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ADDRESS
J
TO THE
GEOGRAPHICAL
SECTION
OF THE
BRITISH ASSOCIATION.
BRADFORD, September 18th, 1873.
BY
Sir RUTHERFORD ALCOCK, K.C.B.,
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.
I
cannot help feeling that my claim to the title of a Geographer is much too
slight to warrant my appearance here as President of the Geographical Section
of the British Association. My misgiving as to the fitness of the choice would,
indeed, have precluded my accepting the honour, had I not believed that the main
object of this Association is to receive and give ventilation to any new ideas or
scientific contributions, to secure the attention of a larger audience of scientific
men than could otherwise be easily obtained for any special subject, and to pro
mote the free interchange of opinions between persons of various pursuits and
qualifications. For this end it is not necessary that the President should himself
be competent to take a leading part in discussing the many interesting and scientific
subjects which are likely to be brought forward. It is enough, I conceive, that he
should appreciate at their just value the studies of those who are wiHing to com
municate the results of their labours, and be ready to promote the candid and im
partial consideration of any papers to be read and discussed. With this assurance
I wiH throw myself upon your indulgence for any shortcomings, and proceed with
the business before us.
The admirable review of geographical progress during the past year presented
to the Society at its last Anniversary Meeting in May by Sir Henry Rawlinson
must be too fresh in the memory of those of my hearers who are interested in geo
graphical pursuits to require any attempt on my part to go over the same ground.
It has been published in the volume of the Society’s Transactions for the year, and
it would be superfluous, if not presumptuous, on my part to occupy your time by
any attempt at repetition on the present occasion.
k
If I venture at all upon this field of geographical achievements it will be
rather with a view to draw attention to the wide scope and application of Geo
graphy as a science, and to the mode in which geographical explorations and
discoveries lead to important results in various directions. Geography, in a popular
sense, is apt to be too much associated with a mere description of the configuration
of the earth, with its seas and continents illustrated by maps. But before
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Geography could fulfil even this very narrow and restricted conception of its
proper functions—before, indeed, it could exist in any but the rudest and most im
perfect shape, such as we see in mediaeval maps—great progress had to be made in
astronomy and mathematics. Without these two sister sciences, cartography, or
the process of depicting relative distances and places on the earth, either on maps
or globes, could not be carried out with any approach to certainty or accuracy^r
Explorations with a compass and measure of distance, estimated by the number
of days’journey, gave little more than such results as we find recorded in Pto
lemy’s works. The map of the world preserved in Hereford Cathedral is a curious
sample. There the history of our race, as well as the distribution of countries, are
given on purely theologic and historical or legendary data. Beginning at the
top of the circle with Paradise, it presents nearly every thing in nature and
fiction but Geography to the gaze of the curious. Until the discovery of the
gnomon, and the means of fixing the latitude and longitude of any place by ob
servations of the celestial bodies had been perfected, Geography could have no
existence as a science. It owes much to its intimate connexion with various
branches of knowledge and investigations into the nature and mutual relations of
objects on the earth or forming a part of its crust, which seemingly had, at the
time of their prosecution, no direct bearing on Geography or its objects. In
modern times only it has been fully recognized that Descriptive Geography is of
little value apart from Physical Geography; and these, again, lose much of their
interest without their relation to Political and Historical events are traced.
Astronomy had, in effect, to supply the means of reducing to a systematic and
available form the accumulated materials which must now constitute Geography,
by first enabling.geographers to determine with accuracy the relative position of
places, with their distance from each other and their exact latitude and longitude.
But this power once gained, the importance of Geography and its influence over
the material interests of mankind soon became apparent, and its progress as a
science has gone on increasing at a proportionately rapid rate. It was in vain
that Marco Polo twice traversed Asia in its whole breadth, from the Mediterranean
to the Great M all of China, and lived to return and recount all the wonders he
had seen to his countrymen within the prison walls of Genoa. It only earned for
him the derisive sobriquet of Marco Millione, from the supposed fabulous nature
of the statements he made; and although he contributed so vast an amount of new
facts to the knowledge of the earth’s surface, it does not appear, even when his book
was printed a century and a half later, that it had any material effect upon the science
of Geography, for want of the higher knowledge required to systematize and assi
milate the whole.
Later (as Colonel Yule has well pointed out in his admirable edition of Marco
Polo’s book), when Vasco de Gama, doubling the Cape of Good Hope, reached
the Malabar coast, and the great burst of discovery eastward and westward took J
place, the results of all attempts to combine the new knowledge with the old
was most unhappy. The first and crudest forms of such combination attempted
to^ realize the erroneous ideas of Columbus regarding the identity of his discoveries
with the regions of the Great Khan’s dominion. It was, in consequence, some time
before America could vindicate its independent position on the surface of the
globe, while Jerusalem long remained the central point of the map, because it was
so described in the book of Ezekiel. Down nearly to the middle of the 15th
j map of the world was, in its outline, as it had been handed down by
Biblic and other, traditions sanctioned by some Fathers of the Church, u sprinkled
with a combination of classical and mediaeval legends.”
How important Geographical science has become since that date, and how each
day brings fresh materials and illustrations of the importance, I need hardly point
out. The discovery by the Portuguese of a sea-route to India entirely changed the
whole course of commerce between Europe and Asia. A trade which had first
j
and
Phoenicians, and in Solomon’s reign tempted the Jews to
build fleets on the Red Sea,.and, still increasing, made Alexandria the great em
porium of Indian wares, while in more modern times it helped to create a city
of merchant princes in Venice, abandoned from that date the caravan routes of Asia;
the Adriatic ceased to bear rich argosies from the East, and Nuremberg, with other
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free cities of Germany, equally lost a source of wealth in distributing Eastern
merchandise.
This was the first and most pregnant of the great changes caused by the geo
graphical discoveries of the 15th century. The planting of the European race in
North and South America, and especially of our own stock in the North, was a
second result, which promises to make English the predominating language of the
world, and to spread British institutions and love of liberty over the four quarters of
the globe. How it has affected the destiny of the Aborigines over the new world
laid open by geographical discoveries is a less satisfactory subject of reflection;
but whatever the estimate may be of relative good and evil following in the wake
of such explorations, the influence exercised on the destinies of nations cannot be
questioned; and amidst all the workers who contributed to these results, great
and lasting as they have been, the Geographer may rightly claim a foremost place.
Few things in tlie retrospect of past intercourse and knowledge of each other among
nations widely separated are more remarkable than the continuous communication
across the whole breadth of Asia between the east and west, which seems always to
have been maintained for purposes of traffic, from the earliest historic periods. No
dangers of the way, no physical obstacles of mountain-ranges and great rivers or
deserts, no length of time nor ignorance of the geographical bearings of any por
tion of this area of so many thousand miles, seemed to have acted as deterrents.
Even the softly nurtured Venetian merchants were undismayed; and Marco Polo’s
book of his father’s travels and his own abundantly proves that time must have
borne a very different value in those days to that which prevails in this century.
In the first journey to China we find they stayed one year at Sarai on the Volga
and another at Bokhara. It is true they found it difficult to get either back
ward or forward, owing to the unsettled state of the country ; but this did not in
any way militate against their accepting an invitation, under a safe escort from the
Envoys of Alan, the “Lord of the Levant,” to proceed to the court of Kublar
Khan, in China—a journey which occupied them a whole year. Whether the
profits of any successful venture were so enormous as to afford adequate return for
the time, or the merchants of those days were so fond of adventure and exploration that they were content with less profit than modern commerce expects, I am
not prepared to say. But whatever may be the true explanation of this apparent
diversity, we may congratulate ourselves that each year many geographical explo
rations, accompanied as these now are by careful and scientific observations, and
the immediate registering of new facts in accurate collation with all previously ac
quired data, sensibly diminish the extent of unknown territory, and by so much
not only facilitate the development of a constantly increasing commerce, but
largely contribute to the diminution of causes of national contention in the ap
plication of treaties and the determination of boundaries.
We have had several very striking examples of this within the past year; and
although this is not the place to enter into the merits of the disputed questions
as to limits in any of the cases, I may be permitted to refer to them in general
terms as illustrations of the important service which geographical science is
enabled to render to Nations and to States in the higher field of political combi
nations and diplomatic negotiations. It has been well said that the Surveyor is
imely to do more in future than soldiers to prevent war; and the more frequently *"
the scientific geographer precedes negotiations, the less ground there will be for
doubt or disputes about boundaries—a most fertile subject of quarrel in all ages.
Is it not quite certain, for instance, that if accurate and complete surveys had been
made of the Straits between Vancouver’s Island and the American coast, and appended to the treaty of 1846, which was intended to settle the Oregon boundary,
with a line drawn exactly where it was intended the delimitation should take
place by the two negotiators, no dispute could have arisen ? It may have seemed
enough to define the north-west water boundary to be “ a line drawn from the
iniddle of the channel which separates the Continent from Vancouver’s Island
southerly through the middle of the said Channel and of the Fuca Strait to the
ocean,”-—more especially, perhaps, as the existence of the De Ilaro and Rosario
Kffinnels, about which the dispute has arisen, was known to the negotiators.
Yet how long and fierce the contention has been between two great powers! and,
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though now peacefully decided, we all know that it has for more than 25 years
been one of those questions which might at any time have been a cause of war
between two kindred nations,—the greatest calamity that could well befall either
the one or the other.
The result of Sir Frederick Goldsmid’s geographical labours in the east of Persia
during the past year has added another example of the inestimable political value
of accurate geographical surveys. In Asia more than any other country perhaps is
this necessity felt. Papers have been read at the Geographical Society describing
the journey of the Arbitration Commission from Bunder Abbas, through Kerman to
Seistan, and reporting fully on the districts which have been so long in dispute
between the Persian and Afghan governments. The line of delimitation between
the two countries has been decided by the labours of the Commission, and the last
mail from India announces its acceptance by both parties. My chief object in refer
ring to it is to show the great and important services which not only may be, but
are actually rendered by geographical labours under able direction, and how much is
to be gained, both in the interests of peace and of science, from the adoption of a
practise of avoiding political complications by determining disputed lines of frontier
through the agency of mixed commissions and professional engineers. That it
should be generally adopted in the East must be the earnest desire alike of
geographers and statesmen, and converts to the principle are rapidly increasing^
The latest news from Constantinople brings the gratifying intelligence that the
Sultan of Turkey and the Shah of Persia have mutually agreed to refer their
contentions about the boundaries between the two States to a mixed Commission
of this kind. The delimitation fixed by the British Government on the Upper
Oxus by similar action is a pledge of peace with Russia. These are so many
triumphs of an enlightened policy, by which disputed boundaries are settled, not by
the sword, but by geographical observation, the accuracy of which cannot be con
tested. In this case it was rendered the more difficult, and all the more important
politically, because, as Colonel Yule has recently demonstrated, the whole geography
of the region of the Upper Oxus and surrounding country had been falsified
by Klaproth. . In all the pseudo-travels that he invented he had imposed alike
upon the British and the Russian Governments; and the consequences of such
falsification might have been most fatal, for it vitiated the maps of the Russian
Government, and with it their diplomacy. Fortunately our own information of
the geography of the trans-Himalayan regions had so much improved since Klap
roth exercised his ingenuity, that it became possible not only to show where the
falsification existed, but how one great source of error had arisen. Colonel Yule
has proved, in a paper now published in the ‘Transactions of the Geographical
Society,’ how, by a certain square of the Chinese Map constructed in 1759 (which
was the groundwork of Klaproth’s geographical knowledge) having been acci
dentally turned round through an angle of 90°, the mistake originated by which
the district of Wakhan for instance, instead of being laid down in the same parallel
as Badakhshan, was placed in the map 100 miles to the northward, and thus
appeared to Prince .Gortchakoff to be conterminous with Kara-tegin.
There is no nation, perhaps, which has so much reason to value geographical
science and the art of map-making at a high rate as the Russians. In their rapid
advance across the steppes and mountain-ranges of Northern Asia southward into
the valley of the Amoor and Manchuria on the east, and to Khiva and Samarcand
in the west, they have taken many courses; but in all they have had the im
mense advantage of not only knowing the territories they coveted, but being able
to place them accurately on maps. The late Mr. Atkinson, a great traveller in
bi ben a and Central Asia, gives more than one graphic and, there is every reason to
believe, perfectly veracious account of how negotiations for territory with Asiatics
ccess^L'hy and even peacefully conducted at a very small cost when thus
aided and prepared. First an exploring party starts for some unknown region]
ostensibly, it may be, for hunting, well armed and prepared to note accurately the
physical features of any country they may traverse. The first exploration accom
plished, a second follows, better provided for an actual survey and geological and
mineralogical researches. These being completed, negotiations are then opened^jzith
the chief of the tribe to whom the territory in question belongs. One of these
�5
Transactions in 1848 ended in a considerable district in the Kirghis Steppe, lying
between the Targ Abatai and the Irtisch, already ascertained to possess valuable
silver- and lead-mines, being transferred from the Sultan and chiefs of the Great
Horde of Kirghis to the Emperor of Russia (or, as he is better known to the
Kirghis, the “ Great White Khan ”) for a sum of 250 roubles, a gold medal, a sword
of honour, and half a dozen handsome khalats or robes for the Sultan, Mulla, and
the five or six head chiefs.
In these mysterious and hitherto inaccessible regions of Inner or Central Asia
geographical knowledge is almost a necessary qualification in any Power which
seeks further intercourse and access. To Russia, of course, it is matter of primary
importance, situated as she is in direct contact along all her southern border with
the nomade races which occupy the vast regions stretching across the continent
between her and all the southern ports and seas; but scarcely more so, perhaps,
than to Great Britain, as another great Asiatic Power,—the only one of equal
pretensions, strength, and influence in the East, by its command of Western
resources and Asiatic territory. A knowledge of the geography of the regions
lying between the Caspian and the Amoor is, indeed, power of the most valuable
kind. When the Russians secured possession of the upper portion of the Zarafshan
valley about Saware, they commanded the waters on which Bokhara depends for
its fertility and existence, and of course obtained a means of easy conquest. Thus,
whether for conquest or for commerce, Geography is the best ally and a necessary
pioneer. If we look again at the map, showing the complex systems of mountains
separating the plains of India from Eastern Turkestan and the upper tablelands
and valleys of Central Asia, we shall find that they are not simple ranges, like the
Alps or the Pyrenees, which can be crossed by a single pass, as Mr. Shaw has so
well shown, butare comp osed of many chains, enclosing considerable countries within
their valleys. Thibet and Cashmere are examples of this. Eleven passes, we are
told, have to be crossed in travelling from India to Turkestan; and of these, only
two are lower than the summit of Mont Blanc. Yet, thanks to the labours
of many geographic explorers, impassable as these mountain-barriers seem, we
know now that they are penetrated in such a manner by rivers, and so accessible by
comparatively easy routes, that they form no insurmountable obstacle to peaceful
commerce, although capable of a complete defence against force. Take, again, that
range of the Thian Shan to the north and the Himalayan system to the south,
which converge together as they run westward, and unite in a vast boss supporting
the high plateau of Panier, which the natives call the Bam-i-dunya, or “ Upper
floor of the World.” Numerous valleys penetrate into it from east and from west,
a peculiarity which makes it far easier to traverse from east to west than from north
to south—a fact which you will see at once has a most important bearing on the
trade-routes.
The latest advance in this direction of Russia is fixed at present at Kulja, where
she has established an important trading centre. This has been obviously dictated
by a knowledge of geographical features giving1 her access to Eastern Turkestan ;
for although Kulja appears to be separated by difficult snowy mountains, yet these
are found to die away to the east, and from that point Mr. Shaw tells us Russia has
it in her power to push her advance or her trade in two directions over level
country, either eastward to China or westward to Turkestan.
Geography, it is clear, therefore, in these regions, is the right hand of rulers and
of generals, and determines alike the march of armies and the advance of merchants.
Nothing can be done by either without its aid. It is impossible, however, not to
admire the energy and indomitable spirit with which Russia, claiming and freely
using all the assistance scientific geography can give, utilizes the knowledge thus
secured. Mr. Shaw relates how the Muzat Pass, leading between Aksu and Kulja,
lies over a formidable glacier; and he was assured that forty men were kept at
work in the summer roughing the ice for the passage of the caravans. With such
a rival in the field it must be evident, if we are to compete in the same field with any
success, that both Government and our merchants must put forth all their strength,
and neither be scared by physical obstacles nor daunted by expense and risks:
this seems to me the great lesson which all these accumulated facts convey;
�6
geography has shown the way, it is for merchants to follow, and Government, if
need be, to aid in removing obstacles not otherwise to be overcome.
The connexion between history and geography, and the important bearing of
each upon the other, was scarcely recognized until the second half of the last cen
tury, when several historical travellers gave, with their researches into the ancient
history of Greece and Western Asia, many details of physical geography, and
showed how essential a knowledge of these were to any perfect understanding of
the events taking place in the several localities. They must be studied together,
as the nature of the ground on which a battle has been fought or a campaign
conducted must be studied to understand the movements of the contending forces
and the design of the leaders.
The late Dr. Arnold, in his lectures on History, insisted much upon the mutual
relations of history and geography, and the important light which a study of phy
sical geography throws upon the national conditions of life, social and political.
“ The whole character of a nation (he observes) may be influenced by its geo
logy aQd physical geography.” Again, geography holds out one hand to geology
and physiology, while she holds out the other to history. Both geology and
physiology are closely connected with history. The geological fact of England’s
superior richness in coal over every other country lay at the bottom of the corn-law
question. The physiological fact that the tea-plant was uncultivated in any other
climate or country than China gave a peculiar interest to our relations with it.
And it would be easy to give many examples of this intimate connexion between
geography and history, and the mutual aid they afford.
We have seen how possession of the head sources of the water supplies could
determine the fate of a country like Bokhara. And the distribution of river
courses mainly determine the creation of great populations, and the development
of trade and civilization by facilities of traffic and intercourse. Dr. Arnold, in the
lectures already quoted, gives an admirable illustration in dealing with the map
of Italy, which I cannot resist the opportunity of bringing under your notice.
The mere plan geography of Italy shows a semicircle of mountains round the
northern boundary, and another long line stretching down the middle of the
Apennines. But let us look a little further, and give life and meaning to these
features, as Arnold delighted to do.
<( Observe, in the first place, how the Apennine line, beginning from the southern
extremity of the Alps, runs across Italy to the very edge of the Adriatic, and thus
separates naturally the Italy proper of the Romans from Cisalpine Gaul. Observe
again how the Alps, after running north and south, where they divide Italy from
France, turn then away to the eastward, running almost parallel to the Apennines
till they too touch the head of the Adriatic on the confines of Istria. Thus,
between these two lines of mountains there is enclosed one great basin or plain,
enclosed on three sides by mountains, opening to the east to the sea. One great
river flows through it in its whole extent, and this is fed by streams almost un
numbered descending towards it on either side, from the Alps on the one side and
from the Apennines on the other. Who can wonder that this large and rich and
Well-watered place should be filled with flourishing cities, or that it should have
been contended for so often by more poor invaders ? Then descending into Italy
proper, we find the complexity of its geography quite in accordance with its
manifold political divisions. It is not one central ridge of mountains, leaving a
broad belt of level country on either side between it and the sea; nor yet is it a
clear rising immediately from the sea on one side, like the Andes in South America,
leaving room therefore on the other side for wide plains of tableland, and for rivers
with a sufficient length oi course to become at last great and navigable. It is a
backbone thickly set with spines of unequal length, interlacing with each other in
a maze almost inextricable. Speaking generally, then, Italy is made up of an
infinite multitude of valleys pent in between high and steep hills, each forming a
country to itself, and cut off by natural barriers from the others. Its several parts
are isolated by nature, and no art of man can thoroughly unite them. Even the
various provinces of the same kingdom are strangers to each other. The Abruzzi
are like an unknown world to the inhabitant of Naples.” This is what Dr. Arnold
�I meant by a real and lively knowledge of geography, which brings the whole
character of a country before our eyes, and enables us to understand its influence
upon the social and political condition of its inhabitants.
But such is the rapid progress of science and man’s triumphs over nature, that
the tunnel through Mont Cenis, or Fell’s railroad over it, and the railroad
which now pierces the Apennines and unites the eastern and western coasts of
Italy, aided by telegraphic wires, falsifies already Arnold’s conclusion that no art
of man can thoroughly unite regions so separated. And the influence these achieve
ments must have over the unification of Italy and the progress of civilization
throughout the peninsula can hardly be exaggerated.
Persia at the present day offers another striking illustration of the influence of
physical causes over the progress of civilization and the destiny of nations. Apart
from the consequences of ages of misrule, the physical geography has exercised a
very adverse influence upon the country. Persia suffers from a great deficiency
of rainfall; and although an immense supply of water comes from the mountains
by the rains and the melting of the snow, it is lost in the plains and wasted, if not
before, at least as soon as it reaches the great salt desert about twenty miles from
Teheran. With the prevailing insufficiency of the rainfall on the plains them
selves the whole country is becoming sterile; but if the abundant supply from the
mountains were intercepted before it reached the lower ground and collected into
reservoirs, it might then be distributed by irrigation over the whole face of the
land and play the same part as the Zarafshan or “ Gold-scatterer ” (so called for
its fertilizing power’s) in the rich cultivation of Bokhara. Perhaps this may not
prove beyond the power of Baron Reuter' to accomplish, aided by all the science
and some of the capital of Europe. What further changes he may be enabled to
effect by the introduction of railroads and telegraphic lines for facilitating trade
and rapid communication, we may soon be in a position to speak from actual
experience ; for it is stated in the public prints that the proposed railway between
Teheran and Resht is to be commenced at once, and that the plant has already
I left England. More extended operations are, it is understood, contemplated to
the south of Teheran to Ispahan, and from thence to the Persian Gulf—perhaps
also to the Turkish frontier. The former will open a direct line to India, and the
■latter to the Mediterranean, should the Turkish Government be willing to work in
concert. Who can calculate the revolution in the whole aspect of the country
and its life-sustaining powers if a whole series of such measures should be carried
through at once ?
But the part which Russia plays in the history of Europe and Asia, and the
future which may yet be reserved for that Empire, is more a matter of Physical
Geography than of politics or of policy, if we look to determining causes. What
was Russia to do, frozen in between two seas and with closed ports for more than
six months in each year, but, by an infallible instinct (in nations as individuals
often exemplified), stretch out feelers towards the open waters and more genial
climates ? We have heard much of Russia’s destiny driving her southwards to
the Bosphorus and eastward in the same parallel over the rich valleys of central
and Tropic Asia; but is it not a geographical necessity, far more than a political
ambition, which has thus far driven her across the whole breadth of Asia until she
gained the Chinese ports on the Pacific, and southwards towards the mouths of the
Danube, the sunny ports of the Mediterranean, and the head of the Persian Gulf?
Until unfrozen rivers and ports could be reached, how could her people make any pro
gress or develop their resources ? It not only was a natural tendency, but as natural
as the descent of the glacier to the valleys, forging downwards by a slow but irre
sistible pressure, and as irresistible. Obstacles may retard the progress, but not
arrest it; and Russia is but following the course of nature as well as-history in
pouring down nomade hordes and hardy Scythians on the more cultivated territories
lying in a more genial climate. Railroads and telegraphic wires supply her with
means of transport and quick transit over vast spaces never enjoyed by her great
predecessors in this line of march: let us hope, too, that more civilizing influences
will follow her track, through regions never highly favoured in this repect, than
marked the passage of a Genghis Khan or a Timor. ‘ The Times ’ observed
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recently that it was one of the happiest coincidences in history that, just at the
time when the natural course of commercial and political development brings
Central Asia into importance, there should still exist in the eastern border of
Europe an empire retaining sufficiently the character of a military absolutism to
render it especially adapted for the conquest and control of these semi barbarouS
communities. I am not altogether prepared to accept this high estimate of
Russian ability and peculiar fitness for its self-imposed task without qualification!
That Russia, Asiatic in origin and type, autocratic, and armed with all the power
which military science and discipline give, has some special fitness for the mission
it seems to accept as a destiny, I am not inclined to deny. But whatever may
be the decision arrived at on this head, it seems quite certain that as her progress
in arms gives her control over Central Asia, so will be the exclusion, by protective
or prohibitive tariffs, of all commerce but her own. It is only necessary to follow
on the map, and in the history of the successive advances southwards, the progress
made and the trade-routes established or extended within the last twenty years!
to be convinced that trade and exclusive rights of commerce are among the prin
cipal objects which dictate the present policy of the empire.
Whatever may be the designs of Russia in her advances on Central Asia, it must
be clear by this time that it is with her, and not with the nominal rulers of the
States her armies have overrun, that we must count in any steps we may meditate
for the peaceful prosecution of commerce. Strange and unexpected as are the
reverses of fortune which have befallen nations and empires in all ages, and great
and complete as has been the fall of many, there are few more striking than the
interchange of parts between the Muscovite and the Mongol dynasties. The time
was, as Col. Yule remarks, when in Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might
bark without Mongol leave from the borders of Poland and the coast of Cilicia
to the A moor and the Yellow Sea. As late as the 13th century the Moguls
ravaged Hungary and conquered Russia, which they held in subjection for many
generations. Sarai on the Volga was the scene of Chaucer’s half-told tale of
Cambuscan, when
“ At Sarra in the Londe of Tartarie
There dwelt a King that worried Russie.”
The times have changed indeed since then, and the successors and descendants
of those same Moguls and Tartars have another tale to tell now at Khiva and
Peking.
Before I pass from this part of my subject, I would draw your attention to the
vast field which yet remains in Asia for geographical research and exploration.
The intimate connexion between such labours and the development of our commerce
in the trans-Himalayan countries must have been made abundantly evident; and I
would fain hope there will never be any want of competent volunteers (who may
rival Mr. Shaw and Mr. Ney Elias, both distinguished and adventurous pioneers
taken from mercantile pursuits) to show the way for others. Notwithstanding all
difficulties and opposing influences, physical and political, there appears to be a
large field for our commerce, and one capable of almost infinite expansion, where
enterprise, skill, and industry may securely count upon a good return.
As regards costly efforts in opening roads, it may seem doubtful to the Indian
as to the Imperial Government how far they will be justified in any large outlay!
Nothing, however, could be more regretable than any doubt or hesitation, for the
markets once monopolized by the Russians we may seek in vain to open them
to general trade at any later period. It is difficult to calculate how much we
should lose, for the distance from the Indus to Vernoje and Kopal, two of themosq
recent markets of Central Asia founded by the Russians, is about one third of that
from these places to the great fair of the Volga. Commercially this is of great
importance, as these towns will become the centres whence the Tartar merchants
will send forth their agents to disperse their goods among all the Kirghis of the
Steppes. From these points they will also go to the Mongolian tribes, on the north
of the Gobi, and this region Mr. Atkinson assures us contains a vast population. He
even anticipates that, should such a trade be established, the merchandise will find
its way through the country of the Kalkas into Davuaria, and to the regions beyond
�9
EMiSElenga and the sources of the Amoor, where it may advantageously compete
with goods brought up the latter river ; nor will the Siberians fail to avail themselves of its advantages. Whenever there shall be fairs on the Indus or beyond
the passes of the Himalayas on the borders of Sikkim or Thibet, the Kirghis will
send into India vast numbers of good horses annually. Silver and gold, the same
traveller says, is plentiful in their country, and their other resources will in all pro
bability be rapidly developed. The best mode of opening such a trade with Central
Asia beyond question will be by fairs or great marts similar to Kiachta on the
frontier between China and Russia, Irkutzk and Urga, and more recently at Irbit
by the Russians. On this point we have also Mr. Atkinson’s very decided opinion.
He says, speaking of such fairs, “ This I deem preferable to the English plan of
consigning goods to agents either in Yarkand, Kokhan, or Tarshkend. Once these
fairs are established, the Tartar and other merchants will attend and purchase
the necessary articles for the people among whom they vend their wares. These
men are thoroughly acquainted with the tribes and know all their wants; they are
industrious and energetic in their calling, travelling over thousands of miles. They
know every part of the country, and where to find the tribes in all seasons of the
year ; and it is by them that Russia distributes her merchandise over Central Asia.
Wherever trade can be carried on at a profit, experience has shown that all natural
obstacles have been surmounted by these hardy sons of the Steppe. It is well to
have such commercial agents and distributors as allies and customers, whereas any
attempt to locate English agents in their midst would create jealousy and excite
fears lest they should lose their legitimate profits. Far greater dangers are encoun
tered by caravans which travel from Kulja into the interior provinces of China than
ifey will meet with between Yarkand, Kashgar, and the Indus. All that is re
quired is to bring the goods from the plains of India through the passes to the
border; and steps are being actively taken in more than one direction.”
In 1850 Lord Dalhousie sanctioned the commencement of a road, which, leaving
the plains in the neighbourhood of Kalka, 36 miles from Umballah, should ascend
to Simla and thence towards Thibet, through the temperate valley of the Sutledge, to Shipki on the Thibetan border. In the next five years this Hindostan
and Thibet road, which was to unite India with Central Asia, had made such
progress, that 115 miles of six-feet road had been completed ; and it was anti
cipated that by the following spring but 25 miles would remain of unfinished
work between Simla and China, and 60 between Simla and the frontiers of
China. I regret to state that later accounts show the work to have been stopped;
and this seems to be matter for regret, both on account of the large unproductive
expenditure for a work stopped short of completion, and for the urgent necessity
there is for secure access to the trans-Himalayan regions, while there is yet room
for competition with Russian trade and influence. One of the great questions of
the hour is, how best and most expeditiously to open up practicable roads from
the plains of India to Central Asia, on the west to Turkestan, and eastwards to
the borders of Thibet or by British Burmah across the Shan states to the western
provinces of China. But access to the markets of Central Asia is by far the most
urgent and important; for, as I will presently show, the southern route through
Burmah, were all difficulties overcome (and they are neither few nor slight), pro
mises little in comparison with a more direct outlet for the Assam teas and an
■interchange of goods and produce with the populations of Thibet, Turkestan, and
Central Asia generally. Across the Himalayan barrier it appears there is a choice
of more than one or two practicable passes ; that through Sikkim to the vicinity
of Thibet offers the fewer difficulties, and in every respect promises the most
speedy results with a moderate outlay. Other routes to the west, leading to
Badakshan, and one by Ladak to Turkestan (where we have already an energetic^
and enterprising British representative in Air. Shaw), and through the valley and
passes of the Chitral are beset by many difficulties, physical and political, but not
more than a powerful Government like India may surmount. It has been said
that if the Russians had such a question to deal with, the solution would not be
long delayed. And no doubt they have solved some more arduous problems in the
present generation. The enterprise, vigour, and perseverance which mark all their
proceedings where the extension of their commerce or their dominion and influ
�10
ence over Asia from Pekin to Constantinople, and especially towards the Khanates
of Central Asia, are concerned, may leave us far behind in the race, and render
them formidable adversaries, notwithstanding their merchants are weighted with
distances so vast, that the 700 miles from the Indus to the other side of the
Himalayas sink into insignificance. But I am not inclined to join in any con
demnation of our own Government without taking into consideration the inhere®;
difficulties of the task, because they have not moved hitherto more rapidly in this
direction. As regards access by Sikkim-there ought to be both decision and
prompt action. It is a protected state, and a late despatch of the Lieut.-Governoij
of Bengal to the Secretary to the Government of India expresses a hope to be
able to connect the frontier mart at Dewangiri, once a very active trade-mart for
the Tibetans and other adjoining districts, with the plains of India by a good
road this next cold season. ITe considers it possible “ to have a much easier,
pleasanter, and more profitable communication with High Asia by this way than
further west; ” and speaks very decidedly as to the uselessness of any right of
passage or trade through Nepaul or Bhootan. There seems every hope, therefore!
that within a few months something effective will be done to open a trade-route!
through Sikkim and make the passes practicable. All that seems to be required is
a branch railroad from the other side of the Kooshteen, where the Eastern Bengal
Railway touches the Ganges, on through fertile Rungpore to the foot of the hills,
and a road through the pass to the border, where a fair could be established and a
trading station.
Any direct access beyond the Thibetan border can only, in the present con
dition of affairs, be obtained by diplomatic action at Peking. The Chinese
Government have hitherto created all the obstacles; and there is the greater
reason for pressing a less restrictive policy upon the Chinese, that at the head of
the Assam valley the Mishmi country communicates with Batang, a dependency of
the Sechzuen Province of China; and access to this point through the border would
be a much more effective mode of tapping the south-western provinces of China
than any routes through Burmah to Yunnan. Now that the Emperor’s minority
is at an end, and the Regency with it, the time would seem favourable for a strong
and decided effort at Peking to remove the obstructions created by the jealous and
restrictive policy of the Chinese rulers. But while Chambers of Commerce and,
Merchants are urging Her Majesty’s Government to incur both outlay of money
and grave political responsibilities for the furtherance of trade and the opening of
new markets for our manufactures, it is necessary that they should be prepared to
do their own part, and push boldly forward with their goods, because any doubt on
this head must necessarily tend to paralyze the efforts of any Government by the
fear of working in vain. One cause of hesitation about the continuance of the
magnificent work commenced by Lord Balhousie in 1850, by which a great road
was to be made from the plains to Shipki on the borders of Thibet, may have
been certain doubts expressed by merchants as to any trade taking that route.
But I must not detain you longer. I will only glance at the projects for
opening a trade by railway between Burmah and South-western China. The one
route, so long advocated by Capt. Sprye, would cross over from Rangoon to
Kianghung on the Meikong, and another, recommended by Col. Fytche when
Chief Commissioner of British Burmah, extending from Rangoon to Prome, with
a view to opening a trade vid Bhamo.
Many memorials have been sent during past years to the Home Government to
urge the undertaking of the first of these for the benefit of trade; but I am not
aware that, important as the merchants have deemed it, the matter has ever been
Sressed on the Government by any Member of Parliament in the House of
lommons, and I doubt very much such a line proving remunerative. Yunnan,
so far from being, as described by some of the memorialists, both populous and
productive, has been reduced to a waste by the civil war and the destruction of
the Mahomedans, and for long years to come there can be little hope of com
mercial activity. It can scarcely be expected, therefore, that either the Imperial
or the Indian Government will undertake to make such a railroad themselves, or
to guarantee the interest for others. As regards the Government of India, it lias
�11
always held, I think, of late years that the Indian revenue could not be charged
with the cost of an enterprise which, however successful, could only benefit
English trade, and very indirectly or in slight degree Burmah. If any gua
rantee is necessary, therefore, it seems clear it must come from the Imperial and
not from the Indian Government. There is one other consideration : recent
news show that the French in Cochin China have by no means given up the
hope of drawing any trade to be developed with the south-west of China by a much
more direct and river-route to a port in the Gulf and for their own benefit.
Although the French have not usually proved formidable rivals in Eastern trade,
it is possible that, with such advantage of geographical situation, water-carriage,
and proximity, they might seriously check any development of trade in a less
favoured course.
Before concluding I must give you some information as to the papers which are
likely to occupy your attention during this session.
Dr. J. McCosh will read a paper on an overland communication between India
and China, a»subject which he is qualified to pronounce an opinion upon, having
made it his study for upwards of thirty years. As long ago as 1836, whilst
serving in Assam, he furnished the Government with an official report, in which
he pointed out the facility of connecting India and China by a grand trunk road;
and he read a paper on the same subject before the Royal Geographical Society
in 1860. He advocates the Munnipore route.
Mr. Ney Elias contributes a paper li On Trade-Routes through Mongolia and
Zungaria.” He gained the Royal Medal of this year from the Royal Geographical
Society for his adventurous journey in 1872 as a private traveller over the countries
described in his paper, and is well known as an accomplished traveller, taking
observations for laying down his route with rare completeness. He states in his
paper that the only trade-route now open between Central Asia and Western China
is that through Mongolia.
J. Thomson will read a paper on the Yang-tsze as an artery of communication.
Mr. Thomson has been long before the public as a successful traveller and accom
plished photographer of the scenery of distant countries. Some years ago he
visited the marvellous ruins of temples and cities in Cambodia, and published a
magnificent work on the subject, illustrated by photographs. Since then he has
visited China and Formosa, and is publishing in parts a work of a similar cha
racter to his former one on Cambodia.
I believe Mr. Thomson will bring a set of photographs for exhibition.
Baron Richthofen will read a paper a On the Distribution of Coal in China.”
He will perhaps read a second paper on the general subject of his travels.
He is one of the most accomplished of Chinese travellers, and has traversed
probably the largest extent of country. His published Report to the Committee of
the Shangai Chamber of Commerce on his Explorations in the Provinces of Chili,
Shansi, Shensi, and Sz’chuen is full of the most interesting information regarding
the physical geography, resources, and products of the interior of China.
He is present at the Meeting, one of the distinguished foreign savans invited by
the town and the Association.
Capt. J. E. Davis will read a paper on the results so far of the voyage of the
| Challenger.’ Capt. Davis was a member of Ross’s great expedition towards the
South Pole, and by his position in the Hydrographical or Scientific branch of the
Admiralty is well qualified to deal with such a subject. The public have been
informed from time to time of the results of the deep-sea soundings and dredgings of
the 1 Challenger,’ but Capt. Davis will supply by far the completest information.
The Bev. W. Wyatt GUI will give us an account of “ Three visits to New
Guinea.” Mr. Gill, after twenty-two years spent in missionary life in the South
Pacific, spent a short time at the mission stations in Torres Straits, and visited the
mainland of New Guinea.
Excent Arctic Explorations.—The Spitzbergen and the Smith Sound routes are
the two great rival highways of exploration towards the arctic basin, and discovery
has alternately pushed nearer the pole by the one and the other. Till recently the
Spitzbergen route held the palm, for by it ships had reached to beyond the 81st
parallel, whilst on the American side no ship had. been able to force a passage
�12
higher than the 79th degree of latitude; but in 1872 the American expedition, led*
by Capt. Hall, who has perished in the cause, making its way northward by Smith
Sound, attained the highest point yet reached by ships, the latitude of 82° 16' N.,
or to within 420 miles of the North Pole. Two expeditions, one from Austria the
other from Sweden, are also in progress on the Spitzbergen side. The Austrian,
under the leadership of Weybrecht and Payer, has passed beyond the limits of the
remotest traffic into the unknown seas to the north of Siberia, and it is probable
that no news of this voyage may reach civilized Europe for many months; the
Swedish voyage had for its object to move northward by sledges from the Parry
group of islands in the north of Spitzbergen, but has failed completely in this oftentried scheme, and spent the past winter at Morrel Bay, on the coast of the chief
island of Spitzbergen. Early in the spring of this year another fruitless attempt
was made to go north over the hummocked ice. Desisting unwillingly from these
useless efforts, the sledge party turned along the coast of the north-east land of
Spitzbergen to its extreme eastern point, and thence ascending the high inland ice
made a difficult passage across to Hinloper Strait, from whence the winter-quarters«
of the ship were again reached.
With regard to British enterprise in the Arctic regions there is little to report.
Since the termination of the long series of brilliant exploits in the Polar regions at
the end of the search after Sir John Franklin, England seems to have abandoned
the field to rival rations. A few private expeditions to the Spitzbergen seas,
notably those of Mr. Leigh Smith, who has again visited those regions this summer,
alone represent British activity in the Arctic seas. However, the Royal Geo
graphical Society does not allow the matter to slumber. An endeavour was
made last winter to induce the Government to send out another expedition;
ard at the present time a joint Committee of the Royal and the Royal Geo
graphical Societies is at work formulating a plan of action with a view to
representing to Government the urgency of despatching an expedition in 1874.
Africa.—Of Dr. Livingstone and Sir Samuel Baker, no fresh news has been
received beyond what has been before the public. Two expeditions are now
on their way to Central Africa in search of Livingstone and to cooperate with
him. The Congo Expedition at last date (April 3) had reached Bembe, 130 miles
from the coast, in admirable order. The East Coast Expedition had reached
Rehenneko, 120 miles, but with the loss of one of the party, Mr. Moffat, who died
near Simbo. Their plan was to reach Tanganyika, and finish the exploration of
that lake, until Livingstone was met with. I had hoped to have seen Sir Samuel
Baker here,, that we might hear from his own lips and in fuller detail what he
has accomplished. I do not quite despair yet; but up to the present hour I have
had no communication from him since his arrival at Cairo on his homeward
journey.
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Address to the Geographical Section of the British Association. Bradford, September 18th, 1873
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Text
SACERDOTALISM,
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE MEMBERS AND FRIENDS
OF THE NATIONAL SUNDAY LEAGUE,
BY
GEORGE J. WILD, LL.D.-,
AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1872.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
�f
�SACERDOTALISM.
HE experience of life teaches us that most things
with which
varied
Tcharacter, and we have to do are of so features a in
display such different
different circumstances that it is rash to pass too
sweeping a judgment upon them. In history we find
many instances where times and seasons have made all
the difference between the good and evil of a system,—
an advancement or retardation of growth have rendered
that detrimental which before had been beneficial to a
people.
The subject of the present lecture forms no exception
to these remarks. It has its fair as well as its repulsive
side. Those who regard only the former will always
be its zealous defenders, those who look only on the
evil it has produced will be apt to be no less indis
criminate in their condemnation and abuse. Let us
endeavour to see where the truth lies between them.
To this end it will be expedient in the first place to
decide what is meant by this term sacerdotalism. It
is derived from a word which signifies set apart,
consecrated, or dedicated to a deity,—so that the
Sacerdos is the person in special relations with the
deity,—the sacrifice is any thing offered to the deity,—
the sacra, or sacred things include all the rites and
ceremonies connected with the religious worship of the
Gods. There are many other words derived from the
�6
Sacerdotalism.
same source, but they all imply the idea of some
special relation with deity. Now, sacerdotalism in its
largest sense is the principle and spirit on which all
these are founded, and by which they are perVaded :
it is however generally more exclusively used in con
nection with sacred persons, that is to say, it implies
the spirit of priesthood and the theory on which it is
based.
The question, therefore, that I wish to suggest for
our examination this evening, is whether this theory
has been and is for the advantage or the detriment of
society. In the compass of a brief paper only a very
cursory view can be taken of so extensive a subject,
but it may serve to call attention to some essential
features of the enquiry. And let it not be thought
that such an enquiry is of merely abstract and
historical interest, since there is none I believe which
more demands our attention under the circumstances
of the present day.
In considering this question we must take care not
to lose sight of the fact I have already stated, viz.,
that the root-principle of sacerdotalism, the assumption
on which priesthoods and all their creeds are founded,
is that of some special private relation with the deity,
the possession of some particular privilege and power
different from that of other men. Wherever in the
world you find anything in the nature of a priesthood,
you will find this, as a matter of fact, to be the case.
In the hoary past we read of the Brahmins conveying
this notion by the assertion that they were derived
from the head of Brahma; the Buddhist priest acts as
a sort of necessary mediator to convey the prayers of
the faithful votaries to the courts above. In the
Mosaical religion the priests are represented as re
ceiving a special revelation and commission at the
mouth of God himself, who condescendingly comes
down on the top of a mountain and enunciates his
directions amidst thunder and lightning, and the sound
�Sacerdotalism.
7
of a trumpet. The Greeks had their divine oracles of
which priests were the ministers and promulgators,
and the Romans their augurs who explained the signi
fication of the auspices, and who were alone competent
to decide whether they had been taken correctly ; and
it has been the same in other nations. Moreover, all
these races have had their sacred books supposed to
contain revelations of the divine will of which persons
connected with the Sacerdotal class were alone con
sidered competent expositors. The Brahmins have
their Vedas and Code of Manu; the Buddhists their
Tripitaka; the Jews their books of the Law and
Prophets; the Ancient Persians their Zend-Avesta;
the Greeks and Romans their Books of the Sibylls.
If we turn our view to Christendom we find similar
phenomena. There, too, are divinely inspired writings,
of which the Church,—the Church as used in this
connection, meaning assemblies of the priestly body,—
of which the Church is authoritatively declared to be
the sole witness and keeper. There, too, according to
the theory, is an order of men set apart by divine
appointment and apostolic succession to be the means
of conveying the highest blessings of religion to the
world ; in the Romanist section of the Church, indeed,
the only channels by which the divine presence can be
secured in their mysteries, or pardoning grace be
assured to the penitent; among the majority of
Protestants the same notion being held in a modified
form, the authoritative exposition of doctrine, the
declaratory power of absolution, and the communication
of the benefits of the real presence in the sacrament
being retained in the hands of priests. The Anglican
conception of the power of the priesthood well appears
in the statements addressed to them in the ordination
service, one of which from the mouth of the Bishop
is in these words, “Receive the Holy Ghost for the office
and work of a priest in the Church of God, now
committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands.
�8
Sacerdotalism.
"Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and
whose sins thou dost retain they are retained. And he
thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of
his holy sacraments.”
In view of these facts, then, I think I am fully
justified in the assertion, that wherever there is a
priesthood there also is the assumption of some special
relation to the deity, and a special authority thence
derived.
I return then to the question, has this theory been
beneficial to society or not ? I must confess that I am
not altogether prepared to say that there have not
been certain advantages connected with it. In the
early stages of savage life, when men were first
beginning to emerge from a condition little above
the brutes, there was an advantage in hedging
round the most intelligent class with supposed divine
sanctions. It is possible that this was the only
way they had of commanding any respect or enforcing
any kind of order among their savage associates,
and that therefore this supposition was then a real
necessity and an indispensable aid to human pro
gress. It is, too, I think quite possible, that many
of these early teachers and priests really believed them
selves under the especial patronage and inspiration of
some god. Contemplative and philanthropic minds
meditating in the gloom of primeval forest or the
solitude of boundless plains, while they sighed for the
sorrows of their brethren and aspired after a day of
deliverance and a happier land, may well have come
to imagine that such a land was promised, and con
ceived that the thoughts kindling within them, and
the voices ever sounding in their hearts, came from
some power above. They unconsciously peopled the
silence and the solitude with phantoms, and then mis
took them for realities. Thus the tradition of divine
inspiration and of God’s speaking with men first
arose, and thus it has descended to our times: it arose
�Sacerdotalism.
9
at first in. an. honest belief, and though afterwards often,
mixed with fraud, yet it has seldom been wholly made
up of conscious deceit,—for a thing utterly fraudulent
would not have lasted so long. In. early Egypt we
read that the priests first taught the people the arts of
life, and instructed them by a system of irrigation to
convert those rising Nile waters, which they had before
half dreaded as a peril, into a source of fertility and
blessing. They too introduced the observation of the
hea vens by which the periods of rising might be foretold.
What wonder was it that the men, who first dis
covered that the stars were thus subservient to human
uses, as they gazed into those deep skies and read their
celestial lessons, should dream that their radiant rulers
were speaking to their hearts, should long to link their
destiny to some “bright particular star,” or even dare
to “ claim a kindred with them?” And what wonder
was it when the lowly toilers on the land heard from
these star-gazers lessons of guidance and found them
come true, that they should think their teachers con
versed with deities on the solitary mountain top, or
lofty tower, and exaggerate to their fellows the sanctity
and the mystery of that knowledge which struck their
simple minds with awe.
And still again at a later period we may be pre
pared to allow that the priestly class has done good
service to mankind. When, for instance, at the period
of the decline of the Roman Empire, it seemed as if
all the fruits of civilisation, all the results of the long
travail of 1500 years were to be overwhelmed in a tide
of barbarism, and the arts, laws and accumulated
learning of the past for ever lost, the Christian church
in many places presented a barrier to the storm, and
afforded shelter to treasures whose destruction would
have been irreparable. These facts are allowed even
by a witness so unexceptionable as the historian
*
Gibbon.
Some indeed have thought that we are in* Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c, 37.
�10
Sacerdotalism.
debted to the clerical body for at least as much destruc
tion as preservation of the monuments of ancient litera
ture. Hallam in one place seems inclined to attribute the
decay of learning “ to the neglect of heathen literature
by the Christian church,” * and elsewhere alluding to
the stupidity and carelessness of ecclesiastics, in respect
of the remains of ancient learning, he says “ so gross
and supine was the ignorance of the monks within
whose walls these treasures were concealed that it was im
possible to ascertain, except by indefatigable researches,
the extent of what had been saved out of the great
shipwreck of antiquity.” f In another place, however,
he acknowledges that if we be asked, “ by what cause
it happened that a few sparks of ancient learning sur
vived throughout this long winter ” of the middle ages,
“ we can only ascribe their preservation to the esta
blishment of Christianity. Religion alone made a
bridge, as it were, across the chaos and has linked the
two periods of ancient and modern civilization. J
At any rate, then, we may at least concede that in
whatever degree the clergy in the dark ages were able
to make a stand against barbarism and rescue the monu
ments of the past from destruction, they were indebted
to the principle of which we are treating, which
recognizes an order of men in special connection with
the deity. For the barbarians in their native forests
had long been accustomed to a superstitious regard for
their own priests, and would thus be naturally inclined
to shew a degree of forbearance to those who were
protected by the insignia of religion, however ruthless
they might be towards their unconsecrated opponents.
They would apply the torch without scruple to a palace
or a fortress, while they hesitated in front of a convent
or a church. Such remnants of antiquity therefore as
chanced to be sheltered in the latter had so far a better
* Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. ii. c. ix., pt. i. p. 337.
+ lb. c. ix., p. 519.
J lb., p. 355.
�Sacerdotalism.
11
prospect of preservation than those contained in
secular walls.
So far, then, we willingly grant that some degree of
benefit has accrued to mankind from the sacerdotal
principle in early stages of human development. A or
would we deny that other advantages of a less direct
nature are traceable at the same period, which space
*
will not now allow us to particularize. We have yet to
inquire whether the same advantages are perceptible as
we descend to more civilised times.
That the notion of an order of men set apart, and
endowed with a divine authority over their fellows is
one very capable of being abused, I suppose no
unprejudiced person would deny. Considering it ac
cording to our general experience of human nature, what
should we conceive to be the probable effect and
tendency of such a notion ? I think all candid persons
will agree that without very searching and continuous
checks, one very natural effect of such a notion must be
to produce in those under its influence a high degree of
spiritual pride. As time goes on, spiritual pride, like
all other, has a natural tendency to display itself; this
can only be done by the extension and consolidation of
spiritual influence and power. In the first place then
a priestly body under the influence of this feeling would
look about for the means of gratifying it; ecclesiastics
will ordinarily be deficient in direct physical force, they
will often therefore be driven to attain their ends by a
close alliance with the monarch, the warrior caste, or
the aristocracy of a country ; mutual concessions being
made so that they may join hands for the continued
repression of the vulgar.
But further,, of all kinds of power, spiritual power is
that which is most jealous of its rights and privileges.
* V. Sharon Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. II.,
167, also Soame’s Anglo-Saxon Church, c. IV. p. 215 and else
where, and Milman’s History of Latin Christianity, Vol.
VI., p. 433 et seq., and also I. 440, and II. 96, 97.
�12
Sacerdotalism.
Its representatives, ingrained with the idea that their
dicta are derived from a divine source, and their rights
conferred by a special appointment of God, are com
pelled to be uncompromising by the very theory of their
origin. To allow that their words are questionable they
think is to be unfaithful to the oracles of God, to be
lax in maintaining their rights is to betray the divine
honour. In fact they get so accustomed at last to
identify the glory of God and their own that they
become utterly unable to distinguish them. So that to
decry the statements of priests is to be called blasphemy,
or to touch their property in not common robbery but
sacrilege.
This necessity of their position in the same way
requires them to withstand all suggestions of improve
ment, or advancements of knowledge which do not pro
ceed from themselves. They are the divinely commis
sioned teachers, they possess the heavenly oracles, out
of which they have instructed the people on the world’s
origin and their own, on their destiny, the laws which
should regulate their lives, on what is good and what
evil. If they allow their dogmas to be at best doubt
ful, or grant for a moment that from some other source,
sounder knowledge may be derived, their pride of place,
their occupation is gone : there ceases to be any reason
for their existence. “ For why,” might men say, “do
we want messengers from the gods to teach us, when
we increase in knowledge without them, when we
can even perceive that much of their pretended
knowledge is erroneous ?” The logic of their position,
therefore, irresistibly compels priestly bodies to crush
inquiry, and if possible stifle its results. In some
cases of course these results are absolutely undeniable.
Then there will arise a strong temptation to keep up
the credit of their oracles by forced interpretations or
crafty interpolations which may bring them into con
formity with science. But every fresh discovery has a
more unsettling effect, every escape of new light reason
�Sacerdotalism.
*3
ably makes them tremble for their security. But power
which thus feels itself unstable is naturally dissatisfied;
it could not be expected to remain passive under the
slow and painful process of dissolution, and smilingly
look on till the last vestige of its influence was
stolen away. It instinctively perceives that to retain
the dominion it still has undiminished it must fight
hard to extend it, that it must throw out its roots and
strive to interweave its fibres with the very ground
work of human existence. It will endeavour, there
fore, to make every relation of society so intimately
dependent on itself, that to interfere with it in the
slightest degree shall seem to conservative minds like
risking every security of social order ; it must have a
voice, and a function, and a hand everywhere, so that
no war can be undertaken without its henison, no law
passed without its sanction, no property change hands
by transference or succession without its confirmation,
no family relationship be incurred without its authority
and permission, above all, no education proceed without
its direction. And where, perchance from want of
watchfulness, customs have crept in which tend to
nullify its privileges and bring its ministers down to
the level of common men, no pains must be spared by
the wily introduction of new laws, or by the invention
of fresh legal subtleties to countervail their effect.
But as the world grows in enlightenment, perhaps all
these measures fail and the situation is daily becoming
more critical. It becomes then at last more and more
apparent to the priestly order that they must demur at
no means, however questionable or desperate, to hold
together their waning dominion. Restive princes must
be won by flattery, the vulgar dazzled by pomps or
cowed by more awful terrors; both flattery and fear
must be applied to unlock the chest of wealth, that
most unfailing source of power,—if all else fail, the
zeal of fanatics must be invoked and divisions kindled
among brethren, that the light of new-dawning and
�14
Sacerdotalism.
dangerous truths may be smothered in the fumes of
bigoted passions and civic slaughters. Divide et impera,
divide and command, is a maxim which sacerdotalism
has more than once known how to use in her exigencies;
it may become dangerous for her that her subjects
should be too united, and a little heresy has often
been serviceable to warm up the cooling zeal of the
elect.
Such, or something like this, a philosopher in a by
gone age might a priori have conjectured would be
the course to which the sacerdotal principle would be
driven by the necessity of its position as society pro
gressed. And we shall find that such a conjecture
would have been strictly verified by fact. Though,
indeed, facts reveal to us an extent of unscrupulousness
and a superfluity of craft and violence which no imagi
nation could have foreseen. Amongst a large number
I can now only refer you to a few salient examples
which will serve to verify the principles I have pointed
out. First, then, as to the tendency of priesthood to
coalesce with the kingly or aristocratic class in order to
keep under the mass of the people. Of this we have
a variety of instances. Among the Brahmins there
was a certain antagonism at an early period between the
priestly and warrior castes, but they at length found it
expedient to reconcile their differences and join hands
in support of a creed which was so well adapted to keep
the lower castes in their proper places. At a later period,
*
however, by combining with the lower, the Brahmins
seem to have crushed the leading caste and got all
power into their own hands. It is supposed by some
that in like manner the next move of sacerdotalists in
Europe will be to court and seek to ally themselves with
the democracies. I can only advise all sagacious liberals
to beware of them. Among the early Egyptians there
seems to have arisen at times a similar antagonism, but
* V. M. Muller’s History of Sanskrit Literature pp. 77-81,
also p. 207, p. 485 seq.
�Sacerdotalism.
T5
eventually with the same result, of a consolidation of
the sacerdotal power. Even among a people with so
many democratic instincts as the Romans, and who
were nominally republicans, we find that for many
generations there was a close league between the
aristocratic and sacerdotal classes. No one could be a
Pontiff or an Augur unless he were also a Patrician,
and thus the whole power of war and peace, the
sanction of laws, and the partition of land, was retained
in the ruling hands. This artful exclusion of the
Plebeians was indeed eventually abolished by the
Ogulnian law, though even then the Pontifex Maximus
must still be a Patrician: however, no sooner was the
Empire established than we find the Priestly class in
close alliance with it, the Emperor either himself
monopolising or exclusively appointing to its influential
offices. In the Christian Church the same spectacle
presents itself. Hardly has the Christian priesthood
established its influence and obtained a numerous body
of votaries in the great cities of the Empire, than we
find it in close alliance with an imperial pretender; and
henceforth its prelates “rear their mitred fronts in
courts and palaces,” and the controversies of the faith
take their place amongst the intrigues of eunuchs and
clamour of courtiers. For their after successes against
the yet widely prevalent paganism, the Christian priest
hood are still largely dependent on the same principle
of currying favour with Kings or King’s wives.
Charlemagne is induced to convert the Saxons with
fire and sword,—Clovis and his Franks rescue the
sacred fold from the incursion of the heretics,—from
another royal hand is obtained the patrimony of
St. Peter,—and others consecrate the fruits of the
earth to the service of heaven in the institution of
tithes. Truly the Church had good reason for her
adoption of the maxim, “the powers that be are
ordained of God ! ”
By what arts the clergy endeavoured to consoli
�16
Sacerdotalism.
date their power and extend its influence in every
sphere of society, the history of every country in
Europe and our own land furnishes innumerable ex
amples. We find them not seldom instigating revolts
of young princes against their fathers who had
attempted to moderate clerical pretensions, teaching
wives to plot against their husbands, laying counties
and kingdoms under interdict, excommunicating ma
gistrates on all sorts of frivolous pretences, concocting
and dissolving marriages to further priestly encroach
ments, manoeuvring the laity out of their voice in
church affairs, and often, by artful concordats, monarchs
out of their rights of investiture; they brought it
about that clerics and their dependents should be ex
empt from the jurisdiction of the lay courts, they
obtained for their own courts exclusive jurisdiction in
all causes matrimonial, and the right of interference
in all matters connected with the nuptial contract,
marriage portions, and dower; wills and testaments
were brought under their sway : in many places to the
exclusion of the lay courts they obtained jurisdiction
over a large number of crimes, under pretence of their
being spiritual causes: they even had their own prisons
for lay offenders. Moreover, by artful contracts, and
■working on the superstitious fears of the dying, they
acquired in all countries enormous accumulations of
land, which no statutes of mortmain could check. The
English Statute Book in earlier reigns is crowded with
acts intended to control clerical rapacity, but all in
vain.
Common recoveries and uses and trusts still find a
place in our law books as monuments of priestly
ingenuity. It would detain us too long to go into
further particulars under this head; but any unac
quainted with the subject I earnestly recommend to
read the seventh chapter of Hallam’s History of the
Middle Ages, and any good edition of Blackstone’s
Commentaries, under the title Mortmain.
�Sacerdotalism.
J7
We have yet to give examples of the tendency of a
priestly class to oppose itself to discovery and intel
lectual advancement. Once upon a time the now
sleepy Buddhists were reformers ; but the high priestly
party in India, then represented by the Brahmins,
eventually extirpated these innovators by force of
arms. The religious authorities of Athens will never
escape the shame of having persecuted to the death
“ Socrates,” a good man, who they thought “ subverted
the people.” Of the Jewish priesthood it would be
superfluous to speak, for “ which of the prophets had
not their fathers persecuted1?” as one of their last
victims asked them. Since their days of misfortune,
indeed, the Jews have been mostly called to endure the
persecutions of others, and they have often set a bright
example to the rest of the world. But in ancient
times the Romans seem to have been the only people
who saw the necessity of keeping the priesthood in order,
and had some notion of the principle of toleration.
We must turn again to the Christian Churches if we
would find the most striking examples of the tendency
of sacerdotal bodies to oppose themselves to all outside
light. Their greatest father, St. Augustine, who may
*
be considered almost the creator of Western theology,
denounced the belief in the Antipodes on the ground
that no such people are mentioned in scripture among
the descendants of Adam, and he was a true proto
type of most of his followers. Boniface, Archbishop
of Mentz applied to the Pope for a public censure of
the same dangerous doctrine. The stock instance often
referred to is that of Galileo, who was imprisoned for
affirming the motion of the earth. Though so often
alluded to I quite agree with a recent able lecturer in
this hall that it is a story which should never be
allowed to slip from men’s memories, for it shows in a
* De Civ. Dei., xvi. 9. V. also Lactantius (Inst. III. 24),
and. Pascal’s Satirical Allusion {Provinciates, Let. 18.)
�18
Sacerdotalism.
most striking manner the ingrained tendency of all
*
priesthoods.
Science and scientific men cannot indeed now be
dealt with in the summary method of past days, but
who that remembers the bitterness with which the
truths of geology were formerly assailed on account of
their divergence from our sacred books, who that is
acquainted with the animosity aroused by the science
of historical criticism, and recollects the persecution of
Bishop Colenso and the “ Essayists and Reviewers,”
can doubt that the old spirit is still existent ? Indeed
as long as priesthoods of any sort remain it always must
exist, since the principle of science and the principle
of sacerdotalism are mutually exclusive of each other.
I recommend whoever doubts this to read the Ency
clical Letter and the Syllabus issued by the present
Rope not very long ago. If- finally evidence be
demanded of those cruel and extreme measures to
which, as I before stated, sacerdotalism, which is de
termined to maintain its pride of place must at length
be driven, instances crowd so thickly upon the memory
that the only difficulty is in selection. Read the
accounts of the horrible massacres of De Montfort,
where Christian priests bore the cross in advance to
inspire the ruthless soldiers to their bloody work.
What memories are evoked by the day of St. Bar
tholomew ! the dungeons of the Inquisition! the gate
of Constance ! the revocation of the Edict of Nantes!
the fires of Smithfield 1 And if you say these are
Papal enormities, and nothing like them is found
outside of the Church of Rome,—turn to the history
of the Church of Geneva, and read of Michael
Servetus, an accomplished physician, and the anticipa
tor of Harvey in the theory of the circulation of the
* For details of this story see the notes to Mr. Elley
Finch’s valuable lecture, “The Inductive Philosophy,” or
Whewell’s History of the Inductive Sciences, book v., c. 3,
sec. 4.
�Sacerdotalism.
J9
blood,—witness such a man slaughtered at the hand of
the pious and Protestant Calvin! Read of the burn
ings of Puritans, of the sufferings of the ejected
nonconformists, of Bunyan’s cell at Bedford, of Cart
wright and others harried from city to city,—read the
trials and imprisonment of free-thinking merr whose
only crime was in printing books opposed to the
orthodox opinions, and you will see that Protestant
priesthoods though debarred from the trenchant blade
of their predecessors, have not been wanting in the
will though lacking the power to apply that ultima
ratio, that last unanswerable argument of sacerdotalism.
Surely the priestly principle ought to have produced
some untold unimaginable benefit to the world, in some
degree to compensate, or to make it possible for men
to condone such a long and weary catalogue of suffering
and tyranny ! I submit therefore to your judgment,
that whatever advantages this principle may have
possessed in the infancy of our race, whether as society
progresses it does not become greatly evil. Until the
citizen is developed the priest has a function, but when
men have risen to the dignity of citizens he is no
more a help but a hindrance.
I have endeavoured to show you what was naturally
to be expected from sacerdotalism, when childhood was
left behind and men began to think and question for
themselves, and adduced incontrovertible tacts which
prove that it considerably more than fulfilled such
expectations. And the experience is the same in all
parts of the world, under all forms of government, and
in all religions. It must have been so. A principle
which attributes divine authority and a control over the
conscience and over knowledge to a particular order of
men, could never have existed in a world intended to
move on, without producing collision, distress, and
convulsion. And as long as only a hundred men
remain in a nation who cherish that principle in their
breast, they will be in their measure a source of
�20
Sacerdotalism.
weakness to the body politic, a hindrance to progress,
an impediment to the free and natural growth of
citizen life. But this principle is very far at present
from being reduced to such narrow limits in this or
any country. On the contrary it plumes itself and
stalks abroad; powerful and even threatening parties
are still under its sway in this country and elsewhere.
In modern times however, its processes are so much
conducted under elaborate schemes of legislation and
forms of law, and so skilfully woven up with many of
the most essential interests of society, such as educa
tion, the care of the poor, the sick, and the criminal,
that men do not often observe its working. But that
it is no bugbear of the fancy the late course of legis
lation in almost every country on the continent must
convince the most incredulous. Within the last few
years the governments of Spain, Italy, and Switzerland
have been engaged in measures to restrain the preten
sions or guard against the renewed artifices of the
clerical order. Germany has been legislating on the
subject within the last month : in Belgium at this
present minute, clerical machinations have brought
affairs to a crisis. Read M. Lavelye’s article in the
November number of the “Fortnightly” if you wish
to see how dangerous the arts of a clergy may be to
civil liberty. Our own ministry have got a few
sacerdotal nuts to crack in Ireland, which I fear will
damage their teeth, with respect to education and the
conflict of Papal and English law,—and you may
depend upon it we have not heard the last of it in
relation to Education in England.
But I must leave further consideration of these
greater matters as to which sacerdotalism hinders
harmonious progress and obstructs the working of the
laws of the land, and proceed in conclusion to mention
one or two of the minor evils which also result
from it.
One salient form in which the sacerdotal principle
�Sacerdotalism.
21
is opposed to the welfare of modern society, is that it
breeds a class of men pledged to a foregone conclusion.
It cannot but be an evil, that as our ever-increasing
experience introduces us to fresh facts, there should be
an influentially placed class whose first question will
always be, not, what one would think must be the right
and natural one,—are these things true ? but, how do
they square with what we teach ? Will they in any way
discredit our time-honoured assertions 1 And if they are
thought to do so, will this class try and raise a prejudice,
and prevent the real merits of the case from being seen
where things cannot be absolutely denied 1 Is not this
to weight knowledge very heavily in its already suffici
ently difficult progress ? But the theory of an infallible
record in the hands of a divinely appointed order of
men necessarily drives them to such proceedings. They
suppose that their office lays them under an obligation
to maintain that what they have handed down is right;
to admit that they might have been wrong is calculated,
therefore they think, not only to breed suspicion with
out, but hesitation and defection within their own
camp. It seems to them, therefore, absolutely necessary
to present a bold front to the outside world,—as they
say, “ to magnify their office.” So we read of a clerical
dignitary in a debate on one of the petitions against
the Athanasian Creed; speaking against any concession
he said, “ the office of the Church is not to please but
to teach the people.” Who does not see lurking in these
words the old theory, that the priestly body has some
divine infallible source of information distinct and super
ior to that of study and scientific examination, which are
the only means open to ordinary men and mere worldly
students and philosophers 1 To maintain this attitude
they must do their utmost to exclude differences and
secure uniformity of teaching in their own body, and
under these circumstances the most professionally hide
bound and uncompromising naturally take the lead.
They see the necessity for increased care in the training
�22
Sacerdotalism.
of young ecclesiastics, so as to render them more imper
vious to outside impressions and zealous to carry on the
warfare against free-thought. Hence, they must be
caught young, and carefully indoctrinated, not in the open
air and under the mixed influences of great universities,
but in the close atmosphere of theological colleges, where
they can be thoroughly ingrained with the foregone conelusions they will have to maintain. Hence, the carefully
edited class-books, where everything disagreeing with
their own view is stigmatised as a heresy, and each point
is carefully classified, and supplied with a pat answer,
with the exactitude of a theological Bradshaw. Hence,
the dusty shelves groaning under ponderous tomes of
sham and exploded learning, to encourage the neophytes
to believe that if they cannot find an answer to all objec
tions within the limits of their own knowledge, that
somewhere, at least, in those endless folios, there is the
wherewithal to confound all adversaries. Under these
influences a tribe of young sacerdotalists is created well
drilled to answer the ecclesiastical rally, and to supply
the deficiencies of an older, more dispassionate, and as
they consider secular-minded class of clergy. Here will
always be found a serviceable body apt in all the arts
of ecclesiastical warfare, well skilled to amuse “ women
with saintly trifles,” and work on the superstitious fears
of the weak-minded, —active to go from house to house
and muster their allies in drawing-room and cottage, to
persuade them that in fulfilling their behests they are
doing God service, wary to teach them the ready watch
words, and breathe beforehand suspicions against new
truths; here too, may be found the men who have a keen
scent for the first savour of liberalism in a too candid
comrade, who can convey clerical delation with a shrug
and indicate heterodoxy with an ogle, who crowd clerical
meetings in close and steady order, and howl down in
concert every protest and remonstrance of their more
sensible and moderate brethren.
A further evil of which this sacerdotal principle is
�Sacerdotalism.
23
fruitful in society, is that it creates in many minds a
tendency to fanciful distinctions which have little
relation to truth and reality. Thus there is the Church
and the world, the one sanctified and sacred, the other
common and unclean ; literature, which connects itself
in any way with scripture, though perhaps utterly
foolish and" frivolous if not harmful, is religious and
sacred, other writings, however noble in spirit, if not
so connected, are profane ; this amusement is allowable,
that is wicked,—you may go to a concert, but not to a
theatre, to a tea-party, but not to a ball; the same
music is at one time secular, at another sacred; some
days are holy, others are common; this ground is
hallowed, that is only ordinary earth, as God made it.
Thus men become hampered and bound up with a
crowd of empty distinctions and sham sanctities bring
ing forth a crop of imaginary and artificial sins which
enervate weak consciences, and give scope for the sour
and censorious.
You yourselves are competent witnesses to this last
fact; for who could have instigated the recent attempt
to shut you out from this hall, but some one under the
influence of the melancholy delusion, that what was
innocent and improving recreation on common days was
sinful on Sunday evenings 1
The same thing produces in some circles of society
an exaggeration of trifles, a misperception of the true
proportion of things, and not seldom an absolute anility
of mind. Thus, with some, every little matter connected
with the Church, whether colour, shape, place, or
dress, is considered an essential of devotion, and an
object of clerical emulation and energy. With others,
every trumpery incident is magnified into a critical
moment for religion, the world with them is everlast
ingly coming to an end, the gas-strike and Hyde Park
spouters are “signs of the latter days,” and parsons donn
ing red petticoats are a fulfilment of prophecy. If some
stone is dug up in Palestine or Mesopotamia with a
�24
Sacerdotalism.
Bible name on it, immediately it must be dragged into
the ranks as a witness for scripture; forthwith there is
a muster of the initiated, and a premonitory rustle
round serious tea-tables, and soon arises over it such a
clatter of tongues that one would think the very
ark of the faith bad been rescued from the Philistines.
But a more serious matter than these lively divertisements is that social bitterness and exclusiveness of
which the sacerdotal principle is so often the root.
There are circles in what is called the religious world,
where almost every offence against society is excusable
except one. A man may be a bad father, or a profligate
and worthless son, he may be a heartless seducer, an
unprincipled rascal, a getter up of bubble companies, a
scientific swindler,—all these things may be forgiven
him, but if he be an infidel the door of hope is shut;—this is the one unpardonable crime that no good
qualities can compensate; though he is the soul of
benevolence and the model of every virtue, unselfish,
brave, learned, courteous and manly,—put him at the
very best he is but a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a limb
of Satan in the garb of an angel of light. There are
some even who carry their dread of contamination and
their desire to demonstrate their own clearness from all
lax principles to almost ludicrous extremes. In that
house so spotless in its stucco and whose whole aspect
is radiant with respectable orthodoxy, nothing that
defileth shall ever enter in : no pudding-headed foot
boy or buxom house-maid shall ever be there engaged,
unless put through their doctrinal paces and catechised
on the articles of their belief,—their shoes shall not be
mended by a free-thinking cobbler, and they suspect the
produce of a heterodox butterman,—the scullion must
be a strict communicant and value the privileges of a
serious family, where the very horses have learnt to
look down their noses, and no dog upon the premises
dare wag his solemn tail upon a Sunday.
' Before I close may I be allowed to impress upon you
�Sacerdotalism.
25
one caution. From what I have said of the evils great
and small arising from sacerdotalism, it must not be
supposed that I intend anything like an attack upon
the clerical classes whether of the Established Church
or any other body. This caution is necessary, because
some persons seem to find it difficult to distinguish
between a principle and those who may happen to be
connected with it.
To me it appears perfectly
legitimate to remark upon the evil of a system, and to
illustrate it by allusion to certain prominent types past
or present, without being considered to assail classes or
individuals.
For some of the worst features of
sacerdotalism, such as its exclusiveness, its spiritual
assumption, its dishonesty in dealing with evidence and
others, may distinguish laity as well as clergy. But
whatever the evil may be, no body of men living at the
present time is responsible for it: in its first origin it
was a natural growth and however much in the course
of history it has been aggravated by violence and fraud,
it has descended to us as part of our national heritage
and education, and we have been born under its influ
ence. In old countries things which have thus grown
with their growth can only be got rid of by patience
and mutual forbearance : by degrees we may hope that
light will permeate the darkest quarters, but the pro
gress of illumination will only be retarded by personal
bitterness. And in this country we have all the greater
reason for patience in these matters, inasmuch as our
clergy as a body have certainly been less under the
influence of sacerdotalism than any other,—many of
them indeed have offered a steady resistance to its
advance, and have been its most resolute and efficient
opponents. And at the darkest period in nearly every
Church, there have been men who were better than the
spirit of their own age, and who would have been
ornaments to any. At the same period that ecclesias
tical fanatics were urging on the cruel revocation of
Nantes, the saintly Fenelon had been advocating
�26
Sacerdotalism.
toleration, for which indeed not long after he became
himself a sufferer. The immortal Pascal and the two
devoted Arnaulds, Henri and Angelique, had adorned
the same Church not long before.
So, too, at the present, amongst ourselves, there are
among the clergy of all denominations men of large and
liberal minds, and notwithstanding occasional outbursts
of professional zeal or exalted notions in this or that
direction, a large body throughout the country whose
virtuous and benevolent lives every man of right feeling
must respect. We do not therefore revile men but
principles and systems; and even those most under
subjection to the system we are glad to acknowledge
have many claims on our regard, and are inclined to
consider it not so much their fault as their misfortune.
But when we behold amiable and in many cases acute
minds under the sway of principles which we con
scientiously consider, and which history proves to be,
utterly deleterious, may we not be allowed to regard
a system with all the more indignation and dislike,
which thus warps God’s fairest gifts, which turns those
who might have been the benefactors and teachers of
mankind into narrow religious recluses, and poisons
hearts of natural gentleness and benevolence with
theological hatred and the gall of the persecutor.
Bor myself, at any rate, I cannot but confess that I
consider this sacerdotal principle,—which is at the root
of much that is called religion and which may infect
laymen as well as clerics, which in its essence is the
assumption of special divine favour and prerogatives, a
usurpation over men’s consciences, and a blasphemy
against those powers of reason and that light of science
with which God has blessed our race,-—I consider this
sacerdotal principle the very direst evil and the bitterest
curse of civilised society. Through the false distinc
tions it creates, and the assumptions to which it gives rise
it often embitters all social life, it destroys the peace of
families, it makes foes in a man’s own household, set-
�Sacerdotalism.
ting the father against the son, the child against the
parents, the wife against the husband,—it is the very
bane and spoiler of all good fellowship, all openheartedness and kindly feeling.
And if as the old story tells us, there is an evil one,
an inveterate foe to man who roams about seeking
whom he may devour, entering human souls and dwell
ing there, and when he enters “ keeping his house ”
with such tenacity, that none can dislodge him, surely
it is that foul fiend, that accursed spirit of sacerdotal
pride and priestly assumption which sits in the living
temple of God, if not quite daring to proclaim that he
is God, yet inspiring his infatuated victims to declare,
“ the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are ”
we !
If there is anything that would justify the denuncia
tion of the French satirist, it is assuredly this atrocious
principle, not this particular religion nor that religion,
but that evil spirit which has too much prevailed in all,
that monstrous assumption which has raised its head
wherever priesthoods have been found. When I per
ceive in every place the difficulty, disorganization and
hindrance it is still creating, and when I remember the
long tragedy of the past, the terrible sum of misery,—
the tortured bodies, the broken hearts, the ruined
intellects,—for which it is responsible, the exclamation
almost rises involuntarily to the lips, crush the infamous,
“ ecrasez l’infame ! ”
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Sacerdotalism: an address delivered to the members and friends of the National Sunday League at St. George's Hall, Sunday, December 8, 1872
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Wild, George J. (George John)
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Place of publication: London
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Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references. Sacerdotalism is the belief that priests are essential mediators between God and man.
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Thomas Scott
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Clergy
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Conway Tracts
Priesthood
Sacerdotalism
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THE PHILOSOPHY OF “GETTING RELIGION.”
TTIRST in order, let us ascertain what is meant by the phrase, “getting religion.” All will concede that.it is not a Scriptural phrase,
but the term religion is. Etymologically, the word religion means, to re
bind, to bind again. If the term be applied to persons, this meaning
suggests several ideas : i. A person to be bound again ; 2. A person
to whom he shall be bound again; 3. That the person to be bound has
been loosed; 4. A bond. If we consider this word historically and
theologically, all these thoughts find in it an authorized symbol.
Under this view of the term, to say that a man “gets religion,” con
veys no definite conception. If then, we would arrive at the current
meaning of the phrase, we must consult the usus loquendi—the usual
mode of speaking, past or present. Inasmuch as words and phrases
are the signs of ideas, and! because neither this phrase nor its
synonym was used in apostolic times, we have evidence, prima facie,
that the idea.3is of post-apostolic origin. Hence, on theological
grounds, our jealousy of it may be justified.
The usus loquendi, then and now, assigns to the word religion a
meaning which Webster thus expresses: “ Theology, as a system of
doctrines or principles, as well as practical piety; a system of faith
and worship.” The proper reception of the Christian doctrine, as a
rule of life, binds a man to God in covenant relationship. The term,
therefore, ordinarily relates to the system which a man receives under
the idea of a bond. This is one of the thoughts growing out of the
etymology of the term. But usage has made this the paramount idea.
Can it be, then, that to “get religion” is to possess one’s self with
the Christian system of truth? Surely not. Then there must be
some idea involved by the term, as phrased, different both from its
etymological and ordinary sense.
It is certain that this phrase is eminently peculiar to the litera
ture of a special class of religionists; particularly those who adopt
�2
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
the “anxious-seat” as an instrumentality to facilitate conversion.
They evidently mean, by the phrase, a subjective or psychological
experience—a sudden revulsion of the emotions from a more or less
profound depression, through conviction of sin and fear of its conse
quences, to a high state of exultation and joy, on account of pardon.
It must not be supposed that a psychological experience is peculiar
to this class, although some, under the influence of this system, have
denounced others as “ head religionists;” for we must believe that
every one who becomes reconciled to God has an experience pecu
liarly his own. But from the fact that, under this system, this ex
perience is sought for by peculiar methods as the direct gift of the
Holy Spirit, and as having a priceless value as the evidence of par
don, it becomes the paramount object of the sinner’s seeking. And
as this revulsion, by a singular use of the word, is called religion,
naturally enough the obtainment of it is called “getting religion.”
With others, the objective point is not “getting religion,” but getting
themselves into' harmony with religion, or the Christian system,
knowing that if they can effect this, their emotions will take care of
themselves. Hence, they do not need to coin a new phrase to ex
press a new religious idea, but simply to use the Scriptural term,
reconciliation.
INFLUENCE OF THEORIES.
Every theory determines its own methods and inspires its own
literature. The literature of the theory now referred to, is character
ized by such expressions as “ experimental religion,” “ seed of grace,”
“grace of God in the heart,” “grace of faith,” “getting the power,”
“ getting through,” “ soundly converted,” “ hopefully converted,” “ I
feel to thank God,” “ I feel to do right,” “ I know that I am a child
of God, because I feel it.” The emotions are first, last, and all the
time. They become the standard of truth, as well as duty. And if,
under the law of affinities, the most abundant harvests of converts are
not gathered from the emotional classes, there would be occasion to
revise all our systems of mental philosophy.
Nor is it surprising that there should be a perplexing confusion
of Scriptural terms, in order to adjust them to a system whose central
thought places its advocates under the necessity of coining so many
unscriptural words and phrases, in order to furnish it a lingual habi
tation and a name. The terms conversion, regeneration, change of
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion:
3
heart, born again, are modified by the phrase “getting religion,” or
made its synonyms ; generally, the latter.
Were it not for the logical and theological connections of the idea
of “ getting religion,” we might tolerate it as a comparatively inoffen
sive affair. But just here we hesitate. It is affirmed that it is the
immediate—without means—direct work of the Holy Spirit; that
saving faith is an inspiration by the Holy Spirit, as the writer re
cently heard in a discourse by a prominent minister.
The necessity for this position is laid in a theory of the fall of
man—in .the doctrine of total native depravity, as the hereditament
from Adam of every human being; that this corruption of man’s na
ture is such, that “he can not turn and prepare himself, by his own
natural strength, to faith and calling upon God, . . . without the
grace of God, by Christ, preventing [anticipating] us, that we may
have a good will ” (see M. E. Discipline, Arts, vii, viii) ; that man
can not exercisesaving faith when he hears the Gospel, because of
natural inability inherited; that the Holy Spirit must directly im
part the power.
Hence, a distinguished writer in the Methodist
Quarterly, of A. D. 1869, page 266, says, “The method of Meth
odism is inspiration, in distinction from
The'larger Catechism (questions and answers 25, 26, 27, and 67,)
avows the same doctrine of original sin, with the necessity for Spirit
impact, in order to predetermine man’s will to the exercise of saving
faith. In accordance with which, Dr. Rice, in Debate with Alexander
Campbell, page 672, says: “ Every thing has its nature. The lion,
however young, has its nature. . # . Plant two trees in the same
soil, and let them be watered by the same stream, and one will
produce sweet fruit and the other bitter. They possess different na
tures.” From these comparisons, we learn that man’s nature since
the fall differs from his nature before the fall, as a lion’s from a lamb’s
nature, or as the nature of a peach-tree from that of a crab-apple
tree. But man’s nature before the fall was created by God, and was
a human nature. He fails to tell who created his second nature, and
of what kind it is. Its creator must have been God, man, or the
devil. If God, then every creature of God is not good. If the devil,
then one thing was made without the Word. If man, then why can
he not new-create himself? That Dr. Rice understands his stand
ards to teach that God’s original creative power is exerted in regen
eration, is clear from page 635 : “Now, if God could originally create
�4
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion?
man holy without words and arguments, who shall presume to assert
that he can not. create him anew, and restore his lost image ?” This
he said, in order to show the possibility of infant moral regeneration,
which, but for the logical demands of a theory, no one need attempt
to prove, since the Savior has said, “ Of such is the kingdom of
heaven.” When Mr. Campbell charged that Dr. Rice’s theory made
every conversion a miracle, he was met by an emphatic denial. But
the logic of a system will sometimes crop out through advocates who
are not constrained by controversial considerations. Hence, in his
■ Early Years of Christianity,” page 24, Dr. E. Pressense declares
that the Church, “born of a miracle,' by a miracle lives. Founded
upon the great miracle of redemption, it grows and is perpetuated by
the ever-repeated miracle of conversion.”
We would not be understood as disparaging the terms conversion,
regeneration, born again, change of heart, being healed, new creation,
in their Scriptural usage; nor the eminently Scriptural idea that the
Holy Spirit is the efficient agent in regeneration; but we do most
courageously object to any theory which requires such a set of
exegetical laws as makes these beautiful figures mutually destructive,
and arrays them all against every man’s consciousness and the analogy
of faith. For example, if the sinner is dead, in the strained sense
put upon this figure, how can he, under another figure, be diseased
and capable of cure ? If he must be created anew, according to and
in the manner this theory demands, how can he be born again ?,
RATIONAL VIEW.
That a revulsion of the emotions, called “getting religion,” does
occur, as is claimed, the writer sincerely believes. It is not a ques
tion of fact, but of the explanation of the fact. Those who question
the fact, speak unwisely; for this would be to assume that many of
the most estimable men are guilty of hypocrisy and downright false
hood—the only effect of which would be to shut the ear against
reason, to turn the edge of argument before whetting, to clothe the
claimants with a coat of mail more impenetrable than Greek or Ro
man warrior ever wore. If this revulsion is the effect of an imme
diate impact of the Holy Spirit, then we must concede all its logical
and theological antecedents and consequents. If it can be accounted
for without transcending the bounds of natural causes and natural
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
5
laws, then the opponent must cease to demand for the fact a solely
supernatural explanation, or stand self-convicted of fanaticism.
Let no one deny our right to deal with this subject philosophic
ally ; for Rev. C. G. Finney, late President of Oberlin College, has
defended it upon philosophic grounds. He, more than any other
man, perhaps, was instrumental in promoting the great revivals which
swept the country forty years ago. His staid, quondam Presbyterian
brethren objected to certain “ new measures ” used by him to promote
revivals; one of which was the anxious-seat. In his “ Revival Lec
tures,” page 253, he replies: “Of late, this measure has met with
more opposition than any of the others. What is the great objec
tion ? I can not see it. The design of the anxious-seat is undoubt
edly philosophical, and according to the laws of mind'.'
Singular how extremes meet. Mr. Finney swung off to an oppo
site extreme from the prevailing theories of conversion, and adopted
the anxious-seat as a measure to facilitate conversion, because its
design is philosophical, and in accordance with the laws of mind, while
others held on to the old theories, and adopted it for the same
purpose, disclaiming its design. Whgr^ consistency lies, the reader
must pronounce. Chide us not, then,, nor complain, if we at
tempt to ascertain these laws of mind, or the philosophy of “getting
religion.”
Let us look in upon a revival scene, The . sermon culminates in
an impassioned, rhetorical descpption of the sinfulness of sin, the
terrors of judgment. The peroration flames and fumes with fire and
brimstone. As the writer once heard, “ Hell is uncapped, and the
wails of the damned salute the sinnerjs earhe “ is hair-hung and
breeze-shaken over the gulf of damnation.” The imaginative, no less
than the moral, emotions are wrought up to a fearful pitch. The cry
is heard, “What must we do ?”“ Come to the anxious-seat, and the
Lord’s people will pray for you. and. the Lord will speak peace to
your souls.” They come. Preacher and people wait on them to in
struct, admonish, exhort, or entreat,jMpeach case may require, or as
the psychological condition of each may. seem to demand. “ How do
you feel ?” If the sense of guilt does not seem deep enough, the
effort is to “ break him down, so that he can neither stand nor go
or, in other words, to depress the emotions to the lowest possible
point. This done, the effort begins to “ get him through,” or to se
cure a rebound of the emotions. For this purpose, the power of
�6
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
payer and song and encouraging exhortation is called into requisiton- The penitent is addressed thus : “ Do you not believe that God
is able to save you ?” “ Is he not willing ?” “ Heaven, with all its
glories, is yours, if you will only surrender your heart to the Lord.”
“ If you will only give up all your sins; if you will only believe,
the Lord will receive you, and give you the evidence of accept
ance.” “ Ask, and you shall receive.” “ Seek, and you shall find.”
He repents, and prays, and weeps, and mourns. He asks, but
does not receive. A flash comes over him ; but it is a flash of
withering skepticism. “ Surely,” he thinks, “ if what I am told is
true, I would obtain the blessing so long and earnestly sought for.”
Some one by his side, who came long since he did, rises with a glow
ing halleluiah upon his lips. This only perplexes him the more. He,
after along struggle, is still unblessed, while the joyful convert by his
side has received the blessing after a very short struggle. The thought
steals upon his mind, “ Surely, God must be a respecter of persons ;
but if he is, the Bible is false, for it says the contrary.” Discour
aged, disheartened, and perplexed beyond measure, he sinks into
a skeptical stolidity. His friends note it. They come about him with
increased solicitude and intensified prayerfulness. One says to him:
“ This is a device of Satan to ruin you, when you were just escaping
from his power;” “Don’t give way to your doubts.” “I was just
so, says another ; “ I had a long struggle and a hard one to get relig
ion, but I finally succeeded, and I was so happy.” “ Pray on, brother ;
we will pray for you, that you may yet prevail.” “ If you will only
believe, God will speak peace to your soul.” “ Pray to the Lord to
give you faith ; to give you the victory over Satan.” His doubts
overcome, at least quieted, by the confidence he has in those who re
late their experiences, and encouraged by their earnest exhortations,
he plunges again into the struggle. Special attention is now given
him, as a brand that must be plucked from the burning. He and
others are animated for the struggle with the idea that it is a hand-tohand conflict with Satan, who is striving, with more than usual per
sistency, to keep this soul under his dominion. Victory over an
opposing foe is always sweet. Prayers go up, earnest, sincere, tearful,
agonizing prayers. Songs are inspired with the hope of impending
victory. Heaven is addressed: “Lord, send down the power.” “Come
down, and convert this poor sinner.” “ Drive back Satan to his own
native hell, and give this soul release.” “ Lord, baptize him with the
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
7
Holy Spirit and fire.” “ Lord, pour light into this darkened soul.”
Meantime, the penitent is exhorted: “Now give up all to Christ.”
“Hold back nothing.” “Turn away from all your sins.” “Ask,
and you shall receive.” “Now, don’t you believe?” “Just believe
that you have the blessing, and you have it.” “Just believe that
God has pardoned you, and you are pardoned.” “Just rise up, and
shout glory to God, and it will be all right; you will feel happy.”
“ Open your mouth, and the Lord will put a new song into it.”
Then the altar resounds with the chorus:
“O believe him, O believe him,
O believe him, just now.
He will save you, he will save you,
He will save you, just now !”
A heavenly smile begins to chase away the sadness which has hung
like a pall over the penitent’s countenance. Before he has had time
to express a word, a score of happy voices lift the choral halleluiah,
in which he joins with his shouts of joy. “His was a mighty work
of grace.” “The Lord was merciful.” His conversion becomes the
theme of sermon and song, to incite others to seek religion.
How fortunate for the poor penitent, when he was on the verge
of infidelity, that his reasoning process was cut short and his judg
ment overborne by the solicitude of friends! Otherwise he might
have deepened skepticism into confirmed infidelity, with the contra
dictions and inconsistencies of the system. The preacher had told
him that the unregenerate can not exercise saving faith, without the
enabling power of the Holy Spirit; yet all the while he was exhorted
to believe—to believe just now. What ? That Jesus is the Son of
God ? No. He believed that already. Believe that he was a sinner ?
No. What then? Why, “just believe that you are pardoned, and
you are pardoned.” Or, otherwise, a man must believe in order to
be pardoned; still he can not, being unregenerate. Then, he is par
doned if he believes so. Then, of course, believing that he is par
doned, he will be happy, has the desired revulsion of the emotions,
or has “gotten religion.” Then, his feelings become the evidence of
pardon ; or he believes he is pardoned before he has the evidence, in
order to obtain the evidence. But did he believe without evidence
entirely ? Surely not; for that is impossible. His faith must have
rested upon the testimony of his advisers, or it was nothing but
imagination, or both combined. Of the power of the imagination,
�8
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
hear what Professor Haven, of Amherst, says in his “ Mental Philos
ophy,” page 153. This is a standard text-book in many of our insti
tutions of learning:
“ Errors of Imagination.—Undoubtedly there are errors, mistakes, prejudices,
illusions of the imagination ; mistakes in judgment, in reasoning, in the affairs of
practical life, the source of which is to be found in some undue influence, some
wrong use of the imagination. We mistake its conceptions for realities. We
dwell upon its pleasing visions till we forget the sober face of truth. We fancy
pleasures, benefits, results, which will never be realized, or we look upon the dark
and dreary side of things, till all nature wears the somber hue of our disordered
fancy.”
It would seem that Professor Haven must have had his eye upon
the anxious-seat when he penned this paragraph.
While presenting the foregoing description of anxious-seat
conversion, the thought occurred to the writer that he might be
charged with an attempted caricature; for, he is free to confess that,
if he had not carefully noted the facts, it would be difficult to regard
it as a representation of sober reality. But those who have frequented
such scenes, will confess that he might have colored the picture even
more highly, without violence to truth. He is not conscious of “ hav
ing set down aught in malice.”
With this procedure before us, we propose to deduce those mental
and emotional laws which should be recognized in this process of
“getting religion,” and under the operation of which it is believed
the fact may be rationally explained. In order to appreciate this
psychological experience in its varied manifestations, it must be pre
mised that the intensity of emotional activity depends largely upon the
strength and development of the moral sense and the imagination;
that the intensity of emotional activity, caused under the influence
of the imagination, is ordinarily greater than that produced under the
influence of the moral sense. But if both the imagination and the
moral sense are involved, as is generally, if not always, the case in
religious excitements, we may expect an intensity of emotional ac
tivity correspondent to the united strength and development of both
these faculties, only modified by the degree of precision and force
with which the objects producing the excitement are presented to the
mind, and also the nature of the objects; for, if the objects be such
as are not trivial, but directly connected with our highest interests
for time and eternity, they would naturally command our most ear
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
9
nest solicitude. Hence, we would most confidently expect, what is a
notorious fact, that the results of revivals, conducted according to the
anxious-seat method, should depend largely upon the rhetorical and
emotional power of the minister. If he be a man of warm, impulsive
nature, with a vivid imagination and good pulpit address, so that he
can clothe his transcendently important themes with the chameleon
changes of the sublime and the sorrowful, the terrific and the beau
tiful, the awful, grand, or pitiful; if he can touch, every note in the
diapason of human feeling, with the exquisiteness and the dash of a
well-skilled orchestra,—then we may readily believe that great results
will be achieved. Hence, in our time, an evangelist is regarded as
little else than an expert revivalist. Let no one think, because the
writer speaks thus, that he is opposed to revivals. Far from it. If
procured and conducted in accordance with the Word of God, they
are great instrumentalities for good. But it is the abuse of them, by
pressing them into the service of a human system, that has well-nigh
turned the world against them.
MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL LAWS.
I. We most readily imagine or believe that which is in accordance
with our desires.
II. The facility of faith is variable in different persons, on account
of constitutional peculiarities, and in the same person at different
times, on account of associations, personal habits, or other causes.
III. Confidence in the veracious character of witnesses predisposes
the mind to faith in their testimony.
IV. Imagination and faith exercise a controlling power over the
emotions. We feel as we imagine or believe.
V. The imagination or belief of a falsehood affects the emotions
in precisely the same manner and to the same degree as the truth
upon any given subject, provided the falsehood appears to be truth.
VI. If the emotions be borne out of their normal condition to any
extreme of intense activity, nature demands a revulsion, or a gradual
subsidence, at the peril of insanity.
VII. Generally, if the emotions be intensely excited under the
influence of the imagination or moral sense, or both combined,
bodily agitations will appear, particularly in persons of a nervous
temperament.
VIII. Generally, emotional excitement is contagious.
�1°
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
These laws of mental and emotional activity are not submitted
as applicable only to religious revivals, but to mental and emotional
activity under all circumstances. Without undertaking to prove or
illustrate them, which would be a pleasant pastime, if space allowed,
the writer appeals to the consciousness of every reader for their jus
tification, confident, also, that the observation of every man will afford
an abundance of facts from every-day life to fully illustrate them.
APPLICATION OF THE ABOVE LAWS.
Let us recur to the penitent whom we left, a little while since,
filled with the new-born joy of “getting religion,” that we may trace
his psychological experience, to ascertain whether or not it was gov
erned and explainable by these laws.
Why were his emotions so depressed, even to the very verge of
an anguishing despair, till he could say, “ The pains of hell get hold
on me?” Was it because of an immediate impact of the Holy Spirit
upon his spirit? Or, was it because he believed himself to be a sin
ner, exposed to the wrath of God ? Because he saw, through faith in
the Word of God, a hell yawning to receive him, and his imagination
pictured the woefulness of its torments to his mind. Because he had
begun to realize that he deserved it all, for sinning so long against a
Holy God, whose matchless love, in the death of Christ, he had so
long despised. Because, too, not only his own faith and imagina
tion had shown him these things, but the faith and imagination of
preacher and people had assisted his own vision. His faith and
imagination being intensely active, his emotions were agonizingly
depressed. (See Law IV.)
But, says the objector, if the Spirit of God had not been striving
with him, he would not have felt this deep conviction. Grant it. But
did the Spirit strive, by direct impact, or through intervening instru
mentalities, in accordance with the laws of our mental and moral con
stitution ? This is the point. If in the former manner, then his
conviction had no moral character, for he must have been without
will in the matter. If in the latter manner, then his own agency was
involved; and conversion is not a miracle, but to be effected in a
rational way, although none the less by a supernatural, efficient cause.
Why did the penitent’s feelings rebound so suddenly? and why
did they not rebound sooner? For, perhaps, he had been “seeking
religion” for weeks—may be months. In favor of this revulsion several
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!1
11
principles conspired: I. He earnestly desired and sought for the par
don of his sins. (See Law I.) 2. He had confidence in his religious
advisers, who testified that God would pardon him, and gave their
own experience in proof. (See Law III.) 3. Nature demands a re
bound of the emotions when borne away to a given extreme. (See
Law VI.) 4. Many around him were happy, having recently “gotten
religionothers were happy in the demonstrative joy of the new
converts, and in the faith of their own salvation. (See Law VIII.)
Why, then, should he not find the object of his seeking sooner ? His
faith and imagination combined to depress his emotions; why did
they not, under these seemingly favorable circumstances, combine to
exalt them to the acme of peace and joy? Here is the puzzle, if con
version, or “getting religion,” is an effect of the direct, immediate
operation of the Holy Spirit. Does not the Holy Spirit aim at and de
sire every sinner’s conversion ? Had not many already been converted,
who came to the anxious-seat long since this penitent came ? Why,
then, is he not converted sooner ? Perhaps this explanation may avail
us: The Word of God testifies plainly against sin, showing us also its
sinfulness and its punishment; also, of the love of God, and the death
of Jesus for the sinner. The Holy Spirit had laid a broad foundation
for the penitent’s faith in regard to his lost condition without Christ.
That same Word had deigned to assist his imagination by such rep
resentations of the fearful consequences of sin as were calculated to
give activity to his imagination. We can readily understand how he
was “pricked to the heart;” how he was prostrated under a sense of
guilt and fearful apprehension. But in vain does the poor man search
the Word of God for a promise of pardon connected with the anxiousseat. In vain does he search the Divine record for an example of
conversion according to this method. The broad foundation where
he rested his faith for conviction, is now wanting. He is dependent
upon the testimony of men, that God will forgive his sins in this
way. The fact that, in giving his experience, he may rest his faith
upon some promise contained in the Scriptures, does not change the
fact that the testimony of men is the real basis of his faith; for, if
there is no promise of God connected with the anxious-seat, or if
this method of conversion is unscriptural, then, of course, all promises
construed with it are misapplied, and therefore cease to be the testi
mony of God, and become simply the testimony of men,—just as the
Scripture quoted by Satan, when tempting the Savior, ceased to be
�12
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
the Word of God, and, as then applied, became simply a positive
falsehood. Perhaps the convert was like Thomas, constitutionally
incredulous; not inclined to believe, ordinarily, without palpable evi
dence. Perhaps he may have become slow to believe the testimony
of men, because his confidence had been violently shattered or weak
ened by human treachery and deception. Perhaps his own personal
habits may have replaced a confiding disposition. (See Law II.) If
any or all these things were true of him, it is easily explained why
he did not “ get religion ” sooner. Still, the very fact that he “ got
religion” at all, indicates a preponderance of the favorable influences
over the adverse. Now, the revulsion being at last secured, perhaps
under a tremendous pressure of the imagination, combined with
what strength of faith he was able to command, may be carried up to
the most intense emotional excitement, producing bodily agitations
of the most astonishing violence; or, the physical powers sometimes
whelmed with the emotional flood, the man sinks into a semi-con
scious state, when he is said to be in a trance. (See Law VII.)
Then the mind is given up to the most delightful visions. This used
^to be regarded as evidence of an unusual display of the power of the
Holy Spirit.
Seeing that similar revolutions of the feelings, as well as bodily
agitations, sometimes take place where no one contends that the
Holy Spirit has any thing to do with them, suppose it should turn
out that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with many of these sup
posed “ sound conversions that there is a clear non causa pro causa
committed,—then they would simply fall under and be explained by
Law V. The belief or imagination of a falsehood upon any given
subject will produce precisely the same emotional effect as the truth
upon that subject, if the falsehood be accepted as truth. When Jacob
saw the blood-stained coat of his son Joseph, he accepted it as evi
dence of his death. Doubtless his imagination painted fearful and
heart-rending pictures of his son’s fatal struggle with the wild beasts.
He believed a lie. Joseph was not dead. But would his sorrow have
been more pungent and agonizing if Joseph had actually been dead?
Then, what a revulsion in his emotions when he afterward believed
him to be alive, and next to the throne of Egypt! What a culmina
tion of his joy, when the aged patriarch fell upon Joseph’s neck and
kissed him, amid the splendors of his royal estate!
The pious Catholic goes to confessional with a heavy heart; con
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
:3
fessing his sins, he receives the declaration of absolution from the
priest, and departs a happy man. The pagan, too, distressed and
agonized by a sense of guilt, offers his atoning sacrifice, and then re
joices with a joy unspeakable. Men under delusion may believe a lie,
be happy, and yet be lost.
RESULTS OF THE SYSTEM.
The worst is not yet. According to Law VI, nature demands a
subsidence of excessive emotional excitement, whether the emotion
be pleasant or painful. The new convert naturally measures the evi
dence of his pardon by the nature and volume of his feelings. As
the volume of joy diminishes and temptations crowd upon him, he
begins to sing, in a doleful tone:
“ ’Tis a point I long to know—
Oft it causes anxious thought:
Do I love the Lord or no ?
Am I his, or am I not?”
'-
Sentiments about as unscriptural as the system which inspired them.
What wonder that these doubts have ended so often in an incor
rigible apostasy? The Methodist, one of the ablest papers of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, declares that eighty out of every hun
dred of their converts fall away. So unstable were they, that an
other human expedient must be devised, not only unscriptural, but
anti-scriptural and ruinous,—take them on six months' trial. Every
theory works out through its appropriate forms.
Another class are made infidels because they can not “get religion.”
Failing to distinguish between religion and its abuse, they, like Gib
bon, condemn it as a whole, because of their disgust with the abuse.
Another class are made hypocrites. Under the pressure of a
public commitment, by going to the anxious-seat, they feign. what
they do not feel, or studiously conceal what, if revealed, would forfeit
the good opinion of others. It is not averred, here, that there are
more hypocrites among those who believe in the anxious-seat than
among others, but that with a certain class there is a direct tendency
in the system to produce hypocrisy; while, under the simple Gospel,
if men are hypocrites, they must be so despite the system.
There is still another ipore pitiable class—those who, having been
long under conviction and fruitless agony, failing to find relief, and
concluding that they have committed the unpardonable sin, under
♦
�I
14
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
the operation of Law VI, become hopelessly insane. Asylum records
will abundantly corroborate this statement:
Another fearful result is a wide-spread indifference to all religion.
Apostasy is the rule ; or those who remain steadfast are only as one
to five, according to the New York Methodist. The last state of the
apostate is, uniformly, worse than the first. It is always more diffi
cult to stir his religious consciousness. What, then, must be the
effect upon the eighty out of every hundred converts—to say nothing
of the indurating influence of so much apostasy upon the public
mind—but indifference to all religion ? Of course, apostasy may and
does occur under any system; but it is one thing to facilitate it by a
system, and quite another thing to have it occur against a system.
A CORRUPTION OF THE GOSPEL.
President Finney admits it. On page 254, after contending that
it is necessary to have a test for the sinner’s faith, he further says:
“The Church has always felt it necessary to have something of the kind to
answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this pur
pose. The Gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were will
ing to be on the side of the Lord, were called on to be baptized. It held the
precise place that the anxious-seat does now, as a public manifestation of their
determination to be Christians.”
Baptism is confessedly a Divine command. Who authorized its
substitution, for any purpose, with the anxious-seat ? That is a small
matter, however, if it is only a “ mere form',' or if only “ something of
the kind" of the anxious-seat. In apostolic times “ the Gospel was
preached, and those who were willing to be on the side of the Lord,
were called on to be baptized!' Now they are called to the anxiousseat. “It held the precise place that the anxious-seat does now!'
Exactly. Hence a new Gospel. “ He that believeth and cometh to
the anxious-seat, shall be saved.” “ Repent and come to the anxiousseat, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission
of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” “And he
commanded them to come to the anxious-seat, in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ.” “Arise and come to the anxious-seat, and wash away
your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” “ The like figure whereunto even the anxious-seat doth also now save us.” “ Know you not
that so many of you as have come to the. anxious-seat, have put on
Christ ?” Is this a perversion of the Gospel, or another gospel ? If
the anxious-seat occupies the place of baptism, of course it is a com
«
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
15
mand of God, and the promises which He attached to baptism, must
be attached to it; hence, baptism is pushed out of its place in the
plan of pardon. It becomes a mere “ Church ordinance,” to be
changed at pleasure, as to its form and uses. (See Bishop Gilbert’s
“Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” page 251.)
SANCTIFICATION,
Otherwise Perfectionism, is simply anxious-seat conversion in extenso. It is a subjective, or psychological experience, produced in the
same manner as “ getting religion,” and explainable by the same laws.
It is less frequently enjoyed, however, because the people generally
have less faith in the doctrine; hence, fewer persons attempt the
experiment.
THE WAY OUT OF CONFUSION.
“ Preach the Word.” Show the people their sins and their con
sequences. The love of God in Christ manifested. If they believe,
and are “pricked in the heart,” or become convicted of sin, and cry
out, “ What must we do ?” tell them, as of old, “ Repent and be bap
tized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission
of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Do not
seek to work up the feelings by artificial means. Do not call into
play the pride of character by public commitment, before the heart is
ready. How often do we hear the preacher say, “ Now, if you wish to
go to heaven [who does not ?], rise up.” “ If you wish the prayers
of the Lord’s people [who does not ?], rise up.” “ Now, all who
have voted that they wish to go to heaven, that they desire the
prayers of the Lord’s people, come to the anxious-seat.” Ah, the
trick! the trick !! thinks many a person who has voted, and instantly
he is filled with disgust. People will endure, or even applaud, strategy ;
but not in religion.
Again: the religious sensibilities always shrink from public expo
sure, unless the will is won over. To have one’s incipient religious
experience displayed before the prurient gaze, or to be bandied
about by the gossiping tongue, is exceedingly repulsive to a person
whose sense of propriety is well developed. Many a sinner’s thoughts
have been drawn off in the attempted reconciliation of himself to this
unscriptural procedure, when they ought to have been engaged in the
work of reconciling himself to God. Let the struggle begin and go
�16
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
forward to a final issue without ostentation, then it will be time for
public commitment to Christianity. If the friendly counsel of proper
persons may be given quietly, to lead the soul out of its entangle
ments, and break its sinful alliances, it is well. Reason, propriety,
philosophy, and Scripture concur to demand this course.
If the subject is ignorant of Christ as the Savior, tell him first, as
Paul did the jailor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you
shall be saved.” As soon as he expresses a willingness to receive
Christ, “speak to him the Word of the Lord,” for his enlightenment
as to the Lord’s means of salvation, and through repentance he will
soon find his way to baptism, and come again rejoicing through faith.
(See Acts,xvi.) If he be a believing penitent, like Saul at Damas
cus, tell him to “ arise and be baptized, and wash away his sins, calling
on the name of the Lord.” In short, give to each, according to his
condition, a portion of the Word suited to his case, in due season.
Never mind your theories ; speak the Word.
But, says the objector, must we rule out a psychological expe
rience ? Must we simply have a “head-religion,” without any heart
in it ? No ; by no means. Nor will there be the least danger, if we
cling to the apostolic methods. The revulsion of the emotions from
the pungency of conviction to the exhilaration of joy will always be
secured, if the sinner really believes that he is pardoned, although he
may believe a falsehood. (See Laws IV, V.) It matters not upon what
kind of testimony his faith may rest. If, then, he be led to a hearty,
intelligent submission to Christ, according to the Gospel plan, his
belief that he is pardoned will rest, not upon the testimony of men,
nor upon imagination, but upon the express promises of God, which
can never fail. The Pentecostan converts began to be glad as soon
as they learned from Peter that they could be saved. “ They gladly
received the Word,” and were baptized the same day. But they were
more joyful still, afterward, when they were able, through their faith
and obedience, to appropriate the Divine promises. Then “ they, con
tinuing daily, with one accord, in the temple, and breaking of bread
from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness
of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.”
�
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THE
CARDINAL DOGMAS OP CALVINISM
TRACED TO THEIR ORIGIN.
MATT.
M A C FIE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��THE CARDINAL DOGMAS OF CALVINISM
TRACED TO THEIR ORIGIN.
T is not my business at present to dogmatise. I
propose to submit to the reader a historical sketch,
rather than a doctrinal disquisition. A rational mind
finds the ground on which to reject orthodox dogmas
conclusive enough, in the fact that they are felt to be
at variance with reason. But it cannot fail to strengthen
the convictions which spring directly from the exercise
of common sense, to be assured that those convictions
are supported by history. The inductive method to be
applied here in disproving the doctrine of unconditional
and eternal election, may be applied with equal success
in demolishing, point by point, the entire system of
Calvinistic theology. Ex uno disee omnes.
It is much more rare to hear the repulsive dogmas
of Calvinism preached now than it was a quarter of a
century ago. They still linger, however, under a more
or less austere aspect in town and country. They are
publicly taught by not a few clergymen who received
them as a traditional inheritance, which they would
deem it sacrilegious to inquire narrowly into. They
are professed by many laymen also. Some of these
laymen have outlived Calvinism in heart, though they
are unable to muster the courage necessary to avow
their opinions openly; others of them, with yet less
independence of thought, cling to the system with
simply a blind sentimentalism which rests in the wor
ship of the past.
I
�4
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
The doctrine of eternal and unconditional election
would have no place in Calvinistic theology, but for the
alleged “fall” of Adam, and the supposed fatal conse
quences of this catastrophe to the human race. The
doctrine under notice represents God as foreseeing that
such an untoward event would happen, and as, in con
sequence, proposing in a past eternity to save a limited
portion of mankind from the eternal ruin which their
own sin directly, and the imputed sin of the first man
indirectly, should bring upon them. This deliverance
of the elect from the ceaseless punishment of hell, to
which the non-elect were exposed, was determined
upon by God unconditionally—one might almost say,
arbitrarily, according to Calvinism. The choice is
said to have been sovereign, absolute, spontaneous,__
without any perception on the part of Deity of’in
herent merit as distinguished from ill-desert in the
elected persons, in order that all pretext for their
taking any credit to themselves in the transaction
should be excluded, and that the unreasoning pre
ference of the infinite chooser might be vindicated
and extolled. The web of metaphysical exposition
that has been woven round this tenet of orthodoxy is
indescribably ingenious and complicated. The profound
treatises which have attempted to deal with the topic
during the last fourteen centuries, have been legion.
The controversies that have been waged all through
that period about it, are they not familiar to every
student of that most unsatisfactory branch of theolo
gical learning- Churcli History ? "Who can number
the honest minds that have been narrowed and twisted
by the dismal teaching of the creed of which this
doctrine is the central element!
The Pantheist is consistent and intelligible, however
strongly we may disagree with him, when he frankly
says that “he cannot frame to himself the conception
of a personal God j that he cannot understand sin as
real, but only as apparent in the universe, and that
�Traced to their Origin.
5
what physical and moral disorder exists no power can
remove, till, in the slow progress of events, the world
has gained sufficient scientific knowledge and experience
to swamp what we are accustomed to call wrong-doing
and folly. All error, absurdity, and evil work their own
cure by wearing themselves out. What we technically
call sin, marks the fact that mankind has on certain
matters to pass from a state of ignorance to a state of
knowledge.” This view may be right, or it may be
wrong, but it has at least the advantage of leaving out
all implied moral imputations upon the character of a
personal deity. The assertion that an intelligent God
predestined only a certain number to everlasting life
necessarily carries with it the anterior condition, that
he must have fated the circumstances which made that
predestination inevitable. Unless the Calvinist is pre
pared to believe that there is a devil in the universe
equally potent with the Almighty—a conception as im
possible as it is monstrous,-—he is bound to hold that
God deliberately arranged for corruption and death,
material, spiritual, and everlasting, to flood the world.
For without this supposition the theory of a media
torial ransom for the favourites of the Calvinistic deity
would be meaningless. I pass over the horrid but
necessary counterpart of the doctrine of the eternal and
unconditional election of some, namely, the eternal and
unconditional reprobation of others. With such a
representation of God constantly before the mind, the
Predestinarians must from the first have been unique
in the grounds of their reverence for their deity. Con
flict with reason could surely no further go than appears
in the spectacle of their professed devotion and affec
tion for his character and will, in spite of the crimes
and cruelties ascribed to him by their creed, which
traces to his agency and permission acts totally irreconcileable with the principles of human reason, right, and
benevolence. That there should be found in Europe
and America a section of civilised men venerating the
�6
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
Calvinistic God, despite characteristics in him which
would be denounced as intolerable if seen in a human
being, is itself an unanswerable reply to all the theolo
gical rant about the universality of human depravity.
If ever argument was wanting to retrieve the libelled
character of mankind, and atone for its imperfections,
it is abundantly supplied in the worship and consecra
tion shown by so many to the God of eternal and un
conditional election ! Never was the mantle of charity
so forbearingly thrown over the vices of man by man,
as has in this case been thrown over the vices of deity
by man.
The dogma under consideration is somewhat anachronously designated when associated with the name of
Calvin; The origin of the doctrine dates back just
eleven centuries before the Reformation, and, to no
earlier a period. Its real author was Augustine,
Bishop of Hippo, who flourished in the fifth century;
The system known as Calvinism is little more than a
revival of Augustinianism. A section of the Roman
Catholic Church in the time of the Genevan Reformed
had veered round into the track of practical Pelagianism, and in order to beat down what Calvin held to be
deadly error, he repaired to the armoury of Augustine,
and furbished up the old weapons of the saint to fight
over again the battle of Grace versus Works. The
question returned, “ Can man think or do any right
thing of himself ? ” “ Yes, certainly,” said the semi
Pelagian of Calvin’s day. “ No, nothing,” replied
Calvin, “ without the inspiration of the sovereign,
eternal, and electing grace of God.” The two postu
lates on which the entire predestinarian scheme, as
originated by Augustine, and revived by Calvin, rested,
were original sin inherited from Adam, and the irrespon
sible sovereignty of God. Prom these premises it was
plausibly argued by Augustine that “ an absolute
election of certain individuals to eternal life, though
resulting from the divine will purely, is not on the
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7
part of the supreme ruler abstractedly unjust. For
since, both by original and actual sin, all are trans
gressors of God’s law, it were assuredly no injustice if
all had been left to perish. Therefore, if all might
justly be left to perish, clearly no breach of justice can
be committed in the free election of some to eternal
life.” Strange metaphysical infatuation to blind a
great mind like Augustine’s ! What caused “ original
sin ? ” The predetermination of God. What caused
“ actual sin ? ” Proximately it miist have been original
sin. Therefore, for God to save a few sinners, and to
hold the rest responsible fortheir doom—-a doom which
could only be averted either by his predestinating that
sin should not enter in any shape into the world, or
by his exerting some irresistible influence in redeeming
the non-elect, is a palpable and cruel injustice. But
the exigencies of a theological system with a polemical
divine are vastly more urgent than any scruples about
the moral issues of the system. Consequently, Augus
tine, with all the partisan zeal of a retained counsel,
rushed blindly on in the narrow ruts of his scholasti
cism, and we need not be surprised, therefore, to read
these words of his respecting the elect and the repro
bate :—“ Although in the present state we cannot cer
tainly know the elect from the reprobate (for as
the reprobate may seem for a time to be leading holy
lives, so the elect, anterior to their effectual calling
may for a time appear to be in nowise actuated by
godliness), yet a definite number of individuals, as well
from among the existing members of the visible church
as from the great mass of the unbelieving world at
large, who shall hereafter become members of the
visible church, are, by the mere sovereign pleasure
of God, personally elected to eternal salvation.” So
strong a passage prepares us for one still stronger in
the same direction, written apparently under the in
fluence of a remorseless logic which utterly tramples
on the sentiments of even common humanity, to say
�8
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
nothing of deity. “ Since the number of the elect can
neither can be increased or diminished, all the rest of
mankind, equally by the mere sovereign pleasure of
God, being ultimately given over to the unrestrained
exercise of their own free will, are personally repro
bated to eternal damnation.”
In natural sequence to this terrific assertion we next
encounter the theory of “particular redemption,” the
necessity for which latter dogma previous links in the
chain of argument had created. “ When it is said,” says
Augustine, “that God will have all to be saved, though in
point of fact, all men are not saved, this language relates
exclusively to the elect, who, through God’s sovereign
pleasure are out of all classes of men predestined to
eternal life.” True to his favourite tenet of originale
pjeccatum, which he believed to involve the mass of men
in hopeless spiritual insensibility, Augustine summons
to his aid the correlated dogma of “ effectual calling ”
and dovetails it into his system. “ In due season,” he
says, “vrhile to the reprobate reproof acts only as a
penal torment, to the elect that same reproof is instru
mentally blessed as a salutary medicine.” Having
thus reasoned out to his own satisfaction the remote
and proximate causes of human depravity ; having set
forth the outward provision for the cure of this evil
which he tells us was expressly and exclusively
ordained for the benefit of the elect; having further
put forward the doctrine that the elect were supernaturally inspired with an inclination to appropriate
effectually the provided cure, only one more theological
extravagance was wanted to round off and cap this
dismal system. Augustine taught “the final perse
verance of all the elect through the indefectible grace
of God; ” that is to say, their safe conduct to heaven.
This synopsis of the bishop’s theory, stated for the
most part in Iris own words, covers all that need be
said now in the way of preliminary exposition.
It is not generally known, however, that the contem-
�Traced to their Origin.
9
poraries of Augustine rejected the views which I have
summarized, as “ novelties,” and demanded his authority
for dogmas so unheard of in the previous experience of
the church. But the following facts will enable us
to judge for ourselves the actual -worth of the testimony
he laboured to adduce in their support.
The first occasion on which he is known to have
promulgated his peculiar theories was in his contro
versy with Pelagius, Celestius, Julian, and their
followers, on “ Divine grace and human nature.” The
points at issue between the combatants are briefly as
follows: the Church asserted first that “ the grace of
God is not given according to man’s antecedent merits.”
Secondly, that “whatever may be the comparative
righteousness of one man in particular, no person lives
in this corruptible body without incurring the actual
guilt of a certain degree of positive sinfulness.”
Thirdly, that “we are all born obnoxious to the sin
of the first man, and consequently are all subject
to damnation unless the guilt which is contracted in
our generation be removed by our regeneration.”
These were the points stoutly argued by Augustine in
.behalf of the church. The Pelagians, on the contrary,
insisted that “we only sin by vicious imitation and
that grace is given according to antecedent merit.”
Augustine appealed in favour of his views—which all
orthodox people have done ever since—to the bible,*
* What orthodox ism cannot be proved from the bible?
It is on record that a Cambridge professor a century or two
back, got the notion into his head that the book of Psalms
could be interpreted throughout on a new hermeneutical
principle, viz.: that of rain. He solemnly believed and
maintained that the Psalmist had before his mind the idea of
moisture in composing every verse of his Psalms, and when
the Professor comes upon the beautiful words, “Light is
sown for the righteous • and gladness for the upright in
heart,” as might be expected, he canters easily over critical
difficulties. He gravely explains, “ Light was produced among
the Orientals by oil expressed from the castor tree, and the
castor tree was nourished and refreshed by rain!”
�io
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
as interpreted by the fathers, and in particular, as
interpreted by Polycarp (who was reported to have
received his theology direct from the Apostle John),
St Cyprian of Carthage, and his own personal friend
and patron, Ambrose of Milan.
In the course of the controversy Augustine was
induced to publish a treatise on “ Correction and
Grace ” for the purpose of crushing the heresy against
which he fought. This treatise contains theological
speculations never before elaborated in support of ortho
doxy. Id this work the doctrinal system now known
as Calvinism first saw the light, and the theories of unconditionalism and necessitarianism, now for the first
time propounded, were strongly objected to by the
author’s most intimate friends and denounced by the
great majority of Augustine’s orthodox contemporaries
as “novelties.”
When this work on “ Correction and Grace ” reached
Gaul, Augustine’s notions in the book which were ac
counted “novel” were openly opposed. Prosper of
Aquitane, formerly a disciple of the bishop of Hippo,
and Hilary of Arles remonstrated with Augustine in
letters which they addressed to him on the subject
in the name of the believers of Massilia. In one of
these epistles we are told that many of “ the servants
of Christ ” who lived in Marseilles and in other parts
of Gaul (the description is given by Prosper himself)
had instructed Prosper and Hilary to expostulate with
Augustine. The following are the words of the ex
postulation: “We heartily approve of your general
confutation of Pelagius and his followers. But why
do you superfluously mingle with it a system of novel
peculiarities which we cannot receive 1 [The reference
here is to the distinctive Augustinian dogmas of uuconditionalism and necessitarianism now known as the
fundamentals of Calvinistic theology.] To say nothing
of what we at least deem the utter inconsistency of
that system with scripture, it is, in truth, quite new
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ii
to us. We never even so much as heard of it before.
We find it unsanctioned by any of the preceding
fathers, and we perceive it to be contrary to the sense
of the whole Catholic church.” The weight attaching
to this communication of the Massalian believers con
sists in the fact that they were general admirers of the
bishop of Hippo, whom, in this instance, however, they
felt bound to take to task, and they were not likely to
be animated by silly prejudice against him. For the
letter referred to, concludes in these flattering terms :
“ Be assured, however, that, this one matter excepted,
we cordially admire your holiness both in all your
doings and in all your sayings.”
Now the gist of the inquiry turns upon this point:
were the suspicions of the Massilians as to Augustine’s
novelties well-founded ? If they were, clearly the
dogmas of unconditionalism and necessitarianism had
no existence within the knowledge of the orthodox
church prior to the Pelagian controversy.
The remonstrance of Prosper and Hilary called forth
from the irrepressible bishop a published defence of
the “ novel ” positions he had taken up, in a second
treatise entitled “The predestination of the Saints and
the gift of Perseverance.” How does he attempt to
vindicate himself from the charges brought against his
doctrine by the Christians of Marseilles ? He falls back
on two sources of proof: the authority of the Catholic
church, and the testimony of the preceding fathers,
though the Massilian Christians denied that support
could be found for his views either in the one quarter
or in the other. In reference to the former of these
sources of proof he admits that the church “ was not
wont to bring forward in preaching, the doctrine of
predestination, because formerly there were no adver
saries to answer.” But yet he maintains that “not
withstanding her habitual silence on the topic, she
must have held the doctodne in question because she
has always prayed that unbelievers might be converted
�12
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
to the faith and that het levers might persevere to the
end.” So much for church authority and Augustine’s
way of manipulating it!
Let us now see how he manages to manufacture en
couragement for his “ novelties ” out of the testimony
of the fathers. Strange to say, from the whole host
of them he can only find three names as pillars for the
fabric of his “ novel peculiarities : ” Cyprian, GregoryNazianzen, and Ambrose, and the only assistance his
ingenuity could extract from these fathers consists only
of a very few brief and extremely ambiguous passages
from their writings. From these few vague passages
he draws the sweeping inference that “ these all har
moniously teach his system of predestination.” He
had already based his necessitarian dogmas on the
plea that the church had held the doctrine of final
perseverance, forgetting, as he did, that such a doctrine
as that of final perseverance might be logically enough
held by persons who repudiated altogether the notion
of unconditional election and predestination. We shall
soon find that his appeal to the fathers is as meagre,
frivolous, and unsatisfactory, as his appeal to the autho
rity of the church. We may be quite sure, from the
vast array of ancient names he opposed to Pelagianism that had he been able to bolster up his predestinarian system, especially by patristic authority, he would
not have contented himself, as he felt compelled to do
in this instance, with naming only three solitary fathers
as favouring his side of the question.
Now for the testimony from the fathers which he
adduces. Cyprian, the first of the three cited by
Augustine, flourished about the middle of the third
century, and the two others—Gregory Nazianzen and
Ambrose—in the latter part of the fourth century,
the two last named fathers actually belonging to the
patristic generation immediately preceding his own. So
that, after all his boasted claims for the antiquity and
inspired authority of his theories, he relied upon fathers,
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13
the earliest of whom lived as late as a century and a
half, at least, after the death of St John, and the latest
of whom was only his own senior by about twenty
years.
Had these three fathers yielded any distinct support
to the Augustinian theories, we might have been dis
posed to lay less stress on their remoteness from the
Apostles. But the passages the bishop of Hippo brings
forward from their writings, are found to be utterly
irrelevant, and show the desperate shifts to which he
was driven in attempting to make out his case.
What says Cyprian, on this subject of eternal and
unconditional election 1 He simply prayed along with
the “ Church Catholic ” that “ infidels might be con
verted, and that believers might persevere to the end.”
‘‘Therefore,” concludes Augustine, “this father must
have held my sentiments respecting Election and Re
probation.” Could logic be more completely set at
defiance ?
Again, Gregory-Nazianzen, exhorting his flock to
confess the Trinity in Unity, stated that “ he who gave
them in the first instance to believe that doctrine would
also give them in the second instance to confess it.”
A conclusion similar to the one just indicated, is
instantly drawn also from these words. Gregory is
supposed to be at one with Augustine.
Ambrose said that “ when a man became a Christian
he might fairly allege his own good pleasure in so
doing, without, in anywise, denying the good pleasure
of God; for it is from God that the will of man is pre
pared, and Christ calls him whom he pities.”
For any man in his senses—and especially a man of
the unquestioned talent of Augustine—-to clutch at such
a pretence of proof as is afforded by this passage, of the
doctrines of unconditional election and reprobation—reveals an ignorance of the first principles of reasoning
perfectly astounding.
Another passage from the writings of the same
�14
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
father, is quoted by the Bishop of Hippo for the same
purpose. It occurs in a comment by Ambrose on a
certain verse in St Luke’s gospel. Ambrose expresses
himself thus : “ Learn, also, that Christ would not be
received by those whom he knew had not been con
verted in simplicity of mind. For if he had so pleased,
he might, from being undevout, have made them devout.
But why they did not receive him, the Evangelist him
self shows us, when he says, ‘ because his face was as of
one going to Jerusalem.’ For the disciples were wish
ing him to be received into Samaria. God calls them
whom he deigns to call, and him whom he wills he
makes religious.”
On these two statements of Ambrose unitedly,
Augustine, with touching simplicity, based the opinion
that this father and himself were agreed on necessitarian
doctrines. But, in point of fact, so far from Cyprian,
Gregory and Ambrose intending to lend any counte
nance to Augustinian “ novelties,” passages might easily
be adduced from the works of all three demonstrating
that they were flatly opposed to these novelties. But
even had their teachings been apposite to Augustine’s
purpose, when it is remembered that the very earliest
of these witnesses was not born till a hundred and fifty
years after the last of the Apostles, the value of their
testimony becomes seriously impaired.
There are one or two further considerations worthy to
be noted as supplying evidence that the origin of the
specious opinions of Augustine could only be traced to
himself.
After Augustine’s death, Prosper, who became a
convert to the dogmas of Augustinianism, and was
carried away by heroic loyalty to the memory of his
great teacher, continued to defend them zealously. This
being the case, an appeal was made to the judgment
of Pope Celestine on the subject, and that pontiff, while
commending the skill and earnestness of Augustine
in contending with the Pelagians for “ the doctrines of
�Traced to their Origin.
J5
grace,” significantly enough passed over in silence the
two elaborate treatises which develop his “novel” views,
viz., “ Correction and Grace,” and “The predestination
of the saints and the gift of perseverance.” The Pope,
sensible of the obligation under which the Church of
Pome was laid to the learning, ability, and devotion of
Augustine, was naturally unwilling to deal out formal
censure against his controverted opinions, and thus ex
pose his memory to reproach. Celestine and his suc
cessors, therefore, chose to evade the appeals made to
them to pronounce against the necessitarian dogmas of
the Bishop of Hippo. From an early preface to “ the
Predestination of the Saints and the gift of persever
ance,” we learn that, in the time of Leo the Great,
the dispute as to Augustine’s new views, was still un
settled in the church, and ultimately this pope adopted
the evasive method of referring it to the Council of
Orange, which sat in the year 441, that the Council
might bear the responsibility of gravely deliberating
and of finally deciding on the subject. It must be
candidly owned that the judges in this council were as
far removed from prejudice as men of their type and
times could possibly be, and yet they found Augustine’s
sentiments to be contrary to the most ancient and
authorised interpretations of the Bible, and though
they make no direct allusion to his “ novelties ” in the
first twenty-four canons framed by them, still, in the
closing canon, they assert in manifest opposition to
these novelties, that “ all baptised Christians may,
through grace, if they will only labour faithfully,
accomplish those things which appertain to their salva
tion, and that the doctrine of God’s predestination of
some certain individuals to evil is not only to be dis
believed, but also TO BE ANATHEMATISED WITH ALL
detestation.” The Council of Orange met expressly
to consider all matters relating to the Pelagian contro
versy, but nevertheless, when they had occasion to
mention the Augustinian dogmas in question, it was
�16
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
only to repudiate them. This Council searched, in
vain, the records of the four preceding Councils of the
church for support to the views of the Bishop of
Hippo, and were forced to the conclusion that these
views were at variance with the received articles of
the Catholic faith.
John Calvin appeared about eleven centuries after
Augustine, revived the 11 novelties ” of his great theo
logical master, and followed in the wake of his argu
ments. But, with clearer and more discriminating per
ceptions than the bishop seems to have had of the com
parative weight of patristic authority on the side of
predestinarian tenets, Calvin rejected the testimony of
two of Augustine’s witnesses—Cyprian and GregoryNazianzen—altogether on this head. But Calvin laid
special emphasis on the statements of Ambrose, as a
certain writer remarks, “ with more complacency than
fairness.” We have already seen that the citations
from this father are just as futile as a buttress for
Augustinianism or Calvinism, as are the citations from
the other two fathers mentioned above. Yet, with a
strange inconsistency, Calvin speaks as if the Bishop of
Hippo were united in opinion with all his ecclesiastical
predecessors and contemporaries ; for, says the Genevan
Reformer, “ Augustine does not suffer himself to be
disjoined from the rest, but, by clear testimonies, shows
that any such discrepancy from them as that with the
odium of which the Pelagians attempted to load him, is
altogether false. For out of Ambrose he cites : ‘ Christ
calls him whom he pities,’ and also, ‘ if He had pleased,
he might from undevout have made them devout; but
God calls those whom he deigns to call, and him whom
he wills, he makes religious.’ ”
So that in spite of Calvin’s assertion that Augus
tine was in harmony with the entire body of the
preceding fathers, he himself only ventures to quote
from one of them, for the obvious reason that he could
obtain no plausible show of aid from any of the rest;
�Traced to their Origin.
17
and the one brief passage he does cite is essentially
vague, and even inappropriate.
Again, with more zeal for his cause than pure regard
for fairness, Calvin attempts, in his remarks on this
subject, to produce the impression upon his readers
that the only persons who accused Augustine of error
were the Pelagians, whereas the plain truth is, that this
charge was made against him by individuals whom he
himself, on several occasions, addressed as “ Christians,”
and who were designated “servants of Christ” by his
disciple Hilary, as well as by the judicious Council of
Orange.
There is a further consideration of some importance
as bearing on the same point. In the reply which
Augustine sent to the letters of Prosper and Hilary,
when they wrote in the name of the Massilian Chris
tians, and expressed their surprise at his “ novel pecu
liarities ” (while approving his general confutation of
the Pelagians), the following passage occurs: “ Pro
vided they (j.e., the believers of Marseilles) walk in
such doctrines (viz., as those with which he opposed
the Pelagians), and pray to Him who giveth under
standing if they differ from us, He will also reveal this
to them ! ” In the whole of his epistle he never once
attempts to strengthen the faith of his wavering friends,
by supplementing the empty show of historical proof he
had before adduced, but takes the easy method—so fre
quently resorted to in all ages by ecclesiastics when in
similar straits—of making the acceptance of his dogmas
a test of their general fidelity to truth. If they walked
in the right path they would be sure to become dis
posed to embrace his novel tenets ! What does this
imply, but that with all the acquaintance of the Chris
tians of Marseilles with the historical foundations of
their faith, the favourite necessitarian theories of Augus
tine had never before been heard of by them !
I will mention a circumstance, in conclusion, which
stamps Augustine, beyond the possibility of doubt, as
�18
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
the originator of the cardinal points of the system more
recently known as Calvinism. This father distinctly
avers in the treatise, “ The Predestination of the Saints,”
that he had “diligently searched it (his necessitarian
system) out and discovered it,” and frankly owns that
there was a time when he had maintained entirely dif
ferent opinions. But if, as he elsewhere holds, these
peculiarities were recognised as orthodox by the Chris
tian Church in his day and before it, with what con
sistency can he be said to have diligently searched them
out and discovered them? Besides, if they were not
new in the theological world, how comes it that none
of his religious compeers had happened to hear of them
previous to the Pelagian controversy, and that it was
so difficult for him to find a single definite passage favour
ing his views in the writings of preceding fathers 1
Such is a brief, but, as I cannot help believing, a
convincing summary of the facts connected with the
rise and progress of what still passes under the name
of Calvinistic theology. The father who has been
justly credited with the paternity of the system was
a superior type of the class of controversial theoi gians who have become distinguished in church his
tory. He inherited the fiery temper of his father,
blended with something of the gentleness and dreamy
piety for which his mother was remarkable. Up to
manhood he held aloof from dogmatic fetters of all
kinds, and gave his mind to bold and free thought*
in all directions, equally proof against the influence of
bribes on the one hand, and of threats on the other.
He had mastered in his twentieth year, by his own
efforts, as he tells us, “ omnes libros artium quos libe_ * As an instance of the once rationalistic tendency of Augus
tine’s mind, we find the following indisputably theistic senti
ment in his writings : Res ipsa quae nunc Religio Christiana
nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos, nee defuit ab initio generis
humani, quousque Christus veniret in carnem unde vera Reli
gio quae jam erat, ccepit appellari Christiana.—(Awpwsi. Retr.,
�Traced to their Origin.
r9
rales vocant,” but the organising and logical attributes
of his mind inspired him specially with a love of Aris
totle, and soon inclined him strongly towards the Manichseans. After a time he made the acquaintance of
Ambrose, bishop of Milan, and under the influence of
the bishop’s kindness, eloquence; and piety, Augustine
was induced to renounce Manichseanism. But it was
not till he had long struggled in the abysses of scepti
cism that he received Christianity, and was baptised.
His aspiring and unquiet spirit, ever panting for some
high occasion to put its powers on tension; seized the
opportunity offered by the heresy of Pelagius to render
eminent service to the church, and achieve fame in de
feating the heresiarch. The germ of fatalism which
had been nourished in him under Manichaeanism was
singularly developed in the heat of controversy. In
fact, his supreme effort consisted of incorporating fatal
ism with the dogmas of the church But in the learn
ing requisite to trace the history of church dogmas, as
well as in the patience of an inductive student, he
was essentially wanting. He understood the Latin
language, and had read extensively in it ; but with
much naivett he states that he “ hated the Greek,”
probably owing to its being to him a foreign tongue,
and to the fact of the harshness of his teacher, who
enforced his lessons “ saevis terroribus ac poenis.” Of
Hebrew he knew absolutely nothing.
Calvinism, or, more -correctly, Augustinianism, has
cropped up on four successive occasions in the history
of religious controversy, and each time has been asso
ciated for a while with intense religious activity. In
the fourth century, the attempt to unravel the alleged
eternal decrees of a personal God brought together on
one side Augustine, Fulgentius, and othersj and on the
other side Chrysostom; Ambrose, and other bishops of
the Greek and Latin Churches. Next, the necessitarian
dogmas of Augustine were the subject of keen debate
among the Schoolmen, and were long the cause of bitter
�2o
The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
strife between the Franciscan and Dominican orders.
Again, at the Reformation, there was a diversity of
opinion on the subject of divine predestination. Calvin,
Reza, and Knox, defended the Augustinian view; and.
Luther, Erasmus, Melancthon, Bullinger, Sacerius, Lati
mer, and other leaders of the Reformed faith, op
posed it.
At the end of the seventeenth century, that ten
dency to rationalism set in, which, in the course of
a generation or two, swept 6ver all Europe. This
change in theological thought was largely due in Eng
land to the inductive method of inquiry applied to
science by Newton in his Principia, and applied to
psychology by Locke in his Essay; both of which
works, finished in the same year, inaugurated an epoch,
not only in the history of science and literature, but
also of theology. In Germany a similar sceptical spirit
was developed by the works of Leibnitz. In France
the rebound from church faith to human reason culmi
nated in Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists. In this in
fluence of inductive science and inductive philosophy
we have a remarkable illustration of the superior
potency of these two agencies as compared with theo
logy. There is no instance on record since the induc
tive method was first propounded by Bacon, of science
and philosophy following theology. On the other
hand, for all the progress theology has made and is
making towards truth, courage, and freedom, it is solely
indebted to the inoculating power of philosophy and
science. The stern aspect of dogma gradually becomes
softened in an age distinguished for scientific research
and philosophic analysis ; but theology has no influence
in moulding science and philosophy. The wave of free
thought just referred to overtook all evangelical churches
throughout Europe, and a real though unavowed Arian
ism prevailed among the Lutherans of Germany, the
Calvinists of Switzerland, the Reformed Church of
Holland, the Established Churches of England and
�Traced to their Origin.
Q. I
Scotland, the Presbyterians of Ireland, and even the
English Evangelical Dissenters. Beligious fervour
throughout the whole of Protestant Christendom was
in consequence wholesomely moderated by the rational
istic spirit which then predominated.
It was in recoil from “ moderatism ”—as the sober
religious condition of this period was called—that
Augustinianism for the fourth time revived. Vice and
sensuality abounded in the masses of the people; the
middle class, as a rule, were indifferent about the dogmas
and ceremonies of the church, and thus an opening was
made for some stern dealing with the universal religious
indifferentism that existed. Hence arose the “Pietists”
of Germany, the “ Evangelicals ” of England, and the
followers of Jonathan Edwards in America. These
parties made a capital point of “ personal ” and “ sub
jective” religion. The adherents of- Whitfield and
Wesley equally did so. But, for a while at least, the
Calvinistic dogmas of Edwards, Whitfield, and Simeon
took a deeper hold of the “ low church party ” north
and south of the Tweed, and of the Evangelical Non
conformists than the Arminianism of Wesley did. All
the old terrorism of threatened fire and brimstone against
the “unbeliever,” and of the restricted provision of “sal
vation ” for “ the elect; ” all the mystery of “predestina
tion,” “ reprobation,” and “ irresistible grace,” was once
more brought to bear in order to awe the penitent, and
narrow the way to heaven. The temptations to sin and
eternal death were represented as many and strong, and
the chances of being saved as few and weak 1 Under this
latest phase of Calvinism religion became a dismal
business, and up till recently it has in general con
tinued to be so, wherever “ the doctrines of grace ”
have been logically held by the orthodox. The altered
phase of religious controversy within the last twenty
years is the accident that mainly keeps Calvinistic
dogmas in the background. But these dogmas have
not yet died out. "They are still avowed, however
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The Cardinal Dogmas of Calvinism
tacitly, by a considerable section of the religious
world, and a certain school of professional religious
teachers are still expected, by way of saving their
theological reputation, now and then to declare their
belief in them. But the day of Calvinism, as a theo
logical power, is nearly over. It is at best but a
metaphysical relic of the dark ages, and has no mission
to the strongest minds of the present, far less to the
ordinary minds of the future. Like most other ques
tions capable of being treated inductively, theology is
now dealt with from its historical side. Even highchurchmen are faintly imitating the inductive method in
their inquiries, for they profess to go back to the early
fathers for their faith and their ceremonials. The
doctrines of the Reformation professed by the “ Evan
gelicals ” are too modern and uncertain for high church
acceptance. High-churchmen ground their very reasons
for receiving the authority of the Bible on the traditions
of the church. Theological sceptics are pursuing a
similar course, only with a more unbiassed and un
sparing historical analysis. These last claim the right
of searching out the history of The Canon of Scrip
ture itself as well as the history of the church, and of
rejecting whatever asserted facts cannot stand the test of
rational consistency, and produce satisfactory evidential
vouchers in their favour. The biblical criticism of to
day is not of the flimsy character of “ Paley’s Evi
dences ” or “ Lardner’s Credibility of Gospel History.”
These works are now impotent and effete, as far as they
claim to prove a supernatural Christianity. Paley and
Lardner now seem antiquated indeed, in defending the
dogma of New Testament infallibility on the plea that
some scraps of passages contained in Irenaeus and Justin
Martyr-resemble certain sayings in the Gospels. Tradi
tional authority in the matter of churches and doctrines
is now with all independent and cultured minds a thing
of the past, and only statements in the “ Canon ” which
will bear the sifting of modern historical criticism and
�'Traced to their Origin.
23
dispassionate reason are accepted as true by enlightened
scholars. No array of tradition or gush of sentiment
can possibly supply the deficiency of historical evidence.
For “supernatural Christianity,” as a historical system,
must stand or fall by historical tests. Dogmatic theo
logy is fast being relegated to the last resting-place of
exploded superstitions. The intellectual power and
spiritual life of civilized communities in the future will
be nourished and developed from a totally different
source. Theological dogma, with the countless figments
of the priestly brain, will be superseded by the inspi
ration of devout genius, the manifold discoveries of
science in the realms of material and spirit life, and by
the universal religion of the moral intuitions, another
name for which is The Religion of Humanity.
TURNBULL AND SPEAKS, PKINTEBS, BDINBUKGH.
��RECENT THEOLOGICAL ADDRESSES.
�
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The cardinal dogmas of Calvinism traced to their origin
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Text
COMPULSORY
VACCINATIO
ITS WICKEDNESS TO THE POOR.
J. J. GARTH WILKINSON]
LONDON ■
F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW.
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
��PREFACE.
It has been thought desirable to reprint the following
pages, in the present stage of the national movement
against Compulsory Vaccination.
The Times newspaper gives recent statistics of the
Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Deaths for London.
Thus:—
December, 1872, and January!
' 1873.
Vaccinated.
December 4 th, 1872
. I 3
December 12th, 1872
.
.4
December 20th, 1872
.
.1
December 25th, 1872
.
.0
January 1st, 1873
.
. 2
January 9th, 1873
.
1 1
January 16th, 1873
January 23rd, 1873
January 30th, 1873
.
.
.
.2
.1
.2
16
Abstract of Deaths from
Small-pox, Times newspaper,
December, 1872, and January,
isEH
UnvaScinated.
December 4th, 1872
December 12th, 1872
December 20th, 1872 .
. 3
December 25th, 1872 I
. 4
January 1st, 1873
R
. 2
January 9th, 1873
R
. 0
January 16 th, 1873
.
. 2
January 23rd, 1873
R
.1
January 30th, 1873
.
. 1
to to
Abstract of Deaths from
Small-pox, Times newspaper,
17
Showing that about 6 per cent, of small-pox cases are
saved by Vaccination in London.
The Blue Book for 1870, pp. 124, 5, records twenty
deaths from erysipelas after Vaccination.
Since my pamphlet was written, the history of recent
1—2
�4
PREFACE.
Vaccination, and of the late epidemic of Small-pox, has
confirmed and magnified its positions.
It has come out that the Compulsory Laws were
enacted, because the evil consequences of Vaccination
to health and infant life were widely spread among,
and well known to, the poorer classes, whose resistance
to medical destruction required fire and prison to check
it. Public events now demonstrate that, if Compulsion
were removed, the mass of the rejoicing working men
and women would spurn Vaccinators and Vaccination
from their doors.
The evil diseases caused by Vaccination have come
more manifestly to the front in the last year. It is
admitted by established Medicine that Syphilis—called
in The Lancet vaccine-syphilis—has been sown broad
cast ; and I never make inquiry of a poor man or woman
without eliciting accounts of cases of injury from Vacci
nation to their own or their neighbours’ families. Vac
cination is more terrible than it used to be. This
depends upon two causes: 1. When Small-pox is
rife, as during these years, Vaccination meets the
leaven everywhere, and its own venom is intensified.
Recent cases prove, beyond a doubt, that it is then a
predisposing cause of Small-pox. A writer in The
Lancet says that it has also the power of evoking*
latent syphilis. 2. The transmission of the Vaccine
poison through system after system gathers up the
taints of the bodies it comes from, until a sheaf of im
purity is in the arms of the medical harvesters, very
different from the disease of the cow from which, per
haps, the first poison originated. The modern Commu
nists of evil do a deadlier work than Jenner could effect
in his day. For the personal pollution of three more
generations is on the points of their lancets.
�PREFACE.
5
It may be added that the legal necessity to vaccinate
all the poor involves, perforce, that they be driven, like
sheep, into the Vaccination-pens, and blood-poisoned
higglety-pigglety, with no power of question or appeal.
They cannot, as Her Majesty did, have a select baby for
their babies, but are all imbrued in each other’s taints,
and carry them into their miserable homes to be deve
loped to the utmost. Vaccination amuses and abuses
the rich; it is palpable obscene murder to the poor.
In the meantime the magistracy and the medical
profession are doing their very worst. Imprisonment
for non-compliance is greatly the order of the day.
Where one child has been killed, ojlmaimed, the case
to the Authorities becomes the more urgent for com
pelling the Vaccination of other children in the same
families. The indignant rebellion of the bereaved
parents must be stamped out. The climax of shame
less evil is reached. Church doors are hung with boards
of command proclaiming the law about this devil’s sacra
ment, Vaccination. And the power of the medical
dragon seems complete in its offences and defences.
Turning to the medical men, they are more than evei'
convinced of the paramount good of Vaccination. As
a rule—Mr. Hutchinson to the contrary—the eminent
ones have never seen or heard of a case of injury from
it. They never can see or hear of Buch a easel Mag
nificent blindness, deafness, and unfeelingness !
The Press of the country, with few exceptions, is in
their power. It is gagged in favour of Vaccination. It
is an engine for suppressing truth and propagating
falsehood oh the subject. Its "temerity betokens its
fears.
The lower classes, however, are less beset by panic of
small-pox than the higher ; therefore are less amenable
�6
PREFACE.
to .voluntary submission to the medical Lie; partly,
perhaps, because they see from continual observation of
them own injured babes that the certain evils of Vacci
nation which they get, far outweigh the merely possible
evil of small-pox, which they have not. A viper on the
hand is worse than two vipers in the bush. But, what
ever the cause, the resistance of the unenfrachisecL
masses, under their leaders, is becoming more compact.
This, with the progress of events in God’s providence,
will abolish Compulsory Vaccination.
While the following pages were passing through the
press, it was asserted that Vaccination had “ stamped,
out small-pox in Ireland and Scotland.” Since then a
malignant and most destructive epidemic of the disease
has raged over Ireland and Scotland, and caused a
frightful death-rate in Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, and
many other towns. The Vaccination was admitted to
be complete at the commencement of 1872. What has.
been the cause of the enormous death ? The Vac
cination ? In Berlin, a well-vaccinated city, the pro
portional death-rate among Germans has been four
times that of London.
These details give no light to the Medical Profession.
Endowment and Establishment have put it into its.
coffin: as they always put everything else into itscoffin.
Two things are sure. The coffin, though the body in
it is alive with Vaccination fees, must not rule the throne
and the people. 2. Woman, to whose love and insight
all babies first belong by God, must come into all vot
ing power, to be a heart of flesh over the stony heart of
Parliament.
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION;
ITS WICKEDNESS TO THE POOR.
Vaccination is no protection against Small-pox; 80
per cent, of the patients admitted with Small-pox into
the London Small-pox Hospital, and 95 per cent, of
the patients admitted with Small-pox into the Paris
hospitals, are reported vaccinated. Of 227 persons dead
of Small-pox last week, 86 are returned as vaccinated;
and 20 doubtful. “ The Registrar-General tells us that
on an average of four years, only 65 per cent! of the
English people were vaccinated; that is, less than twothirds. The vaccinated two-thirds furnish four-fifths of
the Small-pox cases, whilst the unvaccinated one-third
furnish only one-fifth. That is, the vaccinated are twice
as liable to Small-pox as the unvaccinated.”*
It is mere assumption that re-vaccination protects
against Small-pox; the re-vaccinated take Small-pox,
and you cannot assert of a Se-vaccinated person who
has been free from Small-pox, that he would have had
it but for re-vaccination. You know nothing about
* A similar result is presented in France. See Report by the Im
perial Academy of Medicine respecting Vaccinations in France in 1867.
Translated and abridged with the Arithmetical Proportions of the
Statistics calculated and arranged by George S. Gibbs. Longmans,
1870. Wherever Vaccination was most common, Small-pox was most
rife.
�8
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
that. In all ages the vast majority of mankind have
not taken Small-pox ; in this age an increasing majority
does not take it.
The contagiousness of Small-pox is one thing; the
mortality of it is another. If Vaccination cannot be
asserted to lessen the contagiousness, and if re-vaccina
tion cannot, at least, so the statistics inform us, Vacci
nation and re-vaccination diminish the death-rate of
Small-pox from 42 per cent, to 1 per cent. ; and make
all cases of Small-pox comparatively mild.
Who are the unvaccinated ? and the un-revaccinated ? At present! as a rule, they are the poorest,
most wretched, or sottish, of the population, to whom
all zymotic diseases are more fatal than to other classes ;
enormously and fearfully more fatal. Let the statis
ticians settle how the forces of severity and mortality
are to be apportioned. Non-vaccination has, as com
peting causes of its 42 per cent, of death,—-drink,
poverty, crowding, all final foulness, deep slums only
heard of because Small-pox is there. How much of the
42 per cent, is due Ito non-vaccination ? And how
much to abyssal slumslincluding moral slums ?
There were many mild cases of Small-pox in the
world before Vaccination was heard of. Has the death
rate of unvaccinated persons increased under the present
treatment? Forty-two per cent, of bad cases lost, as a
constant quantity, is an awkward comment on any
mode of treatment. It were well for medical con
sciences to be dissatisfied with it. 'Are the doctors
continually on the move to try means after means, and
to trample orthodoxy after orthodoxy, to abate the
pestilence of that statistic ? It is a disgrace to them.
If the statistic is crazy because it overlooks all
raging causes of disease existing in the slums of the
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
9
people, and alleges all their destructiveness to the fault
of little non-vaccination, it may well be al so suspected
from the historical character and antecedents of the sta
tisticians. When cholera was in London, a HomoeopathicCholera Hospital was opened in Golden Square,
for treating cholera patients. The House of Qommons
moved the College of Physicians to procure statistics of
all the treatment of cholera in all London hospitals.
The statistics were sent in, and respecting those of the
Homoeopathic Hospital, Dr. Macloughlan, the Govern
ment inspector, certified that the Homoeopathic treat
ment was the most successful of all in what he certified
were real cases of severe cholera; and he added that
though not a Homoeopath! he, were he a sufferer
from cholera, would be constrained by the Homoeo
pathic success to become a Homoeopathic patient for
that disease. The Blue Book of all the statistics was
ordered to be printed under the directions of the Col
lege of Physicians. That Blue Book appeared! But
the Homoeopathic !eturn of cases was not in it. The
College of Physicians had vitiated their result, and
voided the good of the book, by turning the one healing
virtue out of their pages. Dr. Paris, then President of
the Boyal College of Physicians, was asked why he
had done this. He said,—Because Homoeopathy is »
quackery. The question was not what Dr. Paris and
the College thought quackery, but what fact proved to
be the best treatment of cholera. That question the
College was clearly not answering in the Blue Book.
It was fighting for medical supremacy with another
body at the bedside of the dying. [The House of Com
mons printed the statistic separately.] This is of a
piece with the historical action of these chartered bodies
wherever medical dissent crosses them? In all such
�10
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
cases, their statistics are vitiated by the love of supre
macy which is the only unvarying fact in their career.
Add then the impurity and want of single eye in
the medical corporations to the abyss of the slums of
London as another factor of the 42 per cent, of deaths
alleged by these corporations to belong entirely to nonvaccination.
Reader, take in the passion with which those statis
tics are engendered^ the clique force which lives in
every figure: they look cold enough in columns and
lines ; but every cypher is white hot if you attempt to
handle it. It has been gathered with tones unmis
takable from the least reliable, poorest creatures in the
town -: beings whose memories from their dire circum
stances drop piecemeal from month to month; and of
whom, in manycases, family ties can hardly be alleged;
whose oath as to whether they, or theirs, have been
vaccinated, is idle wind | and if leading questions are
put, signifies mere falsity; it has been gathered by
powerful medical cliques which for their very life now,
have a case to make out; and which have for a longstream of history shown similar passion, and have for
ages been chased by fact from fortress to fortress of
their own delusions ; and from everything but their
love of supremacy. Reader, take all these factors in, and
deduct them from the figures of death ascribed to nonvaccination, and you will scout the figures ; and be little
liable to be deceived in the future, when you find that
statistical tables of disease and of treatment may be
mere masks of medical passion. As they were in the
cholera tables drawn up by the Royal College df
Physicians.
For the most part in the said 42 per cent, of fatal
cases, the fact of non- vaccination cannot be verified.
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
11
In the majority of such cases, the person is so concealed
hy the disease that it is difficult to tell whether he isold or young; and hence the fact of his Vaccination
rests upon a hear-say gathered by a voice and an ear
determined for only one answer to the question.
The 42 per centlstatistic of deaths alleged to non
vaccination, may therefore be relegated to the limbo of
assertion gathered from the fields of a foregone purpose,
and not from the good grounds of fact. The statistic
itself comes of those thoughts which Lord Bacon charac
terises as “ steeped in the affections,”—in this case, in
the affection or lust of medical rule.
Where are we, then ? Owing to this passion, now
embodied in laws, colleges, in a great profession, and a
corresponding police, and closing in fines and in jails
for the poor, and in threats for all malcontents and dis
senters ; owing to this passion, we do not know, and we
cannot know, whether Vaccination is any protection
against the severity and mortality of Small-pox or not.
Personally, I have no founded conception on the subject,
because no trustworthy data. The buttresses of Vac
cination argument are as flimsy as the castle of Vacci
nation statistics is illusory. They are the weakest
outworks of the medical passion in its war on the health
of the people.
The nurses in Small-pox hospitals are all vaccinated,
and they never take the disease. Some of them, they
tell me, are pitted with Small-pox previous to becoming
nurses ; and the most are of “ a certain age” little liable
to Small-pox. But do not my medical brothers know
that nurses and doctors enjoy a large immunity from the
contagious and infectious diseases which they attend.
Fearlessness in their functions at the beginning, and
afterwards custom with the diseases, protect them ; or
�12
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
■otherwise both, the nursing and medical professions
would be down with the various diseases of London,
continually. Deduct this fact from the immunity of
nurses, and how much of it remains due to Vaccination ?
In Ireland the Small-pox has been stamped out by
Vaccination. The ground here is a little sacred from
the tradition of a similar instance; the toads and ser
pents were stamped out by St. Patrick. The case is
precisely similar® in both cases the stamping was suc
cessful because the stamped object was not there. When
he comes, the stamping mania of Vaccination will wear
out the feet of Old Physic without making any impres
sion upon Irish Small-poM What amount of credulity
can believe that our dear Paddy, with his habits and his
cabins, is a perfectlyl^accinated creature ; that his in
imitable power of non-society, of secret organization, of
resistandb to general orders, is contradicted here; and
that the wolf of generM Irish Ktwlessness is a lamb in
the single fold of Vaccination ?
In the few days since this was written Small-pox
is announced to be making steady ravages in Ireland ;
and the doctors, who accounted for the absence of the
disease by the universal stamping of Vaccination, now
account for its prevalence, and weekly increase, by the
statement that Ireland is “only half vaccinated.”
What ground to go upon is there in such assertions and
statistics ?
The same fact was alleged of Sweden in 1842; of
Sweden, “ the best vaccinated country in Europe only
two deaths occurred from Small-pox; and Old Physic
then said ■“ Lo ! triumph! Vaccination has stamped
out Small-pox !” But again, Lo ! In the next four or
five years the figures rose steadily to an annual death
rate of between 2000 and 3000 in well-vaccinated
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
13
Sweden. Small-pox was easily stamped out when it
was not there; but so soon as it came, its heavy feet
made a football of colleges.
Dr. Lyon Playfair, M.P., in a clever speech traced
the statistics of the decline of Small-pox coincidently
with the terrific frowns of the House of Commons, em
bodied against the monster in the various vaccinatory
laws culminating in the last Act of Universal Compul
sory Vaccination. He made out most beautifully that
every fresh turn of the Parliamentary screw wrung the
withers of the disease 9 and that complete compulsion
would banish it from the earth. Unhappily for the
beauty of his statistics, they were pitted with a few
afterthoughts. In the first place, the diminished death
rate was so immediate on Act after Act of Parliament,
that the effect was clean against time if Vaccination
were supposed to enter into it. The Small-pox might
have been frightened by the Laws, but could not have
been hurt. In the second place, the Acts were at first
coincident with outbursts of Small-pox, after which, decline of the disease is the way of nature : proving that
the coincidence is by a Natural Law. In the third place,
which seams the face of the Doctor’s speech from vertex
to chin, and puts out its eyes,—after the Law of General
Compulsory Vaccination has had time to work, and has
worked, a worse outbreak of Small-pox than before,
occurs ; and has to be accounted for by the statistician
on some grounds quite different to the power of Parlia
ment through Vaccinatory Laws ovei9Small-pox.
Doctor, what are those grounds ? I ask you with
pained interest, as being myself a member of a Special
Commission of the poor men and women of England who
won’t have their children’s blood violated and poisoned
by Acts of Parliament; and who, if even they are as
�14
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
cended from gorillas, refuse to have their natures mixed
again with the disease of beasts. What are those grounds?
You will answer at once,—The Anti-Compulsory Vacci
nation League. But men will know everywhere that
this “ small body of fanatics” has no influence to account
for the fact. You will say secondly, the absence of uni
versal re-vaccination. But neither vaccination, nor re
vaccination is known to check the spread of Small-pox,
however mild the form induced; and when once the
disease is among us, it can spread from the mansion, in
which it does comparatively little death, to the slum in
which it does all death. That, you know, is perfectly
natural. Why, the tenants of our slums are in such a
state physically, that to scratch them each and all with
a pin at fever-time and disease-time, would cause a con
siderable mortality in London.1 And when Small-pox,
ever so mild elsewhere, creeps upon the slum, men and
women and children, they, the proper food of death, die
in shoals. Vaccination, if you; could do it, and watch
the results, would kill shoals of them at once. No
theory of the case is needed. When Small-pox is not
here, it has no death-rate. When it is here, its death
rate has little to do with Vaccination, and almost every
thing to do with bad habits, depressed minds, and filthy
slums. Almost everything to do with the apathy and
somnolence of Parliament.
As soon as this outbreak is done, if you will pass a
tremendous Compulsory Law, and use the military to
enforce it, you will find that the decline of Small-pox,
and the existence and working of the Law, will go side
by side for a time. Simply because, as I told you be
fore, Small-pox always mitigates its ravages after a great
attack has been consummated. After a great scourge,
of cholera, if you will smoke a pipe every day for ten years,
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
15
you will also find that the absence of cholera, and the
smoking of your pipe, are contemporaneous pieces of
history.
But the slums, Doctor,—they are the causes of Small
pox ; and the taking of patients out of the slums through
the various neighbourhoods, the medical taking: that is a
chapter of wide infection. When the Small-pox exists,
move and touch the person as little as you can : let him
or her be, and clear the neighbourhood from about him.
Don’t infect Hampstead* and Haverstock Hill out of
St. Giles, as you are now doing! But how can you clear
out the slums ? Very easily, if you will make war upon
them ; but not if you enter into a treaty of peace with
them, while you make war upon all healthy persons and
places.
At present Parliament is much bent upon Compul
sion : in the present case, the compulsion of Papa Me
dicine upon the thirty-three millions of patients whose
health, failing to come from heaven, comes only through
the channel of papa, who alone knows what is good for
his little ones. But Parliament will discover that this
compulsion has not obvious honesty enough about it, or
results of health, to be borne by the patients, who are
more important to Parliament than Mr. Simon and Papa
Physic. And so Parliament will have to gratify its love
of compulsion by allowing to the people their own pri
vate doctoring, or no doctoring; and by attending to
* Four hundred Small-pox patients gathered in Hampstead !
Patients taken up in open ambulances on the side-walks! Mothers
and nurses, and children, have to run for it to avoid them ! An antwalk of patients going, convalescents returning, and I suppose, coffins
carried somewhere. The very shaking up of London in the Govern
ment bottle of Small-pox 1 And ridiculous Vaccination, Parliament’s
gift per contra. Strain at gnats and swallow camels.
�16
k
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
its own proper business, of national, municipal, and
rural general well-being. Nothing to do whatever with
poisoning people’s arms or opening their bowels. Every
thing to do with the forcible abolition of all buildings
and styles of building that make disease and epidemic
inevitable to the community. Here is room enough for
general officers, field-marshals against disease, working
through surveyors and engineers. But medicine, a
purely private art! has nothing to say or do in the
case.
Take the fact of Westminsteil Out of its square
miles of squalor blossoms a colossal marquis : his sur
veyors and engineers are re-building on a Paris scale
aristocwtic lliondon, because it was not fine enough for
the rich before 9 the palaces were not sufficiently
palatial. Now why not compel here ? Why not enact
that the money crops of Westminster shall be put into
filthy and not into already splendid Westminster ; that
every questionable tenement in it shall be re-built;
that Peabody houses universal, or something better,
shall rise, and be We^minster 9 houses for the poor
with good greensward between them ; and that this
shall be done of compulsion by the landlords of Westminster from one age to another ; they being forced to
improve their estates in this matter ; and to administer
their royal wealth in this manner ? Why not ?
To this compulsion it must come at last. And the
peddling compulsions of vaccinating people whose very
homes and bodies are deathbeds, and of taking them
through healthy neighbourhoods to centres of infection,
must be abandoned. State medicine, that despotic lie,
must be abandoned, State-health, the good of the
people, must be thought of.
A heavy argument is thought to rest in the decline
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
17
of Small-pox since Vaccination was introduced; and
in the few persons one now meets who are pitted
with Small-pox. Since then, however, inoculation has
been forbidden by law, on purpose to limit the propa
gation of the disease ! moreover, the treatment is dif
ferent. In former times, everyone who had Small-pox
was put into the slum-condition at once ! fresh air and
water were sedulously excluded! and crowding and
stifling with bed-things andreurtains was carried out.
That alone accounts for a vast difference in death and
disfigurement. Does it not? But again, cholera has
sensibly declined since it first appeared in India ; has
declined in every country in the world. Why, we do
not know ; but it is certainly not owing to any medical
procedure. Plague has declined!the sweating sickness
has disappeared ; syphilis is constantly on the decline;
the leprosy of the middle ages, with its ten thousand
hospitals, has died away ;but medical prowess is not to
thank for it. Why should it be assumed if Small-pox
declines like all these diseases, that it alone would have
been a fixture but for Vaccination ? You perceive,
reader, that the agency alleged of Wccination in this
result, is a baseless assumption! and that the cases of
numerous other great diseases proclaim loudly that
the assumption is not necessary to account for the
facts.
On the other hand you know again that slums and
hundreds of square miles of landlorded human putre
faction are no assumption as causes of small-pox, scar
latina, diphtheria, typhus, typhoid, and nearly every
disease; and therefore I compel you to face this fact,
divine in its truth, and devilish in its matter, and to
draft your compulsion away from the blood of little
children, and direct it by more than German requisi2
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COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
tional enactment upon those who can be made to grasp
and purify their own Augean slums, out of which their
brazen palaces now rise into our air.
Let every landlord be compelled to sleep for a week
half yearly in the worst room in his dominions ; the
house to be selected by Dr. Farr according to the
death-rate. Let him be vaccinated before he goes
in if he likes. If he decline, let it be recorded as his
testimony about Vaccination. From the cell-germ of
that one room, sweetened by the great fortune,
New London will arise, fair as loving justice, and swift
as an exhalation.
Legislating medical treatment ingeniously takes the
mind away from the true and great problem of fiscal
Sanitary legislation. It opposes some small and most
dubious medical dogma to the common sense of national
and municipal and ■rural cleanliness, air and light uni
versal. But I ask Parliament, do the antecedents of
medicine make the adoption of medical dogma into law,
feasible ? Inoculation, current for some fifty years, has
been forbidden by law. The thoughts and practices of
Old Physic vary with the moons. There is only one
way of fixing any of Bshem; and that is by endowing
and establishing them; and by this method Parliament
has given the fixity of cash and vested interest to
Vaccination. Parliament has made a church out of
cowpox, the smallest and nastiest of churches. This,
and that other foul jakes, the Contagious Diseases Act,
—an edifice in which a Boyal Commission is now asitting,—are, I predict, the two last prescriptions which
Parliament will force upon Great Britain at the bidding
of the medical profession. Before it has done with
Vaccination, and the money power which is its coat of
mail, it will have learnt to rue the day when it went
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
19
out of its own. general path to embody a poisonous
puncture in a law.
Let us hope that in its awakening it will not only
clear the Privy Council of a medical department, but
also discharter all medical bodies ; and disconnect them
from the State.
So far for one side of the case; the side against
Vaccination and Ke-vaccination as preventive of Small
pox, its deaths and its disfigurements. We have seen
that Vaccination does not prevent Small-pox land that
there is no proof that Ke-vaccination prevents it. We
have seen that the diminished death-rate alleged in
vaccinated cases, has in it several other causes more
obviously important than Vaccination, and which pro
bably reduce Vaccination to mimis nil. We have seen
that the decline of Small-pox takes place after out
breaks, just as the decline of all other un-vaccinated
diseases takes place. We have seen Small-pox leap up
again in spite of legislation. We have seen the steady
decline of the disease for one or two centuries, as we
have seen the steady decline of plague and other un
vaccinated pestilences in the same time. We have
seen the common sense hygienic conditions of patients,
their well-being, followed everywhere by an abatement
of the malignity of the symptoms and legacies of Small
pox. We have seen that misery and want are the beds
of Small-pox; and that Vaccination is inevitably also
one of its beds, because every disease—the Vaccine
disease—increases the weakness of the body, and
diminishes its resisting power. And so we have proved
the negative indictment against Vaccination. We have
found that there is no good thing in its bones.
Yet the medical pack hunts on its scent with almost
unanimous voice; it has an endowed and established
2—2
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COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
smell which pleases them. To me, as a Homoeopath,
their unanimity counts for nothing : I know how unani
mous they are in shutting their eyes, and closing their
ears, to a way more excellent than their own. I know
what they have rejected in the great truth of Homoeo
pathy. And until they are more open-minded and
open-hearted, I cannot value their unanimity as con
taining in it one element of strength, or of love. It
is but the crnelty of routine incarnate in its vul
garity.
The positive indictment against Vaccination is a dif
ferent chapter, and cannot be fully written yet; but the
informations which will instruct it are being prepared
in several journals read chiefly by poor men and women
who are almost out of the ken of the medical profession.
They will form bulky documentary evidence ; and pro
bably will be made the basis of claims for compensation
by the poor in some future and better Parliament, when
the Medical as well as National citadels are all in the
hands of the people. For money payments on a scale
are, I see, to be in the indemnity of all social wrong-doing.
What sum of money will the rich owe the poor for the
deaths and destructions caused by compulsory Vaccina
tion I
The allegation of the best informed is, that Vaccination
widely spreads disease among the people; that erysipelas
immediately, and consumption, syphilis, scarlet-fever,
decline, are sown broadcast by Vaccination. New, cer
tainly, by Vaccination, physic adds one more disease to
human beings. Certainly ■ is a beast’s disease. Cer
tainly there are sensitive people, Specially the mothers
of infants, so framed as to loathe the thought of it, and
to wonder at a large profession not being in the main
sick at the filthy little fancy of it. If this be a prejudice
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
21
it is not an astonishing one. But others allege more
tangible proofs against Vaccination.
There are two parties here to put into the witnessbox. Let the medical profession enter the box first
with the lictors before it, and the State Lancet (only to
think of the State having that abomination of desola
tion, a Zancei) in its hand. The medical profession deposes
that it almost never heard of any ill effects to the health
of children or persons arising from Vaccination. {Mem.
The great lords of the past might depose that they know
no particular evils arising from seduction 1 they see no
more, and want to see no more, of the victims when the
deed is done. They want very particularly
to see
them.) I believe the profession almost. But then, abate
this from their word of truth. They have a dogma that
everything ill that follows Vaccination is not a conse
quence of Vaccination! the converse negative to the
wrong use of post hoc ergo propter 7mc. If a child has
a bad skin disease running from the date of ripe vaccine,
that is said to be a time when children usually have
skin diseases, and consequently the malady in question
is not due to Vaccination! I deny that it rasuch a time.
Does not the public see that with this article of the
Church of Cow-pox regnant in him, a doctor can have
no chance of knowing whether Vaccination causes dis
ease or not. He is out of knowledge, and is well-fenced,
well-feed stupidity. As far as gathering the facts here
are concerned, he is an oaf in livery, and does not know
a hawk from a handsaw, being clique-insane. {Mem.
These are the men whose opinions Parliament makes
into compulsory statutes.) Besides this dogma, that
whatever disease comes after Vaccination cannot be
caused by it, the doctors extend their fortress by pro
claiming that fathers and mother! being not medical,
�22
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
can have no just opinion on any particular case which
arises in their children. The doctor’s word overrides the
mother’s observation coming sharp out of the mother’s
love. He will hear no evidence but that of his own
dogma, which puts its penny-pieces over his own heart
dead eyes.
Here are indeed two incommunicating parties.
What is the relation between them ? The Vaccinator
in many cases, among the pool in the most of cases, per
forms his operation, sees the child a week after, and knows
nothing more of mother or child thenceforth—until she
is brought to him againwvith a second child, to tell him
how ill the first fared after his deed, and to receive
from him a grand pooh-pooh at the end of her mother’s
tale of her child’s sickness, or death. The child is taken
to another surgeon, who also pooh-poohs, and gives a little
medicine, and the longer the case lasts the less it has to
do with direct ruin by Vaccination. She finds the medi
cal men sealed against her piteous story all round. As
a man at Plymouth, whose horrid dominion is over 2000
women a fortnight, said of the poor wretches violated by
the Contagious Diseases Acts, “ We listen to no com
plaints.”
Is Parliament going to proceed on this ex-parte evi
dence? Does Parliament not know that the opinions of
professional experts are not safe unless common experi
ence is added to them from the largest field of good sense
and ordinary attestation ?
What then is to be done ? I say, let a Parliamentary
Commission sit in any great borough of London, and
summon the Vaccinated poor, and take their depositions
with regard to the effect of Vaccination on their children.
Let there be a house to house visitation, such as Mr.
Gilpin s canvass of Northampton proved to be, when he
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
23
said it was pitiful to go from one to another, and to have
to listen to the long story of disease and death which
parents forced upon him as the sequel of the Vaccination
laws. I maintain that parents do know much, and all,
about these consequences. They see their immediacy
upon Vaccination. The Vaccinators do not. They watch
every point of the Vaccination diseases. The Vaccinators
do not. In reality they have a scientific knowledge
which the Vaccinators have-not, if science is founded
upon experience, and ever-widening experience, and
comparisons of experience. And then they have quick
affections which gather the terrible knowledge, where
the Vaccinators have now but the love of power, and
for eyes, dogmas, which are not to see.
I have taken the trouble to inquire of parents whether
they had ever known evil consequences to arise in their
homes from Vaccination. And the results are curious..
Knowing that I am a medical man, at first they were
silent on the subject. But when they found that I was not
one who “listens to no complaints,” they have in many
cases opened to me a breast of suffering. From my in
quiries I state, under full responsibility of the statement,
that I could without difficulty gather tens of thousands
of cases of serious and irreparable evilland a large rate
of death, if I were able to make anything like a wide
inquiry. A figure so great, that after all eliminations
and honest deductions, it would appal the people,
and make them cry aloud for guarantee and indem
nity. .
This morning, February 27th, in my Dispensary prac
tice, a poor woman, Mrs. T. (thanks to Parliament, I
dare not mention her name) brought in her baby. Her
words: “ Vaccinated last September. A fat, strong boy
till he was done. Never well since. Wasting away.
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COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
Arm never has got well.” I examined and saw. “ A
similar place on forehead and throat.” I saw them.
“There could not be a stronger child than this was
before. Three days afterwards he came out with some
thing which the doctor said had nothing to do with
Vaccination.
7s wzt? being summoned to have a
second baby done /” Out! child of hell by Parliament I
Out! damned Law’!
If this happened to Mr. and
Gladstone, and they
had had the utter conviction whicll these poor parents
have, they would, or could, have paid fines, and kept
their next child unvaccinated; but this blacksmith can
not pay the fines, and must go to prison, and let his
wife go to beggary, or offer up another babe to what
they regard as State murder. That blacksmith is cer
tainly nou equal to Mr. Gladstone in the face of British
law.
Another case. Mygoachman’s child was vaccinated,
and took with it erysipelas, which overspread the body.
The mother who wl nursing it took the erysipelas,
and both nearly died of it, I assert that this result, of
two long and all but fatal illnesses, was, in a poor man’s
house, due to Vaccination, and consequently due to
Parliament.
3.—Miss Edith Hutchinson, of Kensington, was
vaccinated by the late eminent Dr. Joseph Laurie.
The arm dwelled enormously, and ms hard like wood.
After a month it subsided, and then a putrid thrush
occurred, which disappeared after some weeks. The
disease was next transferred to the abdomen, and its
lymphatic system, and she died of great purulent
collections in its cellular tissues, the matter, putres
cent, voided by the bowels. I attended the later
stages of the case with Dr. L. Vaccination, careful
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
25
-conscientious vaccination, did it as plainly as fire
burns.
I give this case again in Mrs. H.’s own words.
“ 2, HorntoJ Villas, Kensington,
“6th March, 1871.
“My Dear Dr. Wilkinson,
“ The dear child was in perfect health in
May, 1863 ; but as Small-pox was prevalent, and our
household being vaccinated, she was subjected to the
process,—though the operation had been performed
upon her, and had c taken,’ when she was four months
old. Within a few days of the Vaccination in May,
1863, she—(being then nearly six years old)—was
attacked with inflammation of the lymphatic glands of
the arms to so severe an extent that her arms were
immensely swollen, and so heavy and hard that each
arm had to be supported in a sling; her sufferings for
ten days were very great, at the end of which time her
arms gradually resumed their natural appearance. But
within a few weeks the poor child was prostrated by an
attack of apthous ulceration of the mouth, which was
of a most distressing character from the peculiarly
offensive odour emitted from the gums, &c.
“The dear child was more or less delicate ever
after, and, in the' following June, enlargement of the
abdominal glands, and mesenteric disease set in, her
life being terminated by a . succession of abscesses in the
bowels in July, 1864; the doctor who attended her
telling me that the glandular disease had been coming
on for some months.
“ I felt then, and still do feel convinced that her
system was poisoned by the introduction of the vaccine
matter, for she had never had a spot or swelling of any
�26
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
kind before, nor had there been a previous case of
mesenteric disease in our family,
11 Ever, my dear Dr. Wilkinson, believe me,
“ Yours most sincerely,
“ S. Hutchinson.’7
The three stages in this case are a linked chain of
consequences uncoiling from the Vaccination. 1.—The
Vaccination itself, poisonous lymph, producing poisonous
lymph. 2.—The enormous swelling of the cellular
tissues, and consequently of all the tissues of the arm;
the cellular tissues being the great plane at the end of
the whole lymphatic system I the universal lymph
plane. All the lymphatic vessels and lymphatic glands
of the body stand in the relation of centres to the
cellular tissue as their great circumference. Effects in
the cellular tissue are reflected in intimate effects in
the vital lymphatics. It is a great arena of transfer
ence! of fluids I and if you disease it, of transference of
diseases. It Suns into the depth! of every organ in the
body]) and a spark of poison in its skin may soon be a
devouring fire of poison in its mesentery. 3.—The
next stage! the malignant thrush, was no doubt the
indexl of commencing destruction in the lymphatic
system of the abdomen. 4.-—The centre of the Vaccination was reached; the abscesses in the abdomen were
the end of the Vaccinatory deed. Verdict—Death by
FaccwaftW
This was a compaMtively acute case, and only
lasted about one terrible year. But you can easily
infer from it the certainty, in many cases, of more
subtle and chronic destructions. Keep your minds
open where they have before been willingly closed, and
you will see.
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
27
4.—Lady Campbell, the wife of a British Ambas
sador, (not known to me, but well known to Mrs.
Hutchinson, of the last case,) was vaccinated by a Dr.
L. The vaccinated arm swelled to enormous propor
tions.
A strong fine woman before, she died in a
twelvemonth from the direct effect of Vaccination;
which the doctor did not deny. All the particulars of
this case are extant, and can be verified if required.
5-—The Bev. Dr. L/s daughter had Small-pox last
autumn, for which I attended her. Mrs. L. asked me
to vaccinate the family. I declined, and gave my
reasons. Dr. L. expressed surprise 1 but Mrs. L. said
she was rejoiced to hear me speak thus; and added,
“ Do you not recollect that our eldest son has a scrofu
lous swelling of the arm from Vaccination, and has
never been well since?” He then remembered ; and I
examined the son, and verified the fact of the disease.
6.—A well-known literary gentleman, a name
known to everyone in Parliament, consulted me last
autumn, for an affection of the leg, attended with a
skin eruption, which much crippled him. He said,
“ Four years ago I was overpersuaded by a lady to be
vaccinated ; and I have had this affection ever since.
I showed it to Mr. ------------ > ; he pronounced it to be
gout, and did not admit its connection with Vaccina
tion.” (Gout may be caused by Vaccination, see p. 38.)
This case wonderfully illustrates the post hoc ergo non
propter hoc pleaded against big linked facts, written
out in two tangible and similar diseases, while the post
hoc ergo
hoc is held by the same surgeon in
favour of the invisible, intangible, untraceable con
nexion supposed to exist between Vaccination and non
Small-pox ; or between something and nothing. To
such a logic, endowment and establishment have
�28
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
brought the heads of the profession. The logic of fees
simple.
But if doctors are so subtly able to trace the absence
of Small-pox when it is absent, to the fact of Vaccina
tion, than which no greater mental ingenuity is con
ceivable, how can they refuse the common public the
right to put tens of thousands of like antecedents and
consequences of the broadest kind into the same rela
tions of cause and effect,—the right to attribute visible
immediate consequences to visible immediate deeds and
causes ?
I could multiply my cases from my own note-books,
but have not space! and I will content myself with re
peating that every neighbourhood is full of such cases,
which are only concealed in their ghastly multitude by
the Egyptian darkness, that is, the scientific darkness
of the established Medical Profession! If the reader
wants more information Met him consult the Anti-Vaccinator and
Health Journal, edited by Coun
cillor Pickering, Cookridge Street, Leeds. I have
touched the matter merely to give the pointing of my
own personal enquiries and observations.
All this experience, the whole other half of the
question, is ungathered, and Parliament has legislated
Compulsory Vaccination without it. Now I maintain
that it is the men and women of England, especially
the poor,!vho are the depositors of all the real scientific
information on the subject. The doctors know the micro
scopy of pustules and pock-marks! the poor know the
serpent whose trail is death in their homes. Why has
Parhament cast out the science of the poor ? Why has
it only listened to the venal science of the experts ?
There is a class intermediate between the poor and
the doctor, which can supply a fink, and that is the
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
29
Chemists and Druggists. To them the wounds and woes
of the vaccinated are freely taken; they are not esta
blished into stupidity; and they listen to the tale. If
they will honestly speak out, they can tell the tale. A
Parliamentary Commission ought to call their evidence
in preference to that of the professional experts. But
the substantial evidence will always be that of thevaccinated poor themselves, who have the real science.
Why the poor ? Because their circumstances cause
the Vaccine Disease, like other diseases, to create greater
ravages among them than among the other classes : and
hence it is a more heinous wrong to vaccinate White
chapel compulsorily than so to vaccinate Belgravia.
Add now to these facts, that in the medical darkness,
the Egyptian darkness that can be felt, and that is
cruelly felt by the poor, Parliament has enacted that
thirty-four millions of people shall, generation after gene
ration, be vaccinated to lower the death-rate (not the
disease-rate) of a few thousands of cases of Small-pox.
Is it less than certain that the death from such a vast
field of Vaccination towers over any immunity ever pre
tended to be secured by Vaccination ? If the doctors
dispute this, in which they are themselves arraigned, let
them come down from the bench, and go into the dock,
and let Parliament order a personal minute to be taken of
the experience of the poor ; then, and not till then,
Parliament can set death against death, and strike a
just balance as between compulsory Vaccination and
natural Small-Pox.
Parliament, if it will meddle with particular kinds of
physic, ought also to enquire into the practice in its
Small-pox hospitals. Do the men there, who lose 42 per
cent, of bad cases, stick to their routine and violent
drugging ? or do they try all the available means and
�30
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
new discoveries for treating Small-pox ? At Hampstead
and Highgate do they try the Homoeopathic way, with
tartar emetic in infinitesimal doses ? Do they try the
Hydropathic way, which is, I believe, excellent; and
always a good adjunct ? Do they try Mr. Rose’s plan,
with cream of tartar, the great success of which is
alleged ? Do they use the Hydrastis and veratrum viride
method ? If they do not try all these ways, they are
playing with Small-pox, and the death-rate is greatly
due to their own perverse incapacity! Parliament, if it
meddle at all, ought assuredly not to stop meddling
until it searches out these things, which must affect
even the half-statistics on which it makes its laws.
But is not a clear case made out for abolishing com
pulsion ? It has been shewn that the statistics in favour
of Vaccination—founded as they all are on
hoc ergo
propter hoc for their own side, and post hoc ergo non
propter hoc for the other side—are subtle and unreliable;
it has been also shewn that the statistics against Vacci
nation, gross as sick-beds and coffins, come up in num
bers, so that the whole foot of Old Medicine cannot
stamp them down! b^^hey have been refused to be
heard in the case. In the face of the flimsiness of the
one part, and the horrible doubt of the other, what has
a wise ParliamentKo do but to repeal these compulsory
laws ? Let them compel epidemics to relax their hold
on the throat of the cowitry, by compelling municipalities
to compel property-holders to set towns right, and
estates to set cottages right; but let them beware of
all compulsion that! rests on grounds more subtle and
metaphysical than these.
If compulsory Vaccination is right, compulsory Re
vaccination is right, and moreover necessary. But no
parliament dare enforce it. Were it attempted by fines,
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
31
it would break down ; were it carried out by violence
personally, the lancet would be jostled by the pistol, the
poker, and the knife. And laudable homicide, and godly
homicide, and if ordered or done in court, good and just
magistraticide, would become common verdicts in the
land.
Even the present law, if unrepealed, will lead to civil
war of its own kind. Against the mother who has one
child destroyed, or badly poisoned, by Vaccination, and is
compelled to bring up another and another to the same
ruin, it is civil war; and she, and her kind, will elude it
not by the laws of peace, but by the ways of war. If she
has strong convictions, who can say what is not lawful for
her to do ? She may conceal her births ; and to do so,
call into existence a new and clandestine class of mid
wives who will turn the doctors out of the neighbour
hoods of the poor. She may invent substitutes for
Vaccination, such as tartar emetic injected under the
skin, and forged certificates on a large scale. She wTill
assuredly do everything to barricade her room and her
neighbourhood against the compulsory Vaccinator. In
the process, a complete alienation must occur between
the poor and the medical profession. And a new, an
unrecognized, and probably secret medical service must
•supply the traitor’s place among the poor. How far
this will be serviceable to sanitary progress it is for
Parliament to think.
It may strike Sunday schools, and all education of
the poor, heavily; for the poor will become secretive
under fear for their children’s lives; and if the Hymn
Book means the poisoner’s lancet, woe then to the Hymn
Book.
But if it will create war between the poor and the
doctors, these laws, if persisted in, will speedily destroy
�32
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
the humanity of the profession. The doctor used to be
a familiar friend in the cabin, and the poor abode ; but
now he is the herald of the policeman, the bringer of
fine or imprisonment, the stern derider of the mother’s
eye, and the mocker of her complaints, the minister to
her children, as she believes of disease and of death.
He is not the single-eyed man of charity, but the tool,
the protected tool of the State, as the State is itself,
by base sufferance, the tool of the medical head-centres.
What is his comfort to the lying-in bed, if his know
ledge of birth which he thus gains, is treacherously
turned into a slmmons against father, or widowed
mother to render her fchild to Vaccination in three
months’ time ? He can only be detested while he
serves. His Eawheart .Bind Bpacitv, must be seriously
affected by the State making him into a spy, and an
informer, and his studies and his skill cannot but be
wasted by the sense of official poweSagainst the people,
where he ought to be a minister and interpreter of
nature only, and a private friend of the poor man’s,
needs®
Panic is the direct out-come of the present laws ;
and panic is a potent feeder of Small-pox. House to
house Vaccination puts all persons in dread; and the
vast fee field which is thereby created corrupts the
senses of the medical profession. The bigger the panic
the greateJ the profits. In the meantime, the death
rate ® scarcely affected by the disease, which only robs,
scarlatina of its usual victims ; for when the one disease
rises the other falls, so that nothing is gained to present
life. In the last weeklwhen 227 died of Small-pox,
the whole death-rate was six under the average of the
ten years. But the doctors stupefy themselves and
terrify the public, by proclaiming “the terrible scourge”
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
33
of Small-pox, when scarlatina, a scourge far more dreadis unnoticed in their public action altogether. This
moral deadness is a direct consequence of the endow
ment and establishment of the treatment of one parti
cular disease by Parliamentary acts.
The laws indeed confound the mind by their stu
pidity of conception. Within three weeks, I, as a
medical adviser, have urgently recommended between
twenty and thirty families not to be vaccinated. I
have done so on all the grounds I know, with all my
light, and all my conscience. As a medical man I am
entitled to an opinion, and am a free agent. But what
is my relation to the law ? It is undoubtedly, without
intending offence, a seditious relation. If I could be
heard, I would prevent all London from being vaccinated ; at any cost I would prevent it. If dragoons
were in the streets to do it, I should still stand only in
a medical right and say to the people, “ At all hazards
do not be vaccinated.’' Again I ask,—Is my little light
and skill forbidden by the laws ? And am I a traitor
to my country because, as a medical man, I do what I
know to be right for the people ?
Perhaps you will say, I ought to succumb to the pro
fession. I answer, that all the gain of man by time
comes out of minorities of one, and that we, the Anti
Vaccinators, cannot yield. I know the profession too
well, its fashions, its fluxions, its prejudiceslits passions,
its hopes, and its fears, to be able to cede an inch of
insight to its decisions, embodied in, and further vitiated
by, Acts of Parliament. Upon this particular question
I know that the profession, in spite of its routine, is a
hot mass of uncertainty and unhappiness.
There is nothing for us to do but to resist. And
those who resist here will have on their side the working
3
�34
■COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
people of England, and in time the majority ot the
House of Commons.
The agitation against the Compulsory Vaccination
laws cannot die, but is growing every hour. The at
tempted coercion of the people by medical despotism
cannot die, but is growing every hour. And the Glad
stone Ministry determined upon one permanence, its
own dynasty, cares nothing about small questions that
kill and maim hundreds of thousands, because these
questions do not seem to imperil the Gladstone empire,
the Cabinet life! The people, the masses, often invaded,
always invaded by these party lusts, the frontiers of
their rights constantly infringed, and their homes wasted
by empire-loving Gladstones, who are determined to
secure to the bullet boys of party their thrones, the
people are not yet drilled I but there is a nucleus of
militant resistance springing up in the Anti-Compul
sory Vaccination League, and the National AntiContagious Diseases Acts Association. The’only
thing you can do, my brothers and sisters of the British
Islands, who have bodies to be defended, and babes to
be defended, is to pass into the ranks of these little
armies, by your allegiance, and by your money, where
you will be silently drilled and informed for the coming
hour. Medical despotism, the despotism of science,
Egyptian darkness and Egyptian despotism, that which
brings down upon your houses the curse of the death
of the first-born, the worst despotism of all is going,
when you are fully ready, but after hard fields, to die
the death. As against the medical Gladstone Govern
ment, to-day is your Jena ; if you join ranks obediently
and heartily, another not distant day will be your Paris.
You must insist on new frontiers to your homes,
frontiers of fortified right over your persons, which me
�35
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
dical science and medical men cannot overstep without
your sovereign pass, and then always as private citizens.
You must insist on the demolition of all the fortresses
from which they have sallied against your lives ; on the
dischartering of all medical and scientific corporations.
You must have Science itself coynpletelg dismantled, and
reduced to its own exact but utterly individual authority,
or you will never be safe for science, erected beyond
its place into any power not its own, is the worst tyrant
of all; red democracy is nothing to it |land while go
vernmental fortresses of it stand, you are a constantly
invaded people. You know now, by experience, that
the rule of science by divine right is the most enslaving
of superstitions ; that an uninspired schoolmaster on
the throne, or above the throne, ferruling overgrown
men and women, is a very devil incarnatel Besides
this, during the civil war now waging, you must keep
account of your destructions,—careful books of harm to
persons and to industry, and life, wrought by these
Government Acts,—first least volumes of the new Dooms
day Book of God and the People,—and when the day
of treaty comes, you must demand from the common
stock your war indemnity. The first Parliament of the
people will levy it for you. And if Mr. Gladstone be
then Prime Minister, as we trust he will be, he is
greatly capable of assessing from the poor man’s point
of view, under the poor man’s thumb and pressure, to
secure his dynasty, the Weregild to be paid; the value
of babies to the mother, and of sons and daughters to
the country.
March 4, 1871.
3—2
�NOTES.
The profits accruing to medical men from a diligent
cultivation of the Fee-Field of Panic during these last
weeks, are in the aggregate enormous. One practi
tioner, they tell me,J in a neighbourhood not remote
from my own, has been making sixty guineas a week
by Vaccination. Statesmen, who can measure interest
as a factor in the instincts of cliques and corporations ;
as a creator of class-doctrines; as a power in shutting
the eyes, or opening the eyes, to facts; as a new lease
giver to abuses,—of course regard heavy fees as a
powerful though unconscious operant cause why the
medical profession has a great love for Vaccination. It
may be a legitimate love, but, were it not so, the fees
would give it artificial permanence. Of that, no states
man can doubt. Gain swerves the mind very danger
ously from the rails of fact, and is a general conjuror
with statistics^ Large profits, then, must be regarded
as at least a possible element in the building of the
present collegiate tables, which, while undestroyed, are
professional gold mines.
Bad cases are said to be due to unhealthy lymph,
and the first object is to get “ healthy lymph.” Clean
dirt, and healthy cow-disease! But passing this by,
we know what they mean,—that only the disease of the
beast should be actual in the matter. But what a sur
prising want of subtlety of mind, what pint-pot mate
rialism, as though men and women were vessels filled
with blood and juices from the tap of the “ King’s
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
37
Arms,” reigns in the medical profession, if they can
dream that matter transmitted through the offspring of
men and women for ten or twenty years, does not con
tain all kinds of abominations. If a drop of seed will
make a man, because it is a man’s, a drop of lymph will
make a gout, or a consumption, or a syphilis, because it
has been trailed through systems impressed with those
diseases. Even if it were all mere dirty cow, cows may
differ so far as to be full of hereditary taints, and our
babes may take the analogues of human diseases very
well from the domestic animals. There is no way out
of it. ’Tis all pollution together, though the vaccinator’s
cauldron may have more or less complexity, or simplicity
of disease and decay in it.
Thoughtful dentists suggest Vaccination as a pro
bable cause of the early decay of the teeth in this age.
The surmise gains countenance from the consideration,
that the germs of the second or permanent teeth are
appearing at the time selected by Government physic
for performing Vaccination. Lay this down as sure—
wherever nature is busy upon any conceptive operation
in the body, any’sudden unnatural shock to the system
is likely to impress the embryonic structure ; and hence
it is feasible to suppose that if Vaccination and the be
ginning of the second teeth are contemporaneous, de
formity of the teeth may be the birth-mark on them
inflicted by Vaccination, and premature decay of the
teeth, consumption of the teeth, the inheritance. Small
pox at the time would not have the same power of ill,
for it is taken because the system is predisposed' to it;
but in Vaccination a disease is given by violence against
pre-disposition not to receive nt.
�38
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
Vaccination is sometimes claimed as in principle a
part of Homoeopathy. Falsely, so far as Homoeopathy
in its whole scope is concerned. Homoeopathy, by an
incomparable drug-science, cancels the symptoms of
disease. But there is no case in which it aims to give
a diseased Vaccination is unsuccessful unless it gives a
disease. It also violates the body in a way that no
disease, not plague, or scarlatina, or typhus does, by
an actual wound into the blood; a poisoned wound.
Neither pestilence, nor physic, has any analogy with •
this procedure.
The clerks in the War Office have lately been vacci
nated. A large number of bad arms has been the con
sequence! Vaccination during epidemic Small-pox is
more likely to produce acute bad results than at other
times; because the town is already charged with a
poisonous miasma. In the War Office, axillary abscess,
and crops of boils on the body, have, I hear, followed it,
and ^rheumaj^c affections have freen reproduced. One
reason of the latter is, that depressing diseases bring
out all the weak points. See p. 28.
There is also goodl’eason to suppose that a process
like Vaccination, which in its theory of prevention,
affects the whole organism, is potent, and harmful, in
an increasing ratio from age to age. We have work for
brain and nerves which make morbid disturbances in our
bodies less tolerable than they were in those of our an
cestors. We cannot do that work, and live grossly as
our ancestors did. Finer causes count for us, and
against us. I submit that on this ground the special
empoisonment of Vaccination is more against us now
than it was in Jenner’s day. See if the effects of the
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
39
present re-vaccinations do not bear out this remark.
And also add to the subject the cumulative effects of
successive Vaccinations.
The baby T., mentioned p. 25, died of convulsions
in the night of March 10. The Vaccinating Doctor’s
certificate ran—Died of Congestion of H Drain during
Teething. Mylcertificate would have been—Died of
Convulsions, the product of inanition ccnd nervotis ex
haustion, caused by
disease d^ect^gpaused
by Vaccination. See what a different statistic will be
gathered from the two different views.
Last Sunday (May 1M1872) I lost a little patient,
Edith Clare Patterson, aged six monthslof whoopingcough. She was twice v®cinated — successfully at
three months old. Always weakly, she seemed no
worse, but her parents said, father better, after the
vaccination. The whooping-cough was of the adynamic
kind : convulsion throughout the frame rather the
character of the disease than cough. She was so blue
during the “inward fits,” as almost to suggest blue
heart-diseasel This weak child had a delicate mother.
What had vaccination to do with the case ? In the
first six months of its life vaccination gave it, by shock,
a disease it need not have had. The disease could not
but take away some of its life. And (1st) predispose
it to any current infantile maladieslsuch as whoopingcough—viz., by weakening its powers of resistance g
and (2nd) weaken it for surviving the whooping-cough
when it came. These positions seem to be incontestable
deductions from vital economics. The case is valuable
to me as illustrating the causes of the present great
death-rate from whooping-cough? The parents, I may
add, are distinctly averse to vaccination, but coerced.
�POINTS SUBMITTED
BY J. jIgABTH WILKINSON
to the Vaccinatio^Committee of the House of Commons.
I.—He is prepared to offer evidence giving actual
observation of evil effects arising from Vaccination.
II. —To allege that such evil consequences are wide
spreadgand very serious to the community.
III. —To show reasons why they are to a great extent
hidden from the medical profession. And why, so long
as Vaccination is endowed and established, they will be
so hidden.
IV. —To show that the statistics on this side of the
question are unknown, and that it is not policy to
legislate without them.
V. —To dispute the statistics which allege fatality
of Small-pox to Non-Vaccination, by showing that
other obvious factors are the causes of the fatality, and
Non-Vaccination only the coincidence of it.
VI. —To dispute the fact that Vaccination, or that
the stringency of Compulsory Laws, has anything to do<
with the abatement of the disease in modern times, or
with the immunity of faces in our day from pockmarks.
VII. —To show that the medical profession is incon
sistent in rigidly applying the rule, Post hoc ergo prop
ter hoc, to all who after Vaccination do not take Small
pox, and at the same time in rigorously insisting on
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
41
Post hoc ergo non propter hoc against all domestic evi
dences of grievous complaints following Vaccination.
VIII. —That fathers and mothers, from the necessity
of the case, have a greatly larger scientific basis of know
ledge of the real consequences of Vaccination than the
doctors can obtain. That Acts of Parliament have
brought this state of things about, so far as medicine
is concerned. They have paralysed medicine.
IX. —That Small-pox is a bugbear, because the
medical profession will not look at the various new
means now known of treating it.
X. —That its hospitals, in carrying the people from
Whitechapel to the tops of Hampstead and Highgate,
propagate the disease ; and by the severe act of carrying,
as well as otherwise, increase the death-rate. That
medical men carry it also, and are wide infectors. That
both these infectors can be easily done without.
XI. —That the medical profession will be socially
ruined if it has compulsory laws to carry out its pre
scriptions ; if it is associated with the police; and
the accoucheur of to-day becomes the informer after
wards ; and is either a party to violent Vaccination for
the child; or a means of fine, or gaol with ruin, to the
husband, or widow.
XII. —That the humanity of the medical profession
is seriously compromised by such acts, and its skill
against suffering diminished.
XIII. —That the poorer classes will become aleague
of secrecy against such acts I and concealment of births,
or false Vaccinations, and forging of Vaccination certifi
cates, will be means of public safety.
XIV. —That resistance to the mother’s knowledge,
erroneous or not, that one child has been poisoned, or
killed, by Vaccination, and forcing her to have the next
�42
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
child Vaccinated, is a procedure which, if insisted on
by Parliament, will cause virtual, and chronic, though
it may be covered, civil war. The Acts that do it are
regarded as declarations of war against, and as invasion
of, poor men’s homes. They may seem to triumph, but
resistance will be perpetual.
XV. —That Law Courts could not carry out punish
ments against poor men and poor women if they oppose
violent resistance to violent Vaccination. The moral
sense and sympathy of the constituencies will be en
tirely with the poorer combatants.
XVI. —That the primary wrong of Vaccination lay
in the Parliamentary grant of £30,000 to Dr. Jenner,
which gave Vaccination, then a slight experiment, an
artificial
all over the world, and made^ it so
difficult to reconsider the question, that compulsory
laws easily followed upon the hasty status thus given
to Vaccination^ The assumption that Vaccination can
do no wrong is the first outcome of these laws. The
next consequence is that all enquiry into the evils
inflicted by Vaccination is regarded as out of date.
And, third, all compensation for the mischiefs and mur
ders, is barred by Act of Parliament.
XVII. —The endowment and establishment of Physic
by the State, and its presence and influence in the
Privy Council, is a.n anomaly, and the like of it exists
with no other private calling 9 and it has been disas
trous, as being, among other things, the main cause of
the compulsory Vaccination laws, founded as they are
not upon facts, but upon presumptions, and in disre
gard of wide facts of the evils of Vaccination, known to
the poorer classes especially.
XVIII.—These futile and oppressive laws divert
the mind of Parliament, and of the Municipal bodies of
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
43
the kingdom, from the true social way of stamping out
Small-pox; viz. : the rebuilding and systematic purifi
cation of poor men’s homes in town and country.
FURTHER REMARKS®
When I was under examination, DrlBrewer asked
me : “ Do you not approve of isolation of Small-pox
cases?” I said I “With oil?” He said I “ No, in
hospitals.”
There are two ways of isolation. 1. Keeping every
case of Small-pox in the room where the patient is, and
sending in a nurse. 2. Using a drug which will sheathe
and destroy each poison particle as it comes off the
skin.
The present way—DrlBrewer’s way—is the way
of the general diffusion of Small-poxl That all London
does not take it, shows how few persons are susceptible
of the disease.
1. The patient is taken from a single Boom, where
no one need be in danger, through perhaps six
miles of streets, dropping contagion as he goes, into
the ready furrow of panicl which the ambulance
makes as it passes.
2. He is removed even with death upon him, and
the act kills him, and his aggravated death increases
the ripeness of the field of contagion.
3. He is taken into hospital, where contagion is
concentrated and focussed, and whence it pours
forth in compound waves over Dr. Brewer’s city of
London.
�44
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
4. Doctors steeped in it visit as usual, and sow it
on their own account.
5. When the patients are convalescing, they may
be seen walking in the purlieus of the hospitals, and
if wind and poison-dust exist, they must be sending
showers of seed of Small-pox. (see Tyndall on Dust)
on the wings of the wind over their locality.
6. When the patients are half well, they are
turned out, and communicate the disease to their
own people and neighbourhood after all, I know
this by experience. Why were they taken away at
first ?
Is this isolation] I say it is Diffusion of Small
pox by Medical Act of Parhament, Concentration of
Small-pox in Barns and Granaries of Small-pox, and
systematic sowing of Small-pox, and continual harvest
ing of Small-pox. The wit of man could not have
devised any respectable means of making Small-pox
more universal than Dr. Brewer’s Small-pox hospitals,
and the process of filling them, and emptying them.
Crown ah with the fact, that Dr. Marson, the virtual
Buler of Treatment in the Small-pox Hospital, avows
to the Select Committee that he has no new lights in
the Treatment of Small-pox, which stands for his
mind where it did twenty or thirty years ago : that
his Art of Medicine can do nothingRoo combat Zymotic
Diseases.
So Parliament endows and establishes Small-pox,
and not to be unfair to its little sister, endows and
establishes Vaccination also.
�LETTERS TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
ON VACCINAL SYPHILIS
Feb. 12, 1873.
Dear Sir,—
Owing to your multifarious duties, it is pro
bable that you have not seen The Medical Times and
Gazette of Feb. 1, containing a Lecture by Dr. Jonathan
Hutchinson, Senior Surgeon to the London Hospital—
“A Second Report on the Communication of Syphilis in
the Practice of Vaccination” —and a leading article in
the same journal—“ Vaccinal Syphilis.” In this article
the editor says : “ It is plain that our Compulsory Vac
cination laws cannot be maintained unmodified. * *
The number of instances yet before us is small, but we
also well know the manifold inducements to keep these
secret. * * If a full EB| investigation were made * *
we doubt not but that many more facts might be ac
quired. * * What we do know suffices to warn us of
the possibility of the dreadful contamination. * * * It
is not fair to subject peoples’ children to risks such as
those Vaccination-Syphilis implies, with no alternative
save to go to prison.”
Will you not move at once in this matter ? The
Compulsory legisBtion extends virtually to all subjects
of the British Crown. Considering what the human
race is, it is strongly probable that Vaccination syphi-
�46
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
lizes more people—and these little children—than all
debauchery put together; and, whatever the number,
the two Houses of Parliament have the responsibility
of it. Every month of delay, those two Houses are
syphilizing the Young Hope of the British nation.
The facts now at last admitted by the medical
profession render it also certain that whatever other
diseases blood can carry are imparted into the com
pulsorily-vaccinated by the power of your Honourable
Houses.
I say nothing in detail of my own recent experiences,
but I have lately seen many and sad cases of the irre
mediable evils caused by Vaccination.
Will you not, then, afteik brief consideration, move
for a return of all fines and imprisonments under the
last of the Vaccination laws, and beseech your Honour
able House for an immediate delivery from fine and
gaol of all who are suffering in the holy cause of pro
tecting their infants from “ Vaccinal Syphilis” and
other law-made diseases ?
I cannot but hope that your love to the Lord will be
shown in your prompt action here for the little children
of your country.
Yours truly.
Feb. 13, 1873.
My dear Sir,—
What you tell me of the communication of
Syphilis in Vaccination is very distressing; but the
ravages of Small-pox appear to me more alarming, and
much more extensive ; and I could not make up my
mind, even under your high authority, to take a part in
�COMPULSORY VACCINATION-.
47
•withdrawing protection from helpless infants against
that scourge.
Could not something effective be done to prevent
such clumsy practice in. Vaccination ?
Ever truly yours.
; Feb. 14, 1873.
Dear Sir,—
The ravages of Small-pox are not now alarm
ing, while the death-rate of whooping-cough, pro
bably caused by the weakness induced on infants by
Vaccination, is very great, though taken no account of
by the Legislature or the Profession. I had thought
that the recent epidemic of Small-pox had demonstrated
in large characters the futility of Vaccinawon as a pre
ventive of Small-pox. In well-vaccinated and re-vacci
nated Berlin, the death-gate proportionally is four times
greater than in London. And all the statistics about
the deaths in. the Prussian and French armies, cited
from St. Petersburg, have been shown by German
officials to be fiction.
On the other hand, the curtain is now being lifted
by the unwilling hands of the medical profession itself
from the child-victims of Vaccination. A thick curtain
it is, of prejudice, and greed of money and power; but
under it the profession is forced at last to see the in
fant destruction lying, and to suspect the |arger woe
and destruction which is still for the most part covered.
The poor men and women of the country knew all
this long ago: Parhament and the Profession are the
last to know it. The judgment of Solomon proves
who are the rightful fathers and mothers, and that your
�48
COMPULSORY VACCINATION.
Honourable Houses are neither paternal nor maternal.
The eyes of the heart are the most precious of even
scientific eyes, and your Houses have them not here.
After what has transpired, the longer maintenance of
Compulsory Vaccination amounts to the National En
dowment and Establishment of Syphilis by the Govern
ment. This is inconsistent with the avowed purpose of
the Contagious Diseases Acts. Their aim is to stamp
out Female Syphilis in the interest of the army, and of
respectable youths who are one day to be virtuous hus
bands. But at the other end you are establishing a
Syphilis Factory, Applicable to all infants. In short,
the law you have made is putting in Syphilis with its
hands, and stamping out Syphilis with its feet. The
babies of the country are in its hands, and the women
under its heels.
This does not depend on clumsy, or careful, Vaccina
tion. No Vaccinator can be sure that he is not syphi
lizing the babe on whom he operates. Will you still
send fathers to gaol for their horror at the dreadful
chance ?
Yours truly.
THE END.
BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Compulsory vaccination, its wickedness to the poor
Creator
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Wilkinson, James John Garth
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 48 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Contains letters written by the author to a Member of Parliament for Vaccinal Syphilis and points submitted to the Vaccination Committee of the House of Commons. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Printed by Billing, Guildford, Surrey.
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F. Pitman
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[1873?]
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G5287
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Health
Vaccination
Social problems
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Health
Medicine
Poverty
Vaccination
Working Classes