1 10 16 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a49b6346ce38bd61614636d47f893488.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=sBas26juV4TTe5%7Efy9knoKj8b4pXRl4OF12xSNNItFZwuQ2-RYYU1yRJ1YZ7jAUcRfB3FN7Dm9V9U2bbcjBuf6Vwjsmv971zc659kmggMfJ2k8So-AxzcOUadobBKYWeqZnAgseZC%7E8JogLDPPi5hDbG8OWJMJDfVDoMLklwgBazhvDEmwNtgr80lpZSk5xnzfOJXYMGliG4Ug1nFae1P153PfYryfhct4cWhuQr4pnhC2hPq6NUN4Fbm0UWSVvmfz7czd2ImQo%7EJ1QIROY73SsTg%7EA3uvmy%7EwlMBoHjWnpCe6P9RupGslC13vhM5YUJ5uR3b6t9EiPFSIC%7E7jUE6A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 596d6778bbb920735856259273e8c31d PDF Text Text i66 CHRISTIANITY AGAIN CONSIDERED. no earthly law smites him, he still is sinning against God, inflicts injury on himself. For he that breaks a law of God, whether it be a material one—in the physical globe or his own body ; or a spiritual one, in his own soul, or in society, inflicts damage on his own being; while he who works righteousness by living in obedience to the law of God, is the better man for it, in himself, alike in time and eternity. If there be any reader who rejects these statements, I can only answer in the words of another, “We believe that con­ science exists, just as fully as that we believe all men have bones, and as it seems to us for the same reasons. Why is that to be struck out of the list of evidence, any more than any physical testi­ mony whatsoever ? Surely a more powerful item of evidence, not only as to the personality of the First Cause, but as to the character of that personality, could hardly be conceived.”(/) (a) History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii., p. 253. Second edition. (b) Church of England Prayer Book, Article 9: Confession of Faith, chap. vi. 6. (c) Works, vol. iii., p. igg. (d) R. H. Hutton. (e) Duration of Future Punishment, by the Rev. George Rogers, p. 4, (/) The Spectator. &gain (EonstWlc HRISTIANITY” is the title of a new book, by M. D. Conway, M.A., and it is issued by Trubner & Co., of London. It is a small but striking book. Indeed whatever comes from the pen of Mr. Conway is always worth perusal. He has a knack of hitting his opponents straight from the shoulder, of calling a spade a spade, of denouncing superstition in unmeasured terms. As a preacher Mr. Conway prefers an “ unfettered pulpit,” from which he can fearlessly expose the errors and hypocrisy of the popular creed. We wish there were more unfettered pulpits in the world, occupied by men of culture and zeal, and “ no longer bribed by the social or pecuniary endowments of an established creed.” The book before us should be in the hands of every one who wishes to be acquainted with the numerous phases through which Christianity has passed, and we can confidently say that its perusal will afford both pleasure and profit. Mr. Conway considers Christianity under six aspects : its morning state, its dawn, its day, its decline, its afterglow, and its mosrow, and each of these divisions receives masterly treatment. There are several allusions to English Unitarianism, and the Unitarian Association comes in for a share of the Author's criticism. We think, however, that Mr. Conway’s strictures on what he terms the “ professed liberality ” of the Association are somewhat strong. No Association can exist without obe­ dience to certain laws, and the “ fundamental law” which appears to be so obnoxious to Mr. Conway is not, in our opinion, such an obnoxious one as he would make it appear. Personally, we should like to see an independent Association formed, which should e �ANDREW AYLMER: A SKETCH. 167 include all Theists, whether Jews, Unitarians, Brahmins, or Rationalists, in fact all who worship a supreme Governor of the Universe, and wish to assist the extension of a Universal Brotherhood of Man. But reforms whether social or religious are not carried in a day, so we must be content to plod patiently alsng that road which leads to the goal we are all aiming at, and we doubt not it will be reached e’er many years more have been added to the world’s age. There are many-paragraphs having especial reference to the Unitarian faith which we should like to quote, but our space forbids. We cannot however conclude this brief notice without giving one or two extracts. On page 89, Mr. Conway writes : “ Where is the author of our time who defends the wild notion of an eternal punishment—a punishment without end, and consequently without purpose—inflicted on millions for a sin they did not commit, and who have not even determined their own existence!” On page 124 he says:—“ The English Unitarians have an honorable history, and no page of it is brighter than the last; but they can retain what they have wn only by following up their advance.” Mr. Conway brings his book to a conclusion as follows :—“ The highest religion of to-day is to look and labour for a nobler day. Nor can I think that new day so distant. For this matter the world of men means mainly all those who think. The thinkers of the world are but thinly divided by veils of language and tricks of expression ; speedily wii^, they pierce these and discover that round the world hearts beat with one moral blood, and eyes see by one and the same sunlight. And as thought moves so will the most motionless masses gravitate; and every sect in the world be subtly consumed through and through by that popular disgust of bigotry and hyprocrisy, which will emanate from the fairly awakened con­ science and intellect of humanity.” winter: & CHAPTER IV.--- A WORD CONCERNING WILL, AND AYLMER’S INFLUENCE. ACHEL AYLMER, soon after Andrew left home to attend Mr. Cuthberton’s class at the Institute, dressed herself for going out to pay a visit to her brother, Benjamin Harton, who lived in the village of Ronesburn. As he worked the same “ place ” with Andrew in the Scottingley mine, she was anxious lest the persecu­ tion towards her son had been extended to her brother as well. And then she wanted a talk with him about the whole matter. Long had she and Joshua chatted over it, but the thing had not come out any clearer to their minds. As she stood by her hearth­ bound husband, to bid him good-bye for her two-hour visit, she saw the newspaper was by his side, unused, and she had to touch his shoulder ere he lifted his eyes from the fire. Responsive to her touch, he said,— “ Dinna be lang, wife, for I’m nae owre canny the night. Dis B �thoo think the laddie troubles aboot his loss o’ wark ? ” “ Hinny, An’rew winna let his troubles clood his brow. Let’s hope he dis’na feel them mair than he shows.” “ Aye, as Ben said once, ‘ he tabs things philosophically.’ ” “ Aboot that, I dinna kna,” replied Rachel, thoughtfully, “but sure, as the boy says in one o’ his ain varses, * 1 The dew o’ heaven is in his heart,’ an’ he’ll mak’ the best o’t, safe enough.” The old man was comforted, the cloud passed from his face, the newspaper was resumed, and Rachel wended her way in the direction of Ronesburn. Approaching Scottingley, which stands between the cottage and her destination, she saw a larger crowd of men than usual at the corner of the road leading towards the colliery. This would not have taken her attention, but, as she came opposite to them, one, whom she did not recognise in the twilight, left the crowd, and, as he neared her, said, “ Mrs. Aylmer, I want a word wi’ ye.” “ Is’t Will Bardoyle ? Hoo is’t there’s sae mony oot ? Hae they shut up the public-hoose ? It’s nae a dog-race being made up or thoo wouldna’ be in’t.” “Nay, Mrs. Aylmer, we’ve been having a long talk about Andrew, and I want to see him for the men ; but I suppose he’ll not be at home for some time, as it is class night.” “ He’ll no be hame till late, as he’s cornin’ roond for me frae brother’s after class, but when thoo’s dune here thoo canst find the way to Ben’s.” In spite of her concern on Andrew’s account, she could not help smiling as she said this, for there were a pair of bright eyes at Ben’s which drew him there, and not against his will. “ I don’t know if I dare call in to-night,” said Will, in reply, “ for I have been offered the situation of overman, and I want to see Andrew first. Ben has’na been out with us, or he would have known and agreed with what I propose to do, so I’ll just meet Andrew, and maybe call in with him.” With a quiet “ good-night ” she passed on toward Ronesburn, and Will joined the men, who were still talking in clusters. The men had talked with each other that evening of many things__ of the franchise, of improvements connected with their work and their houses, and especially of the treatment Aylmer had been subjected to; and of these things Will Bardoyle’s mind was full, as some time after he took the road to Cuthberton, with a view to meet Andrew. Not meeting him, however, and learning that he had taken the river-path leading to the Hall, he continued his walk along the highway, passed Mr.' Pembroke’s villa, and chatted with the old lodge-keeper until Andrew came out. Will was some years older than Andrew, but Will could not have reverenced him more nad he been as aged as he counted him worthy. Indeed, Andrew had been tne making of Will, for when he was Aylmer’s present age he was a rough character truly, taking � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christianity again considered Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [s.l.] Collation: 166-167 p. ; 22 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Christianity' from 'Free World' February,1877. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5612 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource [Unknown] Subject The topic of the resource Book reviews Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Christianity again considered), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Book Reviews Christianity Conway Tracts Moncure Conway https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/618e5b15bb6579c8237f59ee5ec96937.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=vGn%7EzxGrjZx7ZO4z7kBYKh3kAiy8EICWq4u6OQds7i6T-V8kjj8Xe-Y8DpZwBa214N0m2j93W1sgdfM6CfA%7EtvyMokvYkPLdZJHxaj6VDPgly743I6DEyF%7ETTsi9YwE2KUDje32uml8RRu9n9viIn-JSugBLB9qxPQ9zfau7b7z8PqUM3UaMH6A-EBxtQqJE3gEc4nUZWnus%7EzM185SjUPE-AsbHcnjdYOSLcZZDUX2e33%7E1lL7iKVJSelqRZ4j-BIkE7O11B2Ayx-2uufgkU%7EuUvP91mu1w3nUXCgUbB2wSTCnrULZpLC31UAOP6W58BsJyEBnGL6TsT6OBr8md1A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 306858fdac059bdedaf45520463628cf PDF Text Text ���������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus : or, Pious poverty and heterodox happiness Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891.] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. ; 24 cm. Notes: Printed by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant. Marginal mark on p. 10. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G4347 Subject The topic of the resource Free thought Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus : or, Pious poverty and heterodox happiness), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Free Thought Jesus Christ Malthusianism Percy Bysshe Shelley Thomas R Malthus https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/fd0e2cf77cdfe99084980e1f532bf371.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=jV5MWZRS7CNG2YTnMPK8rpDvzZjxTThgqz0x7UJ-bd1mO21gYMGCCi1UjODYGwT3n5WjxTUvT2tWtdRSPfQXSRVYPy52Vto7uKWHmiES3sp9YAYaYGB750GzQUXq5zHygCF%7E4sMx1G8BTjum90-OJvAyEWcr0qDDzyvXZHGNf98pg4Uh93zJ1ei%7EZRVixanvz%7EDQfhs7fMaa9X26zwHbQMrRsDbmEJG6PpuClgIh%7EBpwAopWtveFYwz39RXo6NZk9-gWULe87Z76etULrZv553zm7rsXSJK2N9Vc2uqdSxZQKsNWoPg3ZmO%7E4qyNG5snv2bm5ZnrerXxwdpyQaDmWw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8205244fb458048d1f26cff52539c4fc PDF Text Text 216 * UNBELIEF: ITS NATURE, CAUSE, AND CURE. A DISCOURSE GIVEN AT SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL. APRIL Zth, 1877. BY MONCURE PRICE D. CONWAY. TWOPENCE. ��UNBELIEF. In the new magazine, the 11 Nineteenth Century, ’ a new kind of article has been introduced. It is called a modern “ Symposium.” A group of eminent men Of various schools of belief set themselves to consider whether, or how far, human -morality depends upon religious belief. Most of the statements appear to me remarkable for the elaboration with which they beat about the heart of the problem without touching it. The simple question is, whether the religious belief is a revelation from without, or an evolution from within, human nature. If Christianity, for instance, is a super­ natural revelation it must have been given to make the world better, and of course the world would lose morally if belief in it should fail. On the other hand, if Christianity be an evolution, a historic product of human nature, the same force which created it will work on as it disappears and bear us above it. As to the plain proposition whether a man’s morality is related to his belief, there is no question at all. �2 The experience of mankind in every age and place is that recorded in the Bible, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” But he must think it in his heart. It must be a genuine conviction. The “ Symposium ” would never have been written if this genuineness had not departed from the popular faith in the theology whose forms stand around us. “All that we are is founded in our thought,” said Buddha. Our moral systems are so because man so thought. He once thought hanging the right punishment for theft, and then men were hung for stealing. That once moral law has become immoral because the underlying belief has changed. Men still think hanging necessary to prevent murder, and so long as they think so men will be hung for murder. Man once thought men could be made moral by threats of hell and promises of heaven; he has found out that these threats and promises easily disconnected themselves from morality, and even encouraged immorality by persuading men that by priestly conjuration they could pass from the worst life, from the very scaffold, straight to the arms of Jesus. Supernatural religion was of old the rival of morality. Its wrath was poured out on those who trusted in morality and good works. We have among us two totally different and discordant religions. One is for the glory and pacification of God; the other is for the improvement of man and the culture of this �3 world. One is a religion whose legitimate embodi­ ment is in sacraments, ceremonies, mysterious creeds, all related to man’s estate in another world. The embodiment of the other is in social duties, charities, law and order, equal justice, and the pursuit of happi­ ness. If belief in either of these religions were to fail, the institutions growing out of it would fail. If the root of belief in the other-world religion were cut, its foliage and fruit would wither—that is, sacraments, supplications, mysterious dogmas, priests, bishops, and a vast number of litigations and quarrels, whose •cessation would hardly demoralise society however deplored by the lawyers. If belief in the religion of morality were uprooted, then the corresponding growths would decay—love and truth, charity and sympathy, justice and purity, all the social and civic duties. Because the branches of these two trees mingle in society they must not be supposed to have one root. The priest and the moralist are both interested in the preservation of peace and social order. The priest cannot carry on his temple amid social chaos, and he borrows the ethical system. The moralist finds man­ kind selfish and passionate, so he borrows some of the menaces of the priest to frighten people into obedi­ ence. By this alliance our Society has been formed in which morality is labelled Christian, and Christianity is warranted moral. �4 Nevertheless, it was never an alliance of equals. Christianity at an early period gained the upper hand, because it was believed to command the more terrible sanctions of reward and punishment. Morality could threaten or bribe a man for only the few years of life ; but the binding and loosing of the priest extended through endless ages. He could always look down on kings and laws, and say to the people “ Fear not them that at most can only kill the body; but fear us who have power to cast both soul and body into hell for ever.” So Christianity became a throned ecclesiasticism : the priest became supreme. He denied that morality was any religion at all ; it was only a. policeman. He would not deny it might be valuable if it supported his ceremonies and authority, but if it claimed to be the main thing, he made war against it. So poor Morality had to make the best terms it could; and it has gone on until now conceding that Christianity was the main thing, itself a dependent; prayer it agreed was more important than justice, belief in the Trinity more essential to life than kind­ ness, and theft a mere peccadillo compared with confounding the substance or dividing the persons of the godhead. By this subordination the two as master and servant managed to get on peaceably until now. But now— �5 even in our own day—a tremendous break has oc­ curred between them. And it came about in this way. The progress of knowledge discovered and proved that the fundamental dogmas of supernatural religion are untrue,—the speculations and dreams of ancient, ignorant tribes. This discovery has brought on a new set of moral questions altogether. The servant has been called suddenly to judge the character of his master. Does his master speak the truth ? Certainly he has not in the past. Will he in the future ? What' and admit all his divine knowledge to have been a pretence 1 Impossible. Then, says Morality, can I re­ main moral and still support untruth ? Theology suggests, Why not shut your eyes to this discovery of untruth in your old master, or at least wink at it ? But is that moral ? asks Morality, anxiously. Is there not a morality beside that of conduct,—a morality for the intellect ? If there are mental duties, then to assent to a fiction is as immoral as adultery. To believe a proposition aside from its truth, to believe it merely because of some advantage, becomes intellectual pros­ titution. The purity of the mind is bargained away. It is vain now to claim the old authority of religion over morality : it is a part of the new discovery that there can be no authority but truth. So the system which sits in the seat of a religion, but finds itself opposed in the name of morality, has be$n compelled �6 to try and save itself by claiming to be the very soul and self of popular morality. Disbelieve, it says, if you must, but keep quiet about it; for if the masses come to disbelieve with you, they will break all restraints. They hold what morality they have, only because the priest has adopted morality, and told them it is part of their means of escaping hell; but if you take away all their prseternatural terrors, they will not be restrained by mere considerations of public good, or the beauty of virtue. To this Morality, merely as a prudential thing, con­ fidently replies : Admitting your old hopes and fears still bind the ignorant, it is only the ignorant. You leave the educated world suspended between the old and the new; what is to keep the keepers—to lead the leaders—to prevent the cultivated class from sinking into mere hypocrisy, luxury, selfishness ? Nay, the obli­ gations your superstition imposes on the ignorant must become ever weaker even for them. The spread of knowledge, which is inevitable, will mean the spread of lawlessness. Every new schoolhouse we are build­ ing must prove a centre to radiate recklessness. As a mere practical policy your attempt to keep up the delusions is itself a delusion. But Morality has a higher answer than that. As superstitious religion crumbles, Morality itself has ascended to be a religion. From being servant it �7 assumes to be master; it claims to be itself a faith, a belief, and affirms that truth is to be maintained on principle and apart from any possible overt acts. It is not mere outward rule and law, but contains an inward life which inspires it to believe in what it affirms, and to religiously trust that the fruit of right will never be wrong, whatever may be the appear­ ances to the contrary. This is the living faith of the present; it will be the commanding faith of the future. Theologians call it unbelief, but in no sense is it that. Its attitude to­ wards the superstition which sometime superseded it is that of disbelief; but there is a vast difference between disbelief and unbelief. The unbeliever is one who has not accepted a thing; the disbeliever has positively rejected it. The unbeliever may not believe a thing because he never heard of, or never examined it, or does not wish to admit it; the disbeliever has considered and denied. Consequently unbelief does not imply that there is any belief at all in the mind. Disbelief implies that a proposition has been rejected because there is something already in the mind which excludes it. Consequently a man cannot be a dis­ believer of one thing without being a believer in some other thing. But unbelief is a mere blank, passive state of mind ; and it deserves some of the evil accent it bears to the religious mind, because it is generally �8. the counterpart of a torpid indifference. He who dfebelieves in science, he who believes in morality, he who worships humanity, or adores reason, cannot be called an unbeliever. He is a great believer. As to the rest, no intelligent mind exists which does not disbelieve something. The Christian calls the man of science an infidel, or unbeliever; the Mussulman calls the Christian an infidel. Every religion is infidelity to other religions; and while sectarians thus call each other by hard names, all victims of idle words, the real enemy of all religion, unbelief,—systematic indifference, cynical con­ tempt for all high principles,—is sapping the strength of every civilisation. No student of history can view without concern the moral dangers which attend the crumbling of any religion. We have before us the fearful scenes which followed the decline of the gods and goddesses of Rome in universal contempt and unbelief: amid the fragments of their statues and the blackened ruins of their temples stands Caligula knocking off the head of Jupiter and setting his own in its place, and Nero lighting up his orgies with burning Christians for his torches. When Vespasian came to rebuild the temples, repair the altars, and set the gods back in their shrines, what he could not bring back was belief in them. Titus tried the same. Titus was strong enough to carry to the temple of �9 Jerusalem the same desolation that Nero had brought on Rome, but Titus was not strong enough to carry into any mind the faith that had become a mythology. And amid those ruins Belief never sprang up again until called from its grave by the voice of a great soul, whom the old moral world crucified because he an­ nounced a new moral world——setting the religion of simple purity and love against established superstition and proud sacerdotalism. There are not wanting prophets who remembering these things—remembering too the terrors amid which Romanism went down in France, Germany and England—predict that the decay of dogmas m the popular mind will be followed here too by the carni­ val of rapine and lust. I hope not. But if we are. saved it will be because the real believers of our time —the disbelievers in superstition—have grown wise enough to anticipate and forestall the danger. The evil in those historic examples was" that moral princi­ ples had not been cultivated in and for themselves. The light suddenly blazed on a long bandaged eye nnd inflamed it. The whole order of society had been made to rest on gods and goddesses, and when belief in them gave way the superstructure tumbled down. Undoubtedly the like fate would befall us if the people were still taught that the only motive to be honest is to get to heaven; that self-restraint is �IO only a prudent investment in paradise; that any crime may be outweighed by accepting the blood of Christ. If popular morality has no root of its own, if it is a mere graft on the decaying limb of a dying trunk, then when the dead tree falls, down goes all that was grafted on it. But I would fain believe that such is not the case with our public morality. It has crept into our courts that a man may testify the truth without kissing the Bible, and may minister justice without believing in hell or heaven. It has made its way even into the admissions of the priest that his church presents no higher morality than the societies of those who reject his morality. The noble lives of the great disbelievers, who were yet the martyrs of their belief,—the Lyells and Grotes, Mills and Channings, Mazzinis, Strausses, Parkers, who sleep in honourable graves j the Emersons, Huxleys, Darwins, Carlyles, Spencers, at whose feet this living generation sits and learns not so much any theory as the great moral lesson of courage and fidelity, —these have not spoken to the world in vain. How far it has penetrated into the popular mind that virtue, kindness, truth and honesty, are independent of religious phantasms—good and essential in themselves —rooted in the honour of humanity;—this cannot be estimated. Our sanguine hopes that we shall escape the political Nemesis which has heretofore �II pursued legally established falsehood may be dis­ appointed. Assuredly we cannot escape the moral Nemesis. Even now one phase of the decay of superstition is., upon us,—a phase which in previous ages was repre­ sented in social ruin. It is the phase of mere unbelief., the general dropping out of belief of the old orthodoxy, accompanied by an indifference to all religion, chiefly shown in a pretence to believe what is not believed. One hundred years ago when Soame Jenyns wrotehis hard dogmatic defence of Christianity, a certaim clergyman wrote on it: “ Almost thou persuadest me not to be a Christian.” Since then the dismal theology of Soame Jenyns has run its course; it has sought m nature signs of the vindictiveness of God; in heredi­ tary disease proofs of God’s hatred of man for Adams, sin; it has paraded human misery on earth as a happy augury of endless misery hereafter. It so completed in the real mind of this country the work Soame Jenyns began in that old clergyman,—it has quite persuaded men not to be Christians. Nobody can see the gay, smiling, money-getting, eating and drinking multitudes around us, from the merry-makers of Good Friday—once funereal—to the clergyman with his old port, and imagine that they believe in hell, or the devil, that riches hinder heaven, and the world is all accursed. But, alas, the departure of belief has left �12 them in mere unbelief. One thing untrue as another, they stick to that which is most convenient. They make religion a mere minister to their social, political, or even pecuniary advantages. Now, because this phase of no-faith does not break out in blood and riot, let us not imagine that it can •exist without serious harm. A reign of terror were hardly worse than a reign of chronic hypocrisy and ■selfishness. Real unbelief means heartlessness, and it must lower the whole character of both individual and national life. Maybe society can get along in that way ; a colony of ants gets along ; but there can be no grandeur in a country which has no faith, there •can be no ascent of national genius where there is no moral earnestness. Also a man may get along in one way by cauterising conscience and burying enthusiasm. When a shrewd fellow once defended his base occu­ pation by saying, “I must live,” a wit replied, “ I don’t see the necessity.” A man has indeed to justify his right to consume and occupy a part of nature. A weed has no right to soil and sunshine that might turn to corn and wine. But what good thing can grow in barren soil under a sunless roof? Under no such murky atmosphere, shrouding every star of ideality, can we raise our own minds and hearts, or those of our children, to any high aims, or ■.secure beautiful characters. It can not be done by a �i3 spurious devotionalism, the hectic spot of a dying­ faith ; it can as little be done by cold-hearted absorp­ tion in pleasures of life, which should be only its. fringe. It is no true belief to have faith in the senses and their satisfactions. Belief is that which trusts in principles, recognises laws and obeys them, and what­ soever it finds to be true, raises that to be the pole-star of its progress. The man of unbelief is the mere or­ ganism of external influences. When you have found what is respectable in his neighbourhood—what is strongest—the biggest church, the successful party, you have found all there is of him. There is nothing in him to build on. In the far West, among rough adventurers, along the Mississippi, with all their oathsand vices, one often finds that after all they have some principle j deep down there’s something they’ll fight for, some point of honour they’ll die for. The half-savage pilot who swears and drinks, and then sinks with his boat to save the passengers; thatjnoted gambler who at the late St. Louis’ fire lost his life in saving others,—you can build that man into your social wall. But you can do nothing with your smooth polished gentleman who believes in nothing, and holds himself ready to affirm or deny anything you please so long as the mellifluous flow of his self-seeking existence is undisturbed. It should be recognised that the great ages have �14 «always been ages of Belief, and though they have uttered their mighty disbelief, they have never sunk to the sunless gulf of Unbelief. There are two etymologies of the word Belief,— some derive it from the old German belieben to belove; others making it be-leben,—to live by. But in either ■case it marks the height from which the ordinary use ■of the word has descended. Whether belief was of old that which a man lives by, or whether that a man loves, or beloves,—such indeed must a true belief be to any man if it is to :serve him or others. Eight hundred years ago two great French theologians were teaching the world. One Abelard, the other Anselm. Abelard said, Inteldige ut credas; Anselm replied, Crede ut iiitelligas. The world turned from Abelard, who said “ Under­ stand, that you may believe,” to follow Anselm, who said “ Believe, that you may understand.” So putting •out their eyes that they might see better, they groped their way until, mad with disappointment in the thick­ ening darkness, like blind Samson, they pulled down ■pillars of throne and temple in revolutionary wrath. It is time now to remember the long-forgotten motto of Abelard,—“ Understand, that you may be­ lieve ! ” He only reaches his aim to whom his aim is clear. You can only live by a belief when it has ■entered profoundly into both brain and heart. It is �i5 something you are to believe, belove, live by. 1 ou shall fall in love with it. Where that faith goes there will you go, its people shall be your people, its God your God. And if amid all the great events and causes of our time you can find nothing that can so kindle your enthusiasm, it is because you are the victim of that organised Unreason which has set up a tyrant for men to worship, and made the merit of belief consist in the absurdity of the thing believed. Wonderful, indeed, it would have been if after ages of monster-worship and compulsory belief of the incredible, the very organ of faith should not have suffered atrophy in many. But let none rest content with that mere despair—the suicide of faith—Unbelief. Let every mind know that it is its nature to believe. If a mind will only ascend from unbelief to disbelief, if it will face the fact that the dogmas do not fill it with conviction and joy, and ask itself why not; if it will consider and think, it will intelligently disbelieve, and that disbelief will be the other side of a belief. An aged authoress once told me—“ I do not believe in miracles because I believe in God.” If you do not believe in jealous Jehovah it is because you believe in supreme Love. If not in depravity, it is because you believe in Man. Follow that earnest scepticism, and it shall fall like a blossom before the fair fruitage of a. larger faith. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Unbelief : its nature, cause and cure : a discourse given at South Place Chapel, April 8th 1877 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 15 p. ; 15 cm. Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [South Place Chapel] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3335 Subject The topic of the resource Free thought Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Unbelief : its nature, cause and cure : a discourse given at South Place Chapel, April 8th 1877), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Belief and Doubt Free Thought Moral Philosophy Morality Morris Tracts https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2e2f6f2d360f9b69fea6db67ee15e085.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=YmA5BB653ETUQ37pde0qemj9ljEquj2JK3myJAA6ltLY7Gfg2Vl7ol8MNziSrtM1sHmKq2aiuJ5%7EdzSJSbIyo-6bukyBRqoBUj9CWpDTzn76wm%7E97FfBnGomhEoosKcHGIAWFhtEyQkHAaWP5jdqr-xuAjvgp5caSA1cfzWLmU4POYkeKlkeyA-iyyVxLJY1SgV1a1xCFP38k64fw9nCECXQKa%7EIF%7ENHkCb00PtmeNqqKQarp2KW8FxBHcT6MJJT4G3INlhmOeKzff14PS5dqptOuVhobMZECKkCz5QofDmn31RBrbyUKPYA3hsIazgpb%7EH%7ELgjHj8aBozB8kO6-%7Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8450359937ee5db15d9d5edd9355fea2 PDF Text Text ENTERING SOCIETY: A DISCOURSE BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A. DELIVERED AT SUNDAY, 29th July, 1877. frige twopence. �LONDON : PRINTED BY WATERLOW & SONS LIMITED LONDON WALL. I �ENTERING SOCIETY. Every physical law runs through the universe; ex­ plains equally the rolling world and rolling pebble ; harmonises flowers and constellations. In the moral and social world there is a like self-similarity. A certain unity may be discovered in the culture of a child, a nation, or the human race. » Constant is the unity of interests, feelings, thoughts, making what we term society. There is an endless variety in human nature, but its distinction from all lower nature is that its varieties can be utilized to form a society. In animal swarms and herds same­ ness is their strength; feather flocks with-its feathei. There is a strange tribe of American Indians who have a tradition that mankind is descended from the animal world. There was, they say, a mountainous monster who devoured all manner of animals. He swallowed them alive, and once, when he had taken this various meal, a certain Little Wolf that had �4 been swallowed, found the animals inside the monster quarrelling with each other; and he persuaded them that instead of quarrelling they should one and all unite, and contribute their several powers of horn, tooth, or other faculty to get out of the monster and slay him. The animals co-operated; liberated them­ selves ; slew the monster; and, in doing that, they were changed to men, and the human race began. It is a much more moral and scientific genesis of man than that in the Bible. Intelligent co-operation of different species imply humanity; and there are facts enough to show that, on the other hand, pro­ longed strife disintegrates society, and men may be transformed back to animals. All human beings are born members of society. Some pietists and fanatics have tried to escape this necessity, because society is what they call worldly ; but, though they hide in nunneries, monasteries, caves and deserts, they do not get out of society any­ more than they get out of the world. If society were to cease its work of coining, baking, weaving, trading, then the hermit would get out of it in the one way possible—death. There is nothing more grotesque, were we not so familiar with it, than where the abject language of her­ mits who fled society,—and sometimes escaped from it by the door of death,—and their anathemas on the �5 world are repeated by Christians enjoying society and ambitious of its rewards. Possibly they feel bound for form’s sake to carry the skeleton of asceticism round the banquet, but, as in the Egyptian custom, the performance only seems to stimulate the more the avidity with which the so-called pious utilise and enjoy the kingdom of this world. The Church of England merits the credit of having to a large extent abolished the fiction of a world of sinners and an un-world (so to say) of saints; and it might become a fairly good church if it were to lay aside its pretence that the world is morally an invalid in need of its holy medi­ caments. The temptation is great where the deceived patient is rich, for priests as well as for the doctors who proffer bread-pills. (The “ Priest in Absolution really believes in the deadly situation of human nature, and goes on with the old practice of drugging, blister­ ing and bleeding.) The unpardonable sin of nearly every theology ■ the sin by which it must perish—is the separation it has effected between two parts of man’s nature, the antagonism instituted between his social and spiritual activities, in whose harmony man’s well-being can alone be found. That only a few eccentric priests believe and act on that principle does not mitigate the evil fact that all are taught it, and that the young and simple have their consciences bruised and their lives �6 misdirected by it. A result of this figment lias been that the strongest moral agencies, which a true religion would have cultivated, have been left to trail or climb as they could; no sect being willing to acknowledge that any good force belonged to human nature. Still, without any aid from the churches, and mostly against their opposition, Society has been partially able to cultivate the motives, feelings, aims which constitute the actual religion,—the guiding, moulding, animating religion,-—of each civilised community, so far as it is really guided, leaving the churches to become more and more museums of antiquarian dogmatic remains. What is the Social Religion ? Its motive is the sentiment of honour, the sin it specially hates is meanness : these two—love of the honourable, hatred of the dishonourable—branch out from the individual heart into endless adaptations. Out of the social sentiment of honour emerge patriotism, justice, forti­ tude, supporting states; and that loyalty in personal relations, generating sympathy and friendliness, which, when men make the most of them, will cement the w'orld better than gunpowder. No state can ever be perfectly civilised until it is held together by simple force of friendliness. There is a print often seen in shop-windows which has been sent by thousands through the world. It is inscribed—“Simplyto thy cross I cling,” and repre­ �7 sents a young woman with the waves of a sea dashing around her, clasping for safety a cross which rises from the mid-ocean. It is a perfect mirror of Chris­ tian idolatry: it is translatable into many systems of superstition, where above the billows Faith clings now to a lingam, next to a wheel, or it may be, to the symbol of a serpent. But from what engulphing waves will a stone cross, or any of the like idols, save those who cling to them? From billows of sorrow, loss of their friends, or from disease, pain, and death ? By no means. It is truly written in the Bible that one fate happens to all alike, whatever be their prayers and sacrifices; and it almost broke the hearts of the old prophets and psalmists that the pious got no advantage at all over others in these things; in fact, nature’s strict impartiality between the prayerful and the prayerless was a main reason why priests fell to abusing nature and building up a cloudy realm, in which, being its sole creators, they could like other romancers have things turn out as they liked—all the “ pious ” happy, all the rest damned. In that world where cause and effect are of no importance all the stone crosses are in order. They are effective enough to save clinging Faith from imaginary billows, from storms that are not raging, floods non-existent, ' waves of delusive sin against a demonic majesty, and fabulous furies of a phantasmal hell. �But for all of these the real religion that grows around us day by day -will substitute the definite recognition of actual moral dangers, and the study of ■rational methods by which they may be escaped, and the health of man and society be preserved. Even now the finest hearts and minds in this world are impressing upon us the real hells beside which those of the sects appear petty and ridiculous. While the “ lake of fire,” to an increasing number, reads like something seen by Baron Mun­ chausen on his travels, it is no dream that bright and sweet children are growing up to people asylums and prisons, to break hearts and desolate homes, and to pass into degradations which sometimes make death . seem a tardy joy. If a man has ever had the sorrow of seeing one youth beginning with promise, throwing away his life in debauchery and selfishness, much more if he have seen the anguish of a home when all its fairest promises are broken, he will hardly require more to show him the absurdity of priest-made horrors in the presence of these that are real. I think it not too soon to maintain that somewhat more gravity—even solemnity, if you please—should be associated with what is called “entering society.” That phrase usually denotes participation in festal society—a realm of gaiety, beauty, mutual felicitation, where persons are seen in picturesque tableau. �9 There are some silly moralists who look upon all that as vanity j all the beauty of raiment, each effort to look the best, to be happy and make others happy, as ministering to ostentation and selfishness, and as injurious to modesty, humility, and simplicity. Nothing of the kind. It will never harm the modesty of youth to enjoy life’s springtide, as nature invites with her blossom and melody. All that purity requires is that their mirth and dance keep always in the light, and that there be no blind ways such as priests in absolution” provide, and other spiders that weave their webs along the flower-fringed paths of early life. There are hard, odious men (not many .women I hope), who would turn this world into a coal depot, or a grocer’s shop; but the social health is too vigorous for them ; and it is a satisfaction to know that there is a demand for roses as well as cabbages. They who wear the roses, or other decoration, are they vain? On the contrary they are conscious of their need of the rose or the gem to supply that wherein they fall short. Nor are they selfish; they do not array themselves for self-admiration; they long to contribute their part to the general happiness, to make the social circle beautiful, tasteful, and worthy of the enormous cost and toil by which it is sup­ ported. The only danger is that the young will believe some �IO evil whisper that their circle of social enjoyment is quite apart from their round of religious interests and moral duties. They may not indeed adopt the vulgar cant that these are opposed to each other—one holy, the other wicked. But even where that notion is not found, some regard society as a worldly thing, a region of persons not of principles. The merchant who regards religion as a thing for Sunday and not Monday; who conceives the commandments proper between lids of the Bible, out of place between lids of the ledger ; the preacher who on Sunday rehearses creeds declaring the human race under a doom, and everybody moving amid satanic snares, and then passes the rest of his week as smilingly as if there were no danger;—these, and others like them, are generally so unconscious of the duplicity of their lives that we may see plainly that the actual every-day world and the so-called religious world are to those they represent as different as two planets. But it is impossible that this tradition can be suffered to go on much longer. That religious world which has no relation to society, but only to an anthropomorphic deity and another world, has already received the verdict of human intelligence that it is no real religion at all, but a morbid excrescence on the body of Humanity. The verdict has been passed, and the sentence can not long be delayed; for it is impossible that the real interests of man can be �preserved if his energies, his means, above all his moral enthusiasm, are diverted from a society in need to a deity not in need ; from actually existent men and women to possibly existent angels; from the momen­ tous day that is to that which is not. The fundamental law of society is one with the fundamental law of religion. It is a higher law than the Hebrew golden rule (though not inharmonious with it), for it teaches us that our self-love must not equal our love of others. In every case the social instinct requires our personal interest to be held subordinate to the general good; and there is no other* foundation of either morality or religion than just that: self-denial, self-restraint, even self-sacrifice, for things larger than self, are varied growths from the one germ of our moral nature—the social self rising above the personal self. Unless the endless combinations of society be at­ tended and supervised by the moral principle just stated, increase of wealth and power is but increase of things anti-social, selfish, unprogressive. An irre­ ligious society is self-disintegrating; but how is society to be kept in pure elevation when religion is off at­ tending to mansions in heaven; and when the majority of young people are taught such notions of religion that they are only too glad to get rid of it during the rational days of the week ? They are perfectly right; �12 the introduction of cant and sanctimoniousness into the drawing-room, or theatre, or club, or business, would be like the new beetle amid grain ; for that is vast selfishness disguised as religion. But there is such a religion as charity and kindness, as self-control and love and service to others ; the spirit that desires to learn and be set right; the courtesy, the sympathy, which alone can make the true gentleman or gentle­ woman j and if this kind of religion does not beat as pulse of the social heart to transfuse the social body and all its members, the life of these will be coarse, their end corruption. Let us for example consider one of the great social growths of modern times—the club system. To what is called polite society the club is almost as important a development as the railway system to trade. It re­ sults from the application of the principle of co-opera­ tion to secure personal intercourse under favourable conditions, and all manner of comfort and culture with utmost economy of means. That is the most powerful principle in the world—combination and though society is itself a product of it, it has hardly imagined its farther results. But what are the social effects of club life at present? It appears to me that great as are their advantages they are fostering some very serious evils, and it is to be feared, even vices. Every respectable young man has the opportunity of �13 entering one or another of the innumerable clubs, and if he obtains a little means the club almost doubles them. The average home cannot rival the average club for comfort, luxury, or various society. The wife may make herself a slave, but if great wealth be not given her she cannot make her home compete with the ample attractions of the club. And how little the cost 1 A young man, for little more than half of what it would cost him to marry and found a home of moderate comfort, may live luxuriously, passing his free hours in the finest library, with all the current litera­ ture of the world, amid decorated rooms for use or amusement, dining magnificently with clever com­ pany ; and all by combining his small means with the small means of other young men. All very good, and rightly helpful to many a youth. But for that youth duties are waiting, tasks presently clamour to be done by him j and if he remains in his palace after ne has heard their voice, it becomes to him tne Castle of In­ dolence, and probably also the home of sensuality. It is no narrow or ascetic judgment to say that large numbers of young men of high tastes and talents are sinking into lives of selfishness, dilettantism, and worthlessness through the enticing luxuries of club­ life. Nor is the evil much, if at all, diminished when we consider how many homes after they are foimed are robbed of their rights by this overpowering growth of modern society. �14 How are such evils to be met ? Is there any case for a crusade against clubs ? If there were it would be a quixotic crusade. But clubs are not an evil; they supply great and necessary advantages. All we need is that there shall be a social religion attending and guarding these vast social formations. Our need is that moral culture shall turn from star-gazing and face moral facts, and a religion rise up to teach every man from the cradle to the grave that his duty is not to a dead Christ but to a living humanity, not to a Virgin Mary but to womanhood around him, not to a « Holy Ghost” but to a principle of honour,—aye, an honour which, when it has a religious sanction, will not be unarmed, but remand every idler in club or else­ where to his task, will place every self-indulgent circle under ban of intolerable shame, and get from each his or her high duty, with every pure pleasure in its train. When there is a religion appealing to the highest motives in every human heart, that leads each youth of either sex who enters society to consider that every advantage corresponds with a duty, then all develop­ ments of power and wealth in any direction must be diffused through every part of society as benefit. We hear a great deal of social science ; there is one very old piece of social science confirmed by ages of experi­ ence_ that we are members one of another. Hand �cannot be so well off if foot is lame ; all are weak if one is weak. Great nations have learned at terrible cost that when one class or interest advances very far it is sure to be brought to a stop till other classes gain their share. The white people in America found lately that their own freedom could not last another year unless the black people enjoyed the same. Europe is learning a severe lesson of the same kind about some long neglected Eastern tribes. But the law holds with equal truth of any community, or any social circle in it. If, for example, co-operation has exemplified its power in the club, the club cannot monopolise it with­ out danger; it must become the economy of homes also ; both sexes must share it; working men and working women must share it. And if there is any society where wise principles are not thus diffused those who belong to it will be themselves fragmentary and inharmonious. Every man or woman entering society should carry a whole heart into it. Not one instinct or faculty should be reserved, or left to take the veil. Each and all, let them enter into life, love it, enjoy it, and not fail to do their duty by it. The price is not fairly paid unless you endeavour to diffuse what there is acquired. You enter the hive to create the sweet as well as to enjoy it. And in the human hive the creation means the progressive purification, and per- �i6 fection of it. In society you have found new thoughts —higher truth—liberal views ; they all belong to the hive. And in a high sense your debt to all is secured : you can have no benefit genuinely unless by giving it. If God himself were to offer you a private favour and advantage of which nobody else could reap the least good, far better decline it. That which is sweet to you That which is pure and true to is sweet to others. you, would be so to others if they felt it as you do. Then give others your very best. So shall you stimulate them to diffuse their best; and all shall become apostles of the sunshine. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Entering society : a discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, Sunday 29th July 1877 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 16 p. ; 15 cm. Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Printed by Waterlow & Sons, London Wall. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [South Place Chapel] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3336 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Society Ethics Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Entering society : a discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, Sunday 29th July 1877), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Moncure Conway Morris Tracts Religion and Civil Society Social Ethics Social Justice Society https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b7dbe08410b962f3f6760badf80180ec.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=Ul1AVHO-QwLQiMOkYijKqhdoEkgv3eAtONifmyaIB2-9G0Y0kcZDa4B38n9mIy%7EkwROsEsrGwJtfU1xiNAUdu9h%7EEvIuJ9Rzl1VBZQ3e1-94M4LA7hoEaxkR5eXtK42FZOxNxo9MZJgyJ0KfpBFUPblnb97bhOXMbwe%7Eb2%7Eb3KIDFpwaVzkxjaPHoOeQjYgFpLahMKn6FtnftE0fAwZIdIAQB9oh6FtRXPcfmd3UE5EUOSLB756%7Ey7OH79RYZiZIkHOzydJiLyV0kS2Z2NqYCiC3FD956zwB8KSnR6H%7EZXnTtH-PNL4AzNhhrAIrYagKQOBAv4mR7ZsAGoIvFQyK7Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c179ac9aae431656445da798a7dd9dfd PDF Text Text ALCE8TI8 IN ENGLAND A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL, FINSBURY. JANUARY 21, 1877. BY MONCURE D. Price 2d. CONWAY. ��ALCESTIS IN ENGLAND. Not long ago the Alcestis of Euripides was pro­ duced at the Crystal Palace, with- accompaniment of beautiful music by an English composer, Mr. Henry Gadsby. The large audience was profoundly interested, and evinced genuine sympathy with all that was noble, and abhorrence of what was base, in the characters and action brought before them. The event has appeared to me significant. Alcestis is one of the few ancient Greek melodramas. The majority of dramas left us by the poets of Greece turn upon religious themes, and usually they are tragedies. It is evident that to them the popular religion around them was itself a tragedy. Their heroes and heroines —such as Prometheus and Macaria—were generally victims of the jealousy or caprice of the gods ; and �though the poets display in their dramas the irresistible power of the gods, they do so without reverence for that power, and generally show the human victims to be more honourable than the gods. But the Alcestis of Euripides is not a tragedy : it ends happily, and in the rescue of one of those victims of the gods. It stands as about the first notice served on the gods that the human heart had got tired of their high­ handed proceedings, and they might prepare to quit the thrones of the universe unless they could exhibit more humanity. The story of Alcestis opens with the decree of the Fates that a certain man, Admetus, shall die. But Apollo, who had been befriended by Admetus, asks the Fates to spare him. The Fates say they are willing, provided any one can be found to die in his place ; for the powers below have been promised their victim and must not be cheated, though it does not matter whether their victim be Admetus or somebody else. Upon this, Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, steps forward and offers to die in his stead. Admetus accepts this vicarious arrangement, but Apollo feels that it is a rather mean affair; so when Death comes to claim Alcestis, Apollo tries to argue the case with him. But Death plants himself upon the principle of divine justice. The notion of justice among the gods is, that either the sentenced culprit shall die or else some innocent person for him. �5 Apollo is too well read in heavenly law to dispute this code, but he is rather ashamed of it, and then follows something peculiar. Knowing that neither he nor any other deity can legally resist the decree of another deity, Apollo is reduced to hope for help from man. Human justice may save where divine justice sacrifices. He prophesies to Death that although he may seize Alcestis, a man will come who will conquer him, and deliver that woman from the infernal realm. There is then a pathetic scene in which Alcestis dies, making her last request to her husband to devote himself to her children, and reminding him of the happiness she had left in her father’s palace to share his destiny, and at last die for him. But, now, when she is dead, Admetus’ father, Pheres, bitterly reproaches his son for accepting life on such base terms as the death of another. The people generally reproach him in the same way, and at length Admetus feels that he has acted a disgraceful part, and his life so unworthily saved becomes worthless and miserable. Then Hercules comes on the scene. He has been slaying lion and dragon, and he now resolves to conquer Death and deliver Alcestis. This he does ; he descends into Hades, and delivers her from prison. He brings her to her husband amid the general joy. There are several points in the story which present a significant parallelism to the very letter of the legend, �6 that arose some centuries later, of Christ’s descent into Hell. For instance, when the rescued and risen Alcestis is brought into the presence of Admetus he cannot recognise her : she has yet too much that is ghostly about her. Hercules tells Admetus it is not lawful for her to speak to him “ until she is unbound from her consecration to the gods beneath, and the third day come.” So we see whence this idea of rising on the third day is derived, and what notions surrounded him who reported Jesus as at first not recognised by Maiy, and then as saying to her, “ Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.”' The consecration of Hades was still upon him. However, it is not to such details as these that I wish to call your attention. It is more important to consider that the entire drama turns upon the same principles as the popular religion of England. It only requires a change of names to make Alcestis a Christian Passion-play. We have in it the unappeas­ able law of Fate corresponding to the divine decree, by which Jehovah himself was so fettered that there could be no remission of sentence without the shed­ ding of blood. We have the barbaric notion that justice is satisfied by the vicarious suffering of anyone at all, willing to sacrifice himself for the person in­ volved punishment by proxy. And then, we have a being who is a god in power, but man in heart: the god-man Hercules, whose father was Jupiter, but �7 whose mother was a woman, Alcmene ; and this in­ carnate son of God vanquishes the infernal powers, where a mere deity was powerless to do so on account of the heavenly etiquette, and the gods’ peculiar notion of justice. The god-man Hercules went through the earth ■destroying earthly evils in twelve great Labours. The legend was one of the most widespread and impres­ sive throughout the Greek and Roman world at the time of the establishment of Christianity. From the old pictures of Christ’s triumphal pilgrimage on earth, parallels to the chief labours of Hercules may be found. Christ is shown treading on the lion, the asp, the dragon, and Satan; and all the myths converge in his conquest of Death and Hell. In the old pictures of Christ delivering souls from Hades, Eve is generally shown coming out first in suggestive simi­ larity to Eurydice following Orpheus, and Alcestis Hercules. Such Greek myths mark an ascent of the human mind above the idea of their early theology, which had become a sort of pagan Calvinism. The advanced minds had plainly grown ashamed of gods who reigned with such an unjust idea as that of vicarious .suffering; and Euripides dealt with the notion just as a Freethinker now deals with the same. The audience at the Crystal Palace applauded Pheres when he ■denounced his own son for the meanness of accepting �8 salvation through the suffering of another. What they applauded was an attack on the Christian scheme of redemption. Pheres only anticipated James Marti­ neau, who once similarly rebuked the baseness of those who would not rather go to hell than be saved by the death and suffering of an innocent being. What would the audience have said to Pheres’ sentiment, if it had been told them that they themselves were so many Admetuses, accepting safety at the cost of the innocent Alcestis of Calvary ? What, if they had been reminded that the principle represented by Death, that justioe is satisfied by so much suffering without respect to who is the sufferer, is precisely the same as that by which Christianity declares that the divine law required a victim, but was quite satisfied if the innocent suffer for the guilty ? The audience would, perhaps, have regarded such suggestions with horror, and yet they applauded the principle by which Christianity is now assailed. We need not complain of this. It is much to congratulate ourselves upon that in Art, at least, we may have high and noble principles brought before the people, and responded to by them. It is much that a miserable superstition, though it may have enfeebled the moral sentiment of the people, has not yet eaten into their heart and instinct so far as to make them really put darkness for light, and honour disease as health. In the ancient Greek religion, Jupiter stood just �9 where Jehovah stood in the Jewish religion. They were both stern, jealous, vindictive deities,—personi­ fications of thunder and lightning,—with no humanity about them. Gradually, the Greeks became ashamed of Jupiter, and they began to worship heroes who had human hearts,—such as Hercules. In the same way, in another line of development, men became ashamed of Jehovah, and had to set up the human-hearted Christ instead of him. In the early days when the worship of Christ meant an appeal against deified despotism, it w’as a healthy and noble worship. But that was before there was anything in the world called Christianity. Christianity was the overthrow of Christ. It was the invention of a priesthood who found that this novel idea of Christ, that God is Love, sending sunshine alike on good and evil, would prove fatal to their power. For their purpose men must be terrified. So they contrived and intrigued until they unseated Christ with his Gospel of Love, by tacking on to him the discredited Jove and Jehovah, and setting their lightnings to work again. They were but too success­ ful. He who came “not to condemn but to save” was made into an awful Judge of the quick and dead. They have transmitted to us precisely those ideas of death and hell, vicarious suffering and remorseless, divine decrees, which the Heraclean apotheosis in Greece at one period and Christ-worship at another, overthrew for a time; and they have compelled us �IO to do the whole protestant work over again, and re­ cover Christ by a rebellion against Christianity. To-day, again, we see rising a certain shame of theologic dogmas. Though the Church declares the Bible to be the word of God, it excludes much of it from its Lectionary, as unfit to be read in public. The preachers are so ashamed of their dogmas that they are angry at hearing them quoted, and say they are caricatures even when taken literally from their creeds and confessions. Lately the honour has been conferred upon us of having our heresies made the subject of spe­ cial treatment by the Christian Evidence Society, over which the Archbishop of Canterbury presides, assisted by many other prelates. Some recent controversies which we have had in Holloway led that Society to delegate four eminent clergymen to demolish our principles during the Sundays of Advent. Now, those sermons have been published; 1 have read them care­ fully ; and in not one of them is there any defence of Christianity at all. Not one of them deals with the fall of man, human depravity, the atonement, or hell­ fire. Not one of them has touched on anything distinctive in Christianity. They eulogise Christ’s character, applaud his charity, praise the sermon on the mount, and discourse of everything but the real points at issue. No Hindoo, reading those Advent sermons, could gather from any word in them that English religion believed in the Devil at all, much less �II as the natural Father of the human family; or in eternal hell-fire, or vicarious atonement to an un­ relenting God. And yet these men were especially appointed to defend Christianity ! Why did they not defend it ? Why, they are scholars, and scholars are ashamed of such dogmas. They are ashamed of a God who says he will laugh at the calamity of men and mock when their fear cometh ; they blush for a dogma which says there was a bargain struck between the Divine Sovereign and Christ,—so much sin ransomed with so much blood; they feel the scandal of such guilty calumnies on men and God as human depravity and future tortures : they dare not defend such things. So they surround themselves with a cloud of verbal incense to Christ and Christianity, and hope people will understand that at the heart of the rhetorical cloud there is sound orthodoxy. But I have never seen so startling a manifestation of the irresistible rationalism of this age as that four clergy­ men—among them a Professor of History, and a Bampton Lecturer—delegated by a Society of Bishops and clergy to defend Christianity, should pass over its every distinctive dogma to praise virtues common to all religions of the world. As Balaam in the legend was sent for by Balak to curse Israel but proceeded to bless them, these defenders of the faith have left at the end of their labours an impressive testimony that their so-called �12 faith is indefensible, and that the most Superstition can hope for is a golden bridge for its retreat before the reason and sentiment of our time. I say the “ sentiment ” of our time, for the orthodox theology is not only repudiated by disciplined reasoners, but the whole population have become so ashamed of it that it cannot be taught in the public schools. The religion now taught in the National Schools is nearly the religion of Dr. Channing. It mainly depends now upon the advance of a higher order of teachers, such as is sure to appear, that those schools shall diffuse a rational religion. Such a phenomenon would be im­ possible were it not that the people have become ashamed of the traditional dogmas. It has become possible for our daily papers to write of “the un­ pardonable sin ” as a curious survival of antiquity, as if it were not in both Bible and Theology. An inquest was recently held on a poor lady who died of the belief that she had committed that Scriptural sin, and a leading * newspaper recommends the seaside for such diseases. It also says such persons should be surrounded by friendship and love. Exactly so. Like Alcestis they are under the dark, deadly shadow of some heartless, though happily imaginary, deity or demon—some phantom of the terrors in nature,—and like Alcestis they are to be brought from that region of shadows by such love as dwells in human hearts. * See Daily News, January 19th, 1877. �All this means a new religion subtilely penetrating, widely transfusing, the whole heart and brain of Society. Mankind are saved by a divine humanity. This is what our ancestors tried to express, as they fled from gods of the storm to deities of love, incarnate in human hearts,-—-born of human mothers that they may bear a maternal tenderness to meet the needs of a humanity born of woman. “ Had men been angels,” says the Koran, “ we had sent them an angel out of heaven; but we have sent them a man like themselves.” All the incarnations believed in—Vishnu, Krishna, Christ—meant the universal love recognised in human love, as the sun might sign its course on a dial. Omar Kheyam said, “ Diversity of Worship has divided the human race into seventy-two nations ; from among all their doctrines I have selected one—Divine Love. And now, seven centuries after him, the civilised world is making the same selection. It is quietly hiding out of sight, secretly burying, the dismal dogmas of divine wrath. But we must take warning by the fact that this pro­ cess has been gone through before our time j it has been gone through again and again, but in every case has been followed by relapse. Every bright incarna­ tion marks a period when the human heart rebelled against some heavenly tyrant; but invariably has the new form been coerced into the vesture of the old, and the fallen thunderbolts pressed back into his hand- �I4 And this has always been done by one and the same power—that of self-interested priesthood. No priest­ hood can be strong except through fear. Many ages have proved that. To cultivate religious fear has always been their life in the past ; and now, when the community has outgrown infra-natural fears—at least in civilised centres—-they must invent some new kind of terror, or else abdicate. The investment in Chris­ tianity is too great for such abdication in this country, and so the priestly interest is busily conjuring up phantoms of another—a social—kind. It is declared that all morality depends upon churches and sects. There is still enough superstition to influence women ■and children, and this, we are told, must be carefully retained and fostered, or else men will break all restraints and carry society to rack and ruin. We are warned that our institutions are all built up together like an arch, Christianity among them ; and if one stone gives way all the rest will tumble. The only dark feature of our age is the spread of this guilty notion, that falsehood is essential to the welfare of human society. It is just that hypocrisy which really endangers society. If ever the loyalty of the people to law fails, it will be because the law insists on maintaining proven error, and on turning the means of education and happiness to the repression of science under superstition. That the social edifice needs pious fraud to support �it is the last superstition surviving among the educated and it is that we have mainly to combat. And neither Hercules or Christ ever had a more monstrous thing to encounter. To identify the interests of superstition with those of social morality is not mere atheism, it is antitheism; it is not mere belief that there is no God; it is going against God : it is pitting falsehood against truth—upholding darkness against light—ascribing to ignorance more potency than right knowledge : it is to declare a universe whose every corner-stone is a lie ! The only saving faith of to-day is a faith that right can never do wrong, that truth can never misguide those who trust in it. The absence of this faith is the only scepticism of our time worth a moment’s con­ cern. The downfall of Jehovah, or the Trinity, is no more than the vanishing away of Jupiter and Diana who preceded them. Our posterity will witness the performance of “ Paradise Lost ” as calmly as we now do the same plot in the play of Alcestis These things will pass away. But human society will not pass away; the habit of mind—whether it be truthful or untruth­ ful ; the human character—-whether it be faithful or faithless ;—these will not pass away. We are to-day weaving the destinies of the future, and every false rotten thread we weave in will tell in the woof. We are weaving not for our own race alone, but for Humanity. As the priestly frauds of seventeen centuries �i6 -ago are fettering millions to-day—among them many of our own friends, and ourselves more than we know —so will every lie sustained to-day bequeath a chain to those who come after us. Is Humanity nothing to us ? Then may we creep through our little conven­ tional life, enjoy its petty rewards; but it will still be true that he who has not known the love of Humanity, nor felt its inspiration, has missed and lost the great gospel of his time. We must learn to read these ever new, though most ancient, revelations of the life in nature to be unfolded through man. Long ago has Alcestis been set to the still sad music of humanity, for those who can listen deep. All around us there is a Hades, and many there be that go in thereat. Even while we claim the triumphs of reason, and mark the skulking retreat of dogmatic phantoms waylaid by the morn, the shadow falls again upon us from the miasma of moral infidelity. Out of it darts the double-tongue, striking at the heart of all manly character. This is the Inferno of those who see the truth, and applaud when it confronts the wrongs of distant ages, but before the errors of to-day cringe and crawl, and have one tongue for the conventional, another for the secret audience. Even honest ritualism is better than this unfaithful rationalism. Each manly heart has an Alcestis to deliver. Each must combat with Death,—whether it be the skeleton �!7 -•arms of a dead creed holding the mind in deadly grip of fear; or be it the moral death which has cheated our brother of his soul, and left him the social simulacrum of a man. It does not require of us the might of Hercules, nor cost the blood of Christ, to make some rescues at least from the dark abodes of faithlessness and fear; but it does require still that we shall be filled with ■divine love, that we shall be animated by that alone, till in our human hearts there flame a passion for saving men, women and children from the bondage of fear and the degradation of falsehood. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Alcestis in England : a discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, January 21 1877 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource CONWAY, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 17 p. ; 15 cm. Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Includes a bibliographical reference. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [South Place Chapel] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3334 Subject The topic of the resource Free thought Mythology Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Alcestis in England : a discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, January 21 1877), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Belief and Doubt Drama-Greek Faith and Reason-Christianity Free Thought Greek literature Morris Tracts https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/fe6781239e469b8c124f6e600cdde962.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=ZWV2m3tXuJSCtqbCVctoYfIN80xcOznFL8XLlQCvIvdlJvW3RO7LLK7HAcz97Aw9cjfnZs391UmgIb0tQF5P4b2CsctK18HgDsspiLOABi5GgbliMK5HXE--Rf%7EwTaXGWx57O6wQMHr9Is5gxw%7ENuXheUIONgFA1eAQhTDygZXbuz86cJoGCFrFyAbRozzoKeIQjnPzU9MgJaOJeZduKGQgD6cU4MZSx8TcwCvlZziN3pjNx3-Oxy8a95gtYbcO2B326b%7ESwbWEvfRVoIUh0T3gmD0k%7E%7EmpX0XZamqcZkU2xvBJokOH5acGLIdl48buqC9otEY97R1lThdOfuUyWJw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f0a2459e50f0cdad9cd6f9d474eebca1 PDF Text Text THE RELIGION OF CHILDREN A DISCOURSE, WITH READINGS AND MEDITATION, given at SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL, OCTOBER 2i, 1877, BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A. frige twopence. �ORDER 1. Hymn 132— “ Smiles on past misfortune’s brow.”—Gray. 2. Readings, pages 3 to 7. 3. Hymn 180— “I think if thou could’st know.”—Adelaide Procter. 4. Meditation, p. 8. 5. Anthem 22— “Gently fall the dews of eveP—Saralt P. Adams. 6. Discourse, p. 9. 7. Hymn, 191 — “ Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill. ”—Tennyson. 8. Dismissal. �HYMN 132. READINGS. HEBREW PROVERBS. My son, if base men entice thee, ■Consent thou not. Walk not in the way with them : Keep back thy foot from their paths : Tor their feet run to evil. .'Surely in vain the net is spread, In the sight of any bird ; But these lay snares for their own lives. .Such are the ways of everyone greedy of gain; The life of those addicted to it, it taketh away. Because they hated knowledge, Therefore they shall eat of the fruit of their own way, And from their own counsel they shall be filled. T’or the turning away of the simple shall slay them, And the carelessness*of fools shall destroy them. �4 ORIENTAL FABLE. The learned Saib, who was entrusted with the education of the son of the Sultan Carizama, related to him each day a story. One day he told him this from the annals of Persia “A magi­ cian presented himself before King Zohak, and breathing on his breast, caused two serpents to come forth from the region of the king’s heart. The king in wrath was about to slay him, but the magician said, ‘ These two serpents are tokens of the glory of your reign. They must be fed, and with human blood. Thisvon may obtain by sacrificing to them the lowest of your people ; but they will bring you happiness, and whatever pleases you isjust.’ Zohak was at first shocked ; but gradually he accustomed himself to the counsel, and his subjects were sacrificed to the serpents. But the people only saw in Zohak a monster bent on their destruction. They revolted, and shut him up in a cavern of the mountain Damarend, where he became a prey to the two serpents whose voracity he could no longer appease. “ What a horrible history ! ” exclaimed the young prince, when his preceptor had ended it. “ Pray tell me another that I can hear without shuddering.” “ Willingly, my lord,” replied Saib. “ Here is a very simple one :—-A young sultan placed his confi­ dence in an artful courtier, who filled his mind with false ideas of glory and happiness, and introduced into his heart pride and volup­ tuousness. Absorbed by these two passions, the young monarch sacrificed his people to them, insomuch that in their wretchedness they tore him from the throne. He lost his crown and his treasures, but his pride and voluptuousness remained, and being now unable to satisfy them, he died of rage and despair.” The young prince of Carizama said, “ I like this story better than theother.” “ Alas, prince,” replied his preceptor, “itis neverthelessthe same.” �5 FROM “THE SPIRIT’S TRIALS.” By J. A. Froude. A TALENT, of itself unhealthily precocious, was most unwisely pushed forward and encouraged out by everybody—by teachers Ld schoolmasters, from the vanity of having a little monster to display as their workmanship; by his father, because he vms anxious for the success of his children in life, and the quicker they <mt on the better : they would the sooner assume a position It had struck no one there might be a mistake about it. Tw one could have ever cared to see even if it were possible they migat, or five minutes’ serious talk with the boy, or to have listened to his laurh, would have shown the simplest of them that t rey we. e but developing a trifling quickness of faculty ; that the powe which should have gone for the growth of the entire rec bein-directed off into a single branch, which was su ed g disproportioned magnitude, while the stem was quietly decaying. L to the character, of the entire boy-his temper, dispos tion, health of tone in heart and mind, all that was presumem It made no show at school exhibitions, and at east due dy assumed no form of positive importance as regarded after So this was all left to itself. Of course, if a boy knew half the Iliad by heart at ten, and had construed the Odyssey through a eleven, all other excellences were a matter of course. . . was naturally timid, and shrunk from all the amusements and Xes of other boys. So much the better : he would keep to his books He was under-grown for ms age, infirm, an un healthy'"and a disposition might have been observed in him even then in all his dealings with other boys and with Ins master X evade difficulties instead of meeting them-a feature whi should have called for the most delicate handling, anc uou have far better repaid the time and attention which were w �6 in forcing him beyond his years, in a few miserable attainments, . . In a scene so crowded as this world is, or as the little world of a public school is, with any existing machinery it is impossible to attend to minute shades of character. There is a sufficient likeness among boys to justify the use of general, very general laws indeed. They are dealt with in the mass. An average treatment is arrived at. If an exception does rise, and it happens to disagree, it is a pity, but it cannot be helped. “Punish,” not “prevent,” is the old-fashioned principle. If a boy goes wrong, whip him. Teach him to be afraid of going wrong by the pains and penalties to ensue—just the principle on which gamekeepers used to try to break dogs. But men learned to use gentler methods soonest with the lower animals. As to the effects of the treatment, results seem to show pretty much alike in both cases ; but with the human animal an unhappy notion clung on to it, and still clings, and will perpetuate the principle and its disas­ trous consequences, that men and boys deserve their whipping, as if they could have helped doing what they did in a way dogs cannot. . . It would be well if people would so far take example from what they find succeed with their dogs, as to learn there are other ways at least as efficacious, and that the desired conduct is better if produced in any other way than in that. . . On the whole, general rules should have no place in family education. It is just there, and there perhaps alone, that there are opportunities of studying shades of difference, and it should be the business of affection to attend to them. When affection i s really strong, it will be an equal security against indulgence and over-hasty severity. . . . I take it to be a matter of the most certain experience in dealing with boys of an amiable, infirm disposition, that exactly the treatment they receive from you they will deserve. In a general way it is true of all persons of unformed character who. �7 Come in contact with you as your inferiors, although with men it cannot be relied on with the same certainty, because their feel­ ings are less powerful, and their habit of moving this way or that wZy under particular circumstances more determinate. But with the very large class of boys of a yielding nature who have very little self-confidence, are very little governed by a determined will or judgment, but sway up and down under the impulses of the moment, if they are treated generously and trustingly, it may be taken for an axiom that their feelings will be always strong enough to make them ashamed not to deserve it. Treat them as if they deserved suspicion, and as infallibly they soon actually will deserve it. People seem to assume that to be governed by impulse means, only “ bad impulse,” and they endeavour to counteract it by trying to work upon the judg­ ment, a faculty which these boys have not got, and so cannot possibly be influenced by it. There never was a weak boy yet that was deterred from doing wrong by ultimate distant con­ sequences he was to learn from thinking about them. It is idle to attempt to manage him otherwise than by creating and foster­ ing generous impulses to keep in check the baser ones. And the greatest delicacy is required in effecting this. It is not enough to do a substantial good. Substantial good is Oiten diy or repulsive on the surface, and must be understood to be valued ; just, again, what boys are unable to do. . . Strong natures may understand and value the reality. Women, and such children as these, will not be affected by it, unless it shows on the surface what is in the heart. Provided you will do it in a kind, sympathising manner, you may do what you please with them ; otherwise nothing you do will affect them at all. HYMN iSo. �8 MEDITATION. As we gather to-day, apart from the conventional world of worshippers, we are still between those vast realms of moral good and evil which are reflected in all human consciousness. Beneath, stretches that abyss which human imagination has peopled with demons and devils, and the manifold tortures of souls in eternal pain and despair ; above, the fair realms of joy with its spirits of light, angels, cherubim and seraphim. But these are all within each of us. All those demons mean only hearts sunk low in selfishness ; all those angels mean hearts raised high in burning love. Not mean or poor is any lot which gives room to deny self, to put all self-seeking passions under foot, to ascend by the ardour and spirit of love. There is the grand conflict between angel and demon waged, the struggle between light and darkness, and there the victory is being won. Great is love 1 Whether it sends its sweet influence through a community or a home, whether it is saving a world or a heart, great and divine is love! For it closes over and hides the dark region of guilt and baseness within us, it quickens the mind and expands the heart to their fulness of life. In each heart are the two doors—one opening downward to the pit of selfishness in all its forms, one opening upwards to the purest joys ; and it is when we give all to the spirit of Love that the hell is for ever conquered, and we build around us henceforth our eternal heaven. ANTHEM 22. �THE RELIGION OF CHILDREN. In some respects the child living in the present age finds its lines fallen in pleasant places. It is not, like its ancestors, tortured with nauseous drugs, nor so much with the rod. The clergyman no longer pro­ nounces over the babe at baptism, as he once did, “ I command thee, unclean spirit, that thou come out of this infantnor delivers it up to be dealt with as if its natural temper and will were efforts of the unclean spirit to get back again. In Iceland the old people account for elves by saying that once when the Al­ mighty visited Eve after the fall, she kept most of her children out of the way because they were not washed; on which these were sentenced to be always invisible, were turned into elves, and became the progenitors of such. But we are beginning to be more merciful than that even for the unwashed, and have gone a consider­ able way towards humanising them and making them presentable. �Id As to their literary culture and entertainment, there were probably more good and attractive books for children published in the last ten years than in the whole of the last century. Many of the finest writers of our generation—Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, Kingsley—the list would be long—have rightly thought it a high task of genius to write books for children. But in religious matters the children can hardly be congratulated on the age upon which they have fallen. The child is a piece of nature—physical, mental, moral nature. Heaven and earth meet in it; the laws of reason are in its instincts as well as zoologic laws; and these harmonise in it. The child is a unit. Con­ science is for a time external; it knows good and evil in the parental conscience, not in itself. There is no divorce between the two kinds of goodness—what is good for eye and mouth, and what is good, for the soul. There is no fruit inwardly forbidden. Confucius said 11 Heaven and earth are without doubleness,’’ but Hebrew Scriptures say God has made all things double —one is set against the other. Our theology has been largely evolved out of this Hebraism, but our children live morally in that primitive age which cannot realise profoundly any dualism. The child, therefore, lives in a heaven and earth without doubleness; if its parent only consents to a thing, it feels no misgiving; but it is early introduced to a religion full, not only of double- �II ness, but of duplicity. It is the gangrene of our age that it says one thing and means another; professes one thing and believes another; and nearly . every child, taught any religion at all, is taug t mgs incongruous. I used, in childhood, to wonder about the meaning of that prayer in the Zh Dam, e us never be confounded;” but as time went on, whatever else was obscure, the confusion grew clear. Not only that old sense of a word which reqmres philology to explain ; but the sense of every chapter •n the Bible, every sentence in the Catechism, requires the interpretation of knowledge and. expe­ rience; whilst the sentences being m Eng , apparently, the young mind is compelled p some meaning into them-a meaning pretty certain to be wrong—or else be put to confusion It is not, however, the double tongue of formal teaching wh 1 is worst; the mental confusion is not so bad as the moral; and there it is impossible to conceive anything more anomalous than most of the rehg.ous induct o —so-called—around us. It is the necessity of the home, the nursery, and of the school, that the c> should be taught to be forgiving, gentle knd and never angry or hateful. It is instructed that all X be «». But just so fast, and so far as dogmas can be crammed into the child, it is1 asyste which begins with God’s wrath against the whole �12 world, and ends with Christ’s damnation of vast multitudes. A little boy in an American family with which I am acquainted, being in a passion with his playmate, declared that he hated him, and never would see him again. His sister rebuked him, told him that was very wrong, and not like Christ. “ Christ never hated and abused others, not even his enemies.” “No,” said the boy, “but he’s going to.” It may be that only one boy in many would be clear-headed enough to say that, but many can feel what one or none can say. It is impossible that children can be taught in one breath a vindictive Christianity and a gentle Christianity—dogmas of fear and principles of trust—and not imbibe either muddy waters of confusion or the waters of bitterness, where they should find only fountains of light and joy. In one respect the Reformation had an unhappy effect upon the work of nurturing little children. It trans­ ferred the care of “ saving its soul,” as it is called, from the outside to the inside of a head too small to manage it. In the Catholic family the drop of holy water and sign of the cross on the child’s forehead are alone required; and for many years it is mainly left to a natural growth; at any rate, not encouraged to grapple with everlasting problems. Under the reformed religion there grew an increasing anxiety as to how the souls of the children were to be saved; and the �13 way fixed on was to stimulate strongly its fears and its hopes. Luther brought with him a bright children s para­ dise from the Church of Rome. Here is his letter to his son, aged 4 :—• il Grace and peace in Christ, my dearly beloved little son. I am glad to know that you are learning well and that you say your prayers. So do, my little son, and persevere; and^hen I come home I will bring home with me a present from the annual fair. I know of a pleasant and beautiful garden into which many children go, where they have golden little coats, and gather pretty apples under the trees, and pears, and cherries, and plums (pflaumen), and yellow plums (spillen); where they sing, leap, and are merry; where they also have beautiful little horses, with golden bridles and silver saddles. When I asked the man that owned the garden ‘ Whose are these children ? ’ he said ‘ They are the children that love to learn, and to pray, and are pious.’ “ Then I said, ‘ Dear Sir, I also have a son I he is called Johnny Luther (Hanischen Luther). May he not come into the garden, that he may eat such beautiful apples and pears, and ride such a little horse, and play with these children ? ’ Then the man said ‘ If he loves to pray and to learn, and is pious, he shall also come into the garden; Philip too, and �14 little James; and if they all come together, then they may have likewise whistles, kettle-drums, lutes and harps; they may dance also, and shoot with little crossbows.’ “Then he showed me a beautiful green grass­ plot in the garden prepared for dancing, where hang nothing but golden fifes, drums, and elegant silver cross-bows. But it was now early, and the children had not yet eaten. Thereupon I could not wait for the dancing, and I said to the man, ‘ Ah, dear Sir, I will instantly go away and write about all of this to my little son John; that he may pray earnestly, and learn well, and be pious, so that he may also come into this garden; but he has an aunt Magdalene, may he bring her with him ? ’ Then said the man, (So shall it be ; go and write to him with confidence.’ Therefore, dear little John, learn and pray with de­ light ; and tell Philip and James, too, that they must learn and pray; so you shall come with one another into the garden. With this I commend you to Almighty God—and give my love to aunt Magdalene ; give her a kiss for me. Your affectionate father, Martin Luther.” (In the year 1530.) It is plain that the man who wrote that letter was himself a child. Thunder for the Emperor, lightning for the Pope, but a shower of rainbows for little Johnny. But that child’s paradise is now as obsolete �iS as the Elysian Fields, or the Indian’s happy hunting ground There was already a worm amid its blossoms while Luther described them: for Calvinism was lurking near, with terrors to blacken not only the earth but the blue sky. Happily for Johnny, his father was not logical, else it might have occurred to him that if prayer and piety were the way to reach the heavenly garden, they would naturally be the chief occupation there. But Calvin was logical; and there is no worse affliction than your logical man when his premisses are false. Calvinism made heaven into a large Presby­ terian assembly, all the children turned to rigidly righteous elders ; no children there at all. One by one in the child’s paradise the blossoms fell blighted. Instead of the dance, behold a Puritan Sabbath school; instead of plums and cherries, texts and hymns ; cross­ bows yield to catechisms ; and the child learned at last that its heaven was to be a place where congrega tions ne’er break up, and Sabbaths have no end. Well, we have measurably recovered from that. . At least, many well-to-do families have; the Puritan paradise is one we are generally quite willing to give to the poor. It is still largely the ragged-school para­ dise, and I suspect that endless Sabbath fixes m many a ragged boy the resolve never to go there. Meanwhi e, for the children of a happier earthly lot, the fading away of the little Luther paradise has left them almost none at �i6 all. Protestantism, with its education, has shot out into various theories of the future life for grown-up people. The Reformer hopes for a scene of endless progress. The Theologian imagines the supreme bliss of seeing his own doctrines proved true, and his oppo­ nents’ all wrong. The Baptist’s heaven shows the sprinkling parson confounded; and the Wesleyan will shout glory at the convicted Calvinist. “ There,” say all of them, “ we shall see eye to eye”—that is, everybody shall see as we always saw. But what has all this to do with the children ? They do not care for the theological heaven, nor the heaven of endless progress. The learned Protestant world is so absorbed in the controversy whether there be any future at all, that it forgets the little ones who would like to know whether it be a future worth having. What is provided for them as the reward of their prayers, piety, and self-denial ? They go to church ; they read the Bible; they sit through the tragedy; but when they look for the curtain to rise on beauty and happiness, it rises on metaphysical mist, not by any means attractive or even penetrable to a child. Since, for us, Luther’s plum-paradise, and the Puritan paradise, are equally gone beyond recall, we may look at them calmly and impartially; and we may see that both have their suggestiveness, and point to a truth. Luther’s letter is a celebration of �17 the child’s nature—the purity and sweetness and even holiness of its little aims and joys. It is like birds singing over again the old theme—“ Of such is the kingdom of heaven.’’ But the paradise Luther promised his child was much too definite. He went too far into detail; and when little Johnny grew from the age of four to ten or twelve, and during that time had learned his lessons, he would see his paradise losing its summer beauty. By that time he might have outgrown the whistles, and become careless of kettle-drums. He might prefer gold in his pocket to a golden coat. He might find it, as time went on, impossible to stimulate prayer by a prospect of silver cross-bows, or even of yellow plums. And so leaf by leaf, blossom by blossom, his paradise would fade away; and it could never bloom again. On the other hand, the Puritan paradise, with all its sombreness, did have the advantage of raising the mind to large conceptions. It was false—cruelly false __in crushing the innocent mirth and despising the little aims of the child. That which Puritanism called petty, was not petty. The boy at his sports is training the sinews which master the world. The doll quickens to activity maternal tenderness. It is said Zoroaster was born laughing, and a sage prophesied he would be greatest of men. That sage was wiser than the �i8 Puritan. But it is not necessary to chill the mirth or to dispel the illusions of childhood, in order to keep it from the delusion of holding on to its small pleasures as if the use of existence lay between a penny trumpet on earth and a golden trumpet in heaven. It appears to me that the true religion of a child is to grow ; and when it is old, its religion will still be to grow. The child ■will turn from its toys ; will return to them after longer and longer intervals ; and lastly leave them, and turning say, “ Mother, what shall I be when I grow up ? ” If the mother only knew it, all the catechisms on earth have no question so sacred as that! The child that dreams of its future in the great wrorld has already learned far enough for the time the pettiness of life’s transient aims : it is already overarched by an infinite heaven. In the great roaring world, seen from afar, nothing is defined, nothing limited—it is a boundless splendour of possibility. All that man or woman may dream of heaven, a child may dream of the great world of thought and action into which it must enter at last, and find there a heaven or a helk Religion can teach the child no higher lesson than that, nor stimulate its good motives by any nobler conception. As its sports train to manly strength, its little pleasures develop the longing for intellectual �i9 and moral joys. And if the parent’s tongue is not equal to the high task of telling the truth about the tragic abyss of evil to be shunned, or the beautiful heights of excellence to be won, there are noble books awaiting the child, the boy, the youth j ready to meet every phase of the growth, and follow every fading leaf with a flower more fair, more full of promise than the cast-off toy or pastime. What a training for the child entering upon school­ life are the stories of Miss Edgeworth—a training in manliness, independence, sincerity, and justice, which can make the playground the arena of heroism and duty ! And there is Scott: the horizon grows lustrous with noble presences, as the boy reads. Dickens will tell him the romance of humble life how kindness and sympathy can find pearls in London gutters, and scatter them again wherever they go. Plutarch’s “Lives” frescoe earth and heaven with heroic forms that remain through life as guardians of conscience and measures of honourable conduct. Happily the catalogue is long—too long to be now repeated—of the good books which tell the young, what brave and faithful men have done, and can do, to help the weak, redress wrong, uplift truth and justice, and make human lives melodious and beau­ tiful amid the jarring discords of the world. And the lives of noblest men and women have for �20 their dark background the evils they conquered, the wrongs they assailed; evils and wrongs which are the ■only real hell to be shunned. It is only the fictitious hell that terrifies the child. The snare set on pur­ pose to injure it by a “ ghostly enemy ” ; the dangers it incurs unknowingly, from an invisible assailant it may not avoid; these are the terrors that unnerve and unman. The real dangers of life, when seen, nerve the strength, man the heart, endow with resolu­ tion and courage. The old man said to a child afraid to go into the dark—“Go on, child; you will see nothing worse than yourself.” And that is the fundamental doctrine for a child. All the hells—their mouths wide open on the street—the seductive haunts of vice in all its shapes—they are the creations of human passion and appetite. According to what they find in us do those fell dragons devour us, or else feel the point of our spear in their throat. And even so we make or mar our own heaven. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. The little boy came to his mother, angry and weep­ ing, complaining that in the hills some other boy had called him bad names. He had searched, but could not find him. But the mother well knew that other concealed abuser of her son. il It was,” she said, �21 “but the echo of your own voice. Had you called out pleasant names, pleasant names had been returned to you; and all through life, as you give forth to the world, so shall it be returned unto you. Amid these ever-present hells and heavens your child must move—onward from the cradle to the grave : why give it dismay or hope of heavens and hells not present ? Do not pour that living heart into ancient moulds and examples, even the best. While it has to thread its way through London, why give it the map of Jerusalem? While it must live high or low in the nineteenth century, why bid it build for a distant age or clime? True it is, that a noble and brave life is worthy to be studied, whether lived mthe year One or One thousand or in r877 J but its noble­ ness is in itself, not in its accidents of time and space, not in its vesture of name and scenery. When a youth reads of the fidelity of Phocion, is it that he may confront Alexander, or withstand the follies oi Athenians ? It is that he may be true and faithful m his relations to living men and women. If he fancies that it is like Phocion to slay the slain, and deal with dead issues, let him repair to Don Quixote, and see what comes of fighting phantoms and giants that do not exist And if the life be that of Christ, the fact is nowise changed. That life is not yet written ; we have the figure-head of a Jewish sect, painted to suit itself, and �22 -called Christ; the figure-head of Gentile sect, painted to suit itself, and called Christ; and so we have a Greek, an Alexandrian, a Roman, a Protestant Christ, each with its sectarian colours and glosses; each an anomaly .and an impossibility. There is no volume you can put into the hand of a child, and honestly call the Life of Christ. The time has not come when that great man can be brought forth as he really was, to quicken men instead of supporting prejudice. But where there is no prejudice instilled, the heart may be trusted to pick out from the New Testament the record of a valiant soul, the deeds of a hero, thoughts of a sage, death of a martyr; and these too will help to idealise life for the young, and teach them its magnificent possibilities. Let the child know well that all it reads of Christ is true of itself. Let him know that all he reads there or elsewhere which marks that or any ■other life off from human life, as something miracu­ lous, is mere fable• and that his own daily life is passed amid wonders equally great, and conditions just as sacred and sublime. Ah, how sublime! What tears are there to be wiped away ; what faces of agony to which smiles may be called ; what wrongs to be righted, high causes to be helped; what heights of excellence to be won—summits all shining with the saintly souls that have climbed them, and radiant with the glories of which poets and prophets have dreamed I �23 That teaching which belittles our own time, and lowers our powers beneath those of any other, may be called a religion, but it is a moral blight and a curse. When we demand of our children the very highest aims that were ever aspired to, the very truest, noblest lives ever lived—nor let them be overshadowed by any names, however great—then shall we see rising our own prophets and heroes, and see our own world redeemed by a devotion not wasted on a buried society, by an enthusiasm no longer lavished on a world for us unborn. HYMN 191. Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins-of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood. DISMISSAL. Printed by waterlow and sons limited, London wall, London. �WORKS TO BE OBTAINED IN THE LIBRARY. BY M. D. CONWAY, M.A. The Sacred Anthology: A Book of Ethnical Scriptures......................... The Earthward Pilgrimage Do. do. Republican Superstitions......................... Christianity >..................................... Human Sacrifices in England .. David Frederick Strauss......................... Sterling and Maurice......................... Intellectual Suicide . ......................... The First Love again......................... Our Cause and its Accusers Alcestis in England ......................... Unbelief: its nature, cause, and cure .. Entering Society .. PRICES. 8. IO 5 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 d. 0 0 6 6 6 0 3 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 NEW WORK BY M. D. CONWAY, M. A. Idols and Ideals {including the Essay on Christianity^ 350 pp. 7 6 Members of the Congregation can obtain this work in the Library at 5/-. BY A. J. ELLIS, B.A., F.R.S., &c., &c. Salvation....................................................... 0 ' Truth ....................................................... 0 1 0 Speculation .. •• ■• •• 1 0 Duty .• .....................................' The Dyer's Hand........................................... 0 1 2 2 2 2 2 BY REV. P. H. WICKSTEED, M.A. 0 1 2 The Modern Analogue of the Ancient Prophet....................................................... 0 1 2 Going Through and Getting Over •• BY REV. T. W. FRECKELTON. BY W. C. COUPLAND, M.A. The Conduct of Life Hymns and Anthems ................................ 0 * .. 2 V-, 2Si- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The religion of children : a discourse, with readings and meditation, given at South Place Chapel, October 21, 1877 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907 Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 15 cm. Notes: Includes extract from the text of 'The spirit's trials' by J.A. Froude. Printed by Waterlow and Sons Limited, London Wall. With a list of 'works to be obtained in the Library' of South Place Chapel at the end of pamphlet. Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [South Place Chapel] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3337 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Education Child rearing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The religion of children : a discourse, with readings and meditation, given at South Place Chapel, October 21, 1877), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Child Rearing-Moral and Ethical Aspects Children Moral Education Morris Tracts Religious Education https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/90b39eaa895834a829d9a4808e1749b9.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=FXPZ7ESBxDVAe0Dhx5BHFazhhDkaxWxB6omvYCwJcpOE8KbEHgFz0qqsYUOl0QtX3KK9wBOATrE7V6dduZzvysQWJLE4iWJhL2ktXupmcqy3qYxXGlXKrXlfZI4ZmtpTlzi3q1w0AtyNfx270qeDHXiUfMLu0MqNsM7tx817PTRCuwHI2BuUUNMznml66X%7EjchHokUJQPVz4FnbEHXvkxQumaMFz7f%7EXtQ9vbVWK6U-0equ1b6Wr2FjhVWa3eBbPBIIsqCGbJZttHfiyTcUgVc6maZvdop5ioJu4i%7EfR1kW08hInQVSb5LP4oYa%7ESE1QhqcFMd0j%7EWNe59UAHVgnxg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 25ad8543fcc23f1a8435b9ae07fadad3 PDF Text Text CT THE CHALDEAN ACCOUNT OF GENESIS. BY Sir GEORGE WILLIAM DENYS, Bart. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E. Price Fourpence. ��THE CHALDEAN ACCOUNT OF GENESIS * N the thirteenth page of this most remarkable and interesting work, Mr Smith says, “ The first series I may call the ‘ story of the Creation and Fall/ and the history is much fuller and longer than the correspond­ ing account in the book of Genesis. With respect to these Genesis narratives a furious strife has existed for many years, every word has been scanned by eager scholars, and every possible meaning which the various passages could bear has been suggested; while the age and authenticity of the narratives have been discussed on all sides. In particular it may be said that the account of the fall of man, the heritage of all Christian countries, has been the centre of the controversy, for it is one of the pivots on which the Christian religion turns. The world-wide importance of these subjects will therefore give the newly discovered inscriptions, and especially the one relating to ‘the Fall’ an unparal­ leled value.” But is this “Fall of Man ” the heritage of Christian countries only, as Mr Smith remarks ? Is not the old story of temptation also the heritage of all heathen times and countries ? Is there a cosmogony or theogony, however ancient, in which, under one form or another, the Adamic legend is not traceable ? “ The symbol of the serpent associates itself with the rise of all societies, is at the root of all mythologies, its trace is lost in the far off depths of time, but amongst animal symbol worship this is the most singular and I * By George Smith. Sampson and Low, 1876. �4 The Chaldean Account of Genesis. the widest spread.” Whether the serpent, prime agent in “the fall,” be regarded as wisdom personified, as by the Gnostic sect of Ophites, who honoured it as the father of all science and knowledge, the key that un­ locked for man the secret that should make him “ as the gods knowing all things,” or as temptation under the guise of a beautiful woman, (Bochart explains how Eve in the Chaldee means serpent), the story of Eden in the Mosaic narrative appears to be only another phase of this ancient myth, though it is in Genesis alone that the serpent is at once the prime agent and symbol of evil. Certainly the greatest interest must attach to the unearthing of what we conceive to be the sources of the Bible history, inasmuch as they tend to prove that there is no more rational ground for accepting this particular explanation of the origin of evil, than there is for accepting any other hypothesis. Mr Smith was certainly not sent out to Assyria by the Daily Telegraph for the purpose of upsetting the Mosaic cosmogony; but if in the course of his investigations he was led materially to modify his own previous convictions, we think that in the interest of science and of truth he is bound to tell us so. We do not hesitate therefore, “ in limine,” to put to him the crucial question, Does he or does he not ascribe to the Assyrian tablets an earlier origin than to the Mosaic record? Eor it is upon this “pivot” that the question of the inspiration of the Jewish record turns. The art of reading Assyrian cuneiform is one of those astonishing results of modern scientific research, which appears destined to upset the time-honoured opinions and beliefs of the greater part of the civilized world. We know not whether to be sorry or glad; but few there will be amongst those who have entered the last decade of life, who will see without pain and sadness that they have been trusting to the support of broken reeds, and that they have to spend the remainder of �The Chaldean Account of Genesis. 5 their lives in unlearning that which has taken them so much time and pains to acquire. Who that has passed middle life can there be who has not thought long and seriously upon the origin and destiny of the human race 1 Who has not waded through innumerable works upon religion, history, and science, in the hope of attaining an unassailable con­ viction that the persuasions and convictions of his earlier years were founded upon incontrovertible facts ? Yet with every desire to stand by the ancient and timehonoured beliefs, truth compels us to say, the evidence upon which we trusted, when weighed in the balance, has been found wanting. We cannot close our eyes to the light which is now shining upon the dark pages of the primeval history of man. The light will pierce whether we will or no. Let us not waste the few remaining hours of life in unavailing regrets, but rather thank God for the true light which now shineth, and follow its beacon. It is scarcely possible to speak of the “ Chaldean Genesis ” without hurting the feelings of the orthodox. My. desire is to speak tenderly and reverently of writings which are still held sacred by the vast majority of Christians, and of convictions which I myself fully shared for the greater part of my life, which are interwoven with all our dearest sympathies and associations, hut still to speak with perfect sin­ cerity. If we hope to induce others to lay aside any of their early prejudices, and to take heed to the results of modern scientific discovery, we must lay aside all hatred and uncharitableness, and in a calm and loving manner place before them the results of the patient labours of men, not a whit more irreligious than the most orthodox of churchmen, and leave the remedy to work its own cure. The “Times” of December 4, 1875, reviewed with its usual ability “ The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” �6 The Chaldean Account of Genesis. but I venture in all humility to dissent in part from the verdict of the writer in the leading journal. The writer says “ that exegetical theology will see in it a strong confirmation of the truth of an universal deluge.” Possibly it may, but nobody else will. The existence of the story at that early period, and of a universal belief in it, would be no proof of the fact, but only of the belief. It is the quod semper quod ubique quod cd) omnibus, which never can prove a physical impossi­ bility. Geological science no doubt proves that every part of the stratified crust of the earth has not only once, but repeatedly, been below the level of the sea; but that fact will never prove “that the tops of the highest hills ” were at one and the same time covered with water. It is also proved, by Geological Science, that at sundry periods in past geological time the crust of the earth has been unusually convulsed, great changes of climate, great upheavals, great subsidings have occurred; it is possible that not one, but several of these convul­ sions may have happened since man first made his appearance upon the earth, that a tradition of such a catastrophe may have been retained by the early in­ habitants, and clothed during the subsequent ages with all the miraculous adjuncts natural to ages of ignorance. The universal prevalence of such legends could only strengthen a rational belief in local catastrophes. Diodorus Siculus says, “ the ignorance prevailing re­ garding the sense of the myths, on which religion is founded, results from the thread of tradition having been violently snapt by that great catastrophe which we call the deluge, which caused the Pelasgians, the ancestors of the Greeks, to lose the remembrance of anterior events, and even the meaning of the graphic signs destined to transmit them to posterity.” Hence we may ask, can the Noachian deluge have occurred anywhere near the Pelasgian era? Can we identify the deluge of Diodorus with that of Berosus, with the �The Chaldean Account of Genesis. 7 Assyrian tablets, and with the deluge of Noah ? We find in Smith’s Classical Dictionary under Diodorus, that in compiling his history, Diodorus exercised neither judgment nor criticism. He simply collected what he found in his different authorities, and thus jumbled together history, myths, and fiction. He cannot therefore be a trustworthy authority. Like those impecunious Frenchmen who habitually ascribe their poverty to having lost all “ dans la revolution,” he ascribes his own ignorance, and that of his con­ temporaries of these “graphic writings,” to the deluge. May not these “graphic writings” have been these very cuneiform inscriptions of which we are now writing ? Of the Pelasgians we know very little, and their fabled progenitor Pelasgus may have arisen out of the sea like Joannes, or any other fabulous person­ age ; but it is quite possible that Diodorus when on his travels may have come across the same tradition of a deluge which was related by Berosus. Mr G. Smith has, we think, satisfactorily established the identity of Noah, Hasisadra, and the Xisithrus of the Assyrian tablets,—at least, the following accounts from the “ clays” so exactly tallies with the Genesis version of the flood that Noah and Xisithrus can only be one and the same person. “ In the time of Xisuthrus, tenth King of Chaldea, happened a great deluge,” which is thus described : “ The Deity Cronos appeared to Xisuthrus in a vision and warned him that on the 15th day of the month Dsesius there would be a flood by which mankind should be destroyed. Cronos, therefore, enjoined Xisuthrus to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and conclusion of all things, and to bury it in the city of the Sun at Sippara, and to build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and relations, and to convey on board everything neces­ sary to sustain life, together with the different animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly to the deep. Having asked the Deity Cronos (another �8 ‘ The Chaldean Account of Genesis. name for Saturn)* whither he was to sail, he was answered, “to the Gods,” upon which Xisuthrus offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He forthwith obeys the “ divine admonition,” he builds a vessel of five stadia in length and two in width, (we do not know whether this is equivalent to Noah’s three hun­ dred cubits) and conveys into it all the quadrupeds, and his relations and friends. “ After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel, which not finding any food, nor any place whereupon they might rest their feet, returned to him again; he sent them forth a second time and they returned with their feet tinged with mud;” the parallel between the two accounts is further continued : “ Noah when he left the ark built an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” “ Xisuthrus when he found his birds returned no more the third time judged the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters; he therefore made an opening in the vessel, and upon looking out found it was stranded upon the side of some mountain, upon which he inmediately quitted it with his wife, his daughter, and the pilot.” “ On reaching terra firma,” we read, “ Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the earth; and having constructed an altar offered sacri­ fices to the gods, and with those who had come out of the vessel with him disappeared.” In Genesis we read, that on descending from the ark, Noah also offered sacrifice; but he did not disappear, and, hence­ forward, the two accounts differ. The parallelism between the Chaldean and the Genesis accounts of the * In the Greek and Latin inscriptions of Syria, lately published by Mr Waddington, we find mention of monuments of the worship of Cronos or Kronos, as the Greeks called El. This word El means chief or greatest, “ The Supreme.” According to the great Phoenician authority, Sanchoniathon, Kronos or Saturn was called El by the Phoenicians. The God of Israel was also El-Elion, ElShaddai, El-Kanna. El in the Semitic pantheon is equivalent toDjaus in the Indo-European, the prefix of all gods. �The Chaldean Account of Genesis. 9 flood up to this point are, however, so striking, that we cannot resist the conclusion that the one springs from the other. If we turn for a moment to compare the account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis with the Greek cosmogony, we shall also find a parallelism. In the cosmogony of the Greeks we read, according to’ a learned authority, that “ Zeus,” the Supreme God of the Greeks, engendered “ Ether and Chaos,” from which he formed the egg of the world. Here we may indeed be said to have arrived at the beginnings of everything ! In all cosmogonies the “ Supreme God” had somehow to engender this egg; the author of “ Les Temps Mythologiques ” writes, “ Plutarch relates that Osiris having produced the egg of the world there shut up twelve white figures, but Typhon the Ethiopian God, the genius of evil, introduced into it twelve black figures, whence arose the mixture of good and evil. The simple explanation of this is the fusion of the black and white races.” The Egyptian hieroglyphics very often place the “ egg of the world” in the mouth of the viper Hof, emblem of the sovereignty of Egypt. In most of the cosmogonies the primordial egg is floating on the waters ; Genesis repudiates the cos­ mogonic egg, but we find there the primitive waters anterior to all creation; “ And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.” * “ We have seen that all mythologies express this singular idea of the waters being coexistent with God before the formation of the world, and in the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead there is a passage which has perhaps served as text for the first line of all cosmogonies. It is I,” said Osiris, “ who have navigated the waters with the Celestial Gnomon, * We may here remark how Professor Huxley’s scientific dicta regarding all generative beginnings receives testimony from the texts of these ancient cosmogonies, for he proves from long research into the secrets of the womb of nature, that without a state of fluid there is no possibility of life being engendered. �io The Chaldean Account of Genesis. and have manifested myself.” The very term “Spirit of God ” is of Egyptian origin, and the Serpent holding in his mouth the egg of the world is often called “ the Spirit of God.”* To quote again “Les Temps Mythologiques: ”—“The most important truth that results from the study of comparative mythologies is the identity of the principle •on which all are based ; and we can only conclude that there was but one theme on which all those documents were based, and on which each successive race impressed the genius of its special character. “ Under what inspiration did this thesis spring to life ? Was it due to the rhapsodical and imaginative East ? to the pantheistic naturalism of India, which reached the far off West ? Is it the heritage of the profound wisdom of Egypt carried into Asia by her colonists, and must we here seek for vestiges of the most ancient of peoples ? There is no doubt that as time went on the learned priests of different ages assembled together to elaborate the grave questions as to the formation of the world and the birth of man, in which, assisted by the rare documents that had escaped the deluge, they constructed the cosmogonies of their different countries. “ Thus are explained the variations in the Phoenician document, without doubt the nearest to our own times, and which variation has greatly puzzled both French and German savans as to them, there appeared many cosmogonies, the same au fond but different in form. This which first suggested doubts as to the authenticity of the document became instead the strongest proof in its support.” In the Assyrian version of the deluge we read that “ Xisuthrus deposited his account of all that had been the procedure and the end of all things, in the City of the Sun, Sippara.” By a very singular coincidence, the writings of Thoth are also said to have been discovered at this * “Monsieur de Rouge.” �The Chaldean Account of Cenesis. 1 I same city of Sippara in Chaldea. Philon of Byblos, who lived about a.d. 24, published in Greek a trans­ lation of Sanchoniathon’s “History of the Phoenicians;” the work is lost, a few fragments only of it being preserved by Eusebius. Sanchoniathon is by some thought to have been a contemporary of Semiramis, b.c. 2000, by others of Moses, b.c. 1700; others again as low as b.c. 1200. In the fragments preserved of Philo, Byblos’ Greek translation, he states, that his -document regarding the creation of the world was written before the flood. We read under the head of Thoth in Bouillet’s “Dictionary of Universal History,” that Thoth was an Egyptian God, that it was he who sent Osiris to the earth. That the forty-two volumes of Egyptian sacred books were written by him. He was represented sometimes with an Ibis’ head. By some he is con­ sidered the same as the Greek Hermes or Mercury; and the Hermes Trismegistus of the Alchemists’ Trismegistus, meaning thrice great. This entirely fabulous personage is placed also at B.c. 2000, at which distance of time the invention of language, of the alphabet, of writing, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and medicine, together with all the arts and sciences, may be safely attributed to him, for no one will be at the pains to disprove it. Bouillet further states, that a quantity of religious books were attributed to him, called “ Livres hermetiques,” and that Hermes Trismegistus appears to have been for the Ancients at once “ the symbol of the divine intelligence, the Logos of Plato, and the personification of the Egyptian priesthood.” Of these works one remains entitled “ On the Nature of Things and the Creation of the World,” probably as apo­ cryphal as Hermes himself. The singularity, however, remains, of the existence of the tradition that the works of an Egyptian should have been buried in Sippara, a city of Chaldea. We have probably here also an identity of different phases of the same mythus, �12 The Chaldean Account of Genesis. with a confusion of names and places. This would alsoexplain why “ the various cosmogonies that have come down to us all bear such a family likeness, the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Phoenician have all drawn from the same source.” The writer in the 11 Times,” to whom we must now revert, says: “It is evident that the Chaldean account differs essentially from the deluge of Noah.” That the Hebrews had retained a simpler and conse­ quently older version of the deluge is clear, for the scriptural narrative at all events is prior to the building of ships and construction of rudders.” In my opinion the “ simpler” version of the Jews proves the compara­ tively modern and improved edition of an old story more suitable to the advanced conceptions of the Jews at the time of the Babylonian captivity, during which they had ample opportunities of studying the Baby­ lonian records, when we know that the Old Testament was in great part re-written. Is it likely that at a time when the Jews as a nation were non-existent, when they were a set of “ wandering Nomads in search of a home,” * they should have been in possession of more authentic records than a nation in so high a state of civilization as the Babylonians ? The “ Times ” continues, “ every effort will be made to rescue and preserve the pieces which lie hidden in the recesses of the valley of the Tigris. Till all these pieces are visible to the eye of the discoverer, the pro­ blems of chronology, mythology, and history, are am­ biguous oracles or inexplicable riddles. They will neither disturb faith nor dissipate doubt, but will be the raw material for the intellect to spin and weave into a connected woof.” I venture to think that if every baked brick in Assyria were discovered tomorrow, we should be no nearer the solution of the “ inexplicable ” than we are * Vide Introduction to Pentateuch and book of Joshua, by a Physician. Scott’s Series. �The Chaldean Account of Genesis. 13 now. History and chronology can never be founded on myths or legends. Facts are what the historian wants. Now the facts which have been proved by the Assyrian discoveries are the following :— The Assyrian baked bricks date from the fifteenth century b.c. lt There is reason to think (says the ‘ Times ’) that some of the transcripts are as old as twenty, and certainly not later than fifteen centuries B.c. At such an early period the pentateuch could not have been written (w'cte Introduction to Pentateuch, before quoted), for it has long since been definitely shown that writing in the proper sense of the word appears not to have been practised by the Jews so relatively recent as the days of David. “ The Hebrew word for ink is of Persian derivation, and the art of writing on prepared sheep and goat skins among them, dates from no more remote an age than the Babylonian captivity.” We find, then, amid a vast series of records of myths, legends, or whatever we may please to call them—stories of the creation, of the fall, the tree of life, the serpent, the war in heaven, and the casting out of the dragon, the flood with the ark or ship, and the sending forth of the raven and the dove, the grounding of the ark upon a mountain; of the institution of the Sabbath, and of the building of the tower of Babel, besides Bel and the dragon, and many other fabulous tales. What are we to infer from these things ? Is it not infinitely more probable that the Jews copied from the Babylonians during the captivity, adapting many things to their then more advanced conceptions, than that the Baby­ lonians copied from the Jews? We find that the Assyrians did so, for these are all transcripts or copies, and the Assyrians tell us so. Why not the Jews also ? We know they took subsequently many religious ideas from the Persians. But what follows if they did ? The reverse of what the “ Times ” states, for faith will be shaken and doubts will be disseminated. The faith of �14 The Chaldean Account of Genesis. those who, in spite of all the biblical critics, Colenso, Kalisch, Kuenen, and the rest, still believed in the historical accuracy of Genesis ; for if the Mosaic narra­ tive instead of being inspired from on high turns out to be a copy, or rather an adaptation of an ancient tradi­ tion, how can it do otherwise than shake their belief 1 “ The pious people who, in person or by delegate, have been so busy excavating in Palestine and Babylonia with a view to demonstrate the divine origin and his­ torical truth of the Hebrew scriptures, seem verily to be pursuing their work to their own discomfiture.” * Those who doubted before will have their doubts confirmed, for such an amount of cumulative evidence it is impossible to withstand. It is quite possible that Abraham, supposing him to have been an historical personage, and to have come from Ur of the Chaldees, may have brought away with him many of the Babylonian traditions. The author of the Chaldean Genesis modestly and wisely refrains from dogmatising or pronouncing any opinion which might excite the “ odium theologicum.” He says, page 284, “ Biblical criticism is, however, a subject on which I am not competent to pronounce an independent opinion,” and that he “ could not take up any of the prevailing views without being a party to the controversy.” He thinks, however, “that all will admit a connection of some sort between the biblical narrative and the cuneiform texts.” I cannot, however, admit that there was “ such a total difference between the religious ideas of the two peoples (as he states), the Jews believing in one God, the Creator and Lord of the Universe, while the Babylonians worshipped gods and lords many, every city having its local deity, and these being joined by complicated relations in a poetical mythology, which was in marked contrast to the severe simplicity of the Jewish system,” p. 285. The pure monotheistic worship to which the Jews ultimately at* Introduction to Book of Joshua, by a Physician. �The Chaldean Account of Genesis. 15 tained was the work of ages.* Their entire history proves how prone they were to worship the gods of the surrounding nations. The great value of the inscrip­ tions describing the Flood, p. 286, consists not in the fact that they form an independent testimony in favour of the biblical narrative at a much earlier date than any other evidence, for the earlier narrative cannot testify in favour of the later. The two accounts are no doubt records of the same event, of which other versions, over and above that of Berosus, may one day be discovered, but the endeavour to reconcile their many conflicting statements is about as hopeless an affair as the endeavour to reconcile the Mosaic cosmogony with modern geological science. With regard to the vexed question of our chronology and its correctness, I have no pretensions as a chronologist, but in so far as I have studied the subject I must confess that I have no faith in the correctness of any date prior to the first Olimpiad, or b.o. 776. The verification of any dates subsequent to that, the identi­ fication of the names of different kings in divers ancient historical tablets downwards from a firm historical standpoint is no doubt an interesting subject of study for the archeologist, but from the moment we ascend into the mythical period all chronology must be at fault and whether we take the lists of Manetho, Berosus, or his 380,000 years, the ante-diluvian patriarchs or any other, we are compelled to class them all together as rude attempts to explain the inexplicable, to construct fact out of fiction. Far easier would it be to write the history of our paleolithic and neolithic ancestors, for they at any rate have left no lying legends behind them to confuse us. They have not left records of any ancestors with heads * Sabaoth, the Jehovah of the Gnostics, recalls very closely the Jupiter Sabazius of antiquity that the Jewish colony adored in Rome, 139 B.c., and for which cause they were expelled from the city, and even from Italy. Jao is also a name for Bacchus, Sabazius, or Saturn. �16 The Chaldean Account of Genesis. of birds or of beasts. They had no need to invent tales of the slaughter of giants and other fabulous monsters of sea and land to bolster up their courage with posterity, for the testimony of the rocks is there to tell of their heroic deeds, of the ages they lived and reigned upon this our earth. They needed no baked bricks, for deep down in the bowels of the earth their fossil bones lie buried side by side with those of the elephas primigenius and other gigantic but real animals with whom, in their hard struggle for existence, they had to contend, and the simple instruments they wielded in the contest. On the horns of the reindeer are admir­ ably etched the portrait of the Mammoth, proving the love of art even in that remote age. When I look at these simple relics of an heroic people, when I think of the “ antres vast and deserts idle” in which they were compelled to live, of the struggle for existence they were compelled to endure with the huge extinct mammals, I am lost in admiration at their hardihood and in pity at their fate; but when I turn to look at a picture of Izdubar struggling with a rampant bull, one hand holding the tail and the other a horn, I am simply disgusted at such ludicrous absurdity. Izdubar may have been for all that a real king and a hero, but when we come to fix his reign as the start­ ing point of history, that is quite another matter. Mr G. Smith puts the age of Izdubar, i.e. Nimrod, at B.c. The deluge of IS oah, according to our chronology, was ,, Menes founds the Egyptian monarchy . . „ Nimrod, according to our chronology, founds Assyrian monarchy ... .... 2500. 2348. 2233. 2233. If our chronology is to be trusted, the two great monarchies, the Egyptian and the Assyrian, were founded 115 years after the flood. Where did the people come from ? every soul having perished except Noah and his family 115 years before. If Smith’s date for Izdubar is right he must have �The Chaldean Account of Genesis. 17 lived 152 years before the flood, and could not there­ fore have founded an empire which that catastrophe must have destroyed. The earliest monuments known, date, according to Mr Smith, 250 years later than the time of Izdubar, and the traditions on which those legends are founded arose shortly after his death. “ Chaldean Genesis,” p. 106. Surely the flood, if it. happened at all, must have swept away the traditions as it did the people. Amid such a mass of fable the search for historical truth is very like searching for the needle in the hay­ stack. Compare Izdubar, b.c. Joshua, ,, Hercules, ,, Gideon,. „ Samson, ,, 2500 j 1451 ; also Deluge of Noah, b.c. 2348 1330 Deluge of Ogyges, ' „ 1796 1245! Deluge of Deucalion ,, 1503 1136 J If from mythical events, we turn to mythical in­ dividuals, we cannot fail being struck with the extraor­ dinary family likeness in the characters and deeds of the different heroes. Mr Smith in speaking of Izdubar, p. 294, says :—“Every nation has its hero, and it was only natural on the revival of his empire, that the Babylonians should consecrate his memory,” and in another place he says that, “ the natural tendency of those superstitious times was to invest their great men with all sorts of miraculous powers, to attribute to them heroic deeds, that we are not on that account justified in doubting the real existence of the King or Hero in question. He is of opinion that Izdubar was the Nimrod of Genesis, that Hasisadra was the Noah of Genesis, and that the Xisuthrus of Berosus, and his account of the flood was only another version of the Babylonian legend. The labours of Hercules, and the deeds of Samson are strangely alike, as are also the births of Moses and Sargon the first, the latter having been placed by his mother in an ark of rushes, launched upon the Euphrates, �18 . • The. Chaldean Account of Genesis. and rescued by a water-carrier, who brought him up as his son.” (Smith’s “ Assyrian Discoveries,” p. 228.) Without entering upon the vexed question of the dates of these legends, it must be allowed at all events, that priority belongs to the profane rather than to the sacred legends. The Assyrian Tablets constitute there­ fore our earliest “ Book of Origins,” origins, it must be allowed, not of history, for no one in his senses would attempt to found history, or base his religion upon what are after all nothing but the rude attempts of the most ancient civilized nation we know of, to dive into the secrets of the early ages of mankind. They are deeply interesting and poetical myths, nothing more. What then should be our conclusion 1 If the so-called Mosaic account “ turns out after all to be neither history, nor original revelation from Jehovah to the Jews, but stories found among neigh­ bours.” If we have found out at last that we have been building our house upon the sand, what then ? Let us not be downhearted, neither let us be dismayed, rather let us say, “ let God be true and every man a liar.” Let us be thankful to God for the light given to us in this our day, through the unwearied labours of men like Rawlinson, Smith, Layard, Loftus, Rassam, earnest seekers after truth and lovers of science. Dog­ matic theology may suffer ; but true religion will never suffer from any scientific discovery. The tendency not of one, but of all the sciences, is to exalt all our religious conceptions. Theology has debased them ! In concluding these remarks, I cannot do better than by again quoting from the work of the able physician (Pentateuch and Book of Joshua, p. 14). “ Shah we who measure our distance from the sun and fixed stars, calculate their masses, weigh them as in a balance, analyse their light, and thereby learn that they are all units in one stupendous whole, continue to look with respect on tales that tell of the arrest of the sun and moon in their apparent path through heaven, �The Chaldean Account of Genesis. 19 to the end that a barbarous horde may have light effectually to exterminate the unoffending people, they have come—by God’s command, too, it is said— to plunder and to murder ? It were surely time to quit us of such worse than childish folly.” May the spirit of truth guide us into all truth, to . the truth which will break our fetters and make us free indeed, to the truth which will widen our vision/ strengthen and exalt our hopes, and enlarge our charity. TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Chaldean account of Genesis Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Denys, George William [Sir, Bart.] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 19 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A critique of 'The Chaldean Account of Genesis' by George Smith (Sampson and Low, 1876). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT202 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Chaldean account of Genesis), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bible-O.T.-Genesis Book Reviews Conway Tracts George Smith https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/d99cef37a3ef250bdeb081b0ba2709f9.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=wR73OctrZ-TVMaMwt2RnfJm9hj5hnZoZwwnsJJtqF-hQ5d99ymw-KU6nTtxR1JrJi2OIneRoOwClYKPefyCOJLfYRjlKgH62z1FXYdLV8muaSndWGClsL3xrPhNIZlBo0VGkiCLSUoAScUpskYX1AglAI56r7EbsT6jU1qr16kQnm9d%7Efdb9HfaMTHft6p-Fo1KanHyDG6Kw2rmVJxLy0pTz5OgFBnZeTOmhq9xDE84HgzbVEDkYCqYbTmSmigrD3CuBDO0hnlBxzX759N0vdi3OuRjlxCTMC1YD99%7E2gCQTk6I13ZnlABfjdZzUzIThCWCSUjvDh4gW8-5NgcFbjw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c6758be3ebab8854bc0662f23b23d2ae PDF Text Text ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. , NXHONALSECUlMaötU^ COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. PRICE TWOPENCE. �LONDON: PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH 28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. �6 0.73S Kl 3.77 ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. The Universe is Governed by Law. Great men seem to be part of the infinite, brothers of the mountains and the seas. Humboldt was one of these. He was one of those serene men, in some respects like our own Franklin, whose names have all the lustre of a star. He was one of the few great enough to rise above the superstition and prejudice of his time, and to know that experience, observation, and reason are the only basis of knowledge. He became one of the greatest of men, in spite of having been born rich and noble—in spite of position. I say in spite of these things, because wealth and position are gene­ rally the enemies of genius, and the destroyers of talent. It is often said of this or that man, that he is a self-made man—that he was born of the poorest and humblest of parents, and that, with every obstacle to overcome, he became great. This is a mistake. Poverty is generally an advan­ tage. Most of the intellectual giants of the world have been nursed at the sad and loving breast of poverty. Most of those who have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced at the lowest round. They were reared in the straw-thatched cottages of Europe ; in the log-houses of America; in the factories of the great cities ; in the midst of toil; in the smoke and din of labour, and on the verge of want. They were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at the same time, were busy with the needle or the wheel. It is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure, and so I say, that Humboldt, in spite of having �4 ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. been born to wealth and high social position, became truly and grandly great. . In the antiquated and romantic castle of Tegel by the side of the pine forest, on the shore of the charming lake near the beautiful city of Berlin, the great Humboldt, one hundred years ago, was born, and there he was educated after the method suggested by Rousseau,—Campe, the philologist and critic, and the intellectual Kunth being his tutors. There he received the impressions that determined his career; there the great idea that the Universe is governed by law took possession of his mind, and there he dedicated his life to the demonstration of this sublime truth. He came to the conclusion that the source of man’s un­ happiness is his ignorance of nature. After having received the most thorough education at that time possible, and having determined to what end he would devote the labours of his life, he turned his attention to the sciences of geology, mining, mineralogy, botany and distri­ bution of plants, the distribution of animals, and the effect of climate upon man. All grand physical phenomena were investigated and explained. From his youth he had felt a great desire for travel. He felt, as he says, a violent passion for the sea, and longed to look upon Nature in her wildest and most rugged forms. He longed to give a physical de­ scription of the Universe—a grand picture of Nature; to account for all phenomena ; to discover the laws governing the world ; to do away with that splendid delusion called special providence, and to establish the fact that the Universe is governed by law. To establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind. That fact is the death-knell of superstition ; it gives liberty to every soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the age of reason. The object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent Nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces. For this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany, traversing distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain definitely the geographical distribution of plants. He investigated the laws regulating the differences of temperature and climate, and the changes of the atmo­ sphere. He studied the formation of the earth’s crust, explored the deepest mines, ascended the highest moun­ �ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. 5 tains, and wandered through the craters of extinct vol­ canoes. He became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with terrestrial magnetism ; and as the investiga­ tion of one subject leads to all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a necessary connection between all facts, so Humboldt became acquainted with all the known sciences. His fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he discovered enough to make hundreds of repu­ tations), as upon his vast and splendid generalization. He was to Science what Shakespeare was to the drama. He found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts—all portions of a vast system—parts of a great machine. He discovered the connection which each bears to all, put them together, and demonstrated beyond all con­ tradiction that the earth is governed by law. He knew that to discover the connection of phenomena is the primary aim of all natural investigation. He was in­ finitely practical. Origin and destiny were questions with which he had nothing to do. His surroundings made him what he was. In accordance with a law not fully comprehended he was a production of his time. Great men do not live alone; they are surrounded by the great; they are the instruments used to accomplish the ten­ dencies of their generation; they fulfil the prophecies of their age. Nearly all the scientific men of the eighteenth century had the same idea entertained by Humboldt, but most of them in a dim and confused way. There was, however, a general belief among the intelligent that the world is governed by law, and that there really exists a connection between all facts, or that all facts are simply the different aspects of a general fact, and that the task of science is to discover this connection, to comprehend this general fact, or to announce the laws of things. Germany was full of thought, and her universities swarmed with philosophers and grand thinkers in every department of knowledge. Humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians, philologists, artists, statesmen, critics, and logicians of his time. �6 ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. . _ He was the companion of Schiller, who believed that man would be regenerated through the influence of the Beautiful; of Goethe, the grand patriarch of German literature; of Weiland, who has been called the Voltaire of Germany; of Herder, who wrote the outlines of a philosophical history of man of Kotzebue, who lived in the world of romance; of Schleiermacher, the pantheist; of Schlegel, who gave to his countrymen the enchanted realm of Shakespeare; of the sublime Kant, author of the first work published in Germany on Pure Reason; of Fichte, the infinite idealist; of Schopenhauer, the European Buddhist, who followed the great Gautama to the painless and dreamless Nirwana, and of hundreds of others, whose names are familiar to, and honoured by, the scientific world. The German mind had been grandly roused from the long lethargy of the dark ages of ignorance, fear, and faith. Guided by the holy light of reason, every department of knowledge was investigated, enriched, and illustrated. Humboldt breathed the atmosphere of investigation• old ideas were abandoned; old creeds, hallowed by centuries, were thrown aside ; thought became courageous; the athlete, Reason, challenged to mortal combat the monsters of superstition. No wonder that, under these influences, Humboldt formed the great purpose of presenting to the world a picture of Nature, in order that men might, for the first time, behold the face of their mother. Europe became too small for his genius; he visited the tropics in the New World, where, in the most circumscribed limits, he could find the greatest number of plants, of animals, and the greatest diversity of climate, that he might ascertain the laws governing the production and distribution or plants, animals, and men, and the effects of climate upon them all. He sailed along the gigantic Amazon; the mysterious Oronoco; traversed the Pampas; climbed the Andes until he stood upon the crags of Chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips. For nearly five years he pursued his investigations in the New World, accompanied by the intrepid Bonpland. Nothing escaped his attention. He was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. He was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with the sense of the beautiful and the love of truth. His collections were immense, and valuable �ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. 7 beyond calculation to every science. He endured innume­ rable hardships, braved countless dangers in unknown savage lands, and exhausted his fortune for the advancement of true learning. Upon his return to Europe, he was hailed as toe second 'Columbus ; as the scientific discoverer of America ; as the revealer of a New World; as the great demonstrator of the sublime truth, that the Universe is governed by law. I have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon the •mountain side, above him the eternal snow, below, the smiling valley of the tropics filled with vine and palm, his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep, thoughtful, and calm, his forehead majestic—grander than the mountain upon which he sat—-crowned with the snow of his whitened hair, he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world. Not satisfied with his discoveries in America, he crossed the steppes of Asia, the wastes of Siberia, the great Ural wange, adding to the knowledge of mankind at every step. His energy acknowledged no obstacle, his life knew no leisure ; every day was filled with labour and with thought.. He was one of the apostles of Science, and he served his divine Master with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement; with an ardour that constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the polar star. In order that the people at large might have the benefit of his numerous discoveries and his vast knowledge, he delivered, at Berlin, a course of lectures, consisting of sixtyone free addresses upon the following subjects: Five, upon the nature and limits of physical geography. Three were devoted to a history of Science. Two, to inducements to a study of natural science. Sixteen, on the heavens. Five, on the form, density, latent heat and magnetic power of the earth, and the polar light. Four were on the nature of the crust of the earth, on hot springs, earthquakes and volcanoes. Two, on mountains and the type of their formation. Two, on the form of the earth’s surface, on the connection of continent, and the elevation of soil over ravines. Three, on the sea as a globular fluid surrounding the earth. Ten, on the atmosphere as an elastic fluid surrounding the earth, and on the distribution of heat. �ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. One, on the geographic distribution- of organized matter in general. Three, on the geography of plants. Three, on the geography of animals, and Two, on the races of men. These lectures are what is known as the Cosmos, and present a scientific picture of the world, of infinite diversity and unity, of ceaseless motion in the eternal grasp of law. These lectures contain the result of his investigation,, observation and experience; they furnish the connection; between phenomena; they disclose some of the changes, through which the earth has passed in the countless ages; the history of vegetation, animals, and men; the effects of climate upon individuals and nations, the relation we sustain to other worlds, and demonstrate that all phenomena, whether insignificant or grand, exist in accordance with inexorable law. There are some truths, however, that we never should forget. Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. Since the murder of Hypatia, in the fifth century, when the polished blade of Greek philosophy was broken by the club of ignorant Catholicism, until to-day, superstition has detested every effort of reason. It is almost impossible to conceive of the completeness of the victory that the Church achieved over philosophy. For ages science was utterly ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was the master of the world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling; was sought to be suppressed ; love was considered infinitely sinful, pleasure was the road to eternal fire, and God was supposed to be happy only when his children were miserable. The world was governed by an Almighty’s whim ; prayers could change the order of things, halt the grand procession of Nature; could produce rain, avert pestilence, famine, and death in all its forms. There was no idea of the certain ; all depended upon divine pleasure, or displeasure rather; heaven was full of inconsistent malevolence, and earth of ignorance. Everything was done to appease the divine wrath; every public calamity was caused by the sins of the people ; by a failure to pay tithes, or for having, even in. �ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. 9 secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. To the poor multitude, the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons, ready to devour, and theological serpents lurking with infinite power to fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. Life to them was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary and lost, guided by priests as. bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step the Ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue. The very heavens were full of death ; the lightning was. regarded as the glittering vengeance of God, and the earth was thick with snares for the unwary feet of man. The soul was supposed to be crowded with the wild beasts of desire;, the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only to crime; virtues were regarded as only deadly sins in disguise; therewas a continual warfare being waged between the Deity and the Devil, for the possession of every soul; the latter being; generally considered victorious. The flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of the displeasure of heaven and the sinfulness of man. The blight that withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were the messengers of the Creator. The world was governed by fear. Against all the evils of nature, there was known only the defence of prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. Man in his helplessness endeavoured to soften the heart of God. The faces of the multitude were blanched with fear and wet with tears; they were the prey of hypocrites, kings, andpriests. My heart bleeds when I contemplate the sufferings endured by the millions now dead; of those who lived when the » .-world appeared to be insane; when the heavens were filled with an infinite Horror, who snatched babes with dimpled hands and rosy cheeks from the white breasts of mothers, and dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame. Slowly, beautifully, like the coming of the dawn, came the grand truth that the Universe is governed by law; that disease fastens itself upon the good and upon the bad; that the tornado cannot be stopped by counting beads; that the rushing lava pauses not for bended knees; the lightning for clasped and uplifted hands ; nor the cruel waves of the sea for prayer; that paying tithes causes, rather than prevents, famine; that pleasure is not sin ; that happiness is the only good; that demons and gods exist only in the imagination; that faith is a lullaby sung to put the soul to sleep; that devotion is a bride that fear offers to supposed power; that �IO ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. offering rewards in another world for obedience in this, is simply buying a soul on credit; that knowledge consists in ascertaining the laws of nature, and that wisdom is the science of happiness. Slowly, grandly, beautifully, these truths are dawning upon mankind. From Copernicus we learn that this earth is only a grain of sand on the infinite shore of the Universe; that every­ where we are surrounded by shining worlds, vastly greater than our own, all moving and existing in accordance with law. True, the earth began to grow small, but man began to grow great. The moment the fact was established that other worlds are governed by law, it was only natural to conclude that our little world was also under its dominion. The old theological method of accounting for physical phenomena by the pleasure and displeasure of the Deity was, by the intellectual, abandoned. They found that disease, death, life, thought, heat, cold, the seasons, the winds, the dreams of man, the instinct of animals—in short, that all physical and mental phenomena are governed by law, absolute, eternal and inexorable. Let it be understood, that by the term law is meant the same invariable relations of succession and resemblance predicated of all facts springing from like conditions. Law is a fact—not a cause. It is a fact, that like conditions produce like results; this fact is Law. When we say that the Universe is governed by law, we mean that this fact, called law, is incapable of change—that it has been, and forever will be, the same inexorable, immutable Fact, inseparable from all phenomena. Law, in this sense, was not enacted or made. It eould not have been otherwise than as it is. That which necessarily exists has no creator. Only a few years ago this earth was considered the real centre of the universe; all the stars were supposed to revolve •around this insignificant atom. The German mind, more than any other, has done away with this piece of egotism. Purbach and Mulleras, in the fifteenth century, contributed most to the advancement of astronomy in their day. To the latter, the world is indebted for the introduction of decimal fractions, which completed our arithmetical no­ tation and formed the second of the three steps, by which, in modern times, the science of numbers has been so greatly improved; and yet both of these men believed in the most childish absurdities, at least in enough of �ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. 11 them, to die without their orthodoxy having ever been suspected. Next came the great Copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic thinkers of his time who had the courage and the mental strength to break the chains of prejudice, custom, and authority, and to establish truth on the basis of ex­ perience, observation, and reason. He removed the earth, so to speak, from the centre of the Universe, and ascribed to it a two-fold motion, and demonstrated the true position which it occupies in the solar system. At his bidding the earth began to revolve, at the command of his genius it commenced its grand flight ’mid the eternal constellations round the sun. For fifty years his discoveries were disregarded. All at once, by the exertions of Galileo, they were kindled into so grand a conflagration as to consume the philosophy of Aristotle, to alarm the hierarchy of Rome, and to threaten the existence of every opinion not founded upon experience, observation, and reason. The earth was no longer considered a Universe, governed by the caprices of some revengeful deity, who had made the stars out of what he had left after completing the world, and had stuck them in the sky, simply to adorn the night. I have said this much concerning astronomy because it was the first splendid step forward ; the first sublime blow that shattered the lance and shivered the shield of super­ stition ; the first real help that man received from heaven, because it was the first great lever placed beneath the altar of a false religion ; the first revelation of the infinite to man ; the first authoritative declaration that the Universe is governed by law ; the first science that gave the lie direct to the cosmogony of barbarism, and because it is the sublimest victory that the reason has achieved. In speaking of astronomy, I have confined myself to the discoveries made since the revival of learning. Long ago, on the banks of the Ganges, ages before Copernicus lived, Aryabhatta taught that the earth is a sphere, and revolves on its own axis. This, however, does not detract from the glory of the great German. The discovery of the Hindoo had been lost in the midnight of Europe—in the age of faith, and Copernicus was as much a discoverer as though Aryabhatta had never lived. In this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to point out the particular evidence furnished �12 ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. by each, to establish the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of Descartes, the first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena of the Universe to the same law; of Montaigne, one of the heroes of common sense; of Galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world ; of Voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of Auguste Comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of Gutenburg, Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, all soldiers of science in the grand army of the dead kings. The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul—break­ ing the mental manacles—getting the brain out of bondage—• giving courage to thought—filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy. Science found agriculture ploughing with a stick—reaping with a sickle—commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds—a world without books— without schools—man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals. It found the land filled wtth malicious monks—with persecuting Protestants and the burners of men. It found a world full of fear; ignorance upon its knees; credulity the greatest virtue; women treated like beasts of burden; cruelty the only means of reformation. It found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on Sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. It found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries down-trodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world. Such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the Universe is governed by law. For the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science—the only lever capable of raising mankind. Abject faith is barbarism ; reason is civilization. To obey �ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. 13 is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason is noble. Ignorance worships mystery; reason ex­ plains it: the one grovels, the other soars. No wonder that fable is the enemy of knowledge. A man with a false diamond shuns the society of lapidaries, and it is upon this principle that superstition abhors science. In all ages the people have honoured those who dis­ honoured them. They have worshipped their destroyers, they have canonized the most gigantic liars and ouried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monu­ ment sleeps the dust of murder. Imposture has always won a crown. The world is beginning to change because the people are beginning to think. To think is to advance. Everywhere the great minds are investigating the creeds and superstitions of men, the phenomena of nature, and the laws of things. At the head of this great army of investigators stood Humboldt—the serene leader of an intellectual host—-a king by the suffrage of science and the divine right of Genius. And to-day we are not honouring some butcher called a soldier, some wily politician called a statesman, some robber called a king, nor some malicious metaphysician called a saint. We are honouring the grand Humboldt, whose vic­ tories were all achieved in the arena of thought; who destroyed prejudice, ignorance, and error—not men; who shed light—not blood, and who contributed to the know­ ledge, the wealth and the happiness of all mankind. His life was pure, his aims lofty, his learning varied and profound, and his achievements vast. We honour him because he has ennobled our race, be­ cause he has contributed as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of the world. We honour him because he honoured us; because he laboured for others ; because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation; be­ cause he left a legacy of glory to every human being. For these reasons he is honoured throughout the world. Millions are doing- homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished. We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, palms; the wide deserts ; the snow-tipped craters of the Andes ; with primeval forests and European capitals; wildernesses and universities; with savages and savans; with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes; with peaks and �14 ORATION ON HUMBOLDT. pampas, and. steppes, and cliffs, and crags j with the progress of the world; with every science known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. . Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day ; wasted none of his time in the stupiditieSj inanities, and contradiction of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavour to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth century. Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. He was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the grand tranquil column of reason. He was an admirer, a lover, and adorer of nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honour, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom—upon the bosom of the Universal mother—and with her loving arms around him, sank, into that slumber called death. History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals. The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there upon everlasting stone his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths : “ The Universe is Governed by Law.” � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oration on Humboldt Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 14 p. ; 17 cm. Notes: Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Date of publication from Stein's checklist (Item 37f). Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N377 Subject The topic of the resource Philosophy Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Oration on Humboldt), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Alexander Von Humboldt NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1bfb79e37cadfec3d931c6d174bf037f.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=TKVS-MvE2JfaJHghdvvFKVmBnUrfgeo6LlPcSOJoQX1VrUQmuTxbM6g1keMlNIjqhBIW0y1ZXKd6yeJn%7EPkdfsEbxjuo9ECqHTpFmLP10xmRCF041jb-Sdg-bt%7EAJWors-Wh3L0MMO7JX8vlh3NDDKCdoPi7nTuHbwljiXI5-lC45UYntP1TC5XTvMfidIB-5hb3gbGORxGAfa4vf0f5I8VFF%7E2ioVA6v2madQf3mh5Gy4S%7E9Ndt4W1mjf9Rdy3n0H4OEdQ4NINIrXw9XwGBeNpsKxsfuUahYCmf0Sr3Wuo22k0WVZVlbgUc0%7EB5TPB%7EbjLunD6cpBgSLNWodjQ-CQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b56959b5512dd04066e34e3b2de4f4e8 PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY ORATION ON THE GODS. BY COLONEL ROBT. G. INGERSOLL. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. PRICE SIXPENCE. �LONDON : PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH 23, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. �ORATION ON THE GODS. “ An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man.'" Nearly every people have created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved' what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together. These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub ; some were in­ visible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy Ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married—all ought to have been—and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshipped- as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment. These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat. Some �4 ORATION ON THE GODS. thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and expe­ rience is a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents.. /"XThese deities have demanded the most abject and de­ grading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters. Nothing is so pleasing to these gods, as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their existence. Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easy, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god-market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything. They attended to every department. All was supposed to be under their immediate control. Nothing was too small—nothing too large : the falling of sparrows, the flatulence of the people, and the motions of the planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities. From their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information, to man. It is related of one, that he came amid thunderings and lightnings, in order to tell the people that they should not cook a kid in its mother’s milk. Some left their shining abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have children—to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird. When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and clothe his priests (which was much the same thing), he generally visited them with pestilence and �ORATION ON THE GODS. 5 famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag I 1 them into slavery—to sell their wives and children; but - \ generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their firstborn. The priests always did their whole duty, not only- n in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people I because they had not given quite enough to them. These gods differed justasthenations differed: the greatest and most powerful had the most powerful god, while the weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. Each of these gods pro­ mised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence, or suspected that some other god might be his.superior; but to deny the existence of all gods was, . and is, the crime of crimes. Redden your hands with human blood ; blast by slander the fair fame of the inno­ cent ; strangle the smiling child upon its mother’s knees ; deceive, ruin, and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you—and your case is not hopeless. For all this, 1 and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and j for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these | divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven’s I golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse I ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell—an immortal vagrant—an eternal outcast— a deathless convict. One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration, and our worship, and one who is worshipped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen people, Tor their guidance, the following laws of war:— “ When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shall besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with j the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil �6 ORATION ON THE GODS. thereof shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breaiheth.” Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more per­ fectly infamous ? Can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an infinite fiend ? Remember that the army receiving these instructions was one of inva­ sion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people sub­ mitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none —not even the prattling, dimpled babe. And we are called upon to worship such a god; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves—refuse to become liars—we are denounced, hated, traduced, and ostracised here; and this same God threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked, helpless souls. Let the people hate—let the god threaten; we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him. The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust, and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools, in order to make our children loving, kind, and gentle ! This is the book to be recognised in our Con­ stitution as the source of all authority and justice ! Strange ! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalists for saying, “ God is love.” It has always been considered as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women, and children deserve eternal damna­ tion. It has always been heresy to say “ God will at last save all.” We are asked to justify these frightful passages—these in­ famous laws of war—because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can �ORATION ON THE GODS. 7 be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy, and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his com­ munication. If we have the right to use our reason, we cer­ tainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action. The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The idea that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experi­ ence merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of in­ sanity and ignorance, called “ faith.” What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God ? And yet, our entire system of religion is, based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and, ac­ cording to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salva­ tion of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give its assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible, and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration. Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race. Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is inestimable. As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his master. The civilisation of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief—the result of free thought. All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention—of barbarian invention—is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes ; drive from your heart the phantom of fear ; push from th& throne, of yfiur brain the cowled form of superstition— �ORATION ON THE GODS. then read the holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom., goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. Our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as well. These devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. Some had headed unsuccessful revolts ; some had been caught sweetly reclining in the shadowy folds of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of gods. These devils generally sympathised with man. There is in regard to them a most wonderful fact: in nearly all the the­ ologies, mythologies, and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbari­ ties were always ordered by the good gods. The pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods. The frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality. One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world, with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful, and the helpless were remorselessly devoured by the shoreless sea. This, the most fearful tra­ gedy .that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would leave upon the character of a devil ! One of the prophets of one of these gods, having in his power a cap­ tured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the. people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery ? One of these gods is reported to have given the following directions concerning human slavery : “If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons dr daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by hinw self. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my mast»® my wife, and my children, I will not go out free. ThenJhis master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also l^ipg y> / ' ,s �ORATION ON THE GODS. J? v . 9 him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever.” According to this, a man was given liberty upon condition. that he would desert for ever his wife and children. Did any devil ever force upon a husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative ? Who can worship such a god? Who can bend the knee to such a monster ? Who can pray to such a fiend ? All these gods threatened to torment for ever the souls of their enemies. Did any devil ever make so infamous a threat ? The basest thing recorded of the devil is what he did concerning Job and his family, and that was done by the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide a little difference of opinion between their “ serene high» nesses” as to the character of “my servant Job.” The first account we have of the devil is found in that purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as follows: “ Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden ? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden j but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was plea­ sant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. * * * • And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now lest he put forth his hand» and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.” According to this account, the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter. Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evik _ �IO ORATION ON THE GODS. The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded edu­ cation and knowledge then just as they do now. The c.lurch still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of know­ ledge,. and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat : “ Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” From every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: “ Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil.” For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and, like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods. If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not after all to thank this serpent ? He was the first school­ master, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word “liberty,” the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress, and of civilization. Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith ! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge ! Some nations have borrowed their gods ; of this number, we are compelled to say, is our own. The Jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and having no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him, and adopted their devil at the same time. This borrowed god is still an object of some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the ap­ prehensions of our people. He is still supposed to be setting his traps and snares for the purpose of catching our . unwary souls, and is still, with reasonable success, waging the old war against our god. To me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concern- * ing gods and devils. They are a perfectly natural produc­ tion. Man has created them all, and under the same cir­ cumstances would create them again. Man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. Generally he has modelled them after himself, and has given them hands, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. Each nation made �ORATION ON THE GODS. II its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astro­ nomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made _ by th® people. No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. The negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aqui­ line nose. Jove was a perfect Greek, and Jupiter looked as though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur ; those of the tropic were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon elephants ; those of some islanders were great swim­ mers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whale’s blubber. Nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, 'and these representa­ tions were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice. In some countries, even at this day, if the people, after long praying do not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent gods, or upbraid them in a most re­ proachful manner, loading them with blows and curses. “ How now, dog of a spirit,” they say, “ we give you lodging in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest food, and offer incense to you, yet after all this care you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.” Hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through the filth of the street. ■ If in the meantime it happens that they obtain their request, then, with a great deal of ceremony, 'they wash him clean, carry him back and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for what they have done. “ Of a truth,” say they, “we were a little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. Why should you bring this beating on yourself? But what is done cannot be undone. Let us not think of it any more. If you will forget what is past we will gild you over again brighter than before.” Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshipped almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting has worshipped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, �12 ORATION ON THE GODS. and for hundreds of ages prostrated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilised people. The Todas worship a cow-bell. The Kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as hus­ band and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts. Man having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been the physical superior, the powers supposed to be the rulers of Nature would have been women, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, low-necked dresses, laces, and back-hair. Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives to his god his personal peculiarities. Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those sug­ gested by his surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform, beautify, improve, mul­ tiply, and compare what he sees, what he feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of the senses ; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of power, he can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say, immortality. Knowing something of time, he can say eternity. Conceiving something of intelligence, he can say, God. Having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say, devil. A few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its numberless forms, having been experienced, he can say, hell. Yet all these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a foundation. The superstructure has been reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving or multiplying realities, so that the edifice, or fabric, is but the incongruous grouping of what man has per­ ceived through the medium of the senses. It is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the trunk of an elephant. We have in imagination created an impossible monster. And yet the various parts of this monster really exist. So it is with all the gods that man has made. Beyond nature man cannot go, even in thought; above nature he cannot rise, below nature he cannot fall. �ORATION ON THE GODS. 13 Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct refer­ ence to him. To preserve friendly relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through gratitude for some favour which he supposed had been ren­ dered. He endeavoured by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason, had, as he believed, become enraged. The lightning and thunder terrified him. In the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the mon­ strous serpent crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than all, the perpetual pre­ sence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible, and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. For some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power —that they were not all alike malevolent—that the higher controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. For this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship, and to sacrifice. These ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man. For ages, all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by evil spirits. For thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits away. Usually the priests would make the loudest and most discordant noises possible. They would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells. If the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid of some more powerful spirit. To pacify these spirits was considered of infinite import­ ance. The poor barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. With bursting heart he would offer the blood of his dearest child. It was impossible for him to conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of so great and so deep a sorrow. �14 ORATION ON THE GODS. It was with the barbarians then as with the civilized now : one class lived upon and made merchandise of the fears of another. Certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the gods, and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers. This was the origin of the priesthood. The priest pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was man’s attorney at the court of heaven. He carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. He came back with a command, with authority, and with power. Man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave. Even Christ, the supposed son of God, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and fre­ quently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. Casting out devils was his prin­ cipal employment, and the devils thus damaged generally took occasion to acknowledge him as the true Messiah; which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him. The religious people have always regarded the testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the writers of the New Testament quote the words of these imps of darkness with great satisfaction. The fact that Christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some god, or at least by some being superior to man. St. Matthew gives an account of an attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of God; and it has always excited the wonder of Christians that the temptation was so nobly and ^heroically withstood. The account to which I refer is as follows : “Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when the tempter came to him, he said, ‘ If thou be the son of God command that these stones be made bread.’ But he answered and said, ‘ It is written : man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and.setteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him, If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone.’ Jesus said unto �ORATION ON THE GODS. IS him, ‘ It is written, again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and saith unto him, ‘All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ ” The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, accord­ ing to this account the devil took the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavoured to induce him to dash himself against the earth. Failing in that, he took the creator, and owner, and governor of the universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world—this grain of sand, if he, the God of all the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! Is it possible the devil was such an idiot ? Should any great credit be given to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? Think of it ! The devil—the prince of sharpers—the king of cunning —the master of finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God ! Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything, more grossly absurd than this ? These devils, according to the Bible, were of various kinds,—some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. All could not be cast out in the same way. The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ. The boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control. “Jesus said unto the spirit, ‘ Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.’ ” Whereupon, the deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and immediately vacated the premises. The ease with which Christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To whom he replied : “ This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting.” Is there a Christian in the whole world who would believe such a story, if found in any other book ? The trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and then open their Bibles. In the olden times, the existence of devils was universally admitted. The people had no doubt upon that subject, and �16 ORATION ON THE GODS. from such belief it followed as a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils, had either to be a god, or assisted by one. All founders of religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. A prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness, was regarded with con­ tempt. The utterance of the highest and noblest senti­ ments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits. This belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man was surrounded by what he was pleased to ■call good and evil phenomena. Phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously were ascribed to evil spirits. It being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits, the spirits were divided according to the pheno­ mena, and the phenomena were good or bad as they affected man. Good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena, and evil spirits of the evil: so that the idea of a devil has been as universal as the idea of a god. Many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true ; that all universal ideas are innate; and that innate ideas can not be false. If the fact, that an idea has been universal, proves that it is innate, and if the fact, that an idea is innate, proves that it is correct, then the believers in innate ideas must admit that, the evidence of a god superior to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is exactly the same, and that the existence of such a devil must be as self-evident as the existence of such a god. The truth is, a god was inferred fropi good, and a devil from bad phenomena. And it is just as natural and logical to sup­ pose that a devil would cause happiness, as to suppose that a god would produce misery. Consequently, if an intelli­ gence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author, of all phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelli­ gence is the friend or enemy of man. If phenomena were all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly beneficent being. If they were all bad, we might say they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power ; but as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad, they must be produced by different and antagonistic spirits; by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness, and some­ �ORATION ON THE GODS. 17 times by malice ; or all must be produced of necessity, and without reference to their consequences upon man. The foolish doctrine, that all phenomena can be traced to the interference of good and evil spirits, has been, and still is, almost universal. That most people still believe in some spirit that can change the natural order of events, is proven by the fact, that nearly all resort to prayer. Thousands, at this very moment, are probably imploring some supposed power to interfere in their behalf. Some want health restored; some ask that the loved and absent be watched over and protected; some pray for riches ; some for rain ; some want diseases stayed ; some vainly ask for food ; some ask for revivals ; a few ask for more wisdom, and now and then one tells the Lord to do as he may think best. Thou­ sands ask to be protected from the devil; some, like David, pray for revenge, and some implore, even God, not to lead them into temptation. All these prayers rest upon, and are produced by the idea that some power not only can, but probably will, change the order of the universe. This belief has been among the great majority of tribes and nations. All sacred books are filled with the accounts of such inter­ ferences, and our own Bible is no exception to this rule. If we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this world. If there is no interference, of what practical use can such power be ? The scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine interference : Animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones ; the sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that General Joshua may have more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die of a boil; fire refuses to burn ; water positively declines to seek its level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents, and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams, laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years, following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic : prophecy becomes altogether easier than history ; the sons of God become enamoured of the world’s girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event fresh in the minds of men; an excellent article of brimstone is imported from heaven free of duty ; clothes refuse to wear out for forty years; birds keep restaurants and feed wanB �18 ORATION ON THE GODS. dering prophets free of expense; bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without wigs; muscular development depends upon the length of one’s hair; dead people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and God himself becomes a stone­ cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and dress­ maker. The veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. The shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas, his dreams, for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious monsters. He lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and devils. The obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing—with beak and hoof—with leering looks and sneering mouths—with the malice of deformity—with the cunning of hatred, and with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of the dark. It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in the long night has suffered ; of the tortures he has endured, surrounded, as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the air. No wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees—that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood. No wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magi­ cians for aid. No wonder that he crawled grovelling in the dust to the temple’s door, and there, in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of agony and fear. The savage, as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a multitude of spirits. As he advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be infinite and supreme. Supposing this great spirit to be superior to nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assist­ ance. At last, finding that he obtains no aid from this sup­ posed deity—finding that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure—finding that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless—he begins to inves- �ORATION ON THE GODS. í /• il 19 tigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend upon himself. The people are beginning to think, to reason, and to investigate. Slowly, painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. Only upon rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to interfere with the affairs of men. In most matters we are at last supposed to be free. Since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the products of all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit the business of producing famine. Now and then they kill a child because it is idolized by its parents. As a rule they have given up causing accidents on railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps. Cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox are still considered heavenly weapons; but measles, itch, and ague are now at­ tributed to natural causes. As a general thing, the gods have stopped drowning children, except as a punishment for violating the Sabbath. They still pay some attention to the affairs of kings, men of genius, and persons of great wealth; but ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best they may. In wars between great nations, the gods still interfere; but in prize fights, the best man, with an honest referee, is almost sure to win. The church cannot abandon the idea of special provi­ dence. To give up that doctrine, is to give up all. The church must insist that prayer is answered—that some power superior to nature hears the grants and requests of the sin­ cere and humble Christian, and that this same power in some mysterious way provides for all. A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact that God takes care of all creatures ; that the falling sparrow attracts his attention, and that his loving kindness is over all his works. Happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. “ See,” said he, “ how his legs are formed for wading ! What a long, slender bill he has ! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water? He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of Ms arrival. My son,” said he, “ it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistB 2 �20 ORATION ON THE GODS. ence.” “ Yes,” replied the boy, “ I think I see the goodness of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned : but after all, father, don’t you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish ?” Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks that, in the beginning, some god made the laws governing the universe. He believes that in con­ sequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight with, than without, a lever ; that this god so made matter, and so established the order of things, that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time; so that a body once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped; so that it is a greater distance around, than across a circle; so that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five or seven. He insists that it took a direct interposition of pro­ vidence to make a whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece. Like the old Scotch divine, he thanks God that Sunday comes at the end instead of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at the close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn event. These religious people see nothing but design every­ where, and personal, intelligent interference in everything; They insist that the universe has been created', and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly' apparent. They point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its de­ velopment as is the reddest rose? That what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the April rain? How beautiful the process of digestion ! By what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food ! By what won­ derful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer ! See by what admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surround­ ing quivering, dainty flesh ! See how it gradually, but surely, expands and grows ! By what marvellous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the ?, most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life ! What * beautiful colours it presents ! Seen through the microscoj^ �ORATION ON THE GODS, 2I a miracle of order and beauty. AU the ingenuity gf man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount qf thought it must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be given to produce one cancer ? Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design ini the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer^ must be infinitely powerful, ingenious, and good ? We are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is perfectly self-evident that a god has. If a god created the universe, then, there must have been a time when he commenced to create. Back of that time there must have been an eternity, during which there had existed nothing—absolutely nothing—except this supposed god. According to this theory, this god spent an eternity, Í so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness. A Admitting that a god did' create the universe, the question then arises, of what did he create it ? It certainly was« not made of nothing. Nothing, considered in the light of A a raw material, is a most decided failure. It follows, thenBB that the god must have made the universe out of himself, & he being the only existence. The universe is material, and if it was made of god, the god must have been material« With this very thought in his mind, Anaximander, of K Miletus, said: “ Creation is the decomposition of the in- $ finite.” It has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to i| the sun, only for the fact that it is attracted by other H worlds, and those worlds must be attracted by other worlds > still beyond them, and so on, without end. This proves ■ the material universe to be infinite. If an infinite universe ■ has been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god is left ? The idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned, and nearly all truly scientific minds admit that matter must have existed from eternity. It is indestructible, and the indestructible cannot be created. It is the crowning glory of our century to have demonstrated the indestructibility and the eternal persistence of force. Neither matter nor force can be increased nor diminished. Force cannot exist apart from matter. Matter exists only in connection with force, and consequently a force apart from matter, and superior to nature, is a demonstrated impossibility. it is �22 ORATION ON THE GODS. Force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and could not have been created. Matter, in its countless forms, from dead earth to the eyes of those we love, and force in all its manifestations, from simple motion to the * grandest thought, deny creation and defy control. J Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same 1 force with which we think. Man is an organism, that | changes several forms of force into thought-force. Man is £ a machine, into which we put what we call food, and pro­ li,. duce what we call thought. . Think of that wonderful k chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine A tragedy of Hamlet! E, A god must not only be material, but he must be an Morganism, capable of changing other forms of force into ■ thought-force. This is what we call eating. Therefore, if Shhe god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he must of ■ necessity have some means of supplying the force with 'Ij which to think. It is impossible to conceive of a being ■ who can eternally impart force to matter, and yet have no ■ means of supplying the force thus imparted. ' If neither matter nor force were created, what evidence have we then of the existence of a power superior to nature ? i The theologian will probably reply, “ We have law and I order, cause and effect, and besides all this, matter could 1 not have put- itself in motion.” ' Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is no being superior is so, then you that matter and and Ibe an effect. If thisto nature, and have matter, force,force have existed from eternity. Now suppose that two atoms should come together, would there be an effect ? Yes. Suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal force, they would be stopped, to say the least. This would effect without a being superior to nature. Now, suppose that two other atoms, just like the first two, should come together under precisely the same circumstances, would not the effect be exactly the same ? Yes. Like causes produc­ ing like effects is what we mean by law and order. Then we have matter, force, effect, law, and order without a being Superior to nature. Now, we know that every effect must also be a cause, and that every cause must be an effect. The atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as "every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by the collision of the atoms, must as to something else have tbeen a cause. Then we have matter, force, law, order, �ORATION ON THE GODS. I 23 cause, and effect, without a being superior to nature. Nothing is left for the supernatural but empty space. His throng is a void, and his boasted realm is without matter, without force, without law, without cause, and without effect. But what put all this matter in motion ? If matter ancM force have existed from eternity, then matter must havell always been in motion. There can be no force without motion. Force is forever active, and there is, and there!; can be, no cessation. If, therefore, matter and force have» existed from eternity, so has motion. In the whole universe there is not even one atom in a state of rest. A deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing. Nature embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force! That which is beyond her grasp is destitute of both, ano can hardly be worth the worship and adoration even of a man. There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause and effect. Pluck from the endless chain of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession, and you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. Change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears. The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine~ cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance, this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. - To him the marvellous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle—that is to say, a violation ■of nature—that is to say, a falsehood. No one, in the world’s whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assist­ ance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to and independent of nature. �24 ORATION ON THE GODS. The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions. We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible, and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans, and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits, and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year’s fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for “ truth and veracity ” in the neighbourhood where they resided is wholly un­ known to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living in this world. Do not send us to' Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Meshech, Shadrach, and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam’s inspired donkey. It is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. We de­ mand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the church furnish at least one, or for ever after hold her peace. In the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered her priests to desist. And now this same church—the people having found some little sense—admits, not only that she cannot perform a miracle, but insists’ that the absence of miracle—the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect— prove the existence of a power superior to nature. The fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary. �ORATION ON THE GODS. 25 Sir William Hamilton, one of the pillars of modern theology, in discussing this very subject, uses the following language : “ The phenomena of matter, taken by . them­ selves, so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a god, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his negation. The phenomena of the material world are subjected to immutable laws ; are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity.” Nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. She cannot create, but she eternally transforms. There was no beginning, and there can be no end. The best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in material nature there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god. They find their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently assert that intelligence is above, and, in fact, opposed to nature, dhey insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he has somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the “ Great First Cause.” They say that matter cannot produce thought, but that thought can produce matter. They tell us that man has intelligence, and, therefore, there must be in intelligence greater than his? Why not say, God has intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his ? So far as we know there is no intelligence apart from matter. We' cannot conceive of thought, except as produced within a brain. The science by means of which they demonstrate the existence of an impossible intelligence, and an incompre­ hensible power, is called metaphysics, or theology. The theologians admit that the phenomena of matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of any power superior to nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an endless chain of efficient causes—nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity. They therefore appeal to what they denominate the phenomena of mind to establish this superior power. x The trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find ’ the same endless chain of efficient causes, the same mechameal necessity. Every thought must have had an efficient | cause. Every motive, every desire, every fear, hope, and dream must have been necessarily produced. There is no room in the mind of man for providence or chance. The |< facts and forces governing thought are as absolute as those » �26 ORATION ON THE GODS. governing the motions of the planets« A poem is produced by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and naturally produced as mountains and seas. You will seek in vain for a thought in man s brain without its efficient cause. Every mental operation is the necessary result of certain facts and conditions. Mental phenomena are considered more com­ plicated than those of matter, and, consequently, more mys­ terious. Being more mysterious, they are considered better evidence of the existence of a god. No one infers a god ¡from the simple, from the known, from what is under­ stood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and in|comprehensible. Our ignorance is God, what we know is science. ~ When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the mouthpiece of some pre­ tended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From that moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew ; the Bible will take its place with the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas, and Korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds •of men. “ But,” says the religionist, “you cannot explain every-, thing; you cannot understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is my God.” We are explaining more every day. We are understanding more every day ; consequently your God is growing smaller every day. Nothing daunted, the religionist then insists, that nothing can exist without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused cause is God. To this we again reply: Every cause must produce an effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is not a cause. Every effect must in its turn become a cause. Therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would neces­ sarily produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity be­ come a cause. The converse of these propositions must be true. Every effect must have had a cause, and every cause must have been an effect. Therefore there could have been no first cause. A first cause is just as impossible as a last effect. 1 41 �ORATION ON THE GODS. 27 Beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the uni­ verse the supernatural does not and can not exist. The moment these great truths are understood and ad­ mitted, a belief in general or special providence becomes impossible. From that instant men will cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being, and will give their time and attention to the affairs of this world. They will abandon the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication. The element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the dis­ ciples of any superstition. The plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omni» potence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. Science, freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical pre­ judice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. The mind will investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusion without fear. Agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the Mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demon­ strated truths of geology, and will cease pretending. any reverence for the Jewish scriptures. The moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be outspoken. The little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers, will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory—lasting and universal. If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak ; the crafty and heartless have en­ snared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succoured the oppressed. Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By thy! time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no. hand to help. The present is the necessary child of all the past. There has been no chance, and there can be no inter­ ference. If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed ; if justice is done; if labour is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the �28 ORATION.ON THE GODS. defenceless are protected, and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone. Nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and with­ out intention, forms, transforms, and re-transforms for ever. She neither weeps nor rejoices. She produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without regret. She knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful. Poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are alike to her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She cannot be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. She does not know even the attitude of prayer. She appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man does nature take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence. And yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent of and superior to nature, and still endeavours, by form, ceremony, supplication, hypocrisy, and sacrifice, to obtain its aid. His best energies have been wasted in the service of this phantom. The horrors of witchcraft were all born of an ignorant belief in the existence of a totally de­ praved being superior to nature, acting in perfect indepen­ dence of her laws, and all religious superstition has had for its basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the other bad, both of whom could arbitrarily change the order of the universe. The history of religion is simply the story of man’s efforts in all ages to avoid one of these powers, and to pacify the other. Both powers have inspired little else than abject fear. The cold, calculating sneer of the devil and the frown of God were equally terrible. In any event, man’s fate was to be arbitrarily fixed for ever by an unknown power superior to all law, and to all fact. Until this belief is thrown aside, man must consider himself the slave of phantom, masters—neither of whom promise liberty in this world nor the next. Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading Bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter; but houses, fires, and clothing will. To prevent famine, one plough is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayftrs uttered since the beginning of the world. Although many eminent men have endeavoured to har­ monize necessity and free will, the existence of evil, and �OkAÏIOK '©W THE GObS. «9 the infinite power and goodness of God, they have only suc­ ceeded in producing learned and ingenious failures. In> mense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons who have failed to perceive the pretended recon­ ciliation have been denounced as infidels, atheists, and scoffers. The whole power of the church has been brought to bear against philosophers and scientists in order to com­ pel a denial of the authority of demonstration, and to induce some Judas to betray Reason, one of the saviours of man­ kind. During that frightful period known as the 11 Dark Ages/* Faith reigned, with scarcely a rebellious subject. Her temples were “ carpeted with knees,” and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. The great painters prostituted their genius to immortalise her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song. At her bidding, man covered the earth with blood. The scales of justice were turned with her gold, and for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. She built cathedrals for God, and dungeons for men. She peopled the clouds with angels and the earth with slaves. For centuries the world was re­ tracing its steps — going steadily back towards barbaric night. A few infidels—a few heretics cried, “ Halt !” to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it’ possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionise the cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind.The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. Under the influence of fear, the brain is paralysed, «and instead of bravely solving a problem for itself, trembling adopts the solution of another. As long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and God ? Under such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth ? The originality of repetition, and the mental vigour of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long as every question is answered by the word “ god,” scientific inquiry is simply impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained, the •domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature, must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as con­ stantly continue to’ enlarge. �3° ORATION ON THE GUIRE It is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise of nations by saying :—“ It is the will of God.” Such an explanation puts ignorance and education upon an exact equality, and does away with the idea of really accounting for anything whatever. Will the religionist pretend that the real end of science is, to ascertain how, and why, God acts ? Science, from such a standpoint, would consist in investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a grand endeavour to ascertain the rules necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice. From a philosophic point of view, science is a knowledge of the laws of life ; of the conditions of happiness ; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sus­ tain to men and things—by means of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature, and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain. A belief in special providence does away with the spirit of investigation, and is inconsistent with personal effort. Why should man endeavour to thwart the designs of God ? “ Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature ?” Under the influence of this belief, man, bask­ ing in the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the field and refuses to take any thought for the morrow. Be• ' lieving himself in the power of an infinite being, who can, at any moment, dash him to the lowest hell or raise him to the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea of ac­ complishing anything by his own efforts. As long as this belief was general, the world was filled with ignorance, superstition, and misery. The energies of man were wasted in a vain effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to be superior to nature. For countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the altar of this impossible god. To please him, mothers have shed the blood of their own babes; martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of flame; priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns have foresworn the ecstacies of love ; old men have trem­ blingly implored; women have sobbed and entreated ; every pain has been endured, and every horror has been perpe­ trated. Through the dim, long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more than can be conceived. Most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving, and the innocent. Women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. �ORATION ON THE GODS. 31 Numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of babes; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents s whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of genius to express. During all these years, the suffering have supplicated ; the withered lips of famine have prayed ; the pale victims have implored, and Heaven has been deaf and blind. Of what use have the gods been to man ? It is no answer to say that some god created the worlds established certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving his children weak, ignorant, and un­ aided, to fight the battle of life alone. It is no solution to declare that in some other world this god will render a few, or even all, his subjects happy. What right have we to ex­ pect that a perfectly wise, good, and powerful being will ever do better than he has done, and is doing ? The world is filled with imperfections. If it was made by an infinite being what reason have we for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is ? If the infinite “ Father” allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve their condition ? Will God have more power ? Will he become more merciful ? Will his love for his poor crea­ tures increase ? Can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power, and love ever change ? Is the infinite capable of any im­ provement whatever ? We are informed, by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing our souls, and that only by suffer­ ing can men become pure, strong, virtuous, and grand. . Supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in infancy ? The little children, according to this phi­ losophy, can never be developed. They were so fortunate as to escape the ennobling influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an eternity of mental inferiority. If the clergy are right on this question, none are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only the suffering and distressed. If evil is necessary to the de­ velopment of man in this life, how it is possible for the soul to improve in the perfect joy of paradise ? Since Paley found his watch, the argument of “ design”' has been relied upon- as unanswerable. The Church teaches that this world, and all it contains, was created sub­ �32 ORATION ON THE GODS. stantially as we now see it; that the grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were special creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each other. The most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed into the sea ; that the sea has encroached a little upon the land, and that some mountains may be a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. The theory of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the idea of evolution did not occur to them. That most wonderful observer, Charles Darwin, had not then given to the world his wonderful philosophy. Our fathers looked upon the then arrangement of things as the primal arrangement. The earth appeared to them fresh from the hands of a deity. They knew nothing of the slow evolu­ tions of countless years, but supposed that the almost infinite variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed from the first. Suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age, and suppose that we should find him in the possession of a most beautiful carriage, constructed upon the perfect model. And suppose further that he should tell us that it was the result of several hundred thousand-years of labour and of thought; that for fifty thousand years he used as flat a log as he could find, before it occurred to him that, by splitting the log, he could have the same surface with only half the weight; that it took him many thousand years to invent wheels for this log ; that the wheels he first used were solid, and that fifty thousand years of thought suggested the use of spokes and tire ; that for many centuries he used the wheels without linch-pins ; that it took a hundred thousand years more to think of using four wheels, instead of two; that for ages he walked behind the carriage when going down hill, in order to hold it back, and that only by a lucky chance he invented the tongue;—would we conclude that this man, from the very first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic ? Suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he had but recently invented windows and doors, would we say that from the beginning he had been an infi­ nitely accomplished and scientific architect ? Does not an improvement in the things created show a corresponding improvement in the creator ? �ORATION ON THE GODS. 33 Would an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God, intend­ ing to produce man, commence with the lowest possible •• forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be ■ imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowlyH and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude begin- | ning, until man was evolved ? Would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterwards S abandoned ? Can the intelligence of man discover the least ? Wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creepin^M horrors, that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others ? Can we see the propriety of so constructing the | earth, that only an insignificant portion of its surface is f capable of producing an intelligent man ? Who can appre-; ciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals I devour animals ; so that every mouth is a slaughter-house, | and every stomach a tomb ? Is it possible to discover infi­ nite intelligence and love in universal and eternal carnage ? What would we think of a father who should give a farm B to his children, and before giving them possession should / plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines ; should stock it with ferocious beasts and poisonous reptiles ; should ■ take pains to put a few swamps in the neighbourhood tob bleed malaria; should so arrange matters that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, £ and, besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm® his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this father fneglected to tell his children which of the plants were I deadly ; that the reptiles were poisonous ; failed to say any- thing about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business | a profound secret, would we pronounce him angel or fiend? | And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done. I According to the . theologians, God prepared this globe I expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he | filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents ini B every path, stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adornedB its surface with mountains of flame. f Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is I perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is there- H fore necessarily perfect. The next moment, the same | persons will tell us tnat the world was cursed; covered with | brambles, thistles, and thorns, and that man was doomed to W disease •tod death, simply because our poor dear mother ate I an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary God. �34 ORATION ON THE GODS. A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be guilty of such pre­ sumption. He said that, in his judgment, it was impossible to point out an imperfection. “ Be kind enough,” said he, “ to name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power.” “Well,” said I, “ I would make good health catching, instead of disease.” The truth is, it is im­ possible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are watched over and protected by, an infinitely wise, powerful, and beneficent God, who is superior to, and independent of, nature. The clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the expected joys of the next. We are assured that all is perfection in heaven : there the skies are cloudless, there all is serenity and peace. Here empires may be over­ thrown ; dynasties may be extinguished in blood; millions of slaves may toil beneath the fierce rays of the sun and the cruel strokes of the lash, yet all is happiness in heaven. Pestilence may strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend above them in agony—yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. Children may expire vainly asking for bread; babes may be devoured by serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds. The innocent may languish unto death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave men and heroic women may be changed to ashes at the bigot’s stake, while heaven is filled with song and joy. Out on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked struggle with the cruel waves, while the angels play upon their golden harps. The streets of the world are filled with the diseased, the deformed, and the helpless; the chambers of pain are crowded with the pale forms of the suffering, while the angels float and fly in the happy realms of day. In heaven they are too happy to have sympathy; too busy singing to aid the imploring and distressed. Their eyes are blinded, their ears are stopped, and their hearts are turned to stone by the infinite selfishness of joy. The saved mariner is too happy when he touches the shore to give a moment’s thought to his drowning brothers. With the in­ difference of happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven barely glances at the miseries of earth. Cities are devoured by the rushing lava; the earth opens and thousands perish ; k �ORATION ON THE GODS. 35 women raise their clasped hands towards heaven, but the gods are too happy to aid their children. The smiles of the deities are unacquainted with the tears of men. The shouts of heaven drown the sobs of earth. • In all ages man has prayed for help, and then helped himself. Having shown how man created gods, and how he became the trembling slave of his own creation, the question naturally arises: How did he free himself, even a little, from these monarchs of the sky ; from these despots of the clouds ; from this aristocracy of the air ? How did he, even to the extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and throw off the yoke of superstition ? Probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind was the discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the universe. From this, he began to suspect that everything did not happen purely with reference to him. He noticed that, whatever he might do, the motions of the planets were always the same ; that eclipses were periodical, add that even comets came at certain intervals. This convinced him that eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him, and that his conduct had nothing to do with them. He per­ ceived that that they were not caused for his benefit nor injury. He thus learned to regard them with admiration in­ stead of fear. He began to suspect that famine was not sent by some enraged and revengeful deity, but resulted often from the neglect and ignorance of man. He learned that diseases were not produced by evil spirits. He found that sickness was occasioned by natural causes, and could be cured by natural means. He demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that prayer is not a medicine. He found by sad experience that his gods were of no practical use, as they never assisted him, except when he was perfectly able to help himself. At last he began to discover that his individual action had nothing whatever to do with strange appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, ox good enough to stop one. After many centuries of thought, he about half concluded that making mouths at a priest would not neces­ sarily cause an earthquake. He noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that very good men were occa­ sionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones escaped. He was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the most painful to which any human being ever was forced) �3$ ORATION ON THE GODS. that the right did not always prevail. He noticed that the gods did not interfere in behalf of the weak and innocent. He was now and then astonished by seeing an unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent health. He finally ascertained that there could be no possible connection between an unusually severe winter and his failure to give a sheep to a priest. He began to suspect that the order of the universe was not constantly being changed to assist him because he repeated a creed. He observed that some children would steal after having been regularly baptized. He noticed a vast difference between religion and justice, and that the worshipers of the same god took delight in cutting each others’ throats. He saw that these religious disputes filled the world with hatred and slavery. At last he had the courage to suspect that no god at any time interferes with the order of events. He learned a few facts, and these facts positively refused to harmonize with the ignorant supersti­ tions of his fathers. Finding his sacred books incorrect and false in some particulars, his faith in their authenticity began to be shaken ; finding his priests ignorant upon some points, he began to lose respect for the cloth; this was the commencement of intellectual freedom. The civilisation of man has increased just to the same ex­ tent that religious power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can ex­ change an old superstition for a new truth. The Church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite, however, of the Church, man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. By reading his Bible, he found that the ideas of his god weremore cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. He also discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the pheno­ mena by which we are surrounded, and now and then some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly, and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. These divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshippers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the �ORATION ON THE GODS. 37 deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution springs from a due admixture of love towards God and hatrea. towards man. The terrible religious wars that inundated the. world with blood tended, at least, to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. They began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value. For three hundred years the Christian world endeavoured to rescue from the “ Infidel ” the empty sepulchre of Chiist. For three hundred years the armies of the Cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent impostor. This immense fact sowed the seeds oi distrust throughout all Christendom, and millions began tp lose confidence in a God who had been vanquished by Mohammed. The people also found that commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals. Tney disco­ vered that those who loved'the gods most were apt to lo’. e men least j that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing j that the most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were the fruit of the same tree. For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius on the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honour, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this, world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. .The few have said, “Think ! ” The many have said, “ Believe !” The first doubt was the womb and the cradle of progress, and from the first doubt man has continued to advance. Men began to investigate and the Church began to oppose. The astroriomer scanned the heavens, while the Church �3§ ORATION ON THE GODS. branded his grand forehead with the word “ Infidel,” and now not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a Christian name. In spite of all religion, the geologist pene­ trated the earth, read her history in books of stone, and found hidden within her bosom souvenirs of all ages. Old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and useful truths took their places. One by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucibles of science, and thus far nothing but dross has been found. A new world has been disco­ vered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infi­ nite ; in every direction man has investigated and explored, and nowhere, in earth nor stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any inter­ ference from without. These are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of superstition. These are the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of authority from the hands of priests. In that vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the reli­ gions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. The sacred temples of India were ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms : Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent and his necklace of skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood ; Kali, the goddess ; Draupadi, the white-armed; and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven deso­ late. Along We banks of the sacred Nile, Isis no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The shadow of Typhon’s scowl falls no more upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but Memnon is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead. Odin, the author of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant Yamir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the North; and Thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes moun­ tains to the earth no more. Broken are the circles and cromlechs of the ancient Druids ; fallen upon the summits of the hills and covered with the centuries’ moss are the �ORATION ON THE GODS. 3<? sacred cairns. The divine fires of Pefsia and of the Aztecs have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none torekindle and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but no Naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no Dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olympus. Not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and even Danse lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed for ever are the thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the land, once flowing with milk and honey, is but a desert waste. One by one the myths have faded from the clouds ; one by one the phantom host has disappeared, and one by one, facts, truths, and realities have taken their places. The supernatural has almost gone, but the natural remains. The gods have fled, but man is here. “ Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood, and decay/’ Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods, created by the nations, must perish with their creators. They were created by men, and like men they must pass away. The deities of one age are the by-words of the next. The reli­ gion of our day and country is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than the others have been. When India was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world’s throne. When the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valour, swept to empire, and Jove put on the purple of atg:hority. The earth trembled with the tread of Rome’s intrepid sons, and Jupiter grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. Rome fell, and Christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now Christ sits upon the old throne. Who will be his successor ? Day by day religious conceptions grow less and less intense. Day by day the old spirit dies out of book and creed. The burning enthusiasm, the quenchless zeal- of the early Church have gone, never, never to return. The cere­ monials remain, but the ancient faith is «fading out of the human heart. The worn-out arguments fail to convince, and denunciations that once blanched the faces of a race excite in us only derision and disgust. As time rolls on, the miracles' grow mean and small, and the evidences our �40 ORATION ON THE GODS,. fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to satisfy us. There is an “irrepressible conflict” between religion and science, and they cannot peaceably occupy.the same brain nor the same world. While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving, and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect har­ mony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men ; but for the creeds of those who glibly prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost certain ; that the highway of the universe leads to hell, who fill life with fear, and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb ;—it is impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt, and scorn. Reason, Observation, and Experience—the Holy Trinity of Science—have taught us that happiness is the only good : that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If, by any possibility, the existence of a power superior to and independent of nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect. Nothwithstanding the fact that Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the Church with tearing down without building again. The Church should by this time know that it is utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. The history of religious persecution fully establishes the fact that the mind necessarily resists and defies every attempt to con­ trol it by violence. The mind necessarily clings to old ideas until prepared for the new. The moment we comprehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity cast,aside. A surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly offered to render him any assistance in his power. The surgeon began to discourse very learnedly upon the nature and origin of disease; of the curative properties of certain medicines ; of the advantages of exercise, air, and light, and of the various ways in which health and strength could be restored. These remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so much profound thought anti accurate know­ �ORATION ON THE GODS. 41 ledge, that the cripple, becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried out, “Do not, I pray you, take away my crutches. They are my only support, and without them I should be miser­ able indeed !” “I am not going,” said the surgeon, “ to take away your crutches; I am going to cure you, and then you will throw the crutches away yourself.” For the vagaries of the clouds the Infidels propose to substitute the realities of earth; for superstition, the splendid demonstrations and achievements of Science ; and for theological tyranny, the chainless liberty of Thought. We do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all-in-all of truth. We know of no end to the development of man. We cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. The history of one monad is as unknown as the universe ; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf as all the forests ; and one grain of sand as all the stars. We are not endeavouring to chain the future, but to free the present. We are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation, and thought. This of itself is an admission that we are not perfectly satis* fied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed, or quote scripture like a religious parrot, with the countenance of a dyspeptic owl. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth, while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man. Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. Driving pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce. We are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future—-not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people —wherein, with appropriate rite's, will be celebrated the �42 ORATION ON THE GODS. religion of Humanity. We are doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease profamishpd1; H°natireS Td Kmendicants~gorged indolence and crowned1 mdustry~iru^ln and superstition robed and shah for the time when the useful shall be the honourable ; when the true shall be the beautih Atnd/hen ?^S0N’ thJoned upon the world’s brain, shall be the King of kings and God of gods. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oration on the gods Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 42 p. ; 17 cm. Notes: Date of publication from Stein's checklist (Item 28g). Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Annotations in pencil and red crayon. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N378 Subject The topic of the resource God Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Oration on the gods), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Gods NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/8ef9cf8e5ea67c70150d632e644bd098.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=KCF5NJVi4G6RBzOXS5y-88V9hOQM-bziNaY6jm1epnpkSv4MaYd0q9-1HabVbufa1iWL6Ga%7E5qm399V1uzOnY51ntz63MvENVceNIVmqrLnmnxitDZzhI8DhRWmabr0oQEE33SOK4ynxpoFxDjKOuVtEdSHU-UGZX5oKhSwTuHowOAZhygfebbzXocqpVpkZETZaSpHE44McJfZnXKkdHXvNLmu3klxo6xUjV8rFqRjwQFh-LqsIKSMXfWfPslCY98qPPjEH2dYMa%7En43ylOmaAPCqn6V68aZQJJG%7ETzkNV9CpAbwvsGBjs4n4SSKNy0zeda%7EGZB%7EBiHENUYWKTKbA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5f205dbf04806678b698711a01d16d77 PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. AND A PLEA FOR INDIVIDUALITY. BY COLONEL ROBT. G. INGERSOLL. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. PRICE TWOPENCE. �ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. AND A PLEA FOR INDIVIDUALITY. “His soul was like a star and dwelt aparti' On every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom. Custom meets us at the cradle, and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training can be summed up in the word “ suppression.” Our desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. At every turn we run against a cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the Eden of our desire. We are allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom. We are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition. Society offers continual rewards for self-be­ trayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some are paid. We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remark­ ing, when about to be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only followed a mother’s .advice ! But, after all, how fortunate it is for the world that the maternal advice has not been followed ! How lucky it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey ! Universal obedience is universal stagnation ; disobedience is one of the conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose the Church had had absolute control of the human mind, at any time, would not the words “liberty” and “progress” have been blotted from �N331 •- ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 3 human speech ? In defiance of advice the world has ■advanced. Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of ■astronomy ■ suppose the doctors had controlled the science of medicine ; suppose kings had been left to fix the forms •of government; suppose our fathers had taken the advice •of Paul, who paid, be subject to the powers that be, because they are ordained of God ; suppose the Church could control the world to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be branded as infamous ; science would ■again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars; and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot’s flame. It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his •own convictions, some one who had the grit to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said: Ci The Church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church. On the prow of his ship were disobedience, ■defiance, scorn, and success. The trouble with most people is that they bow to what is ■called authority; they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time, and that the forefatheis of their nation were the greatest and best of all mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is popular and patriotic, and because they were told so when very small, and remember distinctly hearing mother read it out of a book, and they are all willing to swear that mother was a good woman. It is hard to over­ estimate the influence of early training in the direction of superstition. You first teach children that a certain book is true—that it was written by God himself—that to question its truth is a sin, that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing that book they will be forever damned without benefit of clergy; the consequence is that ong before they read that book they believe it to be true. When they do read their minds are wholly unfitted to in­ vestigate its claim. They accept it as a matter of course. In this way the reason is- overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are blotted.from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice throws aside her scales, shrieking foi revenge, and charity, with bloody hands, applauds a �4 ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. deed of murder. In this way we are taught that the' revenge of man is the justice of God, that mercy is not the same everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race .have been subverted. In this way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way the brain of man has. become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings of Nature, superstition has scribbled her countless lies. Our o-reat trouble is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as certainties those things concerning which they entertain doubts. They do not say, “ We think this is so, but “ We know this is so.” They do not appeal to the reason of the pupil, but they command his faith.. They keep all doubts to themselves ; they do not explain, they assert. All this is infamous. In this way you may make Christians, but you cannot make men ; you cannot make women. You can make followers but no leaders ; disciples, but no Christs. You may promise power, honour, and happiness to all those who will blindly follow, but you cannot keep your promise. . .. , An eastern monarch said to a hermit, ‘ Come with me and I will give you power.” “ I have all the power that I know how to use,” replied the hermit. “ Come, said the king, « I will give you wealth.” “I have no wants that money can supply.” “ I will give you honour.” “ Ah! honour cannot.be given it must be earned.” “Come,” said the king, making a last appeal, “ and I will give you happiness.” “ No,” said the man of solitude, “ there is no happiness without liberty, and he who follows cannot be free.” “You shall have liberty too.” “ Then I will stay.” And all the king’s courtiers thought the hermit a fool. . . Now and then somebody examines, and, m spite ot all, keeps his manhood and has courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious get together and repeat wise saws and exchange knowing nods and most prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs, and respectability passes on the other side, and scorn points with all her skinny fingers, and the snakes of superstition writhe and hiss, and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury her oath, and the law its power, and bigotry tortures and the Church kills. The Church hates a thinker precisely for the same, reason that a robber dislikes a sheriff-, or that a thief despises the �ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH, 5 ■prosecuting witness. Tyranny likes courtiers, flatterers, fol­ lowers, fawners, and superstition wants believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers.—The Church demands worship, the very thing that man should give to no being, human or divine. To worship another is to degrade your­ self. Worship is awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of worship that elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers, ■erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands. The spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. The worshipper always regrets that he is not the worshipped. We should all remember that the intellect has no knees, ■and that whatever the attitude of the body may be, the brave soul is always found erect. Whoever worships, abdicates. Whoever believes at the command of power tramples his own individuality beneath his feet, and volun­ tarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to a brute. The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, and in -every other country that has in the history of the world, swept to empire. This argument not only proves too much, but the assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless circumstances and countless conditions have produced the prosperity of the Christian world. The truth is that we have advanced in spite of religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The Church has won no vic­ tories for the rights of man. Over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the banner of the Church. Wherever brave blood has been shed the sword of the Church has been wet. On every chain has been the sign of the cross. The altar and the throne have leaned against -and supported each other. Who can appreciate the infinite impudence of one man assuming to think for others ? Who can imagine the impudence of a Church that threatens to inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its pretensions? In the presence of the unknown we all have an equal right to guess. Over the vast plain called life we are all travellers, and not one traveller is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction. True it is, that no other plain is so well •supplied with guide-boards. At every turn and crossing �6 ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. you find them, and upon each one is written the exactdirection and distance. One great trouble is, however, that these boards are all different, and the result is that most travellers are confused in proportion to the number they read. Thousands of people are around each of these signs, and each one is doing his best to convince the traveller that his particular board is the only one upon which the least reliance can be placed, and that if his road is taken the reward for so doing will be infinite and eternal, while all the other roads are said to lead to hell, and all the makers of the other guide-boards are declared to be heretics, hypo­ crites, and liars. “ Well,” says a traveller, “ you may be right in what you say, but allow me at least to read someof the other directions and examine a little into their claims. I wish to rely a little upon my own judgment in a matter of so great importance.” “No, sir!” shouts the zealot, “ that is the very thing you are not allowed to do. You must go my way without investigation or you are as good as damned already.” “Well,” says the traveller, “if that is so, I believe I had better go your way.” And so most of them go along, taking the word of those who know as little as themselves. Now and then comes one who, in spite of all threats, calmly examines the claims of all, and as calmly rejects them all.—These travellers take roads of their own, and are denounced by all the others as Infidels, and Atheists. In my judgment every human being should take a road, of his own. Every mind should be true to itself ; should think, investigate, and conclude for itself. This is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. Every soul should repel dictation and tyranny, no matter from what source they come—from earth or heaven, from men or gods. Besides, every traveller upon this vast plain should give to every other traveller his best idea as to the road that should be taken. Each is entitled to the honest opinion of all. And there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon any subject whatever. The person giving the opinion must be free from fear. The merchant must not fear tolose his custom, the doctor his practice, nor the preacher his pulpit. There can be no advance without liberty. Suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in intellectual night. The tendency of Orthodox reli­ gion to-day is toward mental slavery and barbarism. Not one of the Orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks. �arraignment of the church. 7 if he knows that a majority of his congregation think other­ wise. He knows that every member of his Church stands guard over his brain with a creed like a club in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment. Is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious convictions? Is any such thing possible? Do we not know that there are no two persons alike in the whole world? No two trees, no two leaves, no two anythings that are alike ? Infinite diversity is the law. Religion tries to force all minds into one mould. Knowing that all cannot believe, the Church endeavours to make all say that they believe. She longs for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of individuality and freedom. Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate your­ self. Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. In this sense every Church is a cemetery, and every creed an epitaph. We should all remember that to be like other folks is to be unlike ourselves, and that nothing can be more detest­ able in character than servile imitation. The great trouble with imitation is that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us. After all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make is to trade off his individuality for what is called respectability. There is no saying more degrading than this: “It is better to be the tail of a lion than the. head of a dog.” It is a responsibility to think and act for yourself. Most people hate responsibility; therefore they join something and become the tail of some lion. They say, “My party can act for me—my Church can do my thinking. It is enough for me to pay taxes and obey the lion to which I belong, without troubling myself about the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of anything whatever.” These people are respectable. They hate reformers, and dislike exceedingly to have their mind disturbed. They regard convictions as very disagreeable things to have. They love forms, and enjoy, beyond everything else, telling what a splendid tail their lion has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbour is. Besides this natural inclination to �ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. avoid personal responsibility is and always has been the fact, that every religionist has warned men against the presumption and wickedness of thinking for themselves. The reason has been denounced by all Christendom as the only unsafe guide. The Church has left nothing undone to prevent man following the logic of his brain. The plainest facts have been covered with the mantle of mystery. The grossest absurdities have been declared to be self-evident facts. The order of nature has been, as it were, reversed, in order that the hypocritical few might govern the honest many. The man who stood by the conclusion of his reason was denounced as a scorner and hater of God and his holy Church. From the organization of the first church until this moment, to think your own thoughts has been inconsis­ tent with the duties of membership. Every member has borne the marks of collar, and chain, and whip. No man ever seriously attempted to reform a Church without being cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy. The highest crime against a creed is to change it. Reforma­ tion is treason. Thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various Churches. What for ? In order that they may be prepared to investigate the phenomena by which we are surrounded? No! The object, and the only object, is that they may be prepared to defend a creed. That they may learn the arguments of their respective Churches and repeat them in the dull ears of a thoughtless congregation. If one after being thus trained at the expense of the Methodists turns Presbyterian or Baptist, he is de­ nounced as an ungrateful wretch. Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any Church, for the reason that if you think the Church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong the Church will in­ vestigate you. The consequence of this is, that most of the theological literature is the result of suppression, of fear, of tyranny, and hypocrisy. Every Orthodox writer necessarily said to himself, “ If I write that, my wife and children may want for bread. I will be covered with shame and branded with infamy; but if I write this, I will gain position, power, and honour. My Church rewards defenders, and burns reformers.” Under these conditions, all your Scotts, Henrys, and McKnights have written; and weighed in these scales what are their commentaries worth ? They are not the ideas and �ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 9 decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms of the paid attorneys of superstition. Who can tell what the world has lost by this infamous system of suppression ? How many, grand thinkers have died with the mailed hand of supersti­ tion on their lips ? How many splendid ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in the poison coils of that Python, the Church ! For thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped convict. To him who had braved the Church every door was shut, every knife was open. To shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust of bread when dying, to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips—these were all crimes, not one of which the Church ever did forgive ; and with the justice taught of God his helpless children were exterminated as scorpions and vipers. Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an Infidel, to brave the Church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire—to defy and scorn her heaven and her devil and her God ? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were the real saviours of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the creators of science. They were the real Titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods. The Church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not only the pockets but the brains of the world. •She is the stone at the sepulchre of liberty ; the upas tree in whose shade the intellect of man has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be in heaven, while her brave boy who fell fighting for the rights of man shall writhe in hell. It is said that some of the Indian tribes place the heads ■of their children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is permanently changed. To us this seems a most shocking custom, and yet, after all, is it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the straight jacket of a creed; to so utterly deform their minds that they regard the God •of the Bible as a Being of infinite mercy, and really consider it a virtue to believe a thing just because it seems unreason­ able ? Every child in the Christian world has uttered its wondering protest against this outrage. All the machinery of the Church is constantly employed in thus corrupting �1° ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. the reason of children. In every possible way they arerobbed of their own thoughts and forced to accept the statements of others. Every Sunday School has for its object the crushing out of every germ of individuality. The poor children are taught that nothing can be more acceptable to God than unreasoning obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe that God did an impossible act is far better than to do a good one yourself. They are. told that all the religions have been simply the John the Baptist of ours ; that all the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the Jehovah of the Jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are realized in the motto of the Evangelical alliance, “ Liberty in non-essen­ tials;” that all there is or ever was of religion can be found in the Apostle’s creed; that there is nothing left to be dis­ covered; that all the thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers; that we have only to repeat, the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children must be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers. It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a God would choose for his companions during all eternity the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. He certainly would now and then be tempted to make the same remark made by an English gentleman to his poor guest. This gentleman had invited a man in humble cir­ cumstances to dine with him. The man was so overcome with honour that to everything the gentleman said he replied, “ Yes.” Tired at last with the monotony of acqui­ escence, the gentleman cried out, “ For God’s sake, my good man, say ‘No ’ just for once, so there will be two of us.” Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the dwelling-place of slaves and serfs ? Simply for the purpose of raising Orthodox Christians, that he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist barnacles, petrified Presbyterians, and Methodist mummies ? I want no heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jewelled collar even of a God. �ARRAIGNMENT of the church. IX Religion does not and cannot contemplate man as free. She accepts only the homage of the prostrate, and scornsthe offerings of those who stand erect. She cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. The wide and sunny fields belong not to her domain. The star-lit heights of genius and. individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. Her subjects cringe at her feet covered with the dust of obedience. They are not athletes standing posed by rich life ’and brave endeavour like the antique statues,, but shrivelled deformities studying with furtive glance the cruel face of power. * No religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. There is this difference between thought and action : .—For our actions we are responsible to ourselves and to 'those injuriously affected; for thoughts there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to gods or men, here or hereafter. And yet the Protestant has vied with the Catholic in denouncing freedom of thought, and while I was taught to hate Catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say that in all essential particularsit is precisely the same as every other religion. Luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and brutal vigour of his nature, Calvin despised from the very bottom of his petrified heart anything that even looked like religious toleration, and solemnly declared that to advocate it was to crucify Christ afresh. All the founders of all the orthodox churches have advocated the same infamous tenet. The truth is that what is called religion is necessarily inconsistent with Free Thought. A believer is a songless bird in a cage, a Freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wings. At present, owing to the inroads that have been made by­ Liberals and Infidels, most of the Churches pretend to be in favour of religious liberty. Of these Churches, we will ask this question : “ How can a man who conscientiously believes in religious liberty worship a God who does not ?” They say to us: “We will not imprison you on account of your belief, but our God will. We will not burn you because you throw away the sacred Scriptures; but their Author will.” “ We think it an infamous crime to persecute our brethren for opinion’s sake; but the God whom we igno­ rantly worship will on that account damn his own children for ever.” Why is it that these Christians do not only detest the Infidels, but so cordially despise each other ? �12 ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. Why do they refuse to worship in the temples of each other ? Why do they care so little for the damnation of men, and so much for the baptism of children ? Why will they adorn their churches with the money of thieves, and flatter vice for the sake of subscription? Why will they attempt to bribe science to certify to the writings of God? Why do they torture the words of the great into an acknowledgment of the truth of Christianity ? Why do they stand with hat in hand before Presidents, Kings, Emperors, and Scientists, begging like Lazarus for a few crumbs of religious comfort ? Why are they so delighted to find an allusion to Providence in the message of Lincoln ? Why are they so afraid that some one will find out that Paley wrote an essay in favour of the Epicurean Philosophy, and that Sir Isaac Newton was once an Infidel? Why are they so anxious to show that Voltaire recanted ? that Paine died palsied with fear ; that the Emperor Julian cried out, “ Galilean thou hast conquered; ” that Gibbon died a Catholic; that Agassiz had a little confidence in Moses; that the old Napoleon was once complimentary enough to say that he thought Christ greater than himself or Ciesar; that Washington was caught on his knees at Valley Forge ; that blunt old Ethan Allen told his child to believe the religion of her mother ; that Franklin said, “ Don’t unchain the tiger; ” that Volney .got frightened in a storm at sea, and that Oakes Ames was a wholesale liar ? Is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its fall, and because science has written over the high altar its mene, mene, tekel upharsin, the old words destined to be the epitaph of all religions ? Every assertion of individual independence has been a step towards Infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt, Wesley toward Bradlaugh. To really reform the Church is to destroy it. Every new religion has a little less supersti­ tion than the old, so that the religion of science is but a question of time. I will not. say the Church has been an unmitigated evil in all respects. Its history is infamous and glorious. It has delighted in the production of extremes. It has furnished murderers for its own martyrs. It has sometimes fed the body, but has always starved the soul. It has been a charitable highwayman, a generous pirate. It has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. It has built more prisons than asylums. It made a hundred t �arraignment of the church. 13 orphans while it cared for one. In one hand it carried the alms-dish, and in the other a sword. It has founded schools and endowed universities for the purpose of de­ stroying; true learning. It filled the world with hypocrites, and zealots, and upon the cross of its own Christ it crucified the individuality of man. It has sought to destroy the independence of the soul, and put the world upon its knees. This is its crime. The commission of this crime, was. necessary to its existence. In order to compel obedience it declared that it had the truth and all the truth, that God had made it the keeper of all His secrets ; His agent and his viceregent. It declared that all other religions were false and infamous. It rendered all compromises im­ possible, and all thought. superfluous. . Thought was its enemy, obedience was its friend. Investigation was fraught with danger j therefore investigation was suppressed. The holy of holies was behind the curtain. All this was upon the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an expert, and that imposture detests curiosity. “ He that hath ears to hear let him hear,” has always been one of the favourite texts of the Church. In short, Christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the human race. Across the. highway of pro­ gress it has always been building breastworks of bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds, dogmas, and platforms, and at every advance the Christians have gathered behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of malice at the soldiers of freedom. And even the liberal Christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. ’ He still clings to a part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. We associate the memory of those we love with the religion .of our childhood. It seems almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers worshipped, and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the silly fables of barbarism. Some throw away the Old Testament and cling to the New,, while others give up everything except the idea that there is a personal God, and that in some wonderful way we are the objects of His care. . . . Even this, in my opinion, as science, the great iconoclast, marches onward, will have to be abandoned with, the rest. The great ghost will surely share the fate of the little ones. �14 arraignment of the church. They fled at the first appearance of the dawn, and the other A. ill vanish with the perfect day. Until then, the indepen­ dence of man is little more than a dream. Overshadowed by an immense personality—in the presence of the irrespon­ sible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and, he falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. Beneath the frown of the Absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave—beneath his smile he is at best only a fortunate serf. Governed by a being whose arbitrary will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the pleasure of the Unknown. Under these circumstances what wretched object can he have in lengthening out his aimless life ? And yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of what the gods may do, and the safe side is considered the best side. A gentleman walking among the ruins of Athens came upon a fallen statue of Jupiter. Making an exceedingly low bow, he said: “Oh, Jupiter, I salute thee.” He then added : “ Should you ever get up in the world again, do not forget, I pray you, that I treated you politely while you were prostrate.” We have all been taught by the Church that nothing is so well calculated to excite the ire of the Deity as to express a ■doubt as to his existence, and to deny it is an unpardonable sin. . Numerous well-attested instances were referred to, of Atheists being struck dead for denying the existence of God. According to these religious people, God is infinitely above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and yet He cannot bear to hear a poor finite man honestly question His existence. Knowing as He does that His children are groping in dark­ ness and struggling with doubt and fear ; knowing that He could enlighten them if He would, He still holds the ex­ pression of a sincere doubt as to His existence the most infamous of crimes. According to the orthodox logic, God having furnished us with imperfect minds, has a right to demand a perfect result. Suppose Mr. Smith should overhear a couple of ■small bugs holding a discussion as to the existence of Mr. ■Smith, and suppose one should have the temerity to declare upon the honour of a bug that he had examined the whole ■question to the best of his ability, including the argument based upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the name of Smith had ever lived. Think, then, of Mr. Smith flying into an ecstacy of rage, crushing the �arraignment of the church. 15 atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while he exclaimed, “ I will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that Smith is a diabo­ lical fact ! ” What, then, call we think of a God who would ■open the artillery of heaven upon one of His own children for simply expressing his honest thought ? And what man ■who really thinks can help repeating the words of .¿Eneas, “ If there are gods, they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of men.” In religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and steady development. At the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern times) is Catholicism, and at the top are Atheism and Science. The intermediate rounds •of this ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is legion. But whatever may be the truth on any subject has nothing to do with our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form. All that I ask is the right I freely accord to all others. A few years ago a Methodist clergyman took it upon him­ self to give me a piece of friendly advice. “Although you may disbelieve the Bible,” said he, “ you ought not to say .so. That you should keep to yourself.” “ Do you believe the Bible?” said I. He replied, “Most assuredly.” To which I retorted, “ Your answer conveys no information to me. You may be following your own advice. You told me to suppress my opinions. Of course, a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular about telling the truth himself.” It is the duty of each and every one to maintain his indi viduality. “ This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to-any man.” It is a magnificent thing to be the sole proprietor of yourself. It is a terrible thing to wake up at night and say: “ There is nobody in this bed ! ” It is humiliating to know that your ideas are all borrowed, and that you are indebted to your memory for your principles, that your religion is simply one of your habits, and that you would have convictions if they were only contagious. It is mortifying to feel that you belong to a mental mob and cry, “ Crucify him,” because the others do. That you reap what the great and brave have sown, and that you can benefit the world only by leaving it. Surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the zzzzA. Surely it is worth something to be (me, and to �I ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CHURCH. feel that the census of the universe would not be complete without counting you. Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; and that there are no walls, nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being human or divine ; that you hold all in fee and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all. personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no, priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no lock, no cell, in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dis­ located by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul in spite of all worlds and all beings is the supreme sovereign of itself. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, 28 ^necutter Street, London, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arraignment of the Church and a plea for individuality Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. No. 40c in Stein checklist. Date of publication from Stein checklist. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1877] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N331 Subject The topic of the resource Christianity Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Arraignment of the Church and a plea for individuality), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Christianity NSS