nezzar what should be in the latter days. He is very particular about
placing the responsibility on the right shoulders, in case of any discre
pancy between the promise and the performance. He also modestly
asserts : “ But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wis
dom that I have more than any living.” He then proceeds to tell
Nebuchadnezzar that the vision which he saw was the great image, of
which we have all heard so much, the head of which was of fine gold,
the breast and arms of silver, the body of brass, the legs and the feet
partly of iron and partly of clay ; and how a stone, which was cut
without hands, and which afterwards became a great mountain and
filled the whole earth, struck the image on its poor feet, and smashed
it into pieces “ like the chaff of the summer threshing floors.” This
was the dream, but I confess I do not see my way through this man of
metal; and the interpretation thereof only makes the mystery more pro
found. Whether the kingdoms of brass and iron which Daniel said
should arise after Nebuchadnezzar, ever did appear, and whether these
are the latter days spoken of, or whether the latter days have been, or
are yet to come, we must leave to Dr. Cumming to determine. It
makes no earthly difference to people at the present time ; they will still
go on marrying and giving in marriage the same as they have done since
the days of Daniel. I am only concerned with this one point. Daniel
commenced his interpretation thus : “Thou, O king, art a king of
kings : for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and
strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the
beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine
hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of
�6
Daniel the Dreamer.
gold.” And a jewel Nebuchadnezzar was ! Daniel’s audacity is sub
lime. He does not do things by halves. We will not say it is untrue,
because the “God of heaven” revealed it, though there is scarcely a
word of truth in it. Nebuchadnezzar had not great glory, except his
notable deed performed seven years before entitled him to that
appellation, if we are to be guided only by this veracious Book of
Daniel. In 2 Chron. xxxvi. we are told that “Jehoiachin was eight
years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and
ten days in Jerusalem : and he did that which was evil in the sight of
the Lord. And when the year was expired, King Nebuchadnezzar
sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house
of the Lord.” Why Nebuchadnezzar, an idolatrous heathen, should
set himself up as a champion of the Lord, is not explained. But he
never omitted to take with him the vessels of gold by way of
reward.
This King Jehoiachin, of eight years of age, had no
doubt led a life of crime, and was therefore deserving of being
dethroned. His offences against the Lord must have been serious
indeed. Nebuchadnezzar did not hold sway wherever men dwelt;
and as for ruling over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the
heaven, why he would have been the greatest poulterer and rearer
of stock in all Bible lands—and Bishop Colenso has given us some idea
of the myriads of sheep alone possessed by those believers in the Lamb
of God. Apologists of the Bible would say it was merely Oriental
hyperbole—modern critics are beginning to call it by its proper name.
Daniel concluded by saying : “ The great God hath made known to the
king, what shall come to pass hereafter : and the dream is certain and
the interpretation thereof sure.” Now Nebuchadnezzar was naturally
a great ass, which Daniel must have seen ; and instead of his being a
ruler over the beasts of the field, he very soon turned out into the fields
and ate grass like any other donkey. He never for a moment questioned
Daniel as to the truth of the dream and the interpretation, but at once
“ fell upon his face and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they
should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.” “The king
answered unto Daniel and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God
of Gods, and a Lord of Kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou
couldest reveal this secret.” We might infer from this that Nebuchad
nezzar was a convert to the Jewish faith, and that we had thus early to
rejoice over a soul saved by the power of the Lord as manifested
through his servant Daniel. Not yet. Wait till the next chapter. It
must be recorded to the honour of the king, that though he forgot his
dreams, he did not forget his promise to Daniel. “Then the king
made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made
•him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors
over all the wise men of Babylon.” We must also state to the credit
of Daniel, that at the first stage of his prosperity he did not forget his
three friends. “ Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego over the affairs of the province of
Babylon ; but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.” Now how Daniel
could be ‘ ‘ ruler over the whole province of Babylon, ” and yet Shad rach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego “were over the affairs of the province of
Babylon,” is a Bible mystery, which we must leave till the “latter
days ” to be solved. It will be remarked that Daniel receives without a
murmur all the honours showered upon him for having flattered and
fooled to the top of his bent an imbecile tyrant. I fail to perceive
the morality of such a proceeding. It is only equalled by our Protes
�Daniel the Dreamer.
7
tant Bishops, who receive palaces, wealth, and distinction to preach the
blessings of poverty and humility.
There is now a jump of twenty-three years in the narrative. During
all this time, of course, Nebuchadnezzar had had full opportunity oi
testing the truth of Daniel’s prophecy, and of exercising his power
over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, for which they
were no doubt very grateful. But he was an obstinate man, and had
not yet come to believe in the God of the Jews, though at one time
he confessed that he was a God of Gods and a Lord of Kings. Nebu
chadnezzar thought he could make a much better God of his own ; so
he made an image of gold, whose height was three score cubits, and
the breadth thereof six cubits : he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the
province of Babylon. Dr. Arbuthnot settles the Scriptural cubit at
22 inches. This would make the image just I io feet high, by 11 feet
wide. Its value must have been immense. It would exhaust both
California and Australia to produce a nugget of such dimensions. No
doubt feeling proud of his great achievement, the king sent for all the
notable men in his realm to come to the dedication of the Image, and
when they arrived, he ordered them all, at the sound of music, to fall
down and worship it. There was a slight penalty attaching to dis
obedience of these orders. All persons who did not fall down and
worship the image, that same hour were to be cast into the midst of a
burning fiery furnace. Apparently in anticipation that there would be
some dissentients, the king had the furnaces all in readiness. Nor was
he disappointed. Now, as all the rulers of provinces were gathered
together, of course Daniel was there, and as he was not subjected to
the melting process, it is but reasonable to infer that he bent to the
force of circumstances, and bowed to the image ; if he did not, being
such a man of mark, he was exceedingly fortunate in escaping detec
tion. His three ancient companions were not so lucky. Certain
Chaldeans denounced Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to the
king, saying: “These men, O king, have not regarded thee:
they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou
hast set up.” This certainly was an unusual thing for Jews to re
fuse to do; but they have made amends for it, by never ceasing to
worship gold from that day to this. But the three friends kept firmly
to their resolve, and the king became furious, and told them that if
they would then fall down and worship the image, it would be well;
but if not, they should at once go into the furnace, and asked : “ And
who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” They
answered, that their God would deliver them out of the furnace, and
out of the king’s hands too ; but even if he did not, they would not
serve Nebuchadnezzar’s gods, nor worship his image. That was bravely
spoken, and shows that even in those days there was a deadly contest
being waged as to who worshipped the true God. We are no nearer
the solution of the problem now. This audacity was not to be borne ;
so the king ordered that the furnace should be heated seven times
hotter than usual, and the most mighty men in the army bound the
three, with all their clothes on, from their hats to their boots, and
hurled them into the fire. But the king was in such a hurry to have
the thing done, and the fire was so large, that the men who threw Sha
drach and his companions into the furnace were burnt to death.
But behold a miracle ! The three men for whom this very warm
reception had been prepared did not feel it at all. They fell bound to
the bottom ; but instead of melting away, they dissolved into four.
�8
Daniel the Dreamer.
The king jumped up astonished, and inquired of his counsellors
whether there were not three cast into the fire ? They replied, “ True,
O king.” He answered, “Lo I see four men loose, walking in the
midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is
like the Son of God.” Now, how did he know it was like the Son of
God ? At this period, we are told upon good authority, the dogma of
the “ Son of God ’’ had not even been propounded to the Jews. Then
what knowledge had he of him ? He did not believe in him, and was
not under his special direction and protection, like Daniel. He here
speaks of the Son of God as though he had known him all his life.
Without being irreverent, it may be asserted that no one at the pre
sent day would know him at the first glance. Why, there are thou
sands who have preached and talked about him in the most grossly
familiar way for years, who would not know him if they saw him.
Then Nebuchadnezzar went to the mouth of the furnace and said, “Ye
servants of the Most High God come forth and come hither.” He all
at once talks like a Christian. We have surely made a convert of him
now. Not yet. Shadrach and his friends, nothing loth, immediately
walked out of the hot-bed, and, strange to relate, they were not burnt
a bit, nor their clothes even singed. This fact stands unique in history.
It could only occur in the Bible. I once saw a man styling himself
Buono Core walk through a large fire, but he was enveloped in a carefully-prepared dress, whilst Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were
only clothed in the spirit of the Lord. Then Nebuchadnezzar became
loud in his praises of the God of Shadrach, who had sent his angel and
delivered his servants that trusted in him, and made a decree couched
in his usual mild terms, that all who dared to speak anything amiss
of this God should be cut in pieces, and their houses destroyed;
and ended by promoting the three men he had just before been trying
to roast into obedience. The Son of God disappeared as suddenly as
he came, and no notice is taken of his evaporation. But where was
Daniel all this time ? Did he boldly step forward and stand by his
friends in their hour of danger ? He, the servant of the most High,
who was specially retained for the defence of the faith against the ma
chinations of wicked kings, did he openly avow his belief in the God
for whom his friends and countrymen were risking their lives ? No.
We hear nothing of him during this terrible ordeal. We are told “ the
spirit of the holy gods ” was in him, which spirit no doubt suggested
to him the propriety of taking care of himself.
Ten years now elapse, and during that time Nebuchadnezzar was
again at his old trick of dreaming. But the prophecy and the fulfil
ment thereof were not so pleasant as formerly. At last the king is made
to confess the power and wonders of the most high God. This time he
really remembered his own dream, but he went through precisely the
same ceremony of calling together the wise men and astrologers, who,
as before, could not interpret it; and, as before, Daniel comes in at
the last moment, and, after an hour’s cogitation, tells the interpretation.
The dream was about a tall tree, that reached unto heaven, and the
sight thereof to the end of all the earth, under which and on which
everything was fed. Now, this tall piece of timber had to be met by
Daniel with what the Yankees call “ tall talk.” He said : “ This tree
is thou, O King, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness
is grown and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the
earth.” This was not true, but we must not dwell upon that, for as in
Daniel was the spirit of the holy gods, he was privileged to say what
�Daniel the Dreamer.
9
he liked. Daniel then indulged in a prophecy, which was not a
grateful return to his old master for all the honours he had heaped
upon him. It was this, that Nebuchadnezzar should be sent into the
country for the benefit of his spiritual health ; and in order that the.
change should be radical and complete, he was to be driven from men,
and was to dwell with the beasts of the field, and made to eat grass
like oxen. And seven times were to pass over him till he knew that
i the most High ruled in the kingdom of men. It may be here remarked
1 that seven was a favourite number with Bible heroes. I am not aware
how long “seven times” means—whether days, weeks, months, or
years—but it does not signify, as it was long enough for the king to get
into a very dilapidated state. The king murmured at this decree, but
there was no help for it, as “therefell a voice from heaven saying” it
should be so, and “the same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebu
chadnezzar : and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen,
and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown
like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.” “And at the end
of the days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and
mine understanding returned unto me.” All this was done to make
Nebuchadnezzar believe in Daniel’s God. It was a cruel way to serve
a heretic, but we must confess his was a stubborn case. All previous
efforts had failed, so at last they made a madman and a beast of him,
and then he did ‘ ‘ bless the most High ” and praised and extolled the
King of Heaven. We have seen some in later times converted with
far less persuasion than this—by the hope of a pecuniary reward, the flat
tery of aristocratic friends, or the prospect of a Dissenting pulpit; and
who show their zeal for their new faith by suddenly turning round and
abusing the friends with whom they had been on the most intimate terms
only a few days before.
We have now dohe with Nebuchadnezzar, and come to his hopeful
son Belshazzar, whose reign in the Book of Daniel is short indeed. His
whole history there is told in one chapter. Notwithstanding the ter
rible example made of his father, Belshazzar was not influenced by it.
He was an idolater. In the year 538 before Christ he gave what is
known as the impious feast. This is thirty-two years after the conver
sion of Nebuchadnezzar. The greatest offence appears to have been
the use of the golden vessels which had been stolen from the temple of
the house of God. There were more than a thousand persons at this
feast, and when the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concu
bines, drank out of these sacred vessels, and praised the gods of gold
and silver, there came about that early instance of spirit-rapping, or
spiritual manifestation, which has not been surpassed by anything done
by Mr. Home. “ In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand,
and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of
the king’s palace.” Belshazzar was astonished, as well he might be.
He then, like his father before him, sent for the astrologers and sooth
sayers, and told them that if they would interpret what was written
on the wall, whoever did it should be clothed in scarlet, and have a
chain of gold about his neck, and should be the third ruler in the
kingdom. But even this tempting offer could not make any one un
ravel the mystery, for, like most modem spiritual writing, it was totally
unintelligible. Apparently, the queen was not present at this banquet;
but when she heard of what had happened, she went into the banquet
room, and told the king not to be alarmed, as there was a man in his
kingdom, one Daniel, who was very clever in interpreting of dreams,
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Daniel the Dreamer.
and showing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, who could
show the interpretation. It appears strange that Daniel, who was such
a wonderful man during the reign of the father, and chief ruler over
the affairs of the kingdom, should not have been at once sent for by the
son. But that would have deprived this affair of precisely that charac
teristic which distinguished all the others. They are so much alike,
that they might have been all concocted by the same writer ; but that
of course could not be. Well, after all the wise men had failed to
decipher the mysterious calligraphy, Daniel was sent for again, and as
a matter of course he succeeded. Daniel gently reminded Belshazzar
what a great man his father Nebuchadnezzar had been, and how he had
been served when sent into the fields to “ruminate,” and told him that
he was just as bad as his father. He concluded by saying that the
words written on the wall were: “ Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”
God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel:
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Peres. Thy
kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” This was
not°a pleasant prophecy, certainly, and a prophet making such an one
could scarcely expect many thanks for his pains ; but, notwithstanding
that, the royal promise given was fulfilled, and Daniel was clothed with
scarlet, and a chain of gold was placed upon his neck, and a proclama
tion was made declaring him third ruler in the kingdom. At first
Daniel said, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to
another. He must have been slightly excited at the time, or he would
not have told the king to keep his gifts himself, and yet give them to
others ; neither did he mean that he would not accept any reward, for
immediately after he received all the king had got to give him. And
Daniel’s prophecy was quickly fulfilled, for “in that night was Bel
shazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.”
Darius the Median succeeded to the kingdom, and Daniel immediately
took office under him as though nothing had happened. He was
appointed the first of three presidents over the affairs of Babylon, which
excited the jealousy of his two subordinates, so they agreed to get up
a conspiracy against him. They consulted all the officers of state, and
they resolved to strike at Daniel through his religion. They knew that
Daniel was in the habit of praying to his God, so they induced Darius
to sign a royal decree, that whoever should ask any petition of God or
man for thirty days, save the king, he should be cast into the den of
lions. Daniel here was courageous and defiant, for when he learnt that
the decree was signed, he went to his house, and, with the windows
open, prayed three times a day to his God. Of course he was found
out, and when the king was told of it, he was anxious to save Daniel,
for he was a favourite of his. The king no doubt owed something to
him in the affair of Belshazzar’s sudden assassination after the appear
ance of the writing on the wall, and which so opportunely made the
throne vacant. But Darius, being reminded that he could not revoke
his decree, as the laws of the Medes and Persians were unchangeable,
was reluctantly compelled to order Daniel into the lions’ den. Though
an idolator, Darius had faith that Daniel’s God would deliver him, and
he told Daniel so. Very early next morning Darius went to the mouth
of the lions’ den, and called aloud to Daniel, who immediately an
swered, ‘ ‘ My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths,
that they have not hurt me.” Then the king was glad, and ordered
Daniel to be taken up out of the den, “and no manner of hurt was
found upon him, because he believed in his God.” This is an instance
�Daniel the Dreamer.
11
of lion-taming worthy of Crockett or Van Hamburgh, but still no great
feat after all. This event is made great use of by the orthodox to
frighten children with in Sunday Schools, and to show the protection
from danger to be derived from faith in God. Now I can interpret the
whole affair with as much accuracy as ever Daniel did the dreams of
Nebuchadnezzar. It was night before Daniel was cast into the lions’
den. The animals had all had their supper, and were not to be tempted
to gluttony by having a tough old man thrown to them, who was
at least eighty years of age. We are apt to say that men when they
eat too much make beasts of themselves, but we libel) the lower
animals. It is well known that no one can induce an animal to eat or
drink when it has had enough. The text says that the king was not
able to sleep, so he rose “ very early in the morning, and went in haste
unto the den of lions.” This of course was before they wanted break
fast, consequently Daniel was not called upon to supply with his own
person the morning’s repast. Daniel himself does not say that he was
ever attacked. He says that his God sent his angel, who shut the lions
mouths, but he must have fallen asleep and dreamt this. Had Daniel
remained in the den a few hours longer, there might have been a very
different sequel to the story, for the king, determining to be revenged
upon those who had compelled him to endanger his favourite, com
manded those men who had accused Daniel to be brought, “and they
cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives;
and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in
pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.
This is another
instance of Bible morality, where women and children suffer for the
evil deeds of men. The Book of Esther supplies striking examples of
the same heavenly “justice.” So Darius at one sweep got rid of two
obnoxious subordinates, and the lions had a good breakfast, made up of
innocent women and children, whom the God of Daniel in his justice
and mercy had supplied unto them. Now this is the mystery of the
lions’ den, and my interpretation thereof!
We now suddenly come upon Daniel’s own dream. The date of it
is placed at seventeen years before the great lion feat ; but why it was
not introduced earlier I cannot imagine, unless it is to show that the
dream was a prophecy ; and to prove that it was a true one, it is
given after the events have transpired ! Who would have suspected
that all that time Daniel was quietly dreaming on his own account ?
He knew well how the thing was done, therefore there was no reason
why he should not set up in that line himself. But he was much
cleverer than poor grass-eating Nebuchadnezzar : he not only dreamt
dreams, but supplied his own interpretation. I confess at once that I
am not able to comprehend either the one or the other. There may be
something in them, but there is such holy mystery about them that I
am afraid to attempt to unravel it. The first is about four beasts rising
out of the sea, the second of which was “ like to a bear, and it raised
up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between
the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.”
I think that is quite enough. When three ribs in a bear’s mouth begin
to talk, we had better get away from them as quickly as possible, for,
however much we may ponder it over, we shall make nothing of it.
After this display of oracular power, it is not surprising that the signs
and wonders of this book have proved such “ bones of contention ” for
centuries in the Christian world !
Daniel’s second vision occurred two years after the first. It was
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Daniel the Dreamer.
about a big ram with long horns, that was tupping everything that
came near it, till a great he goat came from the west on the face of the
whole earth, and touched not the ground. This curious bird of pas
sage had a long horn between his eyes, with which he soon upset the
ram. When this horn got broken in the fray, four sprang up in its
place, one of which was very long ; “and it waxed great, even to the
host of heaven ; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to
the ground, and stamped upon them.” I hasten to give this up also,
lest the same fate overtake me as that which befel Daniel, for he says :
“ And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days ; I was astonished
at the vision, but none understood it.” I can well understand that.
But Daniel, being full of the spirit of the holy gods, received heavenly
help in the interpretation of his dreams, and should therefore have
made them intelligible, if anything heavenly can be said to be intelli
gible. He says : “And it came to pass when I, even I Daniel, had
seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood
before me as the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice
between the banks of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this
man to understand the vision. So he came near where I stood : and
when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face. Now as he was
speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face towards the
ground : but he touched me and set me upright.” This may account
for Daniel’s dreams being so dull, for he no sooner saw Gabriel, who
was to tell him all about them, than he fell on his face and went fast
asleep ; and I fear if I were to attempt to relate these dreams all
through, that I should produce precisely the same effect upon the
reader.
Daniel, like dreamers in general, was not an energetic man. He
took ample time to consider and ponder over what he was about to do.
Fifteen years after the goatish vision, and seventeen after the beastly
dream, he fell to praying “ unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and
supplications, with fasting, «nd sack-cloth, and ashes,” for the restora
tion of Jerusalem ; and after exhausting all his persuasive eloquence,
he makes use of this curious argument, which, when applied to an om
nipotent Deity, must have great force. He says : “ O Lord, hear ;
O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do ; defer not, for thine own
sake, O my God : for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.”
This seems to have had the desired effect, for the unchangeable Deity
saw at once that it was to his interest to grant Daniel’s request, and
sent as his messenger the identical Gabriel who had appeared between
the banks of Ulai fifteen years before, to say that the supplications were
answered, as Daniel was greatly beloved. He also said: “Know
therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command
ment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall
be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street shall be
built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.” The Jews had a ,
roundabout way of stating things where numbers were involved. Why 1
could not Gabriel, or Daniel who relates the conversation, have said
that the time would have been sixty-nine weeks to the rebuilding of
the city, instead of “seven weeks, and three score and two weeks?”
Bishop Colenso has called public attention to the woeful state of early
Jewish arithmetic in a previous part of the Bible, and I would respect
fully direct his notice to Daniel, as a fine field for the exercise of his
critical powers. Captious persons may raise many issues on this an
gelic promise—and that Gabriel was an angel there can be no doubt,
�Daniel the Dreamer.
13
though Daniel speaks of him as “ the man Gabriel
but that must be
a mistake, as he says : “Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the
man Gabriel, whom I had. seen in the vision at the beginning, being
caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening obla
tion. ” Men don’t fly—only angels. Well, take this promise as we
may, whether the time was seven weeks, or sixty-two weeks, or sixtynine weeks, it would have been impossible to rebuild a city like
Jerusalem in so short a time. I know I may be met with the argu
ment, that the sixty-nine weeks here spoken of do not mean our weeks
of seven days each, but periods of time. I answer, that if our week
is not meant, neither is it meant that Daniel saw the angel Gabriel at
all, and the promise was not made, and the whole thing is a myth—for
one statement rests on precisely the same authority as the other. There
is just as much truth in Gabriel’s promise, as there is in the stories of
the fiery furnace, the lions’ den, and the handwriting on the wall—and
no more.
Four years later than the praying feat, Daniel saw a vision. It was
not a dream this time, though it is very much like one. Daniel was
mourning three whole weeks, during which time he took neither meat
nor wine, till he brought himself into a very weakly state, and there is
nothing like hunger to make one light-headed. On the twenty-fourth
day he was by the great river Hiddekel, when he saw “ a certain man
clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz : his
body was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning,
and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour
to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multi
tude. ” This figure bears a strong family likeness to the one seen many
years after by St. John the Divine, who has enshrined him in the Reve
lation. One might be taken to be the father of the other—perhaps they
are one and the same, only slightly varied in costume in consequence
of the lapse of time. Daniel says : “And I Daniel alone saw the
vision : for the men that were with me saw not the vision ; but a great
quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves.” These
men were clearly frightened at nothing. But Daniel was not much
better, for either from fear or fasting he could not keep his footing ; but
“ Yet heard I the voice of his words,” he says, “ and when I heard the
voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face
toward the ground.” It must have been a dream after all, and not a
vision ; for how could he have seen even such a shining spirit as the one
he describes if he had been fast asleep on his face ? But it does not
signify, as the vision uttered nothing beyond a few common-place com
pliments to Daniel himself. Why this vision is introduced I cannot
make out, as it does not seem to prove anything, beyond the fact that
an empty stomach makes a man exceedingly weak, both in the head and
the legs.
Afterwards there appeared unto Daniel one like a man, who touched
him, and that strengthened him. This figure enters on a long story
about the overthrow of Persia by the King of Grecia ; the leagues and
conflicts between the kings of the south and of the north ; and the in
vasion and tyranny of the Romans. All this may have been exces
sively interesting to Daniel at that time ; but it is hardly of moment to
us, as these wars will cause no fluctuations in our money market, or
add one penny to the income tax—and that is about all the participa
tion the peoples of any country are allowed in the wars of kings ; and
the so-called wars of the Lord are no exception to that rule. The
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Daniel the Dreamer.
peoples always pay and always suffer, and the kings and privileged
classes reap the glory and the rewards.
And, as a conclusion, Daniel is told that Michael, the great prince
who standeth for the children of his people, shall appear at a given
time to deliver Israel from their troubles. This aroused Daniel’s
curiosity, and he thought at last he was going to get some definite in
formation. He says: “Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there
stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the
other on that side of the bank of the river. And the one said to the
man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How
long shall it be to the end of these wonders ?” The answer is remark
able for its lucidity. The figure clothed in linen, with the lightning
face and brass feet, who was floating on the water, after lifting up his
hands to heaven, and swearing by him that liveth for ever, replied,
“ That it shall be for a time, times, and a half.” That would be con
clusive enough if anybody understood it. Even Daniel, in whom was
the spirit of the holy gods, could not comprehend the jargon, and told
the figure so. He says : “And I heard, but I understood not : then
said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things ?” The man
in linen was evidently annoyed, and retorted rather tartly : “ Go thy
way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the
end.”
And thus, with this gloriously definite and cheering promise, endeth
the Book of Daniel.
_____
I must leave the reader to draw his own moral from this biography.
We are here spared the sickening details of concubinage and immo
rality which accompany so many of the narratives of the Old Testa
ment, and in that the Book of Daniel is not unpleasant reading. The
writer has attempted to show the evils of idolatry and the power of
faith, but it is done with a disregard of truth or probability. Who
with any common sense will believe that Daniel dreamt the same dream
as Nebuchadnezzar ? Can we believe that the image in the plain of
Dura, if it were really gold, was as high as represented ? What scien
tific man in these days would dare to assert that three men could
possibly be cast into a furnace heated to intensity without being con
sumed? It is not probable that a man like Nebuchadnezzar, who had
indulged in every luxury, could live for a long time on grass alone,
exposed to all the changes of the weather. The handwriting on the
wall can hardly gain credence even in these spirit-rapping days, for the
candles were alight when the fingers came forth, and. the king saw
them ; and we are not able to obtain such results except in dark rooms,
and no one knows how it is done ! The story of the lions’ den, when
all the circumstances are considered, is simply improbable—it might
have occurred, only it is not very likely. Daniel’s dreams or visions
are great failures to us moderns. There is such a hopeless confusion
and involvement about them, that any one who should succeed in in
terpreting them, would deserve more rewards than were ever heaped
upon Daniel by Nebuchadnezzar and his successors.
But no critic or commentator, whether layman or divine, has ever yet
given an approximate guess at the truth, and never can. To leam
how profitless is the attempt, the reader has only to turn to the elabo
rate writings of Biblical commentators for centuries past. What the
author of the Book of Daniel might have meant, as I before lemaiked,
cannot possibly matter to us in these days. The writer of the Book.
�Daniel the Dreamer.
15
whoever he was, was but a man, and could not have intended more than
a figurative expression of opinion. But notwithstanding so obvious a
truth as this, “Of all the prophetical writings,” says Rathbone Greg,
“the Book of Daniel has been the subject of the fiercest contest.
Divines have considered it of paramount importance, both on account
of the definiteness and precision of its predictions, and the supposed
reference of many of them to Christ. Critics, on the other hand, have
considered the genuineness of the Book to be peculiarly questionable ;
and few now, of any note or name, venture to defend it. In all pro
bability we have no remains of the real prophecies of the actual Daniel
—for that such a person, famed for his wisdom and virtue, did exist,
appears from Ezek. xiv. and xxxviii. He must have lived about 570
years before Christ, whereas the Book which bears his name was almost
certainly written in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, 170 years b.c.
Some English commentators and divines have endeavoured to escape
from the obvious and manifold difficulties of the book, by conceiving
part of it to be genuine and part spurious. But De Wette has shown
that we have no reason for believing it not to be the work of one hand.
It is full of historical inaccuracies and fanciful legends ; and the open
ing statement is an obvious error, showing that the writer was imper
fectly acquainted with the chronology or details of the period in which
he takes his stand. The first chapter begins by informing us that in the
third year of King Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, be
sieged and took Jerusalem, and carried the king (and Daniel) away
captive. Whereas, we learn from Jeremiah that Nebuchadnezzar was
not King of Babylon till the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and did not
take Jerusalem till seven years later. It would be out of place to ad
duce all the marks which betray the late origin of this book ;—they
may be seen at length in De Wette. It is here sufficient that we have
no proof ’whatever of its early date, and that the most eminent critics have
abandoned the opinion of its genuineness as indefensible. We have
ample proof that the Jewish writers not only did not scruple to narrate
past events as if predicting future ones—to present History in the form
of Prophecy—but that they habitually did so.”
Dr. Arnold (see Life and Correspondence ii. 188) says : “ I have
long thought that the greater part of the Book of Dahiel is most cer
tainly a very late work, of the time of the Maccabees; and the pre
tended prophecy about the Kings of Greece and Persia, and of the
North and South, is mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil
and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when it was
written, because the events up to that date are given with historical
minuteness, totally unlike the character of real prophecy; and beyond
that date all is imaginary.”
It is very melancholy to think that a document so utterly worthless,
should be included in a collection of so-called sacred writings. Its
chronology is inaccurate, its morality is defective, its imagery is poor,
and at times grotesque. Unless the results of modern criticism are care
fully kept from the theological students in our Universities, it is im
possible to imagine that gentlemen of average intelligence can be trained
to enter deliberately on a mission to preach as the “Word of God”
such outrages upon common sense as are to be found in that collection
of Jewish romances called the Bible. They are proved to be not history,
to contain absurd statements, and to inculcate impracticable and im
moral doctrines ; then what can they be but crude romances written for
the amusement of an unlettered people ? But this is another field of
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Daniel the Dreamer.
speculation upon which I am not now prepared to enter ; but those who
are acquainted with the Apocryphal Gospels still extant, will admit that
there is some force in the conjecture.
Some writers who were themselves convinced of the worthlessness of
the Scriptures, have described Bible criticism as being unprofitable and
useless. To such people I admit it is a waste of time—they are per
fectly at ease. Their minds are not tortured by doubts, misgivings,
’ and apprehensions arising from the dreadful and bewildering nature of
’ Bible teaching. But there are thousands of young men and women,
fresh from the Sunday School, who are not so fortunate ; and till priests
and teachers cease to warp and cramp the infantile mind with the
dogmas of inspiration and infallibility, the Freethinker must never
cease in his endeavours to thwart and prevent them by showing how
chaotic, how utterly untrustworthy, is the book upon which they rely.
If the Bible were allowed to rest simply upon its own merits, there
would .be no need to trouble about it, as it contains within itself its own
refutation as a veracious history, as a reliable moral teacher, as a guide
in the affairs of life. There are hundreds of books vastly superior to it
in all these respects. But when the Bible is put forward with the
enormous pretension to infallibility in every chapter, verse, line, and
word, it becomes a demoralising book, which every earnest man and
woman freed from its dangerous influence should strive unceasingly to
destroy. If there were not thousands of men paid millions a year to
preach the doctrine that the Bible is an inspired book ; if armies of
missionaries were not sent all over the world to force this book upon
the unwilling natives of foreign lands, supported for the most part by
the pence wrung from poor Sunday School children ; if there were not
chapels, churches, cathedrals, and temples built and dedicated to its
use, and all the influence and power of the State used to uphold the
delusion—we might go on with the more genial work of instructing
one another in science and all useful knowledge. If it were not for the
fictitious halo which is thus thrown around a mere book, and a very im
perfect one too, mankind would soon awaken from the dream which
has so long deadened their understandings, and see in the Bible a mass
of contradictions, absurdities, immoralities, and false teaching, which
passed current among a small and barbarous people in a barbarous time,
but which is totally unfit for the age in which we live. It is demoralis
ing and deluding to preach thè infallibility of a book which contains
such doctrines as those laid down in the Pentateuch ; which represents
the bloody and devastating wars of the Jews as sanctioned by a God of
justice and mercy ; which holds up such men as Moses, David, Jacob,
and Solomon as servants of the most High ; which gives the keys of
heaven to a false friend like Peter ; which sanctions human slavery ;
which rebukes not acts of the grossest cruelty, treachery, and deceit ;
and which is misleading both in physical and natural history.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
London : Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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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
Daniel the dreamer: a biblical biography
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Holyoake, Austin [1826-1874]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Austin & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1870?]
Identifier
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CT7
Subject
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Bible
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Daniel the dreamer: a biblical biography), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible
Biography
Conway Tracts
Daniel (Biblical Figure)
Free Thought