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PUTNAM’S MAGAZINE
OF
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART,
AND
NATIONAL INTERESTS.
Vol. AL—MAY—1870.—No. XXIX.
OUR CELTIC INHERITANCE.
One of the oldest specimens of Gaelic
poetry tells how Oisin was once enticed
by fairies into a cavern, where, by some
of their magical arts, he was for a long
time imprisoned. To amuse himself
during his confinement, he was accus
tomed to whittle the handle of his spear,
and cast the shavings into a stream
which flowed at his feet. His father,
Finn, after many vain attempts to find
him, came one day to the stream, and,
recognizing the shavings floating on its
surface as portions of Oisin’s spear, fol
lowed the stream to its source and dis
covered his son.
The legend may illustrate the fate of
the people to whose literature it belongs.
It has been a perplexing question, what
became of that old Titan, who led the
van in the migrations of races west
ward, and whom Aristotle describes “ as
dreading neither earthquakes nor inun
dations ; as rushing armed into the
waves; as plunging their new-born in
fants into cold water ”—a custom still
common among the Irish—“ or clothing
them in scanty garments.”
Two thousand years ago, we know
from Ephorus and other classic geogra
phers, the Celts occupied more territory
than Teuton, Greek, and Latin com
bined. They were yronderful explor
ers; brave, enterprising, delighting in
the unknown and marvellous, they
pushed eagerly forward, over mountain
and river, through forest and morass,
until their dominion extended from the
western coasts of Ireland, France, and
Spain, to the marshes around St. Peters
burg and the frontiers of Cappadocia:
in fact, they were masters of all Europe,
except the little promontories of Italy
and Greece; and these were not safe
from their incursions. Six centuries
before Christ, we find them invading
Northern Italy, founding Milan, Verona,
Brixia, and inspiring them with a spirit
of independence which Roman tyranny
could never entirely subdue. Two cen
turies later, they descend from their
northern homes as far as Rome, become
masters of the city, kill the Senate, and
would have taken the capitol, had not
Camillus finally repulsed them. A cen
tury later, they pour into Greece in a
similar way, and would surely have
overrun that country, had not their pro
found reverence for the supernatural—
a characteristic not yet lost—led them
to turn back awed by the sacred rites
of Delphos. Their last and most formi
dable appearance among the classics
was in that famous campaign—a cen
tury before Caesar—when the skill and
bravery of Marius saved the Roman re
public.
Entered, in the year 1870. by G. P. PUTNAM & SON, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the U. S. for the Southern District of
VOL. V.—34
N. T.
�514
Putnam’s Magazine.
[May,
Then the scales turn : the Romans be in the Anglo-Saxon the wonderful dis
come the invaders, and the Celts suffer coveries of modem science have made
I ruinous defeats. In that great battle so manifest, that men are beginning at
with Quintus Fabius Maximus, Csesar last to recognize them; and, during the
tells the Gauls two hundred thousand of past century, some of our most noted
their countrymen were slain. Through scholars have been patiently endeavor
nearly all the vast territory they once ing to trace them to their original
inhabited, the Roman empire became source.
supreme; and where Rome failed to
Philology, although one of the young
gain the supremacy, the persistent Teu est of our sciences, has been of the
tons, pressing closely on their rear, gen greatest service in putting us on the
erally completed the conquest. Every right track in our search after this pio
where, at the commencement of the neer of nations. By its subtle art of
Christian era,—except in the compara drawing from words—those oldest patively insignificant provinces of Ireland, limpsestic monuments of men, their
Scotland, Wales, and Armorica,—this original inscriptions—it has cleared up
great Celtic people vanish so suddenly many a mystery in which the old Celt
and so completely from history, that their seemed hopelessly enveloped. Those ad
former existence soon seems like one of venturous tribes who first forced their
the myths of a pre-historic age. In those way through the western European wil
regions where the Celts retained their derness, left memorials of their presence
identity, prolonged political and re which no succeeding invaders have been
ligious animosities have tended to throw able to efface, in the names they gave
into still greater oblivion all mementoes to prominent landmarks; so that “ the
of their early greatness. Their English mountains and rivers,”—to use a meta
rulers have treated them as members of phor of Palgrave’s,—“still murmur
an inferior race. Glorying in his popu voices ” of this denationalized people.
lar misnomer, the Anglo-Saxon has The Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees, the
generally ignored all kinship with those Rhine, Oder, and Avon,—all bear wit
Britons whom his ancestors subdued.
ness to the extensive dominion of the
“ Little superior to the natives of the race by whom these epithets were first
Sandwich Islands; ”—says Lord Macau bestowed. By means of these epithets,
lay in his positive way, and dismisses the the Celts have been traced from their
subject as unworthy farther notice. original home in Central Asia in two
“ When the Saxons arrived, the ancient diverging lines of migrations. Certain
Britons were all slain, or driven into tribes, forcing their way through north
the mountains of Walessay our com ern Europe, seem to have passed from
mon school histories. “ Aliens in the Cimbric Chersonese—or Denmark—
speech, in religion, in blood; ”—says into the north of Ireland and Scotland;
Lord Lyndhurst, with traditional viru others, taking a southerly route, finally
lence, in that speech which Sheil so ably entered the south of Great Britain from
answered.
the northern coasts of France and Spain.
Still, scraps from Oisin’s spear have The British Isles became thus the termi
been floating down the current of An nus of two widely-diverging Celtic mi
glo-Saxon life. In language, words grations.
have arisen; in politics, literature, and
Naturally, the different climatic influ
religion, ideas and sentiments have been ences to which they were subject dur
expressed, bearing unmistakably the ing their separate wanderings, tended
' impress of the old Titan, and showing to produce a variety of dialects and
conclusively that his spirit, although so popular characteristics. Those old Brit
long concealed, was still influencing and ons, however, whom Csesar first intro
inspiring even the descendants of Heng- duces to history, all belonged substan
ist and Horsa.
tially to one people. Zeuss, after a
These evidences of a Celtic presence patient drudgery of thirteen years in
�1870.]
Oue Celtic Inheritance.
515
investigating the oldest Celtic manu- names you find like Lewis, Morgan,
scripts, has proved beyond question, in Jenkins, Davis, Owen, Evans, Hughes,
his Grammatica Celtica, not only that Bowen, Griffiths, Powel, and Williams.
the Cymry, or modern Welsh, are of the Scarcely less numerous are the Gaelic
same family with the Gael or modem Camerons, Campbells, Craigs, Cunning
Irish and Scotch, but that all the Celtic hams, Dixons, Douglasses, Duffs, Dun
people are only another division of cans, Grahams, Grants, Gordons, Mac
that great Indo-European family out of donalds, Macleans, Munros, Murrays,
which the nations of Europe originally Reids, Robertsons, and Scotts.
sprang. More extensive philological in
Although the application of these
vestigations have indicated a still near surnames has been a custom only dur
er relationship between the Celt and ing the past four hundred years, still
the Anglo-Saxon. In Great Britain, they show that, at some period, we
Celtic names linger not only upon all must have received a large infusion of
the mountains and rivers, with scarcely Celtic blood.
an exception, but upon hundreds and
Physiology has also something to say
hundreds of the towns and villages, on this subject. A careful comparison
valleys and brooks, and the more insig of the different physical types has
nificant localities of the country.
shown that the Celtic is found almost
How frequently Aber and Inver, Bod as frequently among the English as the
and Caer or Car, Strath and Ard, ap Saxon. The typical Saxon of olden
pear in combination as the eye glances times had the broad, short oval skull,
over a map of England. Is not this fact with yellowish or tawny red hair. The
most naturally explained by the suppo old Celt had the long oval skull, with
sition that Briton and Saxon grew up black hair. Climate undoubtedly modi
together in the same localities so inti fied to some extent these types, the
mately, that the latter found it most northern tribes of the Celts possessing
convenient to adopt the names of places lighter hair than the southern; still,
which the former had already bestowed ? these were generally the distinguishing
The Celtic root with Saxon suffix or physical characteristics of the two
prefix, so often greeting us in any de races.
scription of English topography, cer
How, then, have these characteristics
tainly hints at a closer amalgamation been perpetuated ? Retzius, one of the
of the two races than school histories best Swedish ethnologists, after making
are wont to admit. So the language extensive observations and comparisons,
we daily speak, frequently as it has gives it as his opinion that the prevail
been denied, is found strongly impreg ing form of the skull found throughout
nated with Celtic words, and many of England is the long oval, or the same
these our most idiomatic and expres which is found still in Scotland, Ire
sive. Balderdash, banner, barley, bas land, and Wales. His statements are
ket, bicker, bother, bully, carol, cudgel, confirmed by many other ethnologists.
dastard, fudge, grudge, grumble, har Somehow, after crossing the German
lot, hawker, hoyden, loafer, lubber, Ocean, the broad, roundish-headed Sax
nudge, trudge,—may serve as speci on became “ long-headed.” And his hair
mens. The unwritten dialects which changed. Yellow, or tawny red, is by
prevail in so many parts of England, no means now the prevailing colof
give still more numerous examples of among the Anglo-Saxons. Any English
this Celtic element.
assembly will show a much greater pro
If we turn now to our family sur portion of dark-haired than light-haired
names, we shall also find indications people. Different habits and occupa
of a similar race amalgamation. The tions have undoubtedly contributed
Cymric Joneses are only equalled by the somewhat to effect this change. Ger
Saxon Smiths. Take any of our ordi mans and English have alike grown
nary directories, and how many Cymric darker during the past one thousand
�516
Putnam’s Magazine.
years; still, the marked difference which
to-day exists between the Anglo-Saxon
and his brethren on the continent is
too great to be accounted for,—except
through some decided modification of
the race relation. The Celts are the
only race to whom such modifications
can with any propriety be attributed.
Whence came, then, this popular opin
ion that the old Britons were either de
stroyed or expelled from the country by
their Saxon conquerors ? Are the state
ments of history and the conclusions
of modem science so contradictory in
this matter ? Let us see. At the Ro
man invasion, 55 b. c., Great Britain
seems to have been thickly settled.
Csesar says: “ The population is infi
nite, and the houses very numerous.”
Eh one battle, 80,000 Britons were left
dead on the field; and in one campaign
the Romans lost 50,000 soldiers. It
took the Roman legions nearly three
hundred years to bring the southern
portion of the island under subjection;
—and then that great wall of Severus—
seventy-four miles long, eight feet thick,
twelve feet high, with eighty-one cas
tles and three hundred and thirty tur
rets,—was erected to secure the conquest
from the warlike tribes of the north—a
stupendous undertaking, surely, to pro
tect a province so worthless as Macau
lay asserts!
Ptolemy enumerates no less than
twenty British confederacies—with great
resources—south of this wall, and eigh
teen upon the north. During the five
centuries of Roman dominion, they
steadily increased. There was not suffi
cient admixture of Latin blood to
change essentially the Celtic character
of the race. The Latins came to con
trol, not to colonize. When Rome, for
Her own protection, was obliged to recall
her legions, thus relinquishing the prov
ince which had cost so much time and
treasure to secure, we are distinctly told
most of the Latins returned, taking
their treasures with them.
What, then, became of the numerous
Britons who remained? Their condi
tion was deplorable. Accustomed to
rely upon Roman arms for defense and
[May,
Roman magistrates for the administra
tion of law, they were suddenly deprived
of both defenders and rulers. While
Latin civilization had developed their
resources enough to make them a more
tempting prize to their warlike neigh
bors, it had rendered them almost inca
pable of guarding the treasures they
had gained. They had grown unwar
like—had lost both weapons and their
use.
Moreover, a crowd of rival aspirants
at once began a contest for the vacant
throne. It is not difficult to believe
the statements of our earliest historians,
that many, thus threatened by external
foes and internal dissensions, were ready
to welcome as allies the Saxon maraud
ers, preferring to receive them as friends
than to resist them as foes. The Saxons
evidently were determined to come; and
the Briton,—with characteristic craft,—
concluded to array Pict and Saxon
against each other, hoping, doubtless,
both would thus become less formi
dable.
Those Saxons also came in detach
ments, and at different intervals. They
were generally warriors, the picked men
of their tribes. Finding a better coun
try, and a people without rulers, they
quietly determined to take possession
of both. Their final ascendency was
gained, not by superiority of numbers,
but by superiority of will and of arms.
It seems utterly incredible to suppose,
that, in their little open boats, they
could have transported across the Ger
man Ocean a multitude great enough to
outnumber the original British inhabi
tants. All accounts indicate that they
were numerically inferior. Nearly one
hundred and fifty years of hard fight
ing were necessary before Saxon author
ity could take the place of the Roman.
The Welsh historical Triads tells us
that whole bodies of the Britons entered
into “ confederacy with their con
querors”—became Saxons. The Saxon
Chronicle, which, meagre and dry as it
is, still gives the truest account we have
of those dark periods, states that whole
counties, and numerous towns within
the limits of the Heptarchy,—nearly five
�1870.]
Our Celtic Inheritance.
hundred years after the first Saxon in
vasion,—were occupied almost entirely
by Britons; and that there were many
■hsurrections of semi- Saxonized subjects
in the different kingdoms. Bede, speak
ing of Ethelfred as the most cruel of
the Saxon chieftains, says he compelled
the Britons to be “tributary,” or to
leave the country. The great mass of
the people seem to have chosen the for
mer condition, and to have accepted
their new rulers as they had done the
old. There is not the slightest evidence
of any wholesale extermination by the
Saxons, or of any extensive Celtic emi
gration, except two passages found in
Gildas, our earliest historian. In one
of these, he speaks of the Britons as
having been slain like wolves, or driv
en into mountains; and in the other, of
a company of British monks guiding
an entire tribe of men and women to
Armorica, singing,—as they crossed the
channel in their vessels of skin,—“ Thou
hast given us as sheep to the slaughter.”
Gildas’ statements are so contradic
tory and erroneous, as every historical
student knows, that they must be re
ceived with great allowance. He evi
dently hated the Saxons, and shows a
disposition, in all his descriptions, to
exaggerate the injuries his countrymen
had received. Undoubtedly the Saxons
often exhibited the savage ferocity com
mon in those days, killing and enslav
ing their enemies without much com
punction ; undoubtedly many of the
British, who had been Christianized,
fled from the pagan violence of their
conquerors to the more congenial coun
tries of Armorica and Wales; but that
most of them were obliged thus to
choose between a violent death or ex
ile, is sufficiently disproved, I think, by
the evidence already given.
The adoption of the Saxon language
is also sometimes cited as evidence of
the destruction of the old Britons;
but conquerors have very often given
language to their subjects, even when
the subjects were more numerous than
themselves.
Thus the Latin was
adopted in Gaul; thus the Arabic
followed the conquests pf the Mussul
517
mans. Yet there is nothing but this
argument from language and the state
ments of Gildas—which later histo
rians have so blindly copied—to give
any foundation to the common opin
ion of an unmixed Saxon population.
AU other historical records and infer
ences indicate that the Anglo-Saxon
—when that name was first applied, in
the ninth century—represented as large
a proportion of Celtic as of Teutonic
blood.
Future invasions effected little change
in this proportion. The Danes, indeed,
increased somewhat the Teutonic ele
ment, although they made fearful havoc
among the old Saxons; but the Nor
mans brought with them fully as many
Gauls as Norsemen; and since the Nor
man conquest, the Celtic element has
rather increased than diminished.
It is fitting that the Lia Fail, or stone
of destiny, which Edward I. brought
from Scotland, and upon which the
Celtic kings for many generations had
been crowned, should still form the
seat of the English throne, and thus
become a symbol—although undesigned
—of that Celtic basis which really un
derlies the whole structure of Anglo?
Saxon dominion.
If it be admitted, then, that the Celt
formed so large a proportion of those
races out of which the English people
were finally composed, it becomes an.
interesting question whether any ot
their spiritual characteristics became
also the property of their conquerors.
What were these old Celts ? Did their
blood enrich, or impoverish, the Saxon ?
Did they leave us any inheritance be
yond certain modifications of speech
and form ? ^An answer to these ques
tions may also serve to confirm the con
clusions already stated.
We do not get much satisfaction to
such inquiries from contemporary his
torians in other lands. The self-com
placent classic troubled himself little
about neighboring barbarians, provid
ed they did not endanger his safety
or tempt his cupidity. That they
traded in tin with the seafaring Phoe
nicians, three hundred years before
�518
Putnam’s Magazine.
Christ; that, in. the time of Csesar and
Augustus, they had many barbarous
customs, but had also their chariots,
fleets, currency, commerce, poets, and
an order of priests who were supreme
in all matters pertaining to religion,
education, and government;—these, in
brief, are the principal facts gleaned
from the meagre accounts of Greek and
Roman writers concerning the inhabi
tants of the Ultima Thule of the ancient
world. Saxon historians add little to
this information. From the time of
Gildas to Macaulay, they have generally
viewed the Celt through the distorted
medium of their popular prejudices.
The Celt, then, must be his own in
terpreter ; yet the Celt of to-day, after
suffering for so many centuries a treat
ment which has tended to blunt and
destroy his best talent, and after long
association with foreign thoughts and
customs, is by no means the best repre
sentative of his pagan ancestors.
In some way—through their own pro
ductions, if possible—we must get at
the old Celts themselves before we can
determine with any certainty how many
of our popular characteristics can be
attributed with any propriety to such a
source. Aside from their language,
which we have already alluded to, their
oldest works are those weird megalithic
ruins—scattered all over western Eu
rope, and most numerous in Brittany
and Great Britain. That these were of
Celtic origin, seems indicated both by
their greater number and perfection in
those countries where the Celt retained
longest his identity, and by certain cor
respondences in form and masonry with
the earliest known Celtic structures,—
the cells of Irish monks,4-and the fa
mous round towers of Ireland.
Those round towers,—after being vari
ously explained as fire-towers, astro
nomical observatories, phallic emblems,
stylite columns, &c.,—Dr. Petrie has very
clearly proved were of ecclesiastical ori
gin, built between the fifth and thir
teenth centuries, and designed for bel
fries, strongholds, and watch-towers.
Yet these cellsand towers alike exhibit
the same circular form and dome roof,
[May,
the same ignorance of the arch and ce
ment, which are revealed in many of the
older and more mysterious ruins.
If we suppose a mythical people of
the stone age preceded the Indo-Euro
peans in their wanderings,—and there
seems no need of such a supposition,
since it has been so clearly shown by
some of our best pre-historic archaeolo
gists, that the transition from imple
ments of stone to iron has frequently
taken place among the same people,—it
may still be said these ruins are entirely
dissimilar to the productions of such a
people in other lands: they mark a
higher degree of civilization, and show
clearly, in certain cases, the use of me
tallic instruments. Some of them re
veal also great mechanical skill, fore
thought, and extraordinary command
of labor. Most of these ruins are at
least two thousand years old. They
have been exposed constantly to the
destructive influences of a northern cli
mate ;—and any one who has noticed the
ravages which merely six centuries have
wrought upon even the protected stone
work of English cathedrals, can appre
ciate the power of these, atmospheric
vandals;—they have suffered even great
er injury from successive invaders; and
still few can gaze upon them to-day
without being impressed with their
massive grandeur.
Of the vast ruins of Carnac, in Brit
tany, four thousand great triliths still
remain; some of these are twentv-two
feet high, twelve feet broad, and six
feet thick, and are estimated to weigh
singly 256,800 pounds. Says M. Cam
bray : “ These stones have a most ex
traordinary appearance. They are iso
lated in a great plain without trees or
bushes ; not a flint or fragment of stone
is to be seen on the sand which supports
them; they are poised without founda
tion, several of them being movable.”
In Abury and Stonehenge there are
similar structures, not as extensive, in
deed, but giving evidence of much
greater architectural and mechanical
skill. They are found also in different
parts of Great Britain and the Orkney
Islands and the Hebrides.
�T870/]
Oub Celtic Inhebitanoe.
How were these immense stones transported—for there are no quarries within
seveml miles—and by what machinery
could the great lintels of Stonehenge,
for instance, have been raised to their
present position ?
We may smile incredulously at the
learned systems of Oriental mythology
which enthusiastic antiquaries have dis
covered in these voiceless sentinels of
forgotten builders, but can we question
the evidence they give of scientific pro
ficiency—superior to any ever attained
by a “ race of savages ” ?
' Their cromlechs, or tombs, exhibit
clearly the same massiveness. The Irish
people still call them f£ giant beds,” but
they give us no additional information
concerning the people whose skeletons
they contain ;—unless there be a sugges
tion in the kneeling posture in which
their dead were generally buried, of
that religious reverence which charac
terized them when alive.
In the Barrows—or great mounds of
earth—which they seem to have used at
a later period as sepulchres, we do get
a few more interesting hints concerning
their early condition. In these, large
numbers of necklaces, swords, and va
rious ornaments and weapons in gold
and bronze,—some of exquisite work
manship and original design,—have been
found, showing at least that they had
the art of working metals, and many
of the customs of a comparatively civil
ized life. All these relics, however,
although interesting in themselves, and
confirming the few statements of classic
historians, only serve to correct the pop
ular notion concerning the savage con
dition of the old Britons. They leave
us still in ignorance of those mental and
spiritual characteristics which we are
most anxious to discover.
By far the most extensive and valu
able material for determining the char
acter of the ancient Celt, although the
most neglected, is presented in their lit
erature. Few persons I imagine who have
given the subject no special investiga
tion, are aware how extensive this litera
ture is, as found in the Gaelic and Cym
ric tongues. In the library of Trinity
519
College, Dublin, there are one hundred
ajid forty manuscript volumes. A still
more extensive collection is in the Royal
Irish Academy. There are also large coll
lections in the British Museum, and in
the Bodleian Library and Imperial libra
ries of France and Belgium, and in the
Vatican;—besides numerous private col
lections in the possession of the nobility
of Ireland, Great Britain, and on the
continent.
To give an idea of these old manu
scripts, O’Curry has taken as a standard
of comparison the Annals of the Four
Masters, which was published in 1851,
in seven large quarto volumes contain
ing 4,215 closely-printed pages. There
are, in the same library, sixteen other
vellum volumes, which, if similarly
published, would make 17,400 pages;
and six hundred paper manuscripts,
comprising 30,000 pages. Mac Firbis’
great book of genealogies would alone
fill 1,300 similar pages; and the old
Brehon laws, it is calculated, when pub
lished, will contain 8,000 pages.
The Cymric collection, although less
extensive, still comprises more than one
thousand volumes. Some of these, in
deed, are only transcripts of the same
productions, yet many of them are
original works.
A private collection at Peniath num
bers upward of four hundred manu
scripts ; and a large number are in the
British Museum, in Jesus College, and
in the libraries of various noblemen of
England and Wales.
The Myvyrian manuscripts, collected
by Owen Jones, and now deposited in
the British Museum, alone amount to
forty-seven volumes of poetry, in 16,000
pages, and fifty-three volumes of prose,
in about 15,300 pages; and these com
prise only a small portion of the manu
scripts now existing. Extensive as are
these collections, we know, from trust
worthy accounts, the Danish invaders
of Ireland, in the ninth and tenth cen-d
turies, made it a special business to tear,
burn, and drown—to quote the exact
word—all books and records which
were found in any of the churches,
dwellings, or monasteries of the island.
�520
Putnam’s Magazine.
The great wars of the seventeenth cen
tury proved still more destructive to
the Irish manuscripts. The jealous
Protestant conquerors burnt all they
could find among the Catholics. A
great number of undiscovered manu
scripts are referred to and quoted in
those which now exist. From their
titles, we judge more have been lost
than preserved. So late as the sixteenth
century, many were referred to as then
in existence, of which no trace can now
be found. Some of them may still be
hidden in the old monasteries and cas
tles. The finding of the book of Lis
more is an illustration of what may
have been the fate of many. In 1814,
while the Duke of Devonshire was re
pairing his ancient castle of Lismore,
the workmen had occasion to reopen a
doorway which had been long closed, in
the interior of the castle. They found
concealed within it a box containing an
old manuscript and a superb old crozier. The manuscript had been some
what injured by the dampness, and por
tions of it had been gnawed by rat3.
Moreover, when it was discovered, the
workmen carried off several leaves as
mementoes. Some of these were after
ward recovered, and enough now re
mains to give us valuable additions to
our knowledge of Irish customs and tra
ditions. It is by no means improbable
that others, similarly secreted in monas
teries and private dwellings, may still
be discovered.
In O’Clery’s preface to the “ Succes
sion of Kings ’’—one of the most valu
able of the Irish annals—he says:
“ Strangers have taken the principal
books of Erin into strange countries
and among unknown people.” And
again, in the preface to the “ Book of
Invasions ”: “ Sad evil! Short was the
time until dispersion and decay over
took the churches of the saints, their
relics, and their books; for there is not
to be found of them now that has not
been carried away into distant coun
tries and foreign nations; carried away,
so that their fate is not known from
that time hither.”
When we consider, thus, the number
[May,
of literary productions which have been
either lost or destroyed, and the num
ber still remaining, we must admit that
there has been, at some period, great
intellectual activity among the Celtic
people. How far back these produc
tions may be traced, is a question which
cannot now be discussed properly, with
out transgressing the limits assigned to
this article. We can do little more, at
present, than call attention to the ex
tent of these writings, and their impor
tance. Many of them are unquestion
ably older than the Canterbury Tales;
they give us the clearest insight into the
character of a people once great and
famous, but now almost lost in oblivion;
and, although containing a large amount
of literary rubbish, they still comprise
numerous poems, voluminous codes of
ancient laws, extensive annals—older
than any existing European nation can ex
hibit in its own tongue, and a body of
romance which no ancient literature has
ever excelled, and from which modern
fiction drew its first inspiration.
Had this literature no special relation
to our own history, we might naturally
suppose it would repay investigation
for the curious information it contains
of a bygone age, and the intellectual
stimulus it might impart. The condi
tion of Ireland, to-day, is also of such
importance to England and America—
the Irish Celt, in this nineteenth cen
tury, enters so prominently into our
politics and questions of reform, that
every thing is worth investigating which
can reveal to us more clearly his charac
ter and capacity.
But these productions of his ances
tors have for us a still deeper signifi
cance. They are peculiarly our inheri
tance. Celt or Teuton, or both, we
must mainly be ; our ancestry can natu
rally be assigned to no other races.
Much in us is manifestly not Teutonic.
The Anglo-Saxon is quite a different
being from all other Saxons. Climate
and occupation may explain, in a meas
ure, the difference, but not entirely.
Some of the prominent traits which
Englishmen and Americans alike pos
sess, belong so clearly to the German,
�1870.1
The Tale
of a
Comet.
K21
I
or Teutonic people, in every land, that the sentiments of their people, then
we do not hesitate to ascribe them at these old manuscripts become of incal
once to our Saxon blood;—but what culable value in explaining our indebt
shall we do with others equally promi edness to those Britons, who, as history
nent, and naturally foreign to Teutons and science alike indicate, contributed
so essentially to our popular forma
everywhere ?
Were these found peculiarly charac tion.
On some future occasion, we may pre
terizing the Celts from their earliest his
tory, might we not—must we not—with sent such illustrations of their antiquity
equal propriety also ascribe them to our and general character, as will make it
appear still more clearly that the AngloCeltic blood 1
If, then, it can be shown—and we Saxon is—what we might expect the
think it can—that, not only before the offspring of two such varied races to
time of Gower and Chaucer, but also become—the union of the varied char
before Caedmon uttered the first note acteristics of Celt and Teuton, stronger,
of English song, Celtic wits and poets braver, more complete in every respect,
were busy expressing in prose and verse for his diverse parentage.
THE TALE OF A COMET.
IN TWO PARTS:
I.
“ Berum nature tsacra sun non simul tradit. Initiates nos credimus; in vestibulo ejus haeremus.”
Seneca. Nat. Quaest. vii.
young man, my dear Bernard, because I
have confidence in the evenness of your
The year in which the comet came I disposition, and the steady foothold you
was living by myself, at the windmill. have obtained upon the middle way of
Early in May I received from my friend life. He is an anomaly, and therefore
must be treated with prudence, and a
the Professor the following letter:
tender reserve such as we need not
“College Observatory, May 5.
exercise toward the rough-and-tumble
“Mv Dear Bernard.—I want to ask youth of the crowd. In fact, this young
a favor, which, if you please to grant it, I man Baimond Letoile is a unique and
honestly think will contribute sensibly perfect specimen of that rare order of
to the advancement of science, without beings, which, not being able to anato
causing much disorder to your bachelor mize and classify, owing to the infre
life. I want you, in fact, to take a pupil. quency of their occurrence, we men of
There has come to us a very strange Science carelessly label under the name
young man, who knows nothing but the of Genius, and put away upon our shelves
mathematics; but knows them so thor for future examination. Letoile is cer
oughly and with such remarkable and tainly a genius, and when properly in
intuitive insight, that I am persuaded he structed, I believe he will develop a
is destined to become the wonder of this faculty for the operations of pure science
age. His name is Raimond Letoile; he such as has no parallel, unless we turn
is about twenty years old, and his nature, to the arts and compare him with Ra
so far as I can determine upon slight ac phael and Mozart. He is a born mathe
quaintance, is singularly amiable, pure, matician. And when I say this, I do
and unsophisticated. His recommenda not mean that he simply has an extraor
tions are good, he has money sufficient for dinary power of calculation, like Colburn
all his purposes, and I think you will find and those other prodigies who have
him a companion as well as a pupil, proved but pigmies after all — I mean
who, while giving you but little trouble, that he possesses an intuitive faculty for
will reward you for your care by the the higher analysis, and possesses it to
contemplation of his unexampled pro such a wonderful degree that all of us
gress. I want you to take charge of this here stand before him in genuine amazeI.—THE rEOFBSSOB’s LETTER.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Our Celtic inheritance
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [513]-521 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Putnam's Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and National Interests. Vol. V, No. XXIX, May 1870. Printed in double columns.
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[G. P. Putnam's Sons]
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1870
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G5564
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English
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[Unknown]
Subject
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History
Celts
Conway Tracts
-
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Text
��������
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Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Egotisms
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Goodman, D.
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [1]-8 p. ; 25 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Modern Thinker, July 1870.
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[s.n.]
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1870
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G5728
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Positivism
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Conway Tracts
Positivism
Reason
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ed36c38d1c45575c57f2eff0413d353c
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Text
THE GENERAL MEETING
OF
THE THEISTIC SOCIETY
HELD
FREEMASONS’
AT
THE
HALL,
LONDON
ON
Wednesday, July 20th, 1870
AND
STATEMENT
OF
THE
COMMITTEE
APPOINTED BY THE MEETING
bg ©rber of
Committee
LONDON
LONGMANS,
GREEN,
1870
AND
CO.
�LONDON : PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
�CONTENTS.
PAGE
Report of the General Meeting ....
1
Resolutions passed at the General Meeting
71
Statement of the Committee
72
�I
•I
�PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL MEETING
HELD AT
ON
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1870.
MR. WILLIAM SHAEN IN THE CHAIR.
The Chairman.—Ladies and Gentlemen, I will state,
in opening the meeting, the course of business which
has been proposed by the Committee. In the first
place, our Honorary Secretary, Mr. E. II. Busk, will read
a report from the Provisional Committee ; that report
will conclude with a set of resolutions which have been
prepared by the Committee. It will then be my duty,
on behalf of the Committee, to move the reception of the
report. If it is your pleasure, after hearing the report, to
receive it, there are three or four resolutions, which have
been prepared, which will be moved and seconded ; and
upon those any observations can be made and any dis
cussion can be taken.
The Honorary Secretary then read the following
report :—
The Provisional Committee appointed at the meeting
held on June 6, 1870, have communicated with persons
who might be supposed willing to aid in the formation of
a Theistic Society, and now submit the following report
of their proceedings, and of the information so collected
by them.
B
�Q
The Committee met shortly after the meeting, at which
they were appointed, and prepared a circular, in which
was inserted the provisional statement of the objects and
means of the Society, which they were instructed to cir
culate with their suggestions.
The following is a copy of the circular, which was pre
ceded by a list of the Provisional Committee.
1. The objects of the Society are to unite men, notwithstanding any
differences in their religious creeds, in a common effort to attain and
diffuse purity of Spiritual Life by (i.) investigating religious truth ;
(ii.) cultivating devotional feelings; and (iii.) furthering practical
morality.
2. The Society seeks to attain these objects by the following means:—
(1) By holding meetings for the reading of papers, and for
conference.
(2) By holding and encouraging meetings for the united worship
of God.
(3) By helping its members to ascertain and discharge their
personal and social duties.
(4) By the formation of similar Societies with the same objects
in various parts of the British Empire and other countries.
(5) By correspondence with those who may be supposed willing
to assist in the objects of this Society.
(6) By the issue of publications calculated to promote the above
purposes.
This Society is offered as a means of uniting all those who believe
in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, in the endeavour
to supplement their individual efforts towards goodness and truth by
mutual sympathy; to intensify their trust in and love to God by
fellowship in worship; and to aid each other in the discovery and
propagation of Spiritual Truth, that thus they may attain to the more
complete observance of the Divine Laws of Human Nature.
A meeting will be held at the Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street,
on Wednesday, July 20, 1870, at 7 p.m., for the purpose of definitely
constituting the Society. Your attendance at this meeting is requested.
In the meantime you are invited to communicate to the Provisional
Committee your opinion, and any information you can give on the
following subjects :—
a. The expediency of forming the proposed Society.
b. The best name for the proposed Society.
c. The names and addresses of persons or societies likely to be
interested in such a body.
�(1. The number likely to join in your neighbourhood.
e. Any practical suggestions as to the formation, objects, and modes
of action of the proposed Society.
The Committee invited suggestions and information on
various subjects, and have received, in answer to about
2,200 copies which have been circulated, upwards of 100
replies.
The suggestions and information that have been received
may be arranged under the four following heads :—
I. The expediency or inexpediency of forming the
proposed Society.
II. The best name for the proposed Society.
III. The number of persons likely to join in different
towns and districts.
IV. Practical suggestions as to the formation, objects,
and modes of action of the proposed Society.
I. The answers that have been received to the ques
tion whether it is or is not expedient to form the pro
posed Society have comprised every shade of feeling. They
may be roughly classified in the following manner :—
Those who think it expedient (including 5, who
merely express a desire for its formation) . . . 83
Those who think it inexpedient.................................... 17
Those who think the expediency doubtful....
7
107
These numbers do not include the members of the Pro
visional Committee.
The Provisional Committee are of opinion that these
answers afford sufficient encouragement to justify the
formation of the proposed Society.
II. The following names have been suggested for the
o
oo
proposed Society :—
‘ The Association for Promoting Practical Religion.’
‘ The Association for Promoting True Religion.’
B 2
�I
4
4 The Association for the Promotion of Practical Re
ligion.’
4 The Society for the Discovery and Propagation of
Spiritual Truth.’
4 An Association for Developing true Christian Charity
in St. Paul’s Sense.’
4 The Brotherhood of Faith.’
4 The Religious Brotherhood.’
4 The Brotherhood of all Religions.’
4 The Brethren of Progress.’
4 The Progressive Brotherhood.’
■ 4 The Fraternal Union.’
4 The Society of Human Brotherhood.’ 2.
4 The Brotherhood of Love.’ 2.
4 The British Free Church.’
4 The Church of all Religions.’
4 The Church Reform Society.’
4 The Open Church.’
4 The Church of the True God.’
4 The Church of Progress.’
4 The Free Catholic Church.’
4 The Universal Church.’
4 The Church of the Future.’
4 The Church of Religious Progress.’
4 The Church of the Law.’
4 The Church of all Faiths.’
4 The Church Founded on First Principles.’
4 The Universal Church of the Law.’
4 The English Branch of the Bralimo Somaj.’
4 The Friends.’
4 The Progressive Friends.’
4 The Moralists.’
4 The Free Religious Union.’ 3.
4 The Free Religious Society.’
4 The Free Religious Association.’ 2.
4 The Religious Union.’ 2.
�5
4 A Practical Religions Union.’
4 The Religions Alliance Association.’
4 The Religious Society of all People and of all
Nations.’
4 The Religious Liberal Association.’
4 The Society for the Promotion of Religious Liberty.’
4 The Modern Religious Society.’
4 The Rational Religious Society.’
4 The Common Brotherhood Religious Society.’
4 The Theo-Philosophical Society.’
4 The Universalist Society.’
4 The Universal Brotherhood.’ 2.
4 Sons and Daughters of God.’
4 The Universal Family of God.’
4 The Universal Family.’
4 The Christo-Theistic Society.’
4 The Christian Theists.’ 2.
4 The Eisotheistic Society.’
4 The Theistic Brotherhood.’ 2.
4 The Theistic Church.’
4 The Theistic Society.’ 3.
4 The Society of Theists.’
4 The Theistic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.’
4 The Theistic Theological Society.’
4 The Free Theistic Union.’
4 Theistic Christianity.’
4 The Deistic Society.’
Fifteen correspondents, therefore, have proposed names
in which the term Theistic occurs. On the other hand,
nineteen correspondents have declared themselves op
posed to that name, assigning various reasons for their
opposition ; and many others have proposed the other
names above reported, because they prefer them to the
epithet Theistic, which appeared in the heading of the
circular.
�6
III. The Provisional Committee beg to report that
they have received the following information as to the
persons likely to join in the movement.
The Committee have received the names of 245 persons
in various parts of the United Kingdom, as likely to co
operate, of whom ninety-eight have answered, expressing
themselves favourably towards the movement. Of these
persons, eighty-nine reside in the metropolis.
The Provisional Committee beg to report further, that
in addition to the names of individuals which are in
cluded in the foregoing numbers, they have received an
intimation, that at Edinburgh a congregation belonging
to a chapel, of which Dr. Page is the minister, and com
prising about one hundred members, will be likely to co
operate, and that in the same city there are about twenty
other persons who cordially desire such a Society.
These latter people formed a Society under the leader
ship of Mr. Cranbrook, but have become disunited in
consequence of the death of that gentleman, about a
year ago.
Mr. Walter Rew, of Sandgate, is the president of a
society, calling itself the ‘ Social Progress Association,’
and he has informed the Committee, that if the objects of
their proposed Society are sufficiently practical, he will
be happy to propose the amalgamation with it of his own
Association.
The Rev. W. J. Lake, of Leamington, is forming a
society in the Midland Counties, called the ‘Brotherhood
of Religious Reform,’ and has forwarded to the Com
mittee a copy of his programme. He has informed the
Committee that he will work with them, if their objects
are similar. The following is a copy of his programme :—
It is intended to form a Society, to be called ‘The
Brotherhood of Religious Reform,’ whose object shall be
to unite in a common religious fellowship, all who believe
�7
in the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man,
irrespective of all other beliefs they may hold, and by
this union of spirit to put an end to religious sectarianism
and to religious strife, and thus to lay a foundation for
the eventual building up of the one great church of the
living God, which shall be wide as the common need of
humanity, and which shall own as its members all who
love God, and who strive to lead a righteous and loving
life.
The operations of this Society will consist—
1. In the promotion of absolute religious equality ; to
be effected in this country mainly by the nationalisation
of the Established Church.
N.B. By the nationalisation of the Established Church
is meant, the abolition of the Act of Uniformity, and
of all compulsory belief or teaching. Also the establish
ment of a parishioner suffrage, by which the residents in
each parish shall be at liberty to select, from properly
educated and qualified candidates, their own minister,
and to determine the form and character of their worship.
2. It will be the business of this Society to investigate
the popular and accredited forms of religious belief, so
that, through the scholarly and scientific methods which
are now able to be employed, the absolute religious truth
may as nearly as possible be attained.
3. It will undertake the formation of public opinion
in accordance with these ascertained results, by the de
livery of lectures, and the promotion of controversy, the
issue of publications calculated to spread information on
these subjects among the people, and by all other likely
and appropriate methods.
4. It will undertake the immediate establishment of
a church or churches for the worship of God, in accord
ance with the fundamental elements of religious belief
before stated, and the maintenance of these by voluntary
effort, till such time as the national church shall be set
�8
free from the compulsory profession of sectarian dogmas
and mediæval creeds, and shall be thrown open, when
the majority of parishioners shall desire it, to the teach
ing and worship which sum up all the essential truth and
duty of religion in the simple requirements of love to
God as our father, and love to man as our brother.
IV. Among the suggestions that the Committee have
received in reply to their request for suggestions as to
the formation, objects, and modes of action of the pro
posed Society, are the following :—
As to the formation of the Society : That there shall
be, independently of the Society or Societies established
in London, a central Committee, which shall have for its
object the formation and encouragement of independent
branch Societies elsewhere, and shall serve as a means of
communication between such Societies, so as to preserve
union without compulsory uniformity of thought or action.
That admission to any of the affiliated Societies shall
be as wide as humanity itself, and with this view, that
there shall be no compulsory entrance fee or subscription.
The following suggestion has also been received, as
many persons cannot attend the meeting on July 20,
1870,—that the resolutions then passed shall be printed,
and votes taken from all the country correspondents who
have advocated the movement, before such resolutions
are finally adopted.
The following suggestions have been received as to
the objects of the proposed Society : —
Several correspondents approve of the statement of
objects contained in the circular.
One has suggested that the first object shall be ex
tended, so as to include the investigation of scientific as
well as religious truth.
It has been suggested that the Society ought to have
in view the two additional objects of :—
�9
I. Furthering education ; and,
II. Helping liberal churchmen.
Several correspondents have approved of the statement
contained in the circular of the modes of action proposed
for the Society.
One correspondent considers them too abstract and
indefinite ; on the other hand, another correspondent
recommends the adoption of as few rules as possible, and
seems to fear that these paragraphs will be found re
strictive.
None of the correspondents have objected to means
No. 1 (the holding of meetings for the reading of papers
and for conference), while several have written in favour
of it.
There has been much correspondence and difference of
opinion with reference to means No. 2 (the holding and
encouragement of meetings for the united worship of
God), the numbers for and against its adoption being
almost equally balanced.
There is a good deal of opposition to means No. 3 (the
helping of its members to ascertain and discharge their
personal and social duties), many persons believing that
it cannot be adopted as a mode of action without in
terfering with the individual conscience. It would appear,
therefore, that some of this opposition was occasioned by
a misapprehension of the aim of this paragraph.
No correspondent has expressed himself as opposed to
means No. 4 (the formation of similar Societies, with the
same objects, in various parts of the British Empire and
other countries) ; several, on the other hand, have advo
cated its adoption. It has been suggested that the action
of the central Committee in London should be supple
mented by the action of influential and energetic mem
bers, who should visit different provincial towns, and
stimulate to action those who feel the want of such a
Society as it is proposed to establish.
�10
Much has been written in favour of means No. 6 (the
issue of publications calculated to promote the above
purposes).
One or two think that the action of the Society in this
respect should be restricted to reprinting already existing
works or articles in periodicals which expound the prin
ciples of the Society.
Several suggest that a periodical or periodicals, monthly
or weekly, should be established for the diffusion of the
principles of the Society, for correspondence, and for the
information of country members.
In addition to the six modes of action proposed by the
circular, the three following modes of action have been
suggested, viz. :—
7. That lists of the members should be prepared and
circulated from time to time.
8. That the Society should assist in the formation of
libraries in various towns.
9. That there should be lectures given at fixed times
and places, accompanied by classical music, sacred or
otherwise.
The Committee have also received a pamphlet, con
taining very valuable practical suggestions, from Mr.
S. Prout Newcombe, of Croydon.
The variety of suggestions contained in the corre
spondence, of which the foregoing statement is an
analysis, as to the organisation of the proposed Society,
makes it desirable, in the opinion of the Committee, that
this subject should be further considered.
They will, therefore, invite the meeting to appoint a
Committee, by whom a scheme for the organisation of the
Society may be elaborated, and who shall report the
result of their labours to a meeting to be held early in
the ensuing year ; and they will request this meeting to
confine itself at present to resolutions by which the
�11
Society shall be constituted and its name determined, in
accordance with the general character proposed to be
given to it by the circular which has led to this meeting.
On the question of name, the Committee wish to report
that, although a majority has agreed upon a name which
will be proposed to the meeting, yet they have not
arrived at any unanimous conclusion. This result was
one that might be expected, having regard to the number
of different names suggested by their correspondents.
The Committee have found in this matter (as will
doubtless be found in many other cases) an occasion for
exercising that mutual deference of each for the opinion
of others which the proposed Society especially seeks to
cultivate, and without which it cannot exist.
The Chairman.—Ladies and gentlemen, I should have
hesitated to accept the responsible post of chairman of
this meeting if it had been intended to be anything in the
nature of a public manifestation; but we are met here
simply to have a friendly conference upon the very im
portant subjects which have been touched upon in the
printed circular which all of you have received, and
which have also been referred to in the report. I trust,
before the end of the meeting, we shall not only have
had a profitable and friendly conference, but really shall
have performed some practical business. Beyond that I
do not think it would be wise for us to attempt anything
at present. The facts which have been stated in the
report show what we have done to elicit opinions, and
what a large amount of sympathy with our views has
been expressed from all parts of England, and that there is
also, as might have been expected, a very wide diversity
of opinion expressed by our correspondents. I think it
is clear that, as we may, on the one hand, draw the con
clusion that a sufficient number of persons feel there
is a good work to be done by a society based on the
�12
principles which we have put forth to justify our proposing
to you that such a Society should now be founded, so, on
the other hand, it would be very unwise at the present
stage of proceedings to put the Society into a fixed and
crystallised condition. We must feel our way, gradually
establishing that which we feel ought to be established,
and leaving, as far as possible, the Society, when formed,
in an elastic state, to assume such a shape and adopt such
modes of action as it may from time to time find best
fitted to attain its objects. Probably many of those who
are here present may not be aware of the steps which
have led to the present meeting, and it may be well for
me, therefore, to refer shortly to them. This movement,
then, owes its origin to the arrival in this country of a
gentleman whom we already rejoice to call our friend—
Mr. Kesliub Chunder Sen. Since he came here, all of us,
I think I may say, who heard him speak at the meeting
held to receive him at the Hanover Square Rooms, or
who have from time to time since that meeting heard
him preach, have felt that in all its essentials the religion
of Mr. Sen was our religion ; and yet, on the other hand,
it is a remarkable fact that he did not find existing in this
country any religious organisation in which he could simply
feel himself to be at home. The feeling on the part of
his friends that there was something wrong in this state
of things led to a series of extremely interesting private
meetings, which were held at his house ; and in the
course of those meetings, the whole of which I had the
pleasure of attending, we found, as was to be expected,
that very similar thoughts had been excited in many
different minds, not only by his visit, but also by many
other circumstances which have occurred of late years.
Everybody seemed to be agreed that, somehow or other,
the religious organisations existing in England have for
the most part failed in their professed object—that reli
gion is, after all, nothing unless it is a uniting principle ;
�13
and yet, while everybody agrees in that opinion, some
how or other the actual religion professed in England
succeeds chiefly in keeping people apart, in marking
them off into separate bodies, and, when they are so
marked off, keeping them entirely asunder.
Then, looking at the subject from another point of
view, we all of us also felt that while, according to the
principles of our religion which we all accept, we ought
to consider ourselves one large human family, yet that, if
we looked into what was passing around us in our great
cities, throughout our country, and throughout the world,
we seemed to be acting in a very curious way when the
matter was considered from a family point of view. The
extraordinary contrast between the professed principles
of the religious organisations of civilised Europe, and the
actual practice of the most highly civilised nations, never,
perhaps, has received a more striking and melancholy
illustration than that which has taken place, even since
this meeting was summoned, in the terrible war which now
has actually commenced, and which, if we are a human
family, is, as all wars must be, a fratricidal war. In
trying to find out what was the cause of the two facts to
which I have alluded, we were pretty well agreed so far
as principle is concerned. With regard to the question
of religious organisations, it seemed to all of us, I believe,
that if we want to let religion do its proper work amongst
us, we must strip off the weeds and briars of multiplied
and complicated dogma which have encumbered and
choked the good seed of central religious truth. We
must get back, if we can, to that which is the foundation
of all religions, and in which we are all agreed. In this
attempt we find very little difficulty in accepting, as a
statement of that upon which we can all agree, the decla
ration that universal religion finds its sufficient foundation
in the two great truths of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man. Again, looking at the question
�14
from a practical point of view, it seemed also clear that
if we could, instead of wasting our time in barren con
troversies, apply ourselves to deduce from those two
central truths practical laws for the conduct of human
life, and make the entire round of human life impli
citly obedient to the laws which those central truths
teach, we should then not only succeed in giving, within
the range of our own people, the proper work to religious
organisations so founded, but we should also have esta
blished a society in which no friendly stranger, like Mr.
Sen, coming among us could ever feel himself to be a
stranger. It might be very possible—in fact it would be
certain—that among us there would be developed a large
amount of honest and earnest difference as to detailed
truths and subordinate principles of deep interest and
importance. But we thought there would be a very
large number who would feel that a common belief in,
and a common acknowledgment of, the fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man is sufficient to form
the basis of a religious union, and that in that religious
union all those who agreed in those two principles might
comfortably, cordially, and fraternally find a place.
We determined to see whether we could at once evoke
a sufficient amount of sympathy with those views to
justify us in attempting to found such a society. We
drew up the circular which has been sent about England
to the extent, as the report informs you, of about 2,200
copies. To those circulars we have received rather more
than 100 replies. If we compare the number of replies
with the number of circulars sent out, it certainly seems
very small. On the other hand, I myself consider that
it is an encouraging, and, on the whole, a satisfactory
result. We had no time, and had no very good oppor
tunity, of making a careful selection of the persons who
should be sent to. We took two or three lists, which
were accessible to us, of persons who had either sub
�15
scribed to some fund or some society which seemed to us
to indicate sentiments somewhat kindred to our own, and
we addressed our circulars to every name appearing on
those lists. It is very likely that the whole subject may
have been quite strange to some of them, and a very large
number of persons in England, and probably elsewhere,
take a long time to answer circulars, so that it by no
means follows that, even of those who have not replied,
the majority do not take an interest in the subject. On
the other hand, those circulars have elicited, as you
have heard, from a large and widely-scattered body, a
considerable amount of real sympathy. I was very glad
to see that the meeting seemed to receive with a welcome
the declaration in the report of the Provisional Committee,
that in our opinion the amount of sympathy we had
evoked is sufficient to justify us in founding the Society.
It will be necessary of course to consider very carefully
how far we shall go to-night, and what we shall declare
to be the nature and objects and modes of action of the
Society. On that point, my own belief is that we ought
to proceed carefully and slowly, and that it is much more
important that every step we take should be such as
will excite as much sympathy as possible among all our
friends, than that we should proceed in a hurry to do
something which might seem to have a more complete
appearance. I am afraid of being in too great a hurry to
draw up rules or to do anything more than declare our
general principles. It is quite clear that among the
friends who have signified their sympathy with us we
shall find a very large amount of difference of opinion,
and, in point of fact, the foundation of that sympathy
conies from two different sides. I shall be extremely
sorry if we are not ultimately able to combine the sym
pathy which has been evoked on both sides. I refer
especially to what I may call the speculative side of the
question—free thought; and the practical side of the
�question—the religious life. A very large number of
people who find themselves dissatisfied with the creeds
and customs of religious organisations express themselves
ready to join any society which, throwing off all shackles
of that kind, simply determines to pursue truth, wherever
truth may lie ; and I heartily sympathise with them, and
shall heartily rejoice if we find in our future Society the
means of assisting every earnest attempt at the investi
gation of truth in the freest possible way.
But, on the other hand, I take a still deeper interest in
the other side of the question, the practical application of
the principles we have accepted to the formation of a
religious life. It seems to me that the social evils of the
day may all be traced to the fact that there is such a wide
divorce between the principles which we profess when
we speak religiously, and the every-day practice of our
lives. I think, therefore, that while, as I have said, I
have the deepest sympathy with and shall always be ex
tremely glad to join in any free investigation of specula
tive truth, it will come more home to us as real pressing
business at the present time to see what we can do in
helping each other to ascertain what are the rules to
which we ought to render our daily lives subject, in order
that we may literally live upon this earth as a family of
God’s children ought to live.
Now, the wide differences which appear to exist and
the various shades of opinion which are prevalent among
our friends have been singularly and rather amusingly
illustrated by the long list of proposed names for this
Society which has been read to you by our Honorary
Secretary. It may be said that it makes very little dif
ference by what name we call ourselves, and that prac
tically the work which we do is the all-important subject.
No doubt that is so in the long run. Yet I am quite
sure that the feeling of our correspondents, which has led
them to lay great stress on the wise selection of a name,
�17
is, on the whole, a true one. Our name will be at
once the flag and the motto we display to the world,
and it is really of importance that we should adopt a
name which, while clearly expressing our principles, shall
attract as much and repel as little as possible. There
are many names which I could heartily accept, if there
were not already attached to them some unfortunate
association ; and I think it is important for us to avoid
any name which has already associated with it thoughts
and feelings and actions with which we should not wish
in any way to be identified. When we discussed this
question among ourselves in committee, even in a meeting
of from nine to a dozen, we found that we had the most
curiously varied associations with several of the names
which have been read to you. Among others I may
mention the term ‘Theistic.’ This term is one which, in
the mind of our friend Mr. Chundcr Sen, signifies every
thing which is most delightful and most religious and
devout. For my own part I have long looked upon it as
a word closely connected with all that I most value in
free religious thought—thought which is free, and, at the
same time, really religious; but yet I find that that is by
no means the case with many of those with whom it is
very important that we should be able to work in this
movement. We find among our correspondents that the
term is distinctly disliked and dreaded by a considerable
number. I mention this because it is the term I should
myself have by far preferred to any other, and yet it is
one as to which 1 have come to the conclusion that it
would be unwise in the Society to adopt it. You have
heard that, among the resolutions to be submitted to you
presently, is one for a name for the Society, and that that
name was not arrived at unanimously by the Committee.
In accordance with a common custom in such cases, it
was understood that we should not come down as a
committee and request you to accept the name proposed,
c
�18
.
but that tlic question should be left entirely free and un
shackled, that it should be discussed here and voted upon
without any weight being given to the accident that
there happened to be in the Committee a majority in
favour of a particular name. Accordingly, an amend
ment to that resolution will be moved. It is an amend
ment to the effect that it would be wise in us, on the
present occasion, to avoid pledging ourselves to any
name at all, and that the name, like the further details of
the Society, should be postponed to be further considered,
first by the Committee, whom we shall ask you to appoint
to-night, and afterwards by a meeting of the Society to
whom the Committee will report. I shall say no more
on that subject now, because it will have to be fully laid
before you at a later period of the evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is one point referred to
in the report, upon which there has been a good deal
of misapprehension among our correspondents, and on
which, therefore, I would say one word. It is with
regard to the third of what we have called the means
which the Society proposes to adopt, and which is worded
as follows : ‘ By helping its members to ascertain and dis
charge their personal and social duties.’ For my own
part, I consider, as I have already intimated, that that is
perhaps the most interesting and the most important
subject to which our attention can be directed, and I am,
therefore, extremely anxious that it should not in any
way be misunderstood. Some of our correspondents
have objected to that proposal, on the ground that it
would be impossible to adopt any practical measures for
giving it effect without infringing the rights of individual
conscience. It would be suicidal for a Society like ours,
which intends, as far as it can, to be an embodiment of
freedom with order, to do anything which could be open
to the accusation of infringing the rights of individual
conscience ; and the idea must have arisen, I think, from
�19
the supposition, that, under that head, it was intended to
adopt personal and social regulations which should be
binding upon the members of the Society. Nothing of
the kind has ever been contemplated by the Committee,
and I am quite sure nothing of the kind would be accepted
by the Society. One of the great rocks upon which, as I
think, the existing religious organisations of the country
have split, and are splitting, is what they call ‘ church
discipline.’ I trust that our Society will never attempt
to establish anything in the shape of church discipline.
While, however, everybody is absolutely free to do that
which is in accordance with his own conscience, it
seems to me that we should be abdicating what is the
great privilege of a religious fraternity, if we were to
shrink from discussing the question of personal and social
duties with those who may be willing to discuss them
with us. I trust we shall find it possible in an earnest
and faithful manner to assist each other in the attempt to
investigate in what way the principle of the brotherhood
of man ought to be applied to our daily life, in order to
produce the effects which we feel ought to follow from it,
but which we see around us at the present time do not
follow from it. I hope, therefore, the Society will accept
that as one of the most important branches of its ope
rations, at the same time being extremely careful that
nothing whatever shall be done, which can, in any way, be
said to be even an attempt to infringe individual liberty.
There is only one other point to which I need advert.
I think it would be wise to agree not only that a consi
derable part of the details of the working regulations of
this Society should be left in a provisional state, but that
we should express, in the constitution of the Society, the
idea that we can never expect to arrive at perfection,
and that the Society itself, therefore, is one of indefinite
progress. I, with some of those who are now present,
took a part in the attempt, which has come to an untimely
c 2
�20
end, to found what was called the ‘ Free Christian Union.’
From the first it seemed to me there were fatal errors in
the constitution of that Society, and I think the most fatal
of all was the declaration that any attempt to change
the programme, or the statement of the principles upon
which the Society was founded, should be considered
ipso facto a dissolution of the Society. In my view,
no Society is worthy of permanent existence which does
not embody in itself the idea of progressive development.
I do not, of course, mean that we are always to be
seeking change, but that we should always feel that
what we hold is good only until we see something better.
I should very much prefer to see in the constitution of,
our Society a distinct declaration, that once in five years
or once in a certain term of years, the whole constitution
should be submitted to the members of the Society for the
purpose of seeing whether suggestions could not be made
for improvement, rather than to see there anything like
a declaration, that, when we have once come to a con
clusion, we are to bind ourselves for all future time to
that conclusion, and that not only we ourselves for the
rest of our lives, but also those who may come after us,
are to agree with our present opinions.
I will not detain you, ladies and gentlemen, any longer.
I must express my great thanks for the kindness with
which you have listened to what I have said, and I will
now in conclusion move that the report which has been
read be received.
The resolution was then put to the meeting and carried
unanimously.
The Rev. J. E. Odgers.—Mr. Chairman, ladies and
gentlemen, I feel that the motion, which I have to re
commend to the meeting, follows with peculiar fitness
after the speech which has been just delivered, and is, in
point of fact, but the natural consequence which will
�21
suggest itself to every person who has heard you, Sir, with
sympathetic feeling. The resolution which I have to
propose is this—‘ That in the opinion of this meeting it is
desirable to form a Society to unite men, notwithstanding
any differences in their religious creeds, in a common
effort to attain and diffuse purity of spiritual life, by,
first, investigating religious truth ; secondly, cultivating
devotional feelings; and, thirdly, furthering practical
morality.’ I trust, Sir, that thus far the feeling of the
meeting will support both you and myself, and that the
applause which followed the statement in the report, that
the Committee felt justified in the formation of this Society,
is but the token of a wide and large sympathy both in
this room and outside it. For myself, I am only a country
minister, and I feel at present the strongest hope, from
this meeting, from the words you have uttered, from the
collection of opinion which has passed through the hands
of the Committee, that we may have a Society which shall
furnish those who labour for the principles of attaining
and diffusing spiritual life with a strong motive for ac
tion ; and by those means we shall bind those who
spiritually labour into one common bond of sympathy,
and give them at once that breadth of view and that as
surance of brotherly spirit of which they oftentimes feel
sorely in need. At the same time I rejoice to find that
this sympathy is a sympathy of spirit, and does not ne
cessarily involve an agreement in dogmatic propositions—that this Society proposes to take in all those who cordially
have those three objects in view, notwithstanding any
difference in their religious creed. While we are labour
ing, perhaps each in our several spheres, to support the
thought which is trusted to us, to cultivate and encourage
the life which we most deeply approve, and are perhaps
joined with some dogmatic body for the spread of the
theological views which commend themselves to us,
putting our hands to the plough as far as we can, and
�22
striving by association to make the truth, dear to us, per
fectly common to all mankind,—I feel that there is a need,
not only beyond that, but rendered necessary by those
associations, that we should go somewhere where a larger
and wider field would be open to us, where we should
escape at once from the doctrines which do attend sincere
individual labour in the search after, and propagation of
truth, and also which, in a double measure, attend the
religious associations of those who dogmatically agree.
Therefore, I look forward with the greatest pleasure to
joining and supporting, as far as in me lies, an association
where those, who theologically and religiously differ, may
come, and, taking their stand upon the first article of any
religious creed, however dogmatic, namely, 41 believe
in one God, the Father Almighty,’ may there get glimpses
of sides of religious life which have hitherto been closed
to them ; may find further views of religious truth shining
in on their minds as to those who are, generally speaking,
in time and place separated from them, and return to
their individual work of ascertaining and maintaining the
truth, and spreading, by teaching and example, practical
morality, with their minds refreshed by heartfelt com
munion with others, who bid them God speed across the
barriers of divergent theological theory, and, at the same
time, gaining that outlook into ultimate truth which the
naturally prophetic tendency of the mind does gain for
itself after having every opportunity of hearing the sincere
enunciation of opinion, which is at the present time broken
and varied as the truth reflects itself through the souls of
individuals.
I therefore submit most heartily, and with the strongest
individual feeling, this resolution to the meeting, and I
trust that what I have said will not be thought unprac
tical in itself, or as warring against the practical aims and
objects of the Society. If I, looking at it from my own
point of view, put the speculative side—the subjective
�23
side—first, I do not wish in the least to depreciate any
enumeration of practical ends, however various they
may be. The letters which I have received from my
own correspondents when I have sent them the circulars
of this Society mention very many practical aims, all of
which are in themselves most desirable, and may well
call for religious co-operation; but, at the same time, I
feel that these are early days to speak of the practical
aim of the Society. The great thing is to feel that we
are individually working only for those particular aims
which are dear to us who have communion, in the
highest and deepest sense, with others who are far off,
who are working for the same objects that we all pledge
ourselves to work for, and I feel at the same time that
ends will present themselves—they must follow out of
such communion of thought as I trust will be charac
teristic of this Society, and that we shall gain from this
Society ardour and heartiness of spirit, that we shall re
turn not pledged to any kind of mechanism or organisa
tion which is to hide the fact, that whatever good we do
must come from the determination and aspiration of the
soul, and will, therefore, be strengthened both for thought
and for work by the Association, the formation of which I
most heartily commend to this meeting. Therefore I beg
to propose to the meeting the resolution which I have
already read.
The Chairman.—Ladies and gentlemen, I have the
greatest possible pleasure in saying that this resolution
will be seconded by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. I must be
allowed to say that, not only because Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell is a valued personal friend of my own, but
because her taking part in this meeting I look upon as a
practical illustration of a great principle.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.—Ladies and gentlemen, I
second this resolution. Its object is union—the union
of all those who heartily love God. It is union for a
�24
practical purpose, viz., the attainment and diffusion of
pure spiritual life; a life which will express itself by
earnestly striving to carry out God’s Will in every action.
There is great necessity for such union. God has given
us enough glorious truth—moral, religious, and scientific
—to regenerate the world, if we would but put that
truth into practice; but we do not know how to shape
into deeds the teaching we get from pulpit, lecture-room,
and book ; this is not taught us. We allow ourselves to
float down the current of evil customs, shutting our eyes
to some, growing indifferent to others, because alone we
do not know how to avoid doing what everybody else
does. We thus become partakers in all the evils that exist
around us, and drunkenness, immorality, destitution, dis
honesty, crime, all have their roots in our own daily life.
There is no escaping from this terrible but grand brother
hood which binds us all together. Single-handed we cannot
resist the overwhelming force of social evils, but united we
may. With the strength of union we may insist upon a
truer education for our children; wTe may teach prac
tically habits of simplicity and industry to youth ; we
may carry out business honesty ; wTe may create a purer
social atmosphere around us. Such effort to regenerate
practical daily life, it appears to me, is the common
meeting-ground of all religious persons. We, with an
earnest Christian faith, can here joyfully meet all those
who love God and seek to obey his laws ; and in this
united effort to realise God’s laws we shall found the
Universal Church. I have great pleasure, therefore, in
seconding this resolution.
The Chairman.—I would now invite any lady or gentle
man to express any opinion on this matter. I hope it
will not be considered necessary, in order that an opinion
may be expressed, that it should be different from those
which we have already heard, for we should be just as
glad to hear additional reasons on our side of the ques
�25
tion, as wo should be ready to hear any opinion not
agreeing with ours. We should be very glad if those
friends from a distance, especially, would say what they
think on the matter.
Mr. F. Wilson.—Sir, I should just like to ask a ques
tion of the gentleman who proposed this resolution, and
it is this—how can people who differ in theological
matters agree to assemble under the proposition he
suggested ? We must have an individual and responsible
idea common to all the members of the Society, or else
the thing cannot work. We must have a centre, and
then you may widen the circumference to any extent
you please, but this centre must be universally recog
nised as a substantial starting-point.
The Chairman.—I don’t know whether Mr. Odgcrs
would wish to answer that question himself, but I must
say I myself consider that it is impossible for men to
unite for any good purpose, unless they also unite in
some common definite belief. On the other hand, I am
certain, from practical experience, that it is very possible
to unite people who combine with that common belief
quite an indefinite amount of theological difference. I
think, therefore, there is no reason at all why we should
despair of uniting in our Society people who, agreeing in
the two principles which we have adopted, namely, the
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man, yet add to
those principles a very indefinite amount, and possibly a
wide amount, of divergent belief on other points. Cer
tainly we should wish that the question whether they
could or could not unite with ns should be determined
by each individual for himself or herself.
Mr. Wade.—Sir, you were good enough to send to me
a circular stating to me the objects of the proposed
Society. I must say I was much puzzled to give an
answer to the questions which were asked, and I came
here to-night to hear some further elucidation from you.
�26
But I am puzzled now to know in which direction any
superfluous energies one might have can be thrown,
which might not be given to any existing free Chris
tian Church. I had hoped, sincerely hoped, since I
gathered from the Chairman that the old Free Christian
Union is dead, or must die, that we might probably
strike out some new course which, in consequence of the
desire for union among the various churches, and among
those outside the churches, might have drawn together
numbers of persons who, religiously speaking, have no
homes. The Chairman said we need not be agreed as to
a name to-night, but that is to be left open, and then the
following speaker who proposed the first resolution
ignores practicalities altogether. So far as I could follow
him, we might just as well be a corporation to propagate
moonshine as to ignore practicalities. Will you give me,
if you please, something upon which to act ? You ask
me to join you. Will you give me some definite notion
of what this Society is doing, or proposes to do, over and
above what any other Christian church is doing and may
do, such a church as that of Mr. James Martineau or such
as that of Mr. Conway ? We are asked to join with some
other rational beings in doing some work which those
churches are not doing. Show me, if you please, in what
way I can put my hand to the plough. My friend, who
spoke to the resolution, invited us to lay hold of, not a
real plough, but some speculative plough which he had in
his mind. Will you show me a real plough, which I can
lay hold of and work some great furrows, but do not let
us drive off into mere generalities, for that is the rock on
which many associations have split. I am a member of
the Free Christian Union, and I have asked what am I to
do in it. I have got no answer beyond paying my sub
scription to the Society from year to year, and receiving
a pamphlet, which of course, I am delighted to have. If
there is no work to be done, what on earth is a union re
ll
�27
quired for? Ought it not to do something to put into
practice that which stands as the second article of your
creed, that is, love towards man ? Surely that is not a
very difficult thing to do. Either you have got some
thing to do beyond what the other churches are en
deavouring to do or you have not. If you have, let us
know it. If you have not, what good will this Society
do ? If you will be so good as to enlighten my ignorance
on that point I shall be glad. I believe I do not stand
alone in that matter by a good many. We should be
glad to hear, since the mover of the resolution said he
ignored practicalities, some one who would tell us in
what way we can unite to do a work which is not being
done by any other Christian church in the country.
The Chairman.—I think I may make one very short
reply to the kindly criticism, with which we have been
favoured by the gentleman who has just sat down. In
the first place, I did not understand Mr. Odgers to ignore
practicalities. In the printed statement which is before
the meeting, there are three objects stated. The first
is, investigating religious truth. The second, cultivating
devotional feelings. The third, furthering practical
morality; and in the last paragraph those same general
objects are slightly modified and altered in their order.
They are there stated as follows : that the ‘ Society is
offered as a means of uniting all those who believe in the
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, in the
endeavour to supplement their individual efforts towards
goodness and truth by mutual sympathy;’—that corre
sponds with that which is put third in the paragraph
above, namely, ‘ furthering practical morality.’ Then, ‘ to
intensify their trust in and love to God by fellowship in
worship ;’ that is, in other words, the second object stated
in the first paragraph, namely, ‘ cultivating devotional
feelings.’ Then, ‘ to aid each other in the discovery and
propagation of spiritual truth, that thus they may attain
�28
to the more complete observance of the Divine laws of
human nature.’ That which is there put last corresponds,
I take it, to that which is put first in the first paragraph,
namely, ‘ investigating religious truth.’ I think the only
difference between the mover and seconder of the
resolution was, that Mr. Odgers distinctly stated that he
was more drawn by his sympathy for what is stated
first in the first enumeration of the objects of the Society
and last in the second enumeration of those objects,
namely, ‘ investigating religious truth,’ and less to the
practical part; whereas Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell stated that
her great interest was in furthering practical morality,
which is put last in the first and first in the second enu
meration of the objects of the Society, namely to supple
ment individual efforts towards goodness and truth, by
mutual sympathy.
Then, with regard to the question, whether our friend
should join us or not; of course we invite everybody to
join us who wishes to do so. But for my own part I do
not imagine that we shall be joined by a great many of
those who are in the happy position of belonging to a
society which entirely satisfies them. If any member of
the Portland Street congregation, or the South Place
congregation feels that either of those particular churches
completely satisfies all his desires for religious fellowship,
let him remain and be satisfied. We do not seek to
render him dissatisfied, but it is a fact which we find
existing, that there is a large number who do feel dis
satisfied, and who want something more. We offer our
organisation as an attempt to find out among ourselves
the causes and nature of our own dissatisfaction, and the
best practical mode of getting satisfied. Whether any
particular individuals, ladies or gentlemen, should join us
or not is, as I said before, a question which must be left
entirely for themselves to settle. For my part, I think
the enumeration of means under the second head of our
�29
printed circular holds out a prospect, if we can succeed in
getting the Society formed, of a good deal of practical
work which is not much done by any existing church
that I know of. The very first is this, ‘ Holding meetings
for the reading of papers and for conference.’ I am not
aware of any church that attempts anything of that kind
—certainly, neither of the two which have been referred
to does so. Then, secondly, ‘ Holding and encouraging
meetings for the united worship of God.’ That of course
is done by every church. But, taken in connection with
our avowed intention to endeavour to unite those who
belong to the various great branches of monotheistic
theology—Christians, Brahmos, Jews, Parsees, Mohamme
dans, it offers a work that has not yet been attempted, as
far as I know, by any existing church, whether orthodox
or free. Then, thirdly, ‘ Helping its members to as
certain and discharge their personal and social duties.’
No doubt the minister does something towards helping
the members of his congregation to ascertain and dis
charge their duties; but there is very little mutual
fraternal help arising out of the fellowship of the
scattered congregations with which I am acquainted in
London. Those three objects, to say nothing of corre
spondence and the issuing of publications, seem to me
to point out a very large field of practical work. I am
glad that all these questions should be asked, because the
more carefully the matter is considered the better it will
be for us. But we can only lay before you, as I said
before, that which is in our own minds and hearts ; and
if you find that you are perfectly satisfied without any
thing we have to offer, we cannot ask you to join us.
If, however, what we do place before you does seem to
you to be attractive, and to hold out some hope of
useful action on your part, then we ask you to join us.
Mr. Edward Webster.—Sir, I wish to make a few ob
servations with reference to what fell from the gentleman
�30
at the other end of the room (Mr. Wade). I would, in the
first place, ask those who are present, whether an Asso
ciation of this description is, or is not, a necessity of the
age, or rather of the intellectual religion which is so
rapidly spreading throughout the country ? If it be not
a necessity, then this Association will exist but a very
short time, notwithstanding the ability with which I am
quite sure its concerns will be conducted, from what I
have already heard from the Chairman to-night. But if
it be, as I for one undoubtedly think it is, a necessity of
the age, then you will go on, and you will establish
practically the most important religious principles that
have ever yet been communicated to the world. It
is impossible for any person who is at all connected
with the current literature of the age—with what is
going on in general society—I may say, in all ranks of
society, from the highest to the lowest—not to be aware
that doctrines and rules, in connection with religion,
which only twenty-five years ago were received as in
violable, arc now openly questioned—openly questioned,
not for the purpose of depreciating Christianity or re
ligion, but for the noble and exalted purpose of arriving
at truth, and that truth the most important of any. What
are we, and whither are we going ? what is to become
of the undying soul which every one in this room pos
sesses ? Hitherto science has not been applied to religion.
Look at all the religions of the world, and you will find
that science has had nothing whatever to do with them.
But that wondrous intellect of man, which has given us the
electric telegraph, which has enabled us as it were to fly
more speedily than the dove—that intellect is now being
applied to religion, and the consequence is, that there will
be new revelations of the dispensations of Almighty God
to man, and what hitherto have been considered penalties
and punishments will be found to be constructed upon
laws, spiritual, physical, and moral, absolutely perfect in
�31
their conception, and which have never required, and
never will require change, or amendment, or superses
sion, but by certain operations, slow to us but sure, are
effecting the ultimate social and religious civilisation of
the world. Gentlemen, union is strength ; and to tell
me that we are to stop because we cannot this evening
fix upon a name, is absurd. We shall have a name soon
enough, and such a name, I hope, as will unite very
many in supporting this Society. I do not hesitate to
say, and I am not a very young man, that the institution
of this Society has caused me more satisfaction than the
institution of any Society I ever heard of. Its importance
cannot be exaggerated. There is as yet no religion intro
duced into the world, which answers the conceptions of a
highly intelligent, highly cultivated, and highly benevolent
man. Therefore, Sir, I give you all the support I can, and
I most heartily hope that this Society is the commencement
of a thorough religious civilisation, and that it will end in
establishing universally, not only the worship of God, but
the brotherhood of man. Then, Sir, we shall not hear of
men armed to the teeth, and applying that noble mind
which God has given us, not for the purpose of insuring
human happiness, but for the purpose of destroying each
others’ lives. Christianity, as developed, has totally failed
to regenerate mankind. Eeligion founded on man’s in
tellect only will regenerate it, and that religion I trust
you are going to inaugurate this evening.
Mr. James Burns.—Mr. Chairman, and friends, I do
not rise to criticise the objects stated in the programme
of this Society, but rather to suggest something of a
practical character. I am already connected with a body
of people in this kingdom, numbering perhaps 20,000,
who are already endeavouring to do what this Society
contemplates. I see a number of those persons in this
room, and from them we can have practical suggestions
and sympathy. Now, Sir, there are several things con
�32
nected with religion. In the first place, there is senti
ment. We hear a great deal too much of that. In the
second place, there is faith; there is a great deal too
little of that. Then we have corresponding belief. Re
ligion is full of belief, but we put action out of view.
Then again, we have got dogmas or principles, but we
have not got objects. We cannot get all people to believe
alike, because every man will believe in accordance with
his culture and organisation. But there is one thino- we
can get all people to do, and that is, to move with one
beneficial object, namely, human happiness—an object of
all minds above idiocy. But we can never get two
minds to entertain the same conception of the same thing.
Even as to colours, if the organisation of vision is defec
tive, many persons entirely differ. I have to tell you,
ladies and gentlemen, that this Society is the expression
of that which has been going on among some people for
many years past, and all the things considered in your
programme are already at work in this kingdom. We
have Sunday meetings, where papers are read, and where
there is free conference. We have churches, where
there is no toll at the door, and no card for admission on
the platform. Again, we have religion in this country
which may be called scientific religion. What is meant
by that ? Simply, that there is no belief in a religion
which is not founded on facts. A scientific religion re
quires to be based upon man, and not upon God. What
do we know about God? We know nothing about God
further than what He has revealed of Himself, through
human consciousness. Let us realise the great fact of
human consciousness, and then I say all that we know
about God or anything else we can know only by careful
and intelligent investigation, and there are many things
which we can never tell with any degree of certainty.
To try to do so is unphilosophical, and can lead to nothing
but dogmatism. Why should we have dogmatism at all,
�33
where there is intelligence? Intelligence supersedes
dogma. Let us never name the word again, because it
is the sunken rock on which every ship has foundered
which has professed to take mankind to a religious haven.
What do we require to know ? We want to know what
constitutes human happiness. We want to know what
are the objects of human existence. Suppose it is im
mortality. The great object of scientific religion is to
liscover the fact of immortality—what becomes of men
after they leave off their mortality ? In what condition
lo they exist, and what is the relation of the present life
so the future life ? If you can answer those questions,
you know how to found a scientific religion, because you
?annot have a religion made up of mere morality;
morality is not religion—morality is only the performance
>f the various duties of life—
The Chairman.—Allow me, Mr. Burns, to suggest to
7ou that we are rather wandering to subjects which will
>ccupy a great deal of time, and I should like to
‘onfine the discussion to the resolution, which has been
noved and seconded, and to know whether or not we
hould adopt it.
Mr. A. C. Swinton.—Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlelen, among the objects of the proposed Theistic Society,
s stated in the prospectus issued by the Provisional
ommittee, is, ‘ To unite men, notwithstanding any differnces in their religious creeds, in a common effort to
ttain and diffuse purity of spiritual life.’ The question
now feel it my duty to put, in the presence of this
ssembly, is, Does this proposed Association mean to live
ccording to the divine laws of human nature, as that
reat example among men, Jesus Christ, lived? If so, of
>urse it must thoroughly renounce the present un•otherly system of life, and all that pertains to it. And
ch Theist, as a true child of God, and in His name,
ill proclaim by every deed of his daily life the falseness
D
�34
and criminality of the present system—a system based
on animalism, by which the millions of our actually de
serving fellow-creatures are forced by those who are
more powerful and cunning than themselves to be life
long slaves, and are thereby persecuted in the cruellest
manner, body and soul, to the present injury, and far
greater sin, of both oppressor and oppressed. If, there
fore, this proposed Theistic Society, despite its name and
provisions to the contrary, does not mean to supplant
this brutalising wrongdoing by the pure spiritual life its
Committee proposes to practise, then I say that far more
than is at present done by all the anti-Christian Churches,
and people falsely called Christians, is its dishonour of
God and its mockery of humanity. A few freed souls
have been striving to plant on earth that spiritual life
which the gentle and all-loving Nazarene, amid the
greatest opposition, many centuries since, heroically
proved to the world all might live, if they determined to
cast aside sensual selfishness, which blinds them, and
trust to the guidance of the divine soul within each one
of us for happiness, ever increasing and eternal. More
of these efforts may be heard of from me at the close of
this meeting, if it is desired, or of the Editor of the
‘Alpha,’ 15 Southampton Row, Holborn.
Mr. J. Baxter Langley.—Mr. Chairman, ladies, and
gentlemen, I rise with very great hesitation, because I
feel the question which I raise is one upon which there
is a great difference of opinion among those who desire
earnestly to co-operate in a religious movement of the
kind to be inaugurated here. The word ‘devotional’
occurs in the resolution, and I am sure it will convey to
many minds, as it did to mine, the idea of prayer
in public worship and prayer in the sense of petitioning
to the Deity. I believe that there are a very large num
ber of persons who are animated by religious sentiment,
who nevertheless believe that prayer in that sense is not
�35
part of our religious duty, and that it places both man
and God in a wrong position. Therefore I know that,
supposing the resolution were carried with the word
‘ devotional ’ included in it, it would drive away from you
many of those whom I should like to see united with
you—namely, those who philosophically object to the
word ‘ devotional ’ as relating to a form of prayer. I
simply wish to raise the question, whether that word
must be regarded as an essential part of the resolution.
If so, it will exclude myself and those with whom I
am accustomed to co-operate among the advanced
Unitarians.
The Chairman.—We have been desirous so to pre
pare our resolutions as to cause as little difference as
possible ; but I have no doubt it would be quite im
possible to draw up any resolution, and it would be use
less if we could succeed in doing it, which would exclude
nobody. There must be a certain amount of community
of feeling, as I have said already in answering a previous
question. I can only say that the phrase which has been
objected to expresses one of the main objects of the
Society. The cultivation of devotional feeling was a sub
ject which was well considered and very deliberately and
unanimously adopted by the Provisional Committee;
and on the part of that Committee, I have no hesi
tation in saying that they intend to adhere to that phrase.
With regard to what it applies to, or what it means, I
have no authority to enter into that question at all; each
person must judge for himself as to the phrase itself.
The Committee who have called this meeting, and who
have hitherto acted in this movement, heartily adhere
to it.
Mr. E. D. Darbisiiire.—Sir, I feel very much interest
in the programme which I hold in my hand, but I have
very great doubts as to the object of the proposed
Society, much as we have heard of it. I have taken
p 2
�much pains to form my own opinion upon those subjects
mentioned in the circular. I am in doubt at this moment
whether the object of the Society is to unite men or to
make a common effort to attain and diffuse purity of
spiritual life. If the object of the Society is to unite men,
I am afraid the Committee, in their efforts to unite, will
lose that precision of thought, and that resoluteness of prin
ciple, which always disappear from attempts at compro
mise. The object of the Society, so far as I have heard
from the speakers to-night, is a common effort to attain
and diffuse purity of life ; not to unite men. We do not
care for the mere fact of uniting men. The mere fact of
uniting men is of no use. If they are heartily unanimous
in their object—if they are prepared to pledge them
selves to join together—if they hail with the sincerest
thankfulness the authority of the moral law, recognising
similar devotion on the part of their members, whom
they did not know before, as they themselves feel—they
will gather strength from knowing that others have the
same aspiration and the same longing with themselves,
and they will earnestly unite for such a purpose. That
is all our resolution proposes, as it seems to me—that the
Society shall be formed for a common effort to attain
purity of life, and not to unite men.
The Chairman.—Mr. Darbishire is. undoubtedly quite
correct in what he has said. The object of the Society is
a common effort, and it is to unite men only so far as is
necessary to carry out that common effort. Of course
there can be no common effort without union. The
object of the union, no doubt, is not as an end, but
simply as a means — the end being the common
effort.
The resolution was then put to the meeting, and
carried, with four dissentients.
�37
Mr. Vansittart Neale.— Mr. Chairman, ladies, and
gentlemen, the resolution which I have been asked to
propose is, that the name of the Society be ‘The Uni
versal Religious Association.’ Before I address myself to
the resolution distinctly before you, I wish to disclaim,
in my own name, any notion that I am speaking for any
body except myself. I infer it is one of the charac
teristics of the Society which I hope to see formed, that
in it we should feel that we are not bound by the
opinions of other people ; that we do not pledge our
selves to accept the opinions of all those with whom we
may be associated in this Society, or whom we may ask
to join in the Society ; nor are we to ask them, or require
them, to accept our opinions. But we do ask, and we
hope it may be possible to show, that there should be a
common basis of union, defined, distinct, and practical,
so far as such union can be practical, upon which we may
act, preserving to ourselves that individuality of opinion
without which I myself am convinced it is perfectly im
possible that mankind could ever arrive at a general
acceptance of any religious truth as something in which
they commonly agree.
Now, Sir, as to the name. I have heard, what I was not
aware of before, that it is intended to propose that the
question of the name to be given to this proposed Society
should be deferred for further consideration. I confess
my own opinion is that it would be a great mistake to do
so. Unless it should appear to-night that there is an
irreconcilable diversity of opinion as to what the name
ought to be, I think that the not adopting a name would
be as much as to say we do not ourselves clearly under
stand what we want, we have no distinct idea what the
Society is to exist for, and therefore it is impossible for
us to give it any title which would enable any other
people to tell what it is we ask them to join in. I myself
have a very distinct idea of a principle up >n which I
�38
think it is possible to form the Society, and perhaps I
may be allowed very shortly to fall back upon what has
already been said as to the question which has been
asked, because I think the conclusive answer has not yet
been given—I mean the question as to what such a
Society as this can do which any other free Christian
Church cannot do. I say the answer to that question is
this : it can unite those persons who, having a deep reli
gious feeling, cannot join any Christian Church. That is
what it can do. It can unite the gentleman wrhom I
have the honour to see to-night on my left (Mr. Sen) ; it
will unite the Mohammedan and the Parsee; and it will
unite gentlemen like the author of ‘ The Phases of Faith ; ’
it will unite numbers of those who are now balancing
between Pantheism and the acceptance of that which we
have called Theism. It may unite all those who cannot
and will not join any Christian Church, and in doing that
you will do much to make all those who are members of
Christian Churches understand what it is they ought to
aim at. That is the principle on which I would support
this Society. That is what I think this name, which I
propose, expresses. I think it is apparent, from the list
of names read to you from the report to-night, that there
are at least three different views or heads of what the
name for such a Society as this should be, all of which, I
think, are mistaken ones. There are certain persons who
think that the Society should come out with a definition
of what they call absolute or universal religion, and thus
place itself in a species of critical antagonism to all ex
isting forms of faith. I think that would be a very great
mistake. The object of the Society, I consider, is to bring
men into that state of mind towards each other in which
it may be possible for them thoroughly, fairly, and calmly
to investigate and to judge of what there is which is true
and what there is which is not true in different religious
faiths. Until they have brought themselves into that
�39
state of mind they cannot be in a state of mind to define
in a satisfactory manner what are the religious truths
which they themselves coincide with, and which they
seek to inculcate. Again, there are certain persons who
would suggest apparently that the Society should put
itself under the protection of some existing religious in
stitution, or under some form of Christianity. Here again
I consider we should start upon a great mistake if we did
that. I myself do accept individually that truth as to
which others differ ; for I do accept, and hold, and believe
in the truth of that which has been considered by many
persons to be altogether contrary to reason, that which
has been the foundation of what is called the Catholic faith,
upon which Christianity has been historically founded.
I accept it entirely, although I am not going, of course,
to occupy the meeting with any discussion upon that
point. But I consider that there is no religion, there is
no faith, there is no religious dogma whatever, which
is not influenced by the myths and legends or notions
with which it has been associated. No society which
could hope to bring man generally to the acceptance of a
faith that should extend all over the world can exist at
all if it does not leave itself open to the true, careful,
calm investigation and examination of all those matters
that may be contemned, or may be insufficiently founded
on facts in the existing creeds. Then again there is
another idea which has been prevalent to a certain extent
in America—namely, that the Society is to meet and say,
‘ We hold a number of very different opinions, and we
simply agree to come together and tell each other that
we differ.’ I think that would be an extremely unsatis
factory foundation on which to form the Society. I
cannot imagine that the Society would attain any valuable
action if it were to adopt that as its sole basis. What is
it that the Society ought to stand upon ? I consider that
the Society aims at doing this : it aims, or should aim,
�40
according to my idea, to unite men within their different
faiths by leading them to feel that all of them are, to use
a Biblical phrase, the sheep of one Master, although they
may be separated for the present in many different folds ;
to lead them to believe that there is a spirit common to,
pervading all religions, even those which we most gene
rally condemn as false religions ; there is a spirit per
vading them all, which is the profound spirit of religion,
a part of which each one of the special creeds has
more or less ambiguously given utterance to, but to which
it is our object to bring them back, saying to men, ‘You
remember that all your own acts, all your own dogmas,
all that you, in your own particular religious creeds, may
endeavour to insist upon, they are only helps, and should
be regarded only as helps, to the development of a com
mon foundation which may be said to be the manifesta
tion of the really divine and universal religion of man.’
I consider that every religion has, more or less, been
founded upon trust in God. It is perfectly true that the
idea of trust has been embarrassed by a great deal of
distrust; it is quite true that men are continually talking
as if they were, and imagined themselves to be, in an
tagonism to God, and God in antagonism to them, and
they suppose that it is necessary to put an intervening
mediator between themselves and God, in order to relieve
that antagonism which they imagine exists. But this
mediator and the system of mediation have been intro
duced because they have got in their minds, in spite of
all this intellectual trust, a profound feeling of distrust in
the Being who is the Author of their own lives and the
Author of this wonderful world, and because they wish
to get rid of and relieve any element of distrust, and to
give vent to the confidence in the Being on whom their
lives depend.
Then I say that every religion has, more or less, sought
to affirm fellowship among men. There again we have
�41
the same sort of error. That fellowship lias been limited
to the fellowship of some particular nation, or the fellow
ship of those belonging to some particular sect, or hold
ing some particular set of opinions. There has been a
failure in establishing a feeling of fellowship among men
by having a common relation to the Great Being to whom
they owe their existence. The third great element has
been this : that religion is a matter of revelation ; it is
not an invention of man’s imagination only, but that it is
something which man, through his imagination, appre
hends as the action of God towards him, by means of
which man is brought, through the action of God, to the
apprehension of those deep and spiritual truths upon
which his whole life depends. Here again we have had
the same sort of mixture of error with truth which we
have found in other cases. Here again it is our object
to eliminate that error. Men have generally supposed
that the idea of a revelation was something authoritatively declared at some part of the remote past, and
which for ever after was to be accepted upon certain
grounds with the same evidence. There is another and
grander idea of revelation, wdiich has been imputed to
the Roman Catholic Church—the revelation of a con
tinuous progress, or something going on from the begin
ning of the world, and which will never terminate till the
world itself is terminated—a continual manifestation of
God to man by means of which man is brought into a
more thorough appreciation of his relation towards God,
and, therefore, his relation towards himself. It is the
belief in this system of revelation of continual progress
which I say we substitute for the idea of the authorita
tive revelation, and it is that which completes the scheme.
The third great principle which lies at the bottom of all
religions, and which it is the object of this Society to call
forth and bring out in its purity------ I do not wish to
occupy your time much longer, but these considerations
�42
appear to me very essential to bring before the Society
(although I have been able to do so only in a very im
perfect manner), in order to make you share my convic
tion that the Society has a distinct object on which it
may be formed, and which it may express by its name.
I think the name suggested is one which meets all those
views as well as any name that can be suggested. ‘ The
Universal Religious Association ’ expresses, I think, all
those convictions. It expresses by the word ‘ universal ’
a desire to take in all mankind, that we regard the pro
cess of revelation as something carried on among all
nations throughout all ages, and that we go to all of
them, in order to invite all to join us, and gather from
all of them those signs and features of truths which they
have adopted. Again, it is to be a religious association.
It is to be a union of trust in God; and it affirms the
fellowship of men one with another, which is the second
great principle upon which true religious faith is founded.
I say, therefore, that this name seems to me to express
the object of the Society, such as I conceive it to be, as
fully as any name could express it; and I have, there
fore, no hesitation in recommending to this meeting that
that name should be adopted.
Mr. Andrew Leighton.—Mr. Chairman, I will consult
the desire of the meeting by exceeding brevity, and I
will simply formally second this resolution, reserving to
myself the opportunity of making any remarks at the
close of the discussion if it should be necessary, but not
otherwise.
The Chairman.—As I know there is an amendment to
be moved to this resolution, perhaps it would be con
venient that that should be proposed before any general
discussion takes place.
Mr. Edward Henry Busk.—As you, Sir, have called
upon me to move the amendment at once, I certainly
will do so. Taking as I do so great an interest in this
�43
Society, I move any amendment upon a resolution which
the Provisional Committee has thought fit to bring before
the meeting to-night with the greatest regret. It is from
no wish to force upon the Committee, or upon the Society
which this meeting has declared its desire to found, any
name of my own selection. It is, perhaps, not even
from any feeling that the name which the majority of the
Committee desire to recommend to-night is in itself very
objectionable, but it is from a great desire on my part to
prevent the Society from being misconstrued unneces
sarily by those who have not joined it. The name itself
may seem a very unimportant matter; but, in fact, the
name is the only thing which comes before persons who
are not members of the Society. The name to them re
presents the Society. It is a very important thing, there
fore, that the name should represent the object of the
Society, and, as far as possible, be kept free from being mis
represented and misunderstood. At the same time, it is
not at all important, in my view, that a name should be
speedily fixed upon. We have already passed, almost
unanimously, a resolution which states in very distinct
terms the objects which it is proposed that this Society
shall have in view. It cannot, therefore, be said that, in
thus declining to choose a name to-night, this meeting is
forming a Society without having any distinct object. It
has three very distinct objects ; but at the same time the
name, the short placard which will set before the external
world the objects which we have in our hearts and minds,
is a thing, in my judgment, requiring careful considera
tion. It is not, of course, my place to make known to
the meeting everything that has passed in committee, but
I think I may inform the meeting that the list of names
I have read in the report only came before the Committee
last Monday, and they had then and there to select a
name. Therefore I do think there was very little time
for thought as to the best name to be selected. There
�44
was not unanimity at our committee meeting, as you,
Sir, have said ; and I feel that the subject of choosing a
name is so important, as compared with the fact of being
without a name for four or five months, that I do earnestly
entreat the meeting to consider whether the choice of a
name ought not to be deferred until we have had a longer
time to consider. It is in itself a matter of detail, and,
as the chairman has already informed you, it is the inten
tion of the members of the Provisional Committee to brine»o
before this meeting a resolution to the effect that it
should be referred to a Committee to complete the or
ganisation of this Society, to form rules as to member
ship and as to the management of the Society, and various
questions of that kind which cannot be gone into at a
meeting of this general nature. I therefore move the
amendment, ‘ That this meeting do not commit itself to the
choice of a name, but that the choice of a name be re
ferred, together with the other details of completing the
organisation of the Society, to the Committee,’ which I
hope this meeting will soon appoint.
I will not detain the meeting one instant more. I
wished merely to put before you, as shortly as possible,
the extreme importance of the choice of an appropriate
name, and the desirability of not taking any step which
we should at any time wish to retract, and which we
should regret having taken hastily and without due con
sideration.
Mr. Armstrong.—I beg leave to second the amend
ment, not exactly in the same interest in which it has
been moved by Mr. Busk, but because a name has been
running in my own head which has not been mentioned,
and which I cannot help thinking would recommend
itself to a large number of persons; and, in order that
that name may have a chance of being considered by
the Provisional Committee, I rise to second Mr. Busk’s
amendment. I suppose that the liuc of thought and
�45
feeling which has led the gentlemen forming the Pro
visional Committee to call us together to-night has
been, at any rate, a certain dissatisfaction with the
general lines of religious thought existing around us.
Thought on serious matters seems at the present day to
be running chiefly in two channels: the one is the
ancient channel which regards certain dogmatic beliefs,
whatever they may be, as essential to salvation, and
insists that all men must come to one dogmatic belief in
order that they may be saved; the other is the reaction
on that old belief, which is beginning to overthrow all
distinctively religious thought, and to teach us that man
need not look to anything higher than himself for instruc
tion and light, and that all that has been accustomed to
go by the name of religion may be entirely abandoned.
I apprehend the desire of the Committee would be to
take a medium course; and while rejecting the notion
that any special dogmatic belief, be it Ritualistic, Evan
gelical, or otherwise, is necessary to salvation, nevertheless
they would contend that some religious belief, or, at any
rate, some religious life, is necessary to salvation in its
highest sense—that salvation is an assimilation with the
Divine Being, whom they believe to govern the universe;
and the great religious work before us is to draw man
nearer to that Divine Being. Whether these thoughts
ran in the mind of the Committee or not I cannot tell.
I can only judge from the internal evidence which I find
in the prospectus. I have only endeavoured, as I sup
pose all who received this circular have, to get out of my
brain some name to express this object. I entirely agree
with Mr. Busk, that our name is an exceedingly im
portant point. By our name we shall stand or fall ; by
our name we shall be judged by Saturday Reviewers and
all that tribe ; and if they can find anything to ridicule
in our name, we shall find it hard to contend against it.
But of the names our secretary read, every one con
�46
tained either the word ‘ Religious’ or the word ‘ Theistic.’
Objections have been urged to both those names, the
objection to ‘ Theistic’ being, I presume, that, however
grand and noble the word may be in itself, it may give
rise to certain prejudice, and is not generally understood
in its proper and primary sense. A Theist is a person
who believes in a God. Nevertheless, I have spoken to
many Christian persons of various Churches who were
quite shocked at my notion that they were Theists. I
think, therefore, it would be well if we could find some
other name than ‘Theistic’ by which we could express
our objects, and which there would be no objection to
our adopting. On the other hand, the objection to the
word ‘ Religious,’ to my mind, is that there are things
professed as religious which I, for my own part, am not
inclined to recognise as religious in the proper sense of
the word. The Secularists and the Positivists tell us of
Secular religion and Positive religion. I have no objec
tion either to Secularists or Positivists. I believe many
of them are good and earnest men, but at the same time
I do not think we should find it practicable to work in a
religious association with them. I do not think we
should find we had a common aim and object, and I
doubt whether a society such as that would be found to
be practically useful. I would, therefore, suggest that
the Committee do consider the word ‘ Monotheistic.’ The
word is a very long one, and it may sound too learned.
At the same time I think it combines all that one under
stands by Theism, without having any accretion around
it such as gathers around the word ‘Theistic.’ I sup
pose you do not contemplate being Polytheists, and
therefore I do not think, by adding the word ‘ Mono ’ to
‘ Theistic,’ that you will practically narrow your Society
at all. Monotheistic may seem to be a word out of place
in England; you may say that, by taking the name of
Monotheistic, it is implied there is a Polytheistic Society
�47
against whom we are engaged. But this Society is
not an English Society; it is not even a European
Society; but it is to be a world-wide Society, if the
world will join us. Polytheism is not yet eradicated
from the world ; it still exists in many countries in the
East; and I think by adopting such a name as Mono
theistic we should avoid all prejudice such as gathers
around the word ‘ Theistic.’ We should be distinct and
precise, and not misunderstood by any party ; not lay
ourselves open to ridicule, but express exactly what are
the objects of the majority of the members of the Pro
visional Committee. I have great pleasure, therefore, in
seconding Mr. Busk’s amendment.
Mr. Owex.—Sir, I would support the amendment, and
merely observe that the suggestion made by the last
speaker is one I approve of, although I should like it
better were the title to be ‘ Monotheistic Brotherhood.’ I
was heartily pleased and delighted when I read the pro
spectus, and I thought if a name could be selected in
which both points might be embraced, that of the father
hood of God and the brotherhood of man, it would be
very desirable. I think this comes nearer to it than any
name which I have yet heard. For that reason I sup
port, or rather endorse, what the last speaker has said. I
regret to find that there should be any division to-night.
I believe that in spirit we all agree. I think Mr. Swinton
ought to be satisfied with what this Society intends to do.
It is what I have desired to see for a long time—namely,
a broad platform where any man might stand upon equal
terms with others. I have had much experience with
different denominations, those who profess the popular
Evangelical views and others, and I do not question the
reality of their convictions and enjoyment, although I do
not agree with them. I say there is a reality among
them, and I respect them, and I want to be able to stand
>n the platform side by side with them. I give them
�48
credit for their sincerity, and can understand them when
they say they can realise acceptance with God. I can
appreciate the worthy stranger to whom I have listened
with satisfaction and delight, though introducing views so
different, when he took for his text, ‘ God is love,’ and
when he illustrated that love by referring to the return
ing prodigal. I thought then it was time we had a
movement such as is now being inaugurated, and I hope
those of my friends who have not gone cordially with the
votes will reconsider it, and will not act in opposition, but
in concert. There will be opportunities afforded for con
ference and for the reading of papers, and the Society
will afford them an opportunity of submitting any views
which they may desire to bring before us. I have very
frequently said, and I wish you to bear it in mind (and I
have been labouring outside for many years in attempt
ing such an object), that the things you are now suggest
ing I have attempted to do. I have referred to the
Catholic Church. They have one grand idea, but their
mistake is that they want every one to be of one mind.
But cannot we have all under one Shepherd? Cannot
we have all in one fold, and be looked upon as one
Church ? As things are now, a premium is paid on
hypocrisy. We want each man to be true to himself.
In opening associations like this there will be every
scope offered for humility, as there is a bare possibility
that we may be wrong. When we establish a Society
like this, if any member has anything to communicate,
he will be in a position to do so more than he is now,
when the different sects stand at daggers’ points.
Air. E. Webster.—Sir, I think it would be wise to post
pone the final resolution of this Society with regard to
the name, because I think the name in itself is very im
portant indeed. Moreover, I should object to the name
that has been mentioned, because it is too vague. ‘ The
Universal Religious Society ’ would not carry to ordinary
�49
minds the true nature of this Association. I presume, of
course, when the Society comes to be organised it will
have some system of public worship, because, unless it
applies to the spiritual sentiment of human nature, it will
at last merely become an institution for the circulation of
papers on theological subjects. Man is, by nature, a
gregarious creature, and more especially in matters con
nected with religion, and unless you have some system of
public worship I venture to predict your Society will
ultimately fail. The words ‘ Religious Association ’ do
not point to religious public worship at all. If you had
some such name as this, 4 The Church of God for all
People of all Nations,’ the word 4 Church ’ would in
this Christian country carry with it an idea of public
worship. I do not mean to say that that is a better
name than that which is mentioned in the resolution. I
should like to know very much from our Asiatic friends
what the meaning of the word 4 Theistic ’ is, as understood
in that part of the world, but the word throughout
Christendom has a certain definite meaning. I mention
that now for the purpose of showing my reasons for
voting for the amendment. I think the name has never
been sufficiently considered, and I am not content with
the name that has been mentioned, because it is much
too vague.
Mr. Charles Pearce.—Mr. Chairman, brothers, and sis
ters, I shall support the amendment, but not for the same
reasons for which my friend opposite (Mr. Armstrong)
supported it; and, before I make a very few remarks, I
should like to clear away one or two difficulties which
probably his remarks have made. He suggested a name
in his own mind as one which was suitable to this
Society—that is, Monotheistic, if I understood him aright,
because in the world there were many gods, or rather
there was worship of what are supposed to be numerous
gods. Without entering into any theological discussion,
E
�50
I desire simply to carry your minds back some 4,000 years
since, and to remind you that all the efforts of Moses
were to destroy the worship of gods and to enunciate the
worship of the one true God. Therefore I earnestly
hope you will dismiss from your minds at once any idea
of adopting such a name. We do not want to have this
country and the world embroiled, as were the nations
around the Children of Israel, for the purpose of putting
down the worship of many gods. Our brother’s obser
vations would not apply, for he said we have Positivists
and Secularists ; and I do not think that the name pro
posed, of ‘The Universal Religious Association,’ would be
a name under which we could unite with Positivists and
Secularists. I gathered from his remarks (I do not wish
to do him any injustice) that he would not unite with
Positivists and Secularists. Now, if he did say so, he at
once condemns himself as being unfit to join this Associa
tion. For I take it that if we believe in the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man, if a man be a
Positivist because he has by using his intellect become a
Positivist, he is still a child of God and still a brother ;
and it is just the same if he be a Secularist. I say, all
honour to the noble Secularist of Manchester who chal
lenged his lordship the Bishop to meet him on some fair
platform. They are men and they are brothers.
Now I will state my reason for not agreeing with the
name ‘ Universal Religious Association.’ My reason is
simply this, that no one attempts to define religion. Mr.
Vansittart Neale says, if we ask what is the meaning of
the term ‘ religious,’ we must criticise all religions. Of
course we must. There is only one religion, and that is
very easily found if you are desirous of finding it—it is
the religion of love. It was professed by Jesus Christ
1,800 years ago. It was professed by Confucius nearly
3,000 years since. It was professed by Brahma and
Buddha. It was professed by all the Reformers. We
�51
do not want the religion of love hampered up with doc
trines or dogmas at all. Then we must say what is the
meaning of the word ‘ religious.’ If you can apprehend
thoroughly your relationship to God, or to the cen
tral source of life, call that central source by any name
you please, if you once recognise that from the central
source you issue, then you are a child of the central
source; and every man, woman, and child, no matter
where they are, or in what condition or circumstance,
are your brothers and sisters, and that is the religion of
love. I only support the amendment upon the name to
night that there may be some time to think of the name.
The name proposed is a very fine name, and it is one of
the most suitable you could think of, if you could only
well define in your own mind what religion is. When I
sent in my reply, I thought no name was so suitable as
‘ Theistic Union,’ if Theism were thoroughly exemplified.
I only oppose the carrying of the resolution and support
the amendment that you may think over it, and come
better prepared at the next meeting to vote as to the
name to be given to this Association.
Now let me ask you just to consider one statement.
You say you are here with the desire to associate to
gether as brothers and sisters in forming this Association,
and if you form it under the title of a ‘ Universal Religious
Association,’ you accept the definition of religion that it
is your duty to God, knowing your relationship to Him,
and you accept the duties which devolve upon you when
you meet your brothers. This is important ; and please
to listen to it fairly and in the same spirit in which I offer
it to you. Do you think that the Divine Being is a
respecter of persons? No, you do not. Do you think
the Divine Being gives one man 800,000/., and gives
800,000 men nothing a year ? Certainly not, and He
never intended it. If we are going to work, and not to
talk, one of our efforts will be to carry into daily life that
E 2
�52
precept laid down by the Nazarene Carpenter, ‘ As you
would that men should do unto you, do ye also unto
them.’
Mr. Baxter Langley.—I should like to say a word
or two with regard to the name to be given to the Asso
ciation. I am still in hopes that, as the Society was itself
open to discussion and consideration, it may hereafter
amend the first resolution and adopt some other prin
ciple. I submit for your consideration, and with due
respect, that you will find by experience that you cannot
do by the resolution what I had hoped you intended to
do. I wish to say one or two words as to this Society
being called ‘ The Universal Religious Association.’ I want
to show you, in one or two brief sentences, that it cannot
be universal if you adhere to your first resolution. As I
understand, we came here together to-night to bring as
large a number as possible into religious association ; and
the gentleman at the bottom of the room, very early in
the meeting, said with great force, as I thought, that the
Society must offer something beyond that offered by other
Churches. The question is whether, having adopted the
platform you have to-night, and having determined to
adhere to it, you are not, by calling yourselves ‘ The Uni
versal Religious Association,’ placing the Society in an
equally absurd position as if you called yourself the
Catholic Church. With all respect to the gentlemen who
have spoken, I hold that there are a very large number
of Secularists who are tired and worried to death with
discussions, disputations, and debates upon dogmatic reli
gion who would gladly have welcomed a meeting of this
kind if it had been of such a nature as to present a
platform which was unobjectionable to them. I believe
it was quite possible to adopt a platform which, while it
would have included those connected with Christian
Churches, would yet have been so adapted to the wants of
the age as to have included all those men who are animated
�53
by deep religious feeling and desire religious co-operation.
The orthodox Churches are admitted to have failed, and
a great number have admitted that many of the heterodox Churches have failed. It is a fact that I very
much regret. Having been identified with the Unitarian
Churches, I can say that they are comparatively desolate
and deserted. They are only filled when there is some
man of remarkable ability and eloquence who calls to
gether a congregation simply by the dramatic character
of his eloquence. They have all been rendered desolate
by the fact that they have determined to have as a basis
of worship that there should be a certain creed ; that
lies at the root of the whole of this evil. If you could
adopt such a platform as would be truly universal
then you would bring in a very large number of
people—some of those speculative persons who have
been alluded to in terms hardly so respectful as ought to
have been used—you would bring in a large number of
earnest Secularists who desire to join in what is commonly
known as Christian work and benevolent enterprise.
Now, what are the two ideas which you have embodied
in your programme which would prevent, I believe, the
possibility of this union ? I know that many persons
adhere to the idea of a personal God as being essential
to true religion. I am not an atheist myself, but I claim
that there is a religious spirit existing in the minds of
those who differ from me and from you on that essential
point. I believe there is an enormous amount of useful
effort to be carried on in the world without any dogma
of that kind. And it is a dogma with regard to the
personal existence of the Deity. The other idea to which
I have alluded is that which may be said to have been
embodied in George Coombe’s ‘ Constitution of Man ’—a
work written by a man of the highest ability, of great
earnestness, and of deep religious feeling. His chapter
on Prayer has been adopted and accepted by a large
*
�54
number of persons calling themselves Christians. If you
are to adopt the two ideas to which I have referred, you
cannot get a basis of union which will embrace persons
other than those embraced in the existing Churches;
the Church in South Place includes a very large
number of persons who go the length to which I have
referred to-night. There are other persons who go the
same length among Unitarian ministers. There are very
broad and liberal views preached from their churches,
and I would point to Mr. Mark Wilks, of Holloway, where
discourses of the most profound character are delivered
from the pulpit. It is a matter of grave importance
that you should not hastily take a name because it adds
one more difficulty which you will throw in the way of
adapting yourselves to the wants of the present age. I
am convinced myself, from my knowledge of the common
people (not such as those we see in this room to-night),
many of whom hunger and thirst after some notion of
this kind—I am quite sure you will not bring them on
your platform unless you are careful to avoid the difficul
ties attaching to other Churches, one of which I think
you have thrown in your way by adopting the resolution
you have to-night. I beseech you, therefore, not to
throw a further difficulty in the way by adopting an un
suitable name, because if you do it will only add one more
to the difficulties already existing.
The Chairman.—I think it must be quite clear that
the meeting is not prepared, at any rate unanimously, to
accept a name to-night. On the other hand, we are ex
tremely anxious to get to the next resolution, to which
our friend Mr. Sen will speak. Under those circum
stances, I have the permission of the mover and the
seconder of the resolution to withdraw the resolution
in favour of the amendment, and if that is done we
may at once dispose of this question, and shall be able
to proceed with a more interesting discussion.
�55
Mr. Leighton.—I desire to say one word before you
withdraw the resolution. I was myself asked to second
this resolution on coining into the room to-night, but
have had no time for its consideration. From the
general sense of the meeting, I think it would be desir
able that further consideration should be given. I am
quite willing, and am glad that the mover of the resolu
tion is also, that it should be withdrawn. I want the
meeting to give their sanction to the proposition that the
name, whatever it be, shall be made as broad as possible
—to include all humanity. The question I have been
considering in my own mind is whether even the term
Theistic, broad as that is, would not exclude some who
ought to be included. The religious sentiment is a com
mon principle; all people have it, Secularists as well as
others; and some Secularists I have found to be morp
intrinsically religious than many professing Christians. A
name, therefore, which would include such persons should
surely be the one adopted by such a society as ours.
Mr. Leighton then controverted Mr. Baxter Langley’s
objections to the word ‘ devotional,’ holding that the
question raised was simply one of definition, which each
person must settle for himself, just as each had to define
for himself what was meant by religion.
Mr. Cunnington.—I hope I shall not be considered to
intrude if I occupy your attention for a moment, being
the individual who had the honour of proposing to the
Provisional Committee the name which has been so much
controverted. I do not rise for the purpose of justifying
the name or recommending it, seeing what the present
feeling of the meeting is, but merely for the purpose of
presenting what I think may be a practical inconvenience.
We must have, as it seems to me, some designation in
order that our friend Mr. Busk may be communicated
with. If you have no name it might be temporarily the
Nameless Society. You must have some name, or you
�56
cannot address our friend Mr. Busk. If you cannot agree
upon the name of the Society, let it be ‘The Nameless
Society,’ or something that would prevent the practical
inconvenience of having no title.
The Chairman.—I do not think practical inconvenience
would be at all felt. We came here to-night as a pro
posed Theistic Society, and until something else is adopted
you have that name upon the prospectus, which, I think,
will answer all practical purposes. The resolution now
before the meeting is that the subject of the name be
referred to the Committee to be appointed to complete
the organisation of the Society.
The resolution was then put to the meeting and carried
unanimously.
Baboo Kesiiub Chunder Sen.—Sir, before I introduce
the resolution with which I have been entrusted, I re
quest your permission to say a few words. I have always
felt strongly the importance and necessity of establishing
spiritual fellowship and union among all classes and races
of men. That there should be political and social differ
ences among mankind is not at all surprising ; but that
men and women should fight with each other in the name
of religion and God is really painful and surprising. The
true object of religion is to bind mankind together, and
to bind them all to God. If we see that in the name of
religion, men, instead of promoting peace on earth and
goodwill among men, are trying to show their antagonism
and animosity towards each other, then certainly we must
stand forward with our voice of protest and say religion
is defeating its own legitimate object. I have always
been distressed to find in my own country how many of
the Hindoo sects in India fight with each other, and how
they combine to war with Mohammedans and Christians,
whom they look upon and hate as their enemies. It is
far more painful to see how that spirit of bitterness
�57
and sectarian antipathy has been persistently manifested
towards the Hindoos by many professing Christians.
None preached so eloquently and so ably the doctrine
of the true love of God and the love of man as Jesus
Christ. It is, therefore, extremely unpleasant to us all
to see those who profess to be his disciples hate the
Hindoo as a heathen who has no hope of salvation,
and who has not one single spark of truth in his own
mind. Narrowness of heart has oftentimes its origin in
narrowness of creed. Men hate each other, men con
taminate their hearts with sectarian bitterness, because
they believe that there is no truth beyond the pales of
their own denominations and churches. This is a fatal
mistake, and to this may be attributed all those feelings
of bitterness and mutual recrimination which have con
verted the religious world into a painful scene of war and"
even bloodshed. Religion is essentially universal. If
God is our common Father, His truth is our common pro
perty. But the religious world may be likened to a vast
market; every religious sect represents only a portion of
truth; religion is many-sided; each individual, each
nation, oftentimes adopts and represents only one side of
religion. In different times and in different countries,
therefore, we see not the entire religious life, but only
partial religious life. The Hindoo represents religion
in his peculiar way, the Christian in his. The men
of the first century represented religion in their own way
according to the circumstances in which they lived ; and
so the men who are blessed with modern civilisation re
present religious life in their own way. If we desire to
adopt religious life in its entirety and fulness, we must
not, we cannot, reject or ignore any particular nation or
any branch of God’s vast family. If we embrace all
nations and races from the beginning, from the creation
of man down to the present moment; if we can take in
all religious scriptures, all so-called sacred writings ; if we
�58
are prepared to do honour to all prophets and the great
men of all nations and races, then certainly, but not till
then, can we do justice to universal and absolute religion
such as exists in God. To prove true to Him, to prove true
to humanity, we must do justice to all the departments of
man’s religious life as they are manifested in different ages
and in different parts of the world. The English Chris
tian has no right to hate the Hindoo heathen, nor has the
Hindoo heathen any right to treat the English Christian
with sectarian antagonism and hatred. Both must em
brace each other in the fulness of truth and in the fulness
of brotherly love. I rejoice heartily to see such a thing
foreshadowed in the constitution of the Society about to
be organised. I feel that modern nations and races are
getting their eyes opened to the catholicity of true reli
gion, after centuries of spiritual despotism and sectarian
warfare. Men are beginning to feel that, in order to be
true to nature and true to God, they must cast away
sectarianism and protest against spiritual tyranny and
kiss freedom and peace. The object of this resolution is
to bring together religious men in India, America, Ger
many, France, and in other parts of the world, into one
Monotheistic brotherhood, so that they may all recognise,
love, and worship God as their common Father. The time
has come when such a movement ought to be practically
organised, when all nations and races should be brought
together into one fold. English Christians ought to ex
tend their right hand of fellowship to my countrymen,
and my countrymen ought to extend their right hand of
fellowship to all those who stand beyond the pales of
Hindoo orthodoxy; so that, while they differ from each
other on certain dogmatic questions of theology, they
still recognise each other as brethren, and show their pre
paredness to vindicate the unity of the human race in the
face of the existing conflicting chorus of theological
opinions. It is impossible to establish unanimity of
�59
opinion among mankind, and those who have tried to
bring about such unanimity have always failed. I hope,
therefore, the friends and promoters of this movement
will not commit that great mistake. Let individual
liberty be recognised ; let every individual right be vin
dicated and respected; but still at the same time, while
we recognise differences of opinion, let us feel, and let
us declare, that it is possible to have a common platform
of action, where we can exchange our sympathies with
each other as brethren. There is another mistake which
I hope this Society will not commit, and that is, ever
to assume an arrogant and hostile attitude towards exist
ing sects. We should always assume a humble position.
We must stand at the feet of our ancestors, all those who
have gone before us, and who have left for our enjoy
ment precious legacies of religious life and religious
thought. All honour to such men. Hindoo, Christian,
Chinese, Buddhist, Greek, and Roman—men of all nations
and races—men of all ages—who have in any way
laboured successfully to promote the religious, and moral,
and social amelioration of mankind, are entitled to the
undying gratitude of all succeeding ages. In forming a
Society like that whose formation we contemplate at
present, we feel morally constrained to honour those
spiritual and moral benefactors to whom we owe “ a debt
immense of endless gratitude.” At their feet we sit
to-day, and to them we desire to offer our hearts’ thanks
givings, and we desire to recognise them individually
and unitedly, as those friends and brothers who have
directly or indirectly brought us into that position in
which we feel enabled to establish and organise a Society
like this. It is on account of the light which we have
received from them through succeeding generations that
we are prepared to come forward to-night and stand
before the world as a Theistic brotherhood. We cannot
dishonour them; though they belong to different nation
�60
alities, though they may be of different times and races,
we cannot for one moment dishonour them. We cannot
with pride and arrogance say we do not owe anything to
the Christian Scriptures, we owe nothing to the Hindu
Scriptures, we owe nothing to Confucius. We owe much
to all these sources of religious revelation and inspiration.
To their lives, as the lives of great men, we owe a great
deal. Our attitude, therefore, must be an attitude of
humility towards those who have gone before, an attitude
of thankful recognition; and towards existing Churches
also we must assume the same attitude. If there are
friends around us who think it their duty to criticise
severely our proceedings, to hold us up to public derision
and contempt, they are quite welcome to do so; but let
us not, as members of this Society, for one moment
cherish in our hearts unbrotherly feelings against them.
Our mission is a mission of love, and goodwill, and peace.
We do not stand forward to fan the flame of religious
animosity, but our desire is to extinguish the flame of
sectarian antipathy, if it is possible for us to do so. We
go forth as ministers of peace ; we shall love all sects ;
Christians and Hindoos we shall look upon as brothers,
as children of the same Father ; their books we shall read
with profound reverence ; their priests we shall honour
with thanksgivings ; and to all those around us who desire
to treat us as men who have no hopes of salvation, even
to them we must show charity and brotherly love. I
hope, therefore, not a single member of this Society will
ever think it right or honourable to manifest the bitter
spirit of sectarianism towards any religious denomination.
There are in England at present, I understand, nearly
300 religious sects into which the Christian Church has
been divided. That such a thing should exist in the
midst of Christendom is indeed painful, I may say fright
ful. Let us do all in our power to bring together these
various religious denominations. I do not see why we
�61
should not exercise our influence on Christian ministers
to exchange pulpits with each other. Why should not
the people of one congregation visit the church of another
congregation ? Why should not the various preachers of
the Christian Churches try to harmonise with each other ?
Christian people sometimes go the length of thinking
that the whole religious life is monopolised by themselves.
During my short stay in this country I have been struck
with the fact that English Christian life, however grand
and glorious it may be—and it certainly is in many of its
aspects and features—is sadly deficient in devotional fer
vour in the world ; deficient in feelings such as those
which a deep and trustful reliance upon a personal and
loving God alone can inspire, support, and sustain. Some
thing like that is to be found in India. I do honestly
believe that in India there is such a thing as spirituality.
In England there is too much materialism. That is my
honest conviction. If England and India were to unite
and receive from each other the good things they ought
to receive from each other, we should be able to form a
true Church, where spiritual fervour and the activity of
material life would harmonise, in order to form the unity
of religious life. Whether, therefore, we come to Eng
land, America, Germany, or France, or any other country
where similar religious movements are going on, we ask
them to co-operate with us; we ask the whole world to
treat us as fellow-disciples, to give unto us all the good
things they possess and enjoy for our benefit, that we
may thus collect materials from all existing churches
and religious denominations in order, in the fulness of
time, to construct and uprear the future Church of the
world.
Friends, these are the words that I intended to say
to-night, with a view to invite you all to look upon this
Society as an association of love, and peace, and humility,
not of hatred, mutual persecution, and sectarianism. If
�G2
this Society should live long—and why should it not live
if it is God’s Church and God’s society?—if this Society
be spared to continue in a career of honourable useful
ness, it will bless our hearts ; it will bless your country
and my country; it will bless the whole world. I need
not soar into regions of imagination and fancy in order
to depict in glowing colours the future Church of the
world ; but this I must say, that from the time the light
of religion dawned on my mind, up to the present moment,
I have always been an advocate of the glorious principle
of religion which is summed up in these two great doc
trines, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man ; and so long as I am enabled to work, whether here
or in my own country or elsewhere, it shall be my duty
to speak, and feel, and labour in such a way that not
only my own countrymen may, under the guidance of
God’s Spirit, and with God’s help, be brought into one
fold, but that all nations and races, so far as is possible
with my humble resources and powers, may be influenced
to feel the necessity of bringing themselves into one
vast family. Oh! may that blessed day soon come
when the earth, untrod by sect, or creed, or clan, shall
own the two great principles — the universal father
hood of God and the brotherhood of man ! I beg to
propose this resolution to the meeting: 4 That in the
opinion of this meeting it is desirable that the Society
should correspond without delay with similar societies in
India, America, Germany, France, and elsewhere, as
suring them of our sympathy and fellowship.’
Mr. Cunnington.—Ladies and gentlemen, I have had
the honour of being asked to second this resolution. I shall
not be so presumptuous as to attempt to add anything to
what Mr. Sen has said, and I shall occupy your time but a
few moments. Mr. Sen has dwelt very forcibly, and very
properly, on the obligations we are under to those who
have preceded us in the discovery and propagation of
�63
religious truth. There is a further idea which strikes me
as being also important, seeing that in Ilim whom I
recognise as the Deity there is neither variableness nor
shadow of turning ; there is no change in His laws, and
the same element, or the same disposition, exists in
humanity now as in former times; and while we ap
preciate at its proper value the truth which has been
handed down to us by past generations, we do not lose
sight of the importance of recognising the inspiration of
the present day. I am one of those who think there
cannot be any difference or clashing between the advocates
of physical science or truths that relate to matter, and
those who are the advocates of truths which relate to
spiritual things, or to the mind. All truth must be in
harmony if it is rightly understood. Both matter and
mind have, according to my conception, been given to us
by the same Being, who is perfect, and in whom there
can be no imperfection. It is on account of our not
sufficiently comprehending the laws of that Being that we
see around us the lamentable and degrading state of society
which exists. I take it that if the interests of society had
been more practically insisted upon there would have been
comparatively less difference of opinion than there is and
less importance attached to the name, which there is, as
it seems to me, a difficulty in accepting. When we see
about us the want of common honesty, the want of truth
fulness, the physical degradation which exists amongst so
many of our fellow-creatures, whilst we are living in a
land groaning, I may say, under its wealth—if the
principle was recognised that property has its duties as
well as its rights, it would go, I think, far towards
remedying the evil which exists in society ; and whatever
name we give to our Society, whatever our aims may be,
unless they are brought to have a practical bearing on
the ills which are patent to all of us, it will be of but little
use. Our object must be to give it a practical direction;
�64
we must make up our minds to act upon the simple
principle, as between man and man, of doing unto others
as we would be done by. I will not attempt to analyse,
or to dilate upon the two grand principles which have
been referred to, of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man. It is because, as I think, those two
principles, rightly understood, are sufficient to unite the
whole of us, while we have our own individual opinions,
and hold them sincerely, earnestly, and ardently, that
we may be in a position to join those who may differ
from us, and to give them credit for the same sincerity
which we claim for ourselves.
But, Sir, I am not speaking to the resolution, which is,
that this Society should put itself in communication with
similar societies in all parts of the world. I firmly
believe, using the language of our great poet, that
‘ one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,’ and
I believe that the religious element in some shape or
other exists in all conscious humanity. It is believing
that, that I cordially sympathise with, and second, the
resolution which has been proposed.
The resolution was then put to the meeting and carried
unanimously.
Mr. Conway.—Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen,
I rise for the purpose of moving a resolution to the
effect ‘ That a Committee of twelve be appointed, with
power to add to their number, to complete the organisa
tion of the Society, and for the present to manage its
affairs; of this Committee, five to be a quorum ; and that
this Committee report to a future general meeting, to be
held as early as they can arrange.’
At this late stage of the meeting I do not feel inclined
to occupy the attention of the audience very long. For
myself, Sir, I would rather sit silent and see this move
ment go on, having perfect faith in the soundness of the
�Go
sped which we tire engaged in planting to-night. 1
believe it to be seed falling into honest soil, and I have
so many opportunities of appealing to the public, and
expressing my opinions, and even of monopolising the
expression of opinion, that I should be much more
pleased to hear some of the rest speak. I will not,
ho wever, let a movement, from which I hope great
things, pass without stating that it has my entire
sympathy, and I heartily approve of it, although, of
course, in many details, it does not exactly express my
particular ideas. I have my own peculiar views about
what constitutes devotion. I do not believe in that which
is called private or public prayer. I am not willing,
with others, to be called a Christian in the usual accepta
tion of the word, because I think I love and admire Jesus
Christ too much for that. I have my various feelings, of
course. Something fell from our chairman which looked
as if he believed we were not quite satisfied with our
respective local associations, and therefore came hither.
I do not agree with that. I think we may be perfectly
well satisfied in our local congregational arrangements,
and at the same time feel there is room for a larger
association with people who disagree with us and people
who are far removed from our ideas ; and the presence
of disagreement, and the presence of misgiving, and the
variety of ways of looking at things which have been
manifested in this meeting to-night are the most hopeful
signs we have ; they show that we are beginning to launch
out into something wider than the little associations
which we have with our own sects, and, instead of heaping
up sect upon sect, we shall come in contact with other
ways of looking at things throughout the world. I believe,
Sir, this Society will stand related to religion exactly as
the British Association of Science stands with regard to
science. There is a Royal Institution for teaching
science, and there is a Jermyn Street School, and there
F
�66
is the Ethnological Society—all practical institutions for
teaching science ; and also there is a great movement in
this country, and in every country where there are
scientific societies, devoted to the union of scientific men
for great purposes, and for the prosecution of vaster dis
coveries than any one society could accomplish by itself ;
and exactly as the Social Science Association stands
related to particular institutions, or the British Associa
tion stands related to a particular scientific association,
so I understand this Association to stand related to any
special religious movement. I should have been glad
were it openly called, what I believe it substantially is,
a Religious Science Association, and that we should an
nually have our meetings for the study of such things
and furtherance of such ends, just as people meet an
nually at Social Science or British Scientific Associations.
However, Sir, I candidly endorse the idea that this meeting
is practically tentative, and the object of this resolution
is to further that idea. It is a seed which we arc
planting, and we propose to appoint a Committee, in order
that they may cultivate that seed through the tenderest
part of its existence—namely, its gradual first growth,
its first tender blade, before it has got the sturdiness
and strength to which it can grow of itself. I think it
is clear that it would be impossible to decide what shall
be the practical mission of an association like this. It
is manifestly impossible for us to decide on the emer
gencies of the future, the exigencies which are to come,
the great demands which are to be made on the united
religious heart and free thought of this country. We
cannot decide till occasions arise, for new occasions teach
new duties, and there is not in this world a limb of any
animal, or form of any plant, that did not come into
being because there was a need which arose for the exist
ence of such animal or plant : every limb, every tree,
every leaf, every lin, in this world was created because
�G7
it was wanted by the surroundings, the great practical
results and emergencies of life. Our movement, then,
must be considered as a small egg, and it is to be formed
in this world as every other organic form has been con
stituted in obedience to the requirements which call
forth the vital germ and give it shape. As it lives,
as it grows, the light which will shine upon it will
give it its proper powers ; the rain which will fall will
clothe it with exactly the duties it needs, and the objects
it should have in view. We must trust this seed to the
eternal elements of this world ; we must trust it to God ;
we cannot decide at present everything it is to do, for
there may arise in distant years some great question upon
which it may be desirable, or even necessary, to call a
special meeting and take some united action. There may
be some other Oriental brother or brothers to wel
come, and then this Society will be here to open its arms
to such a brother, and not to let him wander about to be
tossed hither and thither, and to be preached at at my
lord’s table by his chaplain. He will not be left to be
called a Pagan here and there ; and there will be a large
welcome and a large hearing wherever there is a Society
which regards him as a true, devout, and religious teacher.
And, Sir, there may arise great questions of religious free
dom—questions arising touching religious movements,
national religious establishments, and many other things
in this world, where it will be necessary for people united
in some great salient points to take some practical action ;
and that practical action will decide what limbs, what
shape, what features, we shall have; for it is clear that,
if you try to do too much by giving this Society a
distinct shape beforehand, if you try to make a machine
answer all your ends before you know what those ends
are, if you make your machine without reference to
what may happen in the future, if you do that, you
will find, I think, that the machine will become very
F 2
�68
tiresome, very bungling, mid, in the end, useless. I
repeat, I would rather begin low down, where all things
in nature begin—first of all the mere blade, and let that
grow as the Eternal Tower shall decide and the course
of events shall determine. That is all I have to say, and
that is why it seems to me eminently proper that we
should have a Committee to watch over us, to avail them
selves of every ray of light which shall foil upon our
effort, to avail themselves of all suggestions which may
be made from whatever quarter, to see that we start
well, to see that the first beginnings of this seedling
shall be well cultured, well pruned of all that is ex
traneous, so that we shall see that in the end it is fit
for the garner. Those twelve gardeners who will con
stitute the Committee, those twelve horticulturalists
who are to tend this seed and to watch over it, should,
I think, be appointed by us, and, therefore, I most cor
dially move, with the highest hopes as to the progress
of this Society in the future, that this Committee be
appointed.
Mr. Kisto Gobindo Gupta.—Ladies and gentlemen,
I cannot speak very much. But I have much pleasure in
seconding the resolution which has just been put forward
as to the necessity of the proposed Association, and as to
the necessity for a Committee to manage its business.
Much has been already said upon the subject, and I can
only add my voice to say that I have personally felt the
necessity of such an association, more perhaps than any
body else in the room. In India we have similar associ
ations, but here some of my friends and myself do not
find any distinct association where we can feel ourselves
quite at home. So, if the proposed Association should
be formed, it will be a welcome place to all of us. I
have, therefore, much pleasun1 in seconding the reso
lution.
�69
Mr. Owen.—The last speaker said that he and his
associates have not been able to feel themselves at home
in any association now existing in this country. There
is a class who have not felt themselves at home in any
of the Churches, and hence the question was raised, Why
do not the working classes go to church ? If you arc
going to form a Committee, take heed to that, have regard
to that; do not disregard the working classes ; do not get
a highly respectable and a thoroughly English Committee.
I do not think anyone has attached more importance to
the visit of our distinguished Indian friend than I have;
but what has been his work in India ? He has been
endeavouring to deal a death-blow against caste. Have
any of those associated with him said one word about
the caste which exists in England? And is not that the
curse of our country? And so long as that exists all
that we have said simply amounts to nothing, and
there can be no religious union. I want to test the
matter; and if you are in earnest, I will promise you
that thousands will back you in your work. I have
addressed, I may say, hundreds of thousands of people in
this metropolis, and I have scarcely ever opened mv lips
without advocating the same principles that you have
advanced to-night. I hope, therefore, you will be explicit
on this one point, and don’t let us have a respectable
Committee. I am sure you do not misunderstand me.
I mean that the working classes have not felt them
selves at home, because they are not what is considered
the respectable class. I believe that Jack is as good as
his master, and in fact a good deal better. The working
classes are the industrious bees, and they are better than
the drones any day. I have the greatest respect for
every gentleman present; but I only ask you to be considerative, and to do something worthy of the name of
Chunder Sen. He has the noblest spirit I have seen. I
�70
doubt whether I ever heard a man open his lips in my
life for whom I have a greater veneration. I hope, there
fore, we shall do something worthy of such a man.
After some further discussion, the resolution was put
to the meeting and carried unanimously; and the Com
mittee was subsequently named.
A vote of thanks to the chairman terminated the pro
ceedings.
©
�RESOLUTIONS PASSED AT A GENERAL MEETING
HELD AT
THE FREEMASONS’ 11ALL, LONDON,
ON
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1870.
MR. WILLIAM SIIAEN IN TIIE CHAIR.
1. That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable
to form a Society to unite men, notwithstanding any
differences in their religious creeds, in a common effort
to attain and diffuse purity of spiritual life by, (1) in
vestigating religious truth, (2) cultivating devotional
feelings, and (3) furthering practical morality.
2. That the subject of the name of the Society be
referred to the Committee to be appointed to complete
the organisation of the Society.
3. That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable
that the Society should correspond without delay with
similar societies in India, America, Germany, France, and
elsewhere, assuring them of our sympathy and fellowship.
4. That a Committee of twelve be appointed, with
power to add to their number, to complete the organisa
tion of the Society, and for the present to manage its
affairs ; of this Committee, five to form a quorum ; and
that this Committee report to a future general meeting,
to be held as early as they can arrange.
A Committee of twelve ladies and gentlemen was then
ippointed, of whom the following have consented to act :
—Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Ananda M. Bose, Edward
Henry Busk, Moncure D. Conway, George Hickson,
Andrew Leighton, Miss E. A. Manning, S. Prout New•ombe, William Sliaen, and Edward Webster.
�72
STATEMENT OF THE COMMITTEE.
— ♦----
The Committee have begun the task committed to
them by the general meeting, and have agreed upon the
following statement for immediate publication :—
The Committee fully recognise and appreciate the
innumerable efforts which have been made by eminently
religious and good men for the amelioration of mankind,
physically, intellectually, and morally, and acknowledge
that a large debt of gratitude is due to these earnest
and devoted men ; but at the same time they feel that
the results of all the efforts which have been made leave
abundant room for, and encourage, fresh exertions upon a
basis as broad and comprehensive as possible.
It is felt that a belief in the two great principles of the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men forms a
sufficient basis for religious communion and united action.
This Society is offered as a means of uniting all who
share this feeling, in the endeavour to supplement their
individual efforts towards goodness and truth by mutual
sympathy; to intensify their trust in and love to God by
fellowship in worship; and to aid each other in the dis
covery and propagation of spiritual truth ; that thus they
may attain to the more complete observance of the
divine laws of human nature.
It is. intended to seek the attainment of those objects
by the following means, namely—
1. The holding of meetings for the reading of papers
and for conference.
2. The holding and encouragement of meetings for
the united worship of God.
�73
3. The helping its members t<> ascertain and dis
charge their personal and social duties.
4. The formation of similar societies, with the same
objects, in various parts of-the British Empire and other
countries.
5. Correspondence with those who may be supposed
willing to assist in the objects of this Society.
6. The issue of publications calculated to promote
the above purposes.
The Committee now invite all persons who concur in
the views thus expressed to join the Society. Any person
may become a member by communicating his or her
name and address in writing to the honorary secretary,
in the form appended to this statement.
It is not proposed to have any compulsory subscription’
but all members are invited to contribute to the funds
of the Society.
In the resolution, under which the Committee arc
acting, the objects of the Society are declared to be,
the investigation of religious truth, the cultivation of
devotional feelings, and the furtherance of practical
morality.
With reference to the investigation of religious truth,
the Committee feel that it is desirable that meetings for
the reading of papers and for conference should be
established as soon as possible, and intend to organise
such meetings in the autumn of this year.
The Society will also, with a view to the attainment of
this object, aid in the study of already existing works,
reprinting them when necessary, and will assist in pub
lishing original works.
Under this head will also stand the task of compiling
a collection of the purely religious passages from all the
different Bibles or Sacred Scriptures to which access can
be obtained. The compilation of this work may be begun
without delay.
It is hoped that the Society may soon be in a position
�74
to aid in the establishment in many towns and villages of
libraries in which those books shall find a place which
arc calculated to disseminate the principles of the Society,
and in the publication of works specially intended for the
young.
As to the second of the three objects of the Society,
devotional feelings may be indirectly cultivated in a
variety of ways, such as by a sincere study of science, by
art, or by literature. In fact, all the higher pursuits of
the intellect and imagination, and all developments of
pure social, and domestic affections materially tend to the
increase of the feeling of devotion.
These various means may be encouraged, but can
hardly, at least at present, be actually employed by the
Society. But the Society can hold meetings for the worship
of God, and thereby give such of its members as desire to
attend a means of directly aiding each other in the culti
vation of feelings of devotion.
These meetings, while strengthening and elevating the
spiritual communion between each member and God, will
afford opportunities of public worship to those who feel
themselves excluded from meetings for worship based on
dogmatic theology, and will practically demonstrate the
possibility and desirability of the union for public wor
ship of persons holding different creeds.
The Committee intend, therefore, to arrange, in the
autumn of the present year, meetings of the Society for
united worship.
Another means of furthering this object, which may be
at once begun by the Society, is the collection of a book
of prayer and praise, to contain passages from already
known books and hymns, as well as prayers, meditations,
and hymns which may from time to time be contributed
by members. This book, subject to continual revision,
will be valuable both as an aid in the conduct of meet
ings for united worship and for private use by individual
members.
�75
The third object, namely the furthering of practical
morality, naturally branches off in two directions—the
personal and social.
Under the first head, the aid to be afforded by the
Society will consist principally of the mutual countenance
and support which the members will afford each other in
the endeavour to carry out into their daily life, whether
in the family, society, or in their public or commercial
avocations, the principles of high and pure morality.
It is, perhaps, needless to remark that nothing in the
nature of Church discipline is contemplated or will be
established.
Besides this mutual support among the members, the
Society may itself aid in the realisation by them of a pure
spiritual life by means of its meetings and conferences,
where, by reading papers and by friendly discussion, ques
tions relating to the conduct of life may be treated and
developed.
In connection with the social branch of this subject,
such meetings as are last described will be most useful,
and these subjects will be considered in the meetings to
be organised by the Committee in the autumn of the
present year.
The number of problems to be dealt with under this
head is enormous : and whether or no it will be found
advisable for the Society, as a society, to take any active
part in directly attempting to mitigate the evils which
attach to our present civilisation, such as pauperism, war,
intemperance, &c., or itself to attempt any philanthropic
object ; yet there can be no doubt that the Society can
and ought at the earliest possible moment to afford ample
and frequent opportunities for the reunion of its members,
whereby their individual views may be widened and
defined, and their individual action may consequently be
rendered more intelligent, useful, and energetic.
�76
A list of the members will shortly be printed and cir
culated among the members of the Society.
The time and place, at which the proposed meetings
for united worship and for friendly conference will be
held, will be announced to all the members.
Additional copies of the foregoing pamphlet entire, or
of the concluding portion alone, containing the resolutions
adopted at the general meeting and the statement of
the Committee, can be obtained on application to the
honorary secretary, Edward IIexry Busk, Highgate, N.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
STOTTISWOODK AND CO., NEW-STREET SQtTARtt
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
��187
To Edward Henry Busk, Esq.
Dear Sir,
Please to add my name to the List of Members of the
Society which was founded at the. General Meeting held at the
Freemasons’ Hall, London, on July 20, 1870, for the purpose
of uniting men, notwithstanding any differences in their
religious creeds, in a common effort to attain and diffuse
purity of spiritual life by (fY) investigating religious truth,
(2) cultivating devotional feelings, and (3) furthering prac
tical morality.
L am, dear Sir,
Yours truly,
Name in full
Address__ ____________
I
���
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Proceedings of the general meeting of the Theistic Society held at Freemasons' Hall, London on Wednesday, July 20th, 1870 and statement of the Committee appointed by the meeting
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Theistic Society
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 76, [2] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Printed by Spottiswoode and Co., London. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Longmans, Green, and Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5174
Subject
The topic of the resource
Theism
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 (Proceedings of the general meeting of the Theistic Society held at Freemasons' Hall, London on Wednesday, July 20th, 1870 and statement of the Committee appointed by the meeting), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Theism
-
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PDF Text
Text
(Siitige SBorte
über bte
Unfci)((iartcitSrtïircf fe
unb:
£)ie neue
♦♦
ùes bondis
010002010201
unb tijre tijeofogtfdje QSebeufung.
3 h) e i @ u t a dj t e n
üon
3. b. Tôffinger.
IMündjen 1870.
3tubolpfy Olbenbourg.
��ftnige Pforte üfier bte ^Infef^ßarfmteabreffe.
)
*
(Sie haben bte merkwürbige Stbrcffe gebraut, welche
aus bem «Sc&oofje bcS 23aticanifchen ©oncils IjcrauS ben
^ßa'pft bittet: baff er bie erforberlichen (Stritte tfyun möge
um feine eigene Unfehlbarkeit burctj bie gegenwärtige 23er=
fammlung jum ©laubenSartifcl erheben ¿u laffen. 180
Millionen Wnfchen — baS verlangen bie Xöifd)öfe welche
biefe 5lbreffe unterzeichnet haben — folien künftig burd)
bie ©rohung ber ?luSfdilicjfung aus ber 5tird)e, ber ©nt=
jiehung ber (Sacramente unb ber ewigen 23erbammniff gc=
gwungen werben baS zu glauben unb zu bekennen was bie
^irclje bisher nicht geglaubt, nicht gelehrt hat. Seicht ge=
glaubt hat — benn auch biejenigen welche biefe ¡päpftlidje
Unfehlbarkeit bisher für wal;r gehalten haben, konnten fic
bodf nidft glauben, bicfeS SBort im dfriftlidjen ©inne
genommen. Bwifchcn ©tauben (fide divina) unb zwifdjen
ber vcrftanbeSmäfzigcn Einnahme einer für wahrfdfcinlid)
gehaltenen Meinung ift ein unermeßlicher Uttterftfueb.
©tauben kann unb barf ber Katholik nur baSjenige was
ihm als göttlich geoffenbarte, zur ©ubftanz ber ^eilslchre
gehörige, über jeben Bweifct erhabene SBahrljeít von ber
*) 2Iu$ ber SlitgSfmrger SlHgemeinen ¿dtung, 1870 5¡r. 21.
j
Stimmen auö b. fatlj.Äirdje üb. b. Äirdjenfr. b. (Segenm. 7
©Bllinger, jtvet ©utadjten.
�88
©ödinger,
(2)
Jlirc^c felbft mitgetljcilt unb vorgcjcidjnct wirb, nur ba8=
fettige, an beffcn tBetcnntnifj bie ^ugeljörigteit jur Jtirdße
gcfnüpft ift, babfenige beffcn ©egentlfeil bic 5tircf»c fd)le^t=
fyin nidjt biilbct, als offenbare 3»rrlcl)re verwirft. $n
2öat;r(}cit Ijat alfo fein -Dicnfd) von Anfang ber ^ird;c bis
junt heutigen Jage bic Unfehlbarkeit bcS ^ßa^fteö geglaubt,
b. I). fo geglaubt wie er an ©ott, an ©tjriftus, an bie
Dreieinigkeit beS SSaterS, «SoIfneS unb ©eiftcS u. f. w.
glaubt, fonbern viele Ijabcit cS nur vermutet, ljaben eS
für waljrfdjeinlidj ober IfödfftenS für mcitf^Iid; gewifj (fide
humana) gehalten bafj biefe Prärogative bem pa^ft jufomntc. ©emnadj Wäre bie SScränbcrung in bem ©tauben
unb ber Scljrc ber Jlirdje Wcldje bic 2lbrejj=33ifd;öfc burd^=
geführt Wiffcn Wollen ein in ber @efc^id;te ber Jtiräßc
cinjig baftcljcnbcS ©reigniff; in acfitjclm ^aljrfyunberten ift
nidjtS WjnlidfcS vorgcfommeit. ©S ift eine firdjlidje ERe=
Volution, welche fic begehren, um fo bur^greifenber als
eS fid; Ijier um baS fyunbament ljanbclt Welches beit reli=
giöfen ©tauben fcbeS Witfdfen künftig tragen unb galten
foll, als an bic «Stelle ber ganjcit, in 3cit unb 9tanm
univcrfalcn ätirefje ein einzelner ^Qienfd;, ber Pa'pft, gefegt
werben foH. «isljcr fagte ber Katholik: 3d; glaube biefe
ober jene ßcljre auf baS 3cugnij3 ber gaitjcn J?ird;e aller
3eitcit, weil fie bic Scrljcijjung l;at, bafj fic immerbar be=
fielen, ftctö im Scfifc ber 2öai>ri?eit bleiben foH. künftig
aber müfjte ber Jtatl;olit fagen: idj glaube weil ber
für unfehlbar erklärte patft cS ju teuren unb ju glauben
befiehlt. ©afj er aber unfehlbar fei, baS glaube itf;, weil
er cS von fid; behauptet. ©enn 400 ober 600 5Bifd;öfe
�(3)
bie llnfefylbarfeitöabrefie.
89
haben ¿war im 3ahre 1870 3U ^om befchloffen, baß ber
ißapft unfehlbar fei; allein alle Bifdjöfe unb jebeS Goncil
aljne ben ^b'apft finb bet Wglicljtcit beS ^rrthumS untere
ivorfen; Untrüglichfeit ift baS auSfchließenbe Borrecht unb
Befifcthum beb Sßapfteö, fein ¿eugniß können bie Bifd;öfe,
viele ober wenige, webet verftärken noch abfcfywacfyen; jener
Befchluß ljat alfo nur fo viel ¿traft unb Slutorität, als
oer 5ßapft ihm, inbem er fiel; benfclben ancignet, verliefen
hat. Unb fo löft fic^ beim SllleS julefet in baS Selbfh
jeugniß beS ^ßapftcö auf, was freilich fcljr einfach ift.
£abei fei nur erinnert, baff vor 1840 3ahren e*n uiu
enblicp Roherer einmal gefagt Ijat: „SBenn ich mir felber
ßeugniß gebe, fo ift mein 3eugniß nicht glaubwürbig."
(M 5, 31.)
SDie Slbrcffe gibt inSbefonbere ju folgenben Siebenten
Einlaß:
©rftenS: fie befdjräntt bie Unfehlbarkeit beS ißapfteS
auf biejenigen 5luSfprüd;e unb ©ecrete, welche berfelbe an
bie ®efammtl)eit aller ©laubigen richtet, alfo ¿ur Belehr
ung ber gangen fatholifdjen ¿tirdje erläßt.
daraus würbe alfo folgen, baß, wenn ein ^ßapft nur
an einzelne Sßerfonen, ¿törperf¿haften, ^articularkirchen fiep
wenbete, er ftets bem ^rrthum preisgegeben war. 9lun
haben aber bie ißäpfte gwölf ober brei^n 3ahr^un^cUe
lang bie Bebingung, an welche bie ^rrthumölofigkeit ihrer
©ntfeheibungen ober Belehrungen geknüpft fein foU, nie
verwirklicht: alle ¿tunbgebuiigen ber ißäpfte über fragen
ber Sehre vor bem Gnbe bcS 13. 3ahrhunbertS finb nur
an beftimmte ^ßerfonen ober an bie Bifcpöfe eines ßanbeS
�90
SöUirtßer,
(4)
u. f. w. gerichtet. £)er ganzen orientalifchcn Jtirc^e ift
niemals in bem ^ahrtaufenb bet Bereinigung ein att=
gemein lautcnbeS Secret eines papfteS mitgetfyeilt worben,
nur — nnb in langen 3^^i^cnräumen — an einzelne
Patriarchen ober an äbaifer haben bie päpfte bogmatifcfje
Schreiben gerichtet.
@S ift alfo flar, baff bie päpfte felbcr von biefer
Bebingung, von welcher bie Sicherheit nnb Unfehlbarfeit
ihrer (Sntfd;eibnngen abhängen foll, minbeftenS taufenb
3ahre lang feine Slhnuitg gehabt haben, wie benn biefe
Behauptung auch crft fehr fpät erfonnen nnb ber Jtirche
vor 1562 unbefannt gewefen ift. 3n tiefem $ahre Xjat fie
nämlich ber Söwencr ^hcologc Johann ^effels ¿um erften«
mal vorgetragen, von bem fie BeHarmin entlehnte, nnb
mit Stellen aus beit falfchcn 3fiborifchcn ©ccretalcn nnb
mit ben erbidhtetcii ^cugniffen bcS heiligen GpriHuS ftüt^te.
Biit einem einzigen vorgefetjten SBorte, burch bie blofje
2luffchrift hätten bie päpftc ihren bogmatif^en Jtunb=
gebungen nach biefer SSheorie bie hWte Prärogative ber
¿rrthumSlofigfeit verleihen fönnen. Sic haben eS nicht
gethan, haben perfonen nnb ©emeinben in bie ©cfahr
verfemt, burch Einnahme ihrer, ohne bie Bürgfchaft gött=
lieber Gewißheit gegebenen Gntfcheibungen in ^rrthümer
¿u verfallen.
3weitens. (5s ift unwahr, baß „gemäjf ber aH=
gemeinen nnb conftantcn Srabition ber Kirche bie bogmati=
fehen Urteile ber päpftc irrcformabcl finb." ®aS @egen=
theil liegt vor aller Singen, ©ic Jtirclje hat bie bogmatifchen
Schreiben ber päpftc ftets erft geprüft, nnb ihnen in {yolge
�(5)
bie Unfefjlbarfeitöabreffe.
91
tiefer Prüfung cntweber ¿ugeftimmt, wie baS Goncil von
Gtjalcebon mit bcm Schreiben £eo’S getljan, ober fie als
irrig verworfen, wie baS fünfte Goncil (553) mit bem
Gonftitutum beS 33igiliuö, baS fctfgte Goncil (6S1) mit
bem Schreiben beS ^onoriitS getljan Ijat.
Srittens. ©3 ift nidjt richtig, bafj auf bem ¿weiten
Goncil von Sijon (1274) burcf) bie ^uftimmung ber ©riedjen
fowofyl als ber Lateiner ein ©laubcnSbefenntniß angenom=
men worben fei, in wcldjem erflärt wirb: baß „Streitig;
feiten über ben ©tauben burcf) baS Urtljeil beS ^ßaipfteö
entfliehen werben müßten." SESeber bie ©riedjen nodj bie
Lateiner, baS Reifst, bie ¿u Sijon verfammcltcn abenbfänbi;
fefjen 33ifd)öfe, eigneten fid) biefeS ©laubenSbefenntnifj an,
fonbern ber verdorbene ^ßapft GlemenS IV. fjatte es bem
Äaifer 2)lid)acl ipaläologuS als ißebingung feiner 3u(affung
¿ur Jtirdjengemcinfdjaft gefdjidt. SDUdjael, im unfidjeren
SSeftis ber erft für^lid) wieber eroberten jpaniptftabt, fdjwer
betrogt von bem lateinifdjen ^gifer Salbuin unb bem Äönig
«Karl von Sicilien, beburfte bringenb beS fßa^fteS, ber allein
feinen «fpauptfeinb ¿ur 9iuf;e nötigen fonntc, unb verftanb
fid^ baljer ¿u ben iBebingungen firdjfidjcr Unterwerfung,
welche bie Sßäpfte iljm Vorfdwieben, wiewofjl unter bem
beharrlichen Sßiberfprudje ber gried)ifd;cit Eßifdjöfe unb ber
Nation. Gr rüefte alfo bie il;m auferlegte formet in baS
Schreiben ein, welches auf bcm Goncil vorgefefen unb von
feinem ©efanbten bem Sogotljeten beftätigt würbe. Gr
felber erffarte ¿u «fpaufe, in «Konftantinopel, bie brei 3U=
geftanbniffe, bie er bcm ißapft gemadjt habe, für itluforifdj.
(Pachymeres de Michaele Palaeol. 5, 22.) Sie Ver=
�92
©öHtnger,
(6)
fammelten 53ifchöfe aber haben fich gar nicht in ber Sage
befunben, über tiefe formet eine Meinung abgugeben.
Viertens. ©a§ ©ccret ber glorentinifchen Stynobe
wirb tyier verftümmelt angeführt; gcrabe ber ^paitptfats, beffen
ftormulirung in $olge tanger iBerljanblungen ¿wifc^cn ben
©riechen unb ben Italienern gu Staube tarn, unb auf ben
baS größte ©cwicht gelegt würbe, weil baS SSorauägehenbe
nur gemäfj ber barin enthaltenen tBefdgänfung verftanben
werben follte, ift weggelaffen, ber Satj nämlich: juxta
eum modum, quo et in gestis et in sacria canonibus
oecumenicorum conciliorum continetur. ©er £ßa£ft unb
bie ©arbinäle verlangten nämlich beharrlich, baff als nähere
iöeftimmung, wie ber Primat beö ißapfteS gu verfielen fei,
beigefefct werbe: juxta dicta Sanctorum. ©aS wiefen bie
©riechen mit gleicher ¿Beharrlichkeit gurüct. Sie wußten
wohl, baff unter biefen „$eugniffen ber ^eiligen" fich eine
beträchtliche SIngahl fel)r weitgehenber erbichteter ober ge=
fälfchtcr Stellen befinbe. <£»atte hoch ber latcinifche ©rg=
bifci;of Slnbreaö, einer ber Otebncr, fich f<hon *n ber 7.
Sifcung auf bie berüchtigten (üjrilluö ^cugniffe berufen,
bie, feitbem ©homaö von Slquin unb ißapft Urban IV.
guerft baburch htatergangen worben waren, im ©ccibent
eine gewaltige unb nachhaltige SBirtung hervorgebracht hat=
ten, feist aber von ben ©riechen gurüefgewiefen würben, ©er
Äaifer bemerkte noch: wenn einer ber Sßäter in einem
¿Briefe an ben ißapft fich l,n ©omplimenten=Sti)l geäußert
habe, fo bürfe man barauo nicht gleich ¿Rechte unb ißrivi=
legien ableiten wollen, ©ie Lateiner gaben enblich nach,
bie dicta Sanctorum verfchwanben au3 bem ©ntwurf, unb
�7)
bie Unfe^lbarfeitöabreffe.
93
rafür würben alé DJia^ftab unb ©dorante beé ípctpfttnfyen
primaté bie 2)erl;anbíungcn ber ofumeitifchen Goncilien
anb bie {»eiligen Ganoneé gefegt. ©amit war jeber ©ebanle
an ¡papftlidje Unfehlbarkeit auégefchloffen, ba in ben alten
(Toncilien unb in ben, beiben Äircfyen gemeinjc^aftlidjen,
vor=ifiborifchen (Sanoned fid^ nicht nur nichts finbet, waé
auf ein berartigeé SSorredjt fyinwiefe, fonbern bie ganje alte
(SJefefjgebnng ber Äircfye, fowie baS Verfahren unb bie ®e=
idjidjtc ber fieben ötumenifdjen Goncilicn (biefe waren ge=
meint) gan¿ cvibent einen 3uftanb vorauéfeijt, in weldjem
bie hoffte Autorität ber fiebre nur ber gefammten Kirche,
nicfjt aber einem einzelnen ber fünf Patriarchen (baS war
oer Papft in ben Äugen ber ©rieten) jufteljt. Ueberbiefj
oatte @r¿bifcí;of Sßeffarion im tarnen fämmtlidjer ©riechen
crft turj vorder erklärt: bafc ber Papft geringer alé baé
'Soncil (alfo aud) nicht unfehlbar) fei. (Sess. IX, Concil.
Labbei XIII, 150.) @3 ift alfo eine SSerftümmelung,
welche einer 23erfälfd)uug gleidj kommt, wenn man aué bem
©ecret ber Florentiner Spnobe gerabe beit £>auptfa£, auf
weldjen bie, für welche baS ©ecret gemacht würbe, ben
wchfteu Söcrtl) legten, wegftreidjt ©er Sah war in ben
Äugen ber ©riechen fo unentbehrlich, baft fie unverrichteter
©inge abreifen ju wollen erklärten, wenn man iljn nid)t
einrüde. Äudj barauf beftanben fie, unb festen eö burch,
oaf) alle ntcd)te unb Privilegien ber übrigen Patriarchen
im ©ccret Vorbehalten würben; bafs aber baé Dtedjt felbft=
ftänbig an ber ^eftftellung ber gcmeinfdjaftlidjcn lirdjlicpen
¿ehre theil¿unehmen, unb nicht etwa blofj ben Änfprüdjen
eines unfehlbaren ÜRcifteré fidj unterwerfen ¿u müffen,
�94
©ödinger,
(8)
ben Patriarchen guftefye, Ratten bic Spd^pfte früher fetber
erflärt.
(S3 liegt freilich noch ein anberer ®runb ¿u ber von
beut (Joncipientcn ber Slbreffe begangenen SBerftümmelung
be3 {ytorentinifeijen Secreta vor; follie er nämlich ben la=
teinifc^en Sext in feiner urfprünglicfyen, bem (55riecf)ifdjen
entfprecljenbcn Raffung geben, ivie fie §(aviu§ 23lonbu3,
«Secretar be£ ^?apfteö (Sagen IV. unb bie älteren Geologen
haben: quemadmodum et in actis Conciliorum et in
sacris canonibus continetur? Ober füllte er bie (¿uerft
von Abraham 23arti)oloinäw3 angebrachte) ^älfcljung, wo
)
*
ftatt be£ et gefegt ift: etiam, fidj aneignen? ©urei; biefeö
etiam wirb ber Sinn beö ©ccretö völlig geänbert, uitb bie
5lbfid;t bc3 BufaijeS vernichtet; eö ift aber, obgleich eö eine
hanbgrcifliche fyälfchung ift, in bie (Soncilicn = Sammlungen
nnb bogmatifdjen Sehrbücher übergegangen, unb e$ wäre
hohe $eit, biefen Stein bc3 SlnftoffeS für bie Orientalen
wegjuräumen unb ben echten Sext, nämlich ben bem grie=
*) Stuf bie Slutorität beb päpftiidjen «Sefietärb ^-laüio 23ionbo
bin, welcher ben griedfifchen ©ert richtig überfefjt Ijat, nahm ich an,
bafj bie unrichtige unb ben Sinn beb ©riedjifdjen unüerfennbar alte=
rirenbe «ßerfion beb quemadmodum etiam eine (patere «öeränberung
fei. (jdj habe mich aber feitbem fowohl auö Jriebniann’ß ©arlegung
in ber Sllig. Leitung, alö auö beni Mbbrutf beö ©riginab©ofumentö
in bem Archivio Storico Italiano 1857, II. p. 219 iiberjeugt, baff
biefe «Sorte aderbingb gleich int erften lateinifdjeii ©erte fdjon (tauben,
(o bafj vom erften Slnfang an griedjifdjer unb lateinifdjer ©ept Don
einanber abwidjen. ©afj bie ©riedjen ben ©ert, wie er im Vateinifdjen
lautet, nidjt angenommen tjaben würben, wenn fie iljn gefannt unb
oerftanben hatten, beweifen bie DorauSgegangenen Skrhanblungen
(29. Mpril).
�(9)
bie UnfeljIbarfeitSabrefje.
95
djifcben SSortlaut entfpredjenben, fyerjuftellen. Sann aber
wäre freilid) baö Secret für bie 3we(^c ^er Sfnfallibiliften
nic^t meljr brauchbar, wie ber G-rjbifdjof von iparis, Se
SRarca, fdjon vor 200 ^aljrcn nadjgewiefcn ljat. (Concord.
Sacerd. et imperii 3, 8.) Gr bemerft richtig: Verba
41 Graeca in sincero sensu accepta modum exercitio
>5 potestatis pontificiae imponunt ei similem quem ecclesia
Gallicana tuetur. At e contextus latini depravata
lectione eruitur plenum esse Papae potestatem, idque
probari actis Conciliorum et canonibus.
I
Sie Slbreffe ertlärt fit mit befonberer ^nbignation
(acerbissimi catholicae doctrinae impugnatores —
blaterare non erubescunt) gegen bie, weiche bie flöten=
tinifdje Si)nobe nidjt für öfumenifd) galten. Sie Sl)atfad;en
mögen fpredjen. Sie Sijnobe würbe betanntlid) berufen,
um ba£ Goncil jn 23afc( ¿u @runbe 511 ridjten, als biefeS
wi mehrere bcr römifdjen Gurie läftige [Reformen ju befdjliefjen
I begonnen ljatte. 2lm 9. 5lpri( 1438 würbe fie 311 gerrara
eröffnet, unb nun muffte fcd;S Wnatc lang gewartet wer=
ben, oljne bafj irgenbetwaS gefefjab, fo gering war bie 3af)l
I ber Ijerbeigcfommcncn 23ifdjöfe. Sius bem ganzen nörblidjen,
bamald nod; völlig fatlfolifdjen Guropa, aus Scutfdjlanb,
ben ffanbinavifdjen Säubern, ißolen, Söljmen, bem bama=
ligen ^rantreidj, Gaftilien, Portugal u. f. w. tarn' üRie=
manb; man tann fagen: neun 3el)iitl)cile bcr bamaligen
fatl)olifd;en Sßclt beteiligten fidj grunbfä^lid; nid;t an bcr
<5t)itobe, Weil fie bicfelbc ber iöafclcr 23er[ammlung gegeiv
über für illegitim Igelten, unb Dobermann wuftte, bafs für
■ bie bringenbfte 3lngclegen()eit, bie [Reform ber JHrd)e, bort
�96
SJöüinger,
(10)
nichts gefd)el)cn werbe. So brachte enblicp Gugen mit
äRüpe eine Schaar italienifcper iBifcijöfe, gegen 50, ju=
fammen, wo^u bann ltocp einige vom 5?er$og von 53urgunb
gefepitfte IBifcpöfe, einige Provenzalen unb ein paar Spanier
famen — in allem waren eS 62 23ifcpöfe, welcpe unters
¿eigneten. Sie grieepifepen Prälaten mit iprern Jtaifer
waren in ber äufcerften ©efapr beS Untergangs burep bie
SSerpeifjung von ©elb, Scpiffen unb Solbaten bapin ge=
¿ogen worben; ber Papft patte jubem verfproepen, bie
Jtoften ipreö 3lufentpaltS in $errara unb Florenz unb
iprer Rücfreife $u tragen. 2llS fie fiel) unnaepgiebig geigten,
entzog er ipnen bie Subfibien, fo bafj fie in bittere Rotp
gerietpen, unb enbiiep, gezwungen burep ben «ftaifer unb
burep junger gebrängt, Singe unterjeiepneten, bie fie fpäter
faft alle wiberriefen. SaS Urtpeil eines grieepifepen $eit=
genoffen, beS SlmprutiuS, welcpeS ber römifepe ©eleprte
2IHatiuS (de perp. censens. 3, 1, 4) anfüprt, ift bamalS
baS perrfepenbe Urtpeil unter ben ©rieepen gewefen: „Söirb
wopl", fagte er, „^emanb im (Srnft biefe Spnobe für eine
otumenifepe auSgebcn, welcpe ©laubenSartitel mit ©elb
ertaufte, welcpe fimoniftifcp ipre SSefcplüffe nur burep 2luS=
fiept auf finanzielle unb militarifepe ^ülfeleiftung burcp=
Zufefjen vermoepte?" ^n fyraulreicp ift vor ber Revolution
bie Tylorenttnifcfie Spnobe als uneept verworfen worben;
baS pat ber Garbinal ©uife, opne irgenbeinen Söiberfprucp
ju erfapren, auf bem Xribentinifcpen Qoncil ertlart. Ser
portugiefifepe Speologe ißapva be 2lnbraba fagt barüber:
Florentinam (Synodum) sola Gallia — pro oecumenica
nunquam habuit, quippe quam neque adire dum agita-
�11)
bie UnfefyfôarfeitSabreffe.
97
etur, neque admittere jam perfectam atque absoluam voluerit. (Defens. fid. Trident, pag. 431, ed.
olon. 1580.)
©er übrige ©ert ber dlbreffe befcbâftigt fich mit ber
Ausführung, bajg bie dlufftettung beS neuen ®laitbcnS=
rtifeïS gcrabe jcfjt geitgemâfj, ja bringcub notfymenbig fei,
eil einige iÇerfoncn, bie fid) für jtatholifcn auSgcben,
■’mgft biefe Meinung von ber pâpftlichen Untrüglichfeit
~ eftritten fyaben. 20aS bie dtbreffe Îjicr thcilS fagt, theils
IS (in iRom) befannt vorauôfetjt, ift mcfcntlidh ^olgcnbeê.
in unb für fich, meint fie, mare es nicht gerabc abfoïut
otijmenbig gemcfcn, bie
ber ©laubenSlehren burdj
n neues ©ogma gu vermehren, aber bie Sage fjabe fich
o geftaltct, baf? bicS jctjt unausmeichtich fei. (Seit mehreren
fahren Ijat nâmïidj ber ^cfuitcn-Drben, unterftüfct von
nem dlnhang ©leidjgefinnter, eine digitation gu ©unften
?S gu macfycnben ©ogmaS gugleidh in Station, ^ranfreich,
: deutfdjtanb unb ©nglanb begonnen, ©inc eigene religiôfe
' ^efeÏÏfctjaft, gu bem 3mccfc für bie ©rlangung beS neuen
ä Dogmas gu beten unb gu mirfcn, ift von beu Sefuiten
~ egrünbet unb öffentlich angcfünbigt morbcn; iijr ^aupt=
: rgan, bie in Hlorn crfcf;einenbc ©iviltà, Ijat eS gum voraus
'S bie Hauptaufgabe beS ©onciïs bcgcicfjnet, ber parrenbcn
_ Seit bas ©cfdienf beS. feptcnben ©taubenSartifelS entgegen
t a bringen ; iïjre „Saazer «Stimmen" unb Wiener ^3ubti=
r. itionen Ijaben baffelbe ©hema breit unb in unermüblid^er
*. Siebert»olung erörtert.
Sei biefer digitation marc es nun bie Pflicht aller
' InberSbenfenbcn gcmefen, in ehrfurchtsvollem «Schmeigen
t
�98
©ödinger, bie UnfeljIbarfeitSabreffe.
(12)
¿u bcrfyarren, bie ^efuitcn unb ityrcn Slnfjang rutyig ge=
waljrcn ¿u laffen, bie von irrten in ¿atylreidjen Schriften
toorgebradjtcn Argumente feiner Prüfung
unterbieten.
Seiber ift bicö nic^t gefetzten; einige Ticnf^cn t^ben bie
unerhörte ^rccljteit gehabt, ba§ tc^9c ©feigen ¿u brechen
unb eine abtx>eidpenbe Meinung funb 311 geben, tiefes
Slergernifj fann nur burdj eine SSermctrung beS @Iaubcn§=
bcfenntniffeS, eine JBeranberung ber 5tated)i§men unb aller
^etigionäbü^er gefüllt werben.
�¿)ie neue ^e^äfisorbnuitg be$ goncifc unb
ißre tfjeofoaifdje gdebeutung.
$)ie neue ® efchaftSorbnung, voeXc^e bem Zoncil burcl)
i bie fünf Zarbinal^ßegatcn auferlegt worben, 'ift völlig ver| fliehen von allem, wa§ fonft auf Zoncilien gebräuchlich
<war, unb guglcidj maf^gebenb unb entfdScibcnb für bcn
I ferneren Verlauf biefer SSerfammlung unb für bie gal)t=
I reichen betrete, welche burdj fie gu (Staube gebracht werben
| foUen. <Sie verbient baljer bie forgfältigfte Sßeadjtung. Bur
gefdjici)tlid)cn ©rientirung mag nur in ber ^ürje erwähnt
* werben, bafj für bie allgemeinen Zoitcilien ber alten Äirdje
i; im erften 3afjrtauienb eine beftimmtc ©efdjaftSorbnung
it nidjt eyiftirte. Br für römifc^e unb fpanifdje $rovingial=
i Zoncilien gab e§ ein liturgifcljeS Zeremoniell. SlllcS mürbe
)
*
| in voller 53erfammlung vorgetragen; jeber 23ifdjof tonnte
j Einträge fteUen, welche er wollte, unb bie ißrafibenten, bie
tj weltlichen fowoljl, welche bie ^taifcr faubten, al§ bie geift=
I liehen, forgten für Orbnung unb leiteten bie Serhanblungen
ii in einfacher Söeife. ©ie großen Zoncilien gu Äonftang
i unb 23afcl machten fich eine eigene £>rbnung, ba bie ^heil=
3 ung unb Slbftimmung nach Nationen eingeführt würbe.
*) 2Iufßenonunen von (pfeubotfibor, unb abgebrutft bet Mansi
Concil. Coll. I, 10.
�100
©öUinger, bie neue ©efdjäftSorbnung.
(14)
3n Orient würbe biefe Einrichtung wieber verlaffen, aber
bie ßegaten, Welche präfibirten, vereinbarten bie <55efc^äft^=
orbnung mit ben æifcbôfen, ber Earbinal be ÏÏRonte tief?
barüber abftimmcn unb alte genehmigten fie. 3Son feiner
)
*
Seite erfolgte ein SSBibcrfpruc^. So ift benn bie heutige
romifche Stynobe bie erfte in ber Ecfchidüe ber J^irdße, in
Welcher ben verfammelten Tätern ohne febe Spcilnahme von
ihrer Seite bie procebur borgefchriebeit worben ift. ©aS
erfte Regolamento erwies fiel; fo hemmenb unb urtpraftifh,
bajg wieberhoite Oefndße um Slbänberung unb Eeftattung
freierer ^Bewegung von vertriebenen $raftionen bcS EpiSfo=
pats an ben Sßa^ft gerichtet würben. ©icjj war vergeblich;
aber nach britthalb Monaten fanben bie fünf Segaten cnb=
lieh felber, bafj, wenn bas Eoncil nicht ins Stocfen geraden
foHe, eine îlenberung unb Ergänzung bringenb nothwenbig
fei. 5luf bie Petitionen ber SBifdjöfe ift inbefj in ber neuen
Einrichtung feine Dlücfficht babei genommen worben.
3wei $üge treten barin vor allem hcrvor. Einmal
ift alle ÜRadht unb aller Einfluß auf ben (Sang beS EoncilS
in bie 5pänbe ber prafibirenben ßegaten unb ber ©cputa=
tionen gelegt, fo bafj baS Eoncil felbft ihnen gegenüber
machtlos unb willenlos erfefjeint. Sobann follen bie ge=
Wicfjtigften fragen beS (Staubens unb ber Sehre burch ein=
fadhe Mehrheit ber ^opfjahl, burd) îlufftehen unb Si^en«
bleiben, entfliehen werben.
$Ran hat befanntlich in ben ¿Wei fahren, welche ber
/
*) Le Plat, Monumenta, III. 418: Dicant Patres, utrum
hic modus procedendi eis placeat. SQorauf abge[ìimmt tuurbe.
�(15)
101
bii neue @ef(^aftöorbnung.
Eröffnung beS EoncilS vorpergegangen, eine HJiengc von
3lbpanblungen mit baju gehörigen Decreten nnb EaitoneS
ausarbeiten laffen, biefe follen nun von bem Eoncil ange=
nommen unb bann vom ^ßapft „approbante Concitio“
als ®efet3c, als Sepr= unb (SlaubenSnormen für bie ganje
tatpolifepe Epriftenpcit vertünbigt werben. Es finb im ganzen
einnubfünfjig foldper Scpemate, von welcpen bis jefct erft
fünf biScutirt finb.
Das ©erfapren, wclcpeS bet ber iBeratpung unb 3lb=
ftimmung ftattfinben foli, ift nun folgenbeS:
1. ©aS (Scpema wirb mehrere (jepn) ©age vor ber
iBeratpung ben Tätern beS (SoncilS auSgettjeilt, welche bann
fcpriftlicpc Erinnerungen, $IuSftettungen, ©erbefferungSantrage
machen tonnen.
2. $n biefem §aU rnüffen fie fogleicfj eine neue formet
ober Raffung beS betreffenben SIrtitelS ftatt beS von ipnen
beanftanbeten in 23orfcf)(ag bringen.
3. Solcpe Einträge werben burep ben Secretär ber
einfeplägigen Deputation (eS finb bereu vier) übergeben,
welche bann nacp iprem Ermeffen bavon (Sebraucp maept,
inbem fie bas Scperna, wenn fie es für gwetfmä^ig palt,
reformirt, unb bann in einem, aber nur fummarifcp ge=
paltenen, Sericptc bem Eoncil von ben gefteUten Anträgen
eine D^otij gibt.
4. Die ißräfibenten tonnen jebeS Scpema entweber
blos im @an$en ober auep in Slbfbpnitte getpeilt ber 53e=
ratpung unterftellen.
5. 23ei ber iBeratpung tonnen bie Sßräfibenten jeben
SDBllinger, jtoei Sutac^ten.
2
Stimmen auöb.fati). jtirdje üb. b.Äirdjenfr. b.@egenm.
8
�102
Töttingev,
(16)
9tebner unterbrechen, wenn eS ihnen fheint, bap er nicht
bei bet (Sache bleibe.
G. SicSifchöfeher Deputation tonnen in jebem Moment
baS SSort ergreifen, um beit Sifhßfcn, welche ben 2öort=
taut beS (Schema beanftanben, ju erwiberit.
7. „ßcpn Säter reichen hin, um ben Schluß ber Dis
*
cuffion ju beantragen, worüber bann mit einfacher TOeljr«
heit burch Slnfftehcn ober Sitzenbleiben cntfchicben wirb.
8. Sei ber Slbftimmung über bic einzelnen Shcite beS
(Schema wirb juerft über bic vorgcfchlagcnen Seränbcrungen,
bann über ben von ber Deputation vorgelcgteu Sert burch
‘ülufftehen ober Sitzenbleiben abgeftimmt, fo bajj bie einfache
■IRehrheit entfeheibet.
9. hierauf wirb über baS ganje (Schema mit 9lamenS=
aufruf abgeftimmt, wobei jeber ber Sätcr mit placet ober
non placet antwortet. Cb auch I^cr
blojjc Mehrheit
ber Äopßahl entfeheiben folie, ift nicht angegeben. (FS
fcpcint aber nach ber ülualogic bejaht werben ¿u muffen,
benn baS ganje (Schema ift ja hoch nur wieber ein Stücf ober
ein Chcil von einem gröpern ©anjen, unb eS liegt burchauS
fein ©runb vor, mit bem gröpern Stücf anberS ¿u verfahren
als mit bem fleinern. SBürbe baS Sßrincip ber fdßtedßthinigen Tíeprpcit h^r verlaffen, fo würben Wopl gerabe
bie wichtigem, tiefer einfhncibenben, Schemate verloren gehen.
2ftan ficht nun wohl, bafj einige parlamentarifche
formen in biefe ©efchäftborbnung Iwibergenommen finb.
Slber wenn in politifhen Serfammlungcn gewiffe ben pi<w
gegebenen ähnliche (Einrichtungen beftepen, fo folien fie ge=
wohnlich ¿um Schutze ber ÜRinberheit gegen ÜJíajorifirung
�(17)
103
bie neue @e[d)aftgorbnung.
bienen, Wäljrcnb fie I)ier umgeteljrt gu bem 3wccfe gegeben
ju fein fdjeinen, bic 9)iel;rt)tit nodj mächtiger unb nnwiber=
Widj ju machen, wie fidj bie3 befonberö in bem ifyr ein=
geräumten 3ied)te ¿eigt, bie ©iScuffion, fobalb es iljr gefällt,
abjufcfntcibcn unb alfo ber ^cinber^eit bad SSort §u ent=
Sieben; bied Wirb um fo peinlicher wirten, als befanntli^
and) bie DJtbglicbteit, fiel) in gebrutften ©utadrten ober 3luf=
tlärungen ben übrigen Wiitgliebcrn bed (Foncild mitjutljeilen,
Weber für einzelne, nodj für ganje ©ruppen von Vifdjöfen
gegeben ift.
3n Politiken Vcrfammlungen tonnen Vcfdjlüffe gefaxt,
felbft ©efe^e gegeben werben burep einfache Wfjrljeit, ba
feine ber folgeubcn Parlamente ober Kammern burdj bie
Vefcblüffc unb ©efe^e ber frühem gebunben ift. $ebe tarnt
gu jeber .Seit eine Satzung ihrer Vorgängerinnen äitbern
ober abrogiren. 5lber bie bogmatifdjen Vefdjlüffe eines
©oncilS follen, wenn cS wirflid) ein bfumcnifcheS ift, für
alle $eiten unantaftbar unb unwiberruflidj gelten.
VorauSfichtlid) wirb bei ben nun folgeubcn 2lbftimmungen
bic Wjrljcit bicfcS Sonetts nidjt etwa eine flüffige, aufunb abwogenbe fein, fie wirb nidjt wcdjfcln mit ben ^u
faffenben Vcfdtfüffen, fonbern fie wirb fidj, mit geringen
Schwankungen ber 3al?i, in ihrer ¿ufammenfe^ung Wcfcnt=
lid) glcid; bleiben, ©enn cd ift bekannt, bay bic ©Teilung
ber Vifdjöfe in eine Wjrhcit unb eine Vänberheit fidj .
gleich von Anfang an fdjon bei ber 2öal;t ber ©cputationen,
unb el;c nod) eine einzige Slbftimmung ftattgefunben, fdjarf
unb entfliehen l)erauSgeftcllt l;at. So mufjte eS kommen,
Weil in ber ftrage von ber päpstlichen Unfehlbarkeit fid)
2*
�104
Döllinger,
(18)
atsbatb ein burcpgrcifenber unb principictler ©egenfa^ ergab, I
unb man fofort erfannte, baff biefe §rage bie £auptan=
gelegenpeit ber Serfammlung bilbe, nnb alle anbcrn von
ipr beijerrfdjt würben. @g ftept ¿u erwarten, baff bie
Ülnpänger ber Unfeplbarfeitgtpeorie bie Sorlagcn, fowic fie
aub ben Rauben ber Deputationen pervorgepeu, auep un=
bebenfiief) votiren werben; benn für fie ift gang folge
*
rieptig 9llleg maffgebenb, wag vom romifcpcit Stuple
aubgept, unb bafür ift aubreiepenb geforgt, baff in ben
Deputationen, welchen jept über alte auf bie Serbe ffcrung
ber Scpcmate begügtietjen Anträge bie umfaffcnbfte unb in
*
appcllable (Gewalt übertragen ift, nur eine Slnficpt fiep
geltenb maepen fann. (Sin Slict auf bab ^erfonal ber
wieptigften Deputation, de fide, genügt. Sor allein finbet
fiep ba ber Utömcr (iarboni, ber fepon in ber Sorbcrcit
*
(
*Sommiffion
ungb
bag Dogma ber pdpftlicpcn Unfeplbartcit
in einer eigenen Dent'fcprift empfoplen unb in feiner (Som
*
miffion pat anncpmen taffen. Sieben ipm ber ^cfuit Steinb,
fobann bie berebten Slawen Dccpampb von SJccepeln, Spal
*
biitg von Saltimore, ißie von Ißoiticrg, Scbocpowbfi, «fpaffun
ber Slrmcnier, be ipreuv bon Sitten; von Dcutfcpcn SJiar
*
tin, Seneftrcp, ©affer von Sri,reu, ¿wei Spanier, brei
Sübanierifauer, brei Italiener, ein ^rlänbcr, enblicp Simor
Qicgnicr unb Scparpman.
Seit 1800 ^apreu pat eg in ber jtirepe alb ©runb
*
gegolten, baff Decrete über beit ©tauben unb bie ßepre
nur mit einer, wenigfteng moralifepen, Stimmencinpcllig
*
feit votirt werben foUten. Diefcr ©runbfap ftept mit bem
ganzen Spftem ber tatpolifepeu Svircpc im engften 3u=
�(19)
bie neue ©cfdjäftöorbnung.
105
fammeuhaitg. ES ift fein IBeifpicl eines Oognta Mannt,
welches bürd; eine einfache Stimmenmehrheit unter bem
SBiberfpruche einer Wuberheit befchloffen unb barauf hin
cingcführt worben wäre.
Um bieS flar 311 machen, mufi ich mir Dtaurn für
eine furje theologifche, aber hoffentlich allgemein i?erftänb=
liehe, Erörterung erbitten.
Sie Kirche Ij^t ein ihr 13011 Slufang an übergebenes
Oepofitum geoffenbartcr Sehre 311 bewahren unb ju ver=
walten. * Sie empfängt feine neuen Offenbarungen, unb
)
fie macht feine neuen ElaubenSartifel. Unb wie mit ber
Kirche felbft, fo ift cS auch mit bem allgemeinen Eoncil.*
)
**
*') Sie ©ijeologie bat fidj in ber Gnttvicfluiig tiefer fragen an=
gefcbloffen an bie allgemein als claffifdj unb völlig correct angenom
mene Sdjrift beö SSincentiuö von Serins, baS Gommonitorium, baS
fdjon um baö 3aljr 434 erfdjien. Stuf biefe bejiefye id) mid) baber
in bem folgenben.
**) So fagt ber Sifdjof gif t) er von Dtodjefter, ber für ben ißrimat
bes? Zapfte« fein geben opferte, in feiner Streitfdjrift gegen i'utber
(Opera, ed. Wirceburg. 1597, p. 592) mit Berufung auf ben gleiten
Slubfprud) be¡3 ©uns ScotuS: In eorum (beS Goncils mit bem Zapfte)
arbitrio non est situm, ut quiequam tale vel non tale faciant, sed
spiritu potius veritatis edocti, id quod revera prídem de substantia
fidei fuerat jam declarant, esse de substantia fidei. Hub ber 9Jii=
norit ©a ven port, Svstema fidei, p. 140: secundum receptam,
tam veterum, quam modernorum doctorum sententiam ecclesia non
potest agere ultra revelationes antiquas, nihil potest hodie decla
ran de fide, quod non habet talem identitatem cum prius revelatis.------------ Unde semper docet Scotus: Quod illae con
clusiones solum possunt infallibiliter declarari et determinan per
ecclesiam, quae sunt necessario inclusae in articulis cre
dit is. Si igitur per accidens conjunguntur, vel si solum proba-
�106
S? cUinger,
(20)
Das ©oncil ift bie IRepräfcntatioii, bie 3ufammciifaffung
bcr gangen Äircbe; bic Sifcpöfc auf bcmfclbcn finb bie
©efanbten unb ©efcpäftSträger aller Äircpcn bcr fat^oii=
fepen SSelt; fic paben im tarnen bcr ©efammtpeit 311
erklären, waS biefe ©efammtpeit bcr ©laubigen über eine
rcligiöfe §ragc bentt unb glaubt, was fic als Ucbcrlicferung
empfangen pat. Die finb alfo als tßrocuratoren angufepen,
Welcpe bic ipnen gegebene ©ollmacpt burepanS niept überfepreiten bürfen.
)
*
Späten fie cS, fo würbe bic Jtircfjc,
bereu Übertreter fie finb, bic von ipnen aufgcftellte Sepre
unb Definition niefjt bestätigen, viclinepr als etwas iprem
gläubigen Dewu^tfein $rembcS jurüefweifeu.
Die ÜSifepöfe auf bem (Soncil finb alfo vor allem
3engen, fie fagen aus unb conftatiren, was fie unb ipre
©emeinben als ©laubcnSlepre empfangen unb bisper be=
' fannt paben; fie finb aber auep Dlicptcr, nur bafj ipre
biliter sequuntur ex articulis, fidem non attingent per quascumque
(leterminationes, quia Concilia non possunt identificare, quae sunt
ex objecto diversa, nec necessario inferre ea, quae solum appa
renter, seu probabiliter sunt inclusa in articulis creditis.
•) Concilium non est ipsamet ecclesia, sed ipsam tantum
repraesentat ; — — id est episcopi illi qui concilio adsunt, legati
mittuntur ab omnibus omnium gentium catholicarum ecclesiis, qui,
ex nomine totius universitatis, déclarent, quid ipsa universitas
sentiat et quid traditum acceperit. Itaque ejusmodi legati omnium
ecclesiarum sunt veluti procuratore«, quibus nefas esset procura
tionem sibi crcditam tantillum excedere. Unde constat, quod si
quingenti episcopi, ut videre est in exemplis Ariminensis, et Constantinopolitanae contra imagines coactae synodi, suam de fide
communi declaranda procurationem tantillum excederent, universa
ecclesia, cujus sunt tantummodo procuratores et simplex reprae-
�(21)
bie neue (ScfdjäftSorbnung.
107
richterliche ©cwalt über ben ©tauben nicht über ben 23e=
reich ihrcö ^cugenthumS ijinau^efyeit barf, vielmehr burefj
biefeS forttvährenb bebingt unb umfehrieben ift 91(3 (Ritter
haben fie baS ©efefc (bie ©laubcnSlchre) nicht erftgu machen,
fonbern nur gn interpretiren unb anjuwcitbeii. Sie flehen
unter bem öffentlichen (Rechte ber Äirche, an irelchcrrt fie
nichts ju äitbcrn vermögen. Sie üben ihr (Richtcramt,
crftenS: inbem fie bie von ihnen abgetegten $cugniffe
unter einanber prüfen unb vergleichen unb bereu Tragweite
erwägen; jweitenS, inbem fie nach gewiffenhafter Prüfung:
ob an einer Sehre bie brei unentbehrlichen (öebingungen ber
Univcrfalität ber (perpetuität unb beS ©onfenfuS (ubique,
semper, ab ómnibus) ¿utreffen; ob alfo bie Sehre als
bie allgemeine Sehre ber ganzen Äirche, als wirtlicher (öe=
ftanbthcil beS göttlichen ©epofitumS, allen gegeigt unb ihr
(Betenntnifj jebein (griffen aufcrlegt Werben fönne.* $hre
)
sentatio, definitionem factam ab illis ratam non haberet, imo re
pudiarci. Oeuvres de Fénélon, Versailles 1820, II, 361.
*) ©o ber ^efuit 23 a g o t in feiner Institutio Theologica de
vera religione. Paris 1645, p. 395: Universitas sine duabus aliis,
nimirum antiquitate et consensione stare non potest. Quod autem
triplici illa probatione confirmatur, est haud dubie ecclesiasticum
et catholicum. Quod si universitatis nota deficit et nova aliqua
quaestio exoritur, novaque contagio ecclesiam commaculare incipit,
tunc hac universitate praesentium ecclesiarum deficiente recurrendem est ad antiquitatem. Notai enim Vincent, posse aliquam
haereseos contagionem occupare multas ecclesias sicut constat de
Ariana ; adeo ut aliquando plures ecclesiae et episcopi diversarum
nationum Ariani quam Catholici reperirentur. Et quantumvis
doc rina aliqua latissime pateat, sitamen novam esse constat, haud
dubie erronea est, nec enim est apostolica, nec per successionem
�108
©ötttnger,
(22)
Prüfung I;at fid) bemnacf; fowol)l über bie Vergangenheit als
bie Gegenwart 311 erftrecfen. <5o ift toon bcm SImte ber
Vifcßöfc auf Goncilien jebe SöiUtür, jebcS blofj fubjective
Gutbünten auSgefcljtoffen. GS würbe ba frevelhaft unb
verberblich fein, benn ba bie itirc^c feine neuen Dffenbarungen
empfangt, feine neuen Glaubenöartifcl macht, fo bann unb
barf auch ein Goncil bie Subftan^ beS Glaubens nicht
aitbern, nichts bavon Wegnchmen unb nichts hin8uFll9en‘
Gin Goncilium macht alfo bogmatifchc Decrete nur über
Dinge, welche fchon in ber Kirche, als burch Schrift unb
Drabition bezeugt, allgemein geglaubt würben, ober welche
)
*
als eoibente unb flarc Folgerungen in beit bereits geglaubten
unb gelehrten Grunbfätjen enthalten finb. SBenit aber
et traditionem ad nos usque pervenit. Deinde, ut notat idem Vincentius, antiquitas non potest jam seduci. Verum enimvero quia
et ipse error antiquus esse potest: idcirco cum consulitur vetustas,
in ea quaerenda est consensio.
*) So S^incentiuS: Hoc semper nec quidquam dliud Conciliorum decretis catholica perfecit ecclesia, nisi ut quod a majoribus sola traditione susceperat, hoc deinde posteris per scripturae
chirographum consignaret. Commonit. cap. 32. ©er ©ribentirtifdje
©Ijeologe 23 eg a, ap. Davenport p.9: Concilia generalia hoc tantum
habent, ut veritates jam alias, vel in seipsis, vel in suis principiò
a Deo, ecclesiae vel SS. Patribus revelatas vel per scripturas vel
traditionem prophetarum et apostolorum turn declarent, turn confirment et sua autoritate claras et apertas et absque ulla ambigu.tate ab omnibus Catholicis tenendas tradant. Addit: et ad hoc
dico: praesentia Spiritus sancii illustrantur, primo ut infallibiles
declarent veritates ecclesiae revelatas, et secundo, ut ad terminando
dubia in ecclesia suborta, extirpandosque errores et abusus infab
libiliter etiam ex revelatis colligant populo Christiano credenda et
usurpanda in fide et moribus.
�(23)
bie neue Oefdiäftborbnung.
109
eine Meinung Ba^unbcrte lang ftetS auf Sßiberfpritd)
gefloßen unb mit allen tl)eoiogifd)en SBaffen beftritten
Worben, alfo ftetS minbeftens unfid)er gewefen ift, fo tarnt
fie nie, and; burd; ein ©oncilium nidjt, sur ©ewif^eit,
baö Ijeifjt jur ©ignitat einer göttlich geoffenbarten £efyre
erhoben werben, ©aljer ber gewöbnlid)c 9luf ber SSäter auf
ben ©oncilien nad) ber Einnahme unb 3)erfüitbigung eines
bogmatifd)cn ©ecretS: haec fides Patrum.
Soll alfo j. 33. att bie Stelle ber früher geglaubten
unb gelehrten Srrtijumsfrciljeit ber gaitjen ftirdje bie Uit=
fehlbarfeit eines ©injigen gefeilt werben, fo ift baS feine
©ntwidlung, feine ©rplication beó vorher implicit @eglaub=
ten, feine mit logifdjer ^olgeridjtigteit fid) ergebenbe ©on=
fequenj, fonbern einfach baS gerabe ©cgcntljeii ber früheren
fiebre, bie bamit auf ben Jiopf gcftellt würbe, ©erabe wie
es im politifd)en ßebeit feine fyortbiibung ober ©ntwicflung,
fonbern einfad) ein Umfturj, eine Revolution wäre, wenn
ein bisher freies ©emeinwefen b^id) unter baS 3od)
eines abfolut I)errfd)enben Wlonard)cn gebracht würbe.
©ie Beit, in welcher ein ofumenifdjeó ©oncit über ben
©laubeit ber (griffen beräth, ift alfo fletó eine $eit ber
lebhafteren ©rweefung beS religiöfen SßewufjtfeinS, eine „ßeit
ber abjulegenben Beugniffe unb ber offenen ©rflarungen
für alle treuen Söhne ber Jtird)e, ©eiftlicfw wie Saien,
gewefen. Rian glaubte, wie bie ©efdjidjte ber Ytirc^e be=
weist, allgemein, bafj man gerabe burd; folcfje Äunbgebungen bent ©oitcil feine Rufgabe erleichtere, unb nicf)t bie
33äter baburd) ftöre ober hemme. Beugnifj ablegeu, 2Dünfd;e
�110
SöHinger,
(24)
auófpredfcn, auf bie 23cbürfniffe ber 5tir(f)c fyinwcifen, tann
unb barf jcbcr, aucf) ber £aie.
)
*
@anj bcfonbcrS wenn cS fid) um bie (Sinfüíjrung
eines neuen £)ogma íjanbelt, welkes etwa, von einer Seite
fycr gcforbcrt, bcm SSewujjtfcin ber (Staubigen fremb ift
unb ifjneit ais cinc Neuerung crfcfjciut, bann ift ber fidj
cr^cbenbe ißroteft ber ßaicn ein ebenfo gerechter als not^=
wenbiger, unb unvermciblidjcS 3eu9u^ ^cr ^Inlfäuglitfjteit
an ben ifyncu überlieferten (Stauben, uub fie erfüllen bamit
cine lßflid;t gegen bie J^ircfje2luf bcm (íoncil fclbft aber beweist bcr SBibcrfprudj
ben cinc Slnjaljl bcr ¡Sifdwfc gegen eine als Dogma ¿u
vertunbcnbe Meinung ergebt, bafj in ben von ifyncn rcpra=
fentirtcn Xíjciífirdjen biefe Meinung nidft für waljr, nicfjt
für göttlid) geoffenbart gehalten worben ift, unb aud) je|t
nidjt bafür gehalten wirb. ¡Damit ift aber fetjon cnt=
fdfieben baf$ biefer Veljre ober Meinung bie brei wefent=
licken ©rforberniffe bcr Univcrfalität, bcr ißetpetuitat unb
*) (So fagt ber Carbinol dieginalb Sßole, einer ber ißräfibeitten
beé Xribentinifcfjen Concité, in feinem 23ud>e De Concilio, 1562,
fol. 11: Patet quidem locus omnibus et singulis exponendi, si quid
vel sibi vel ecclesiae opus esse censeant, sed decernendi non om
nibus patet, verum iis tantum, quibus rectionem animarum ipse
unicus pastor et rector dedit. — ¡papft DHfotauö I. bemerft, baf?
bie Äaifer an ben Concilien tlfeiigenommen haben, roenn oom G5lau=
ben getjanbett loorben fei. Ubinam legistis, imperatores anteces
sores vestros synodalibus conventibus interfuisse? nisi forsitan in
quibus de fide tractatum est, quae universitatis est, quae omnium
communis est, quae non solum ad clericos, verum etiam ad Laicos
et ad omnes omnino pertinet Christianos. -¡Diefe Stelle fanb auch
in (Sratianö Secret Aufnahme.
�(25)
bie neue (^efcf)äftöorbnung.
111
beg (Sonfcnfng abgeben, baß fic alfo auch nicht ber ganzen
Mrebe alb göttliche ^Offenbarung aufgebrungen werben barf.
©arum fyat man eg in ber Äirdje ftctg für notl^
wenbig eraclßet baff, fobalb eine nur einigermaßen beträcht
liche Slnjahl von Sifchöfen einem von ber Mehrheit etwa
vorgcfchlagencn ober beabsichtigten ©ecret wiberfpracb, biefeg
©ecret beifeite gelegt warb, bie ©efinition unterblieb, ©ie
wahrhafte Äatholicität einer Sehre foll evibent unb un=
Zweifelhaft fein, fie ift eg aber nicht, fobalb bag ^eugniß
wenn auch einer Wnbcrzahl ben löewcig liefert, baß ganje
3l6thcilungcn ber ätirebe biefe Sehre nicht glauben unb nicht
betennen.
©arum war bei jebem (Soncil bie Hauptfrage: „Sinb
bieOlaubengbecrete von allen -Dlitgliebcrn genehmigt worben?"
Sogleich auf bem crften allgemeinen Goncil 311 Dlicaa, wo
unter 318 IBifcböfen julcßt nur ¿wei fiep ber Unterfchrift
weigerten. $u (Sbatcebon zögerte man fo lange mit ben
©ntfeheibungen, ließ fiep immer wicber auf neue (5rörter=
ungen ein, big eiiblid; alle 23cbcnfcn, welche befonberg bie
illvrifchcn unb bie paläftinenfifchen Sifcböfe gegen bag
Schreiben Seo’g anfänglich hc9tcn, gehoben waren. 9iod)
ehe Ä'aifer Jarcian bie Sßnobe entließ, brang er auf eine
(ntlärung: ob wirtlich alíe SBifcfwfc (eg waren über 600)
ber (Slaubcngbefinition guftimmten, wag beim auch alle
bcrcitwilligft bejahten, unb worauf ^oapft Seo felbft (Sott
banfte baß fein Schreiben „nach allen 3rüCifeIR unb ®c=
benten bod) cnblicß burcf) bie unwibcrlegliche 3uf^nnnun9
beg gefammten Gpiffopatg" beftätigt worben fei. So ver=
fieberten and) auf bem felgten allgemeinen Goncil bie
�112
S?óliin<jer,
(26)
iöifc^öfc auf bie Jyrage beb Äaiferb: baß bie bogmatifc^e
(Sntfd)eibuug unter Zuftimmung aller aufgcftcllt worben
fei. Sabfelbe gefchal) auf bem fiebenten im Zaljre 787.
Unb wicberum mclbcte Ä'arl ber ©roße von bem (Sondi
ju ^ranffurt 794 ben fpanifd)cn 53ifd)öfen: alleb fei gefdjel)en,quatenusSancta omnium unanimitas decornerete.
3n Srient gab ^ßapft Sßiub IV ben Legaten bic 2Bei=
fungi nicl)tb entfcljeiben ju laffen wab nid)t allen Tätern
genehm fei. (Siner ber bort bcfiitblicfycn Sinologen, ^la^ba
bc dlnbraba, berichtet: mehrmals Ijabe man ein Secret
Söocbcn, SDÌonate lang uneiitfcbicben gclaffcn, weil einige
wenige 23ifd)öfe wiberftrebten ober IBcbentcn äußerten; erft
bann, wenn enblid) nach laugen unb forgfältigen 2?eratt)=
ungen (Sinftimmigfeit ber Später erhielt worben, ljabe man
bab Secret publicirt. $ai)Va führt mehrere 23cifpiele ba=
von an.
)
*
Hub Soffnct bemerft über bic 33orfc()rift ^ius’
IV : bieß fei eine treffliche dìegei um bab Söaljre vom
Zweifelhaften 311 fd)eibcn.
idlle Sheologen machen cb jur 53cbingung ber Detu=
mcuicität eineb (Soncilb baß völlige À reib eit auf bem=
felbcit hctrfdje. Freiheit beb diebenb, Freiheit beb Stimmens,
diiemaub, fagt Sonimeli), barf jurüefgewiefen werben ber
♦) Defensio fidei Tridentinae, f. 17 : Cum quindecim fere aut
viginti dubitare se ajebant, ne vero quiequam praeter Conciliorum
vetustum morem concluderetur, horum paucorum dubitatio plurimoruni impetum retardavit, atque effecit, ut res in aliam sessionem
dilata, omnium fere calculis tandem definiretur. 9Jian vergi. bort
baö Weitere. ‘Ulan fielet, bafe ju Orient bie Uebeineugung l^evrfc^te,
es muffe alleò in ber QBeife ber alten doncilien bel;anbelt unb ent=
fdjieben — menigliene bie mefentlidie {\orm berfelben bcibetjalten werben.
�(27)
bie neue $c|d)äftöorbmin3.
113
gehört werben will. ^id;t bloß phVÍWr $wang würbe
bie 23efd)lüffe eines ßoncils fraftloS unb wertlos machen.
£)ie Freiheit, biefe LebcnSluft eines wahren (Solicits, wirt»
and; burdj bie gar mannigfaltigen formen in benen mo=
ralifSer^wang cintritt, ober bcrWnfd; fidj willig fiiedjtcn
lä£t (3. 25. burd) bie bcrfdjiebcnen Strten ber Simonie),
jerftört, unb bie Legitimität beS (Soncils baburd) aufgehoben.
£ouruelp nennt als bie auf Spnoben wirffamen unb bie
conciliarifdje Freiheit aufhebenben LeibenfSaften fynrdjt,
Stellengier, ®clbgci¿ unb äpabfudjt. *
)
2llS ber grofje Slbfall 311 Seleucia unb Bimini gleis
zeitig ftattfanb, als au fed)Shunbert 23ifchöfc baS gemcin=
fame Wenntnif) bcrläugiieteii unb Preisgaben, ba war es
„©eifteSfSwädje unb Sd)cu vor einer mühfeligen dicife"
(partim imbecillitate ingenii, partim taedio peregrinationis evicti, Sulp. Sever. 2, 43), was fic überwanb.
©ic blofic £l)atfad)e einer wenn and) noch fo ¿al)l=
reifen, bifdjöflidjcn 23erfannulling ift alfo noch lange fein
beweis ber wirtlichen Dcfumcnicität eines (Soncils; ober,
Wie bie Theologen, 3. 23. Sournclp, fid) auSbrüdcn, cS
fanu wohl öfumenifd) ber ^Berufung nad) fein, ob es biejs
aber and) bem Verlauf unb 2luSgang nach fei, baruber
fann baS (Soncil felbft nidjt eutfcpciben, faun nidjt fetber
fid; 3eugnifz geben; ba muff erft bie bod) and) nod) über
jebem (Soncil ftepcube Autorität, ober baS 3eugnifj ber
gaumen Ä'ircpc, als cntfcfjeibeiib unb beftätigenb pinjutreten.
Sie (Soncilien als fold;c haben feine SScrheifgung — aueb
J De ecclesia I, 384.
�114
Töüingcr,
(28)
in bcn gewöhnlich angeführten SSorten be§ äperrn von ben
„jwei ober brei" femmt eben alles auf baS „in feinem
tarnen Sßerfammeltfein" an, unb bieff enthält, wie alle
Geologen annehmen, mehrere. Skbingnngen, bie 3. 5).
Stournelt) aufführt.
)
*
?(ber bie Äirchc hat
2?erhei§=
ungen, unb fie liutfz erft fiel) überzeugen, ober bie @ewif^
beit befi^cn, baf) V^Vfifchcr ober moralifefter 3wang, fvurebt,
ßeibenfehafteu, SJerführungötünftc — Singe wie fie ¿u
Diimini unb noch gar oft gewirtt h^n — nicht auf bem
(Soncil übermächtig geworben finb, baf) alfo bie wahre
Freiheit bort gcljerrfcht bube. $n biefem (Sinn fagt 23of=
fuet von einem ötumenif^en (Soncit: ber 23ifcböfc auf bemfclben müßten fo viele unb aus fo verfeiuebenen Säubern,
unb bie 3iiftimmung ber übrigen fo evibent fein,
*) Quaeres: quibus conditionibus promisit Christus se conciliis adfuturum? Resp. Ista generali: Si in nomine suo congre
gata fuerint; hoc est servata suft'ragiorum liberiate; invocato coelesti auxilio; adhibita humana industria et diligentia in conquirenda
ventate.------- Deus scilicet, qui omnia suaviter disponit ac mo
derato, via supernaturali aperta et manifesta non adest conciliis,
sed occulta Spiritus subministratione. (Deus) permittit, episcopos
omnibus humanae infirmitatis periculis subjacere et aliquando
succumbere: ncque enim unquam promisit, se a conciliis ejusmodi
pericula certo semper pro pulsaturum; sed hoc unum, se’iis semper
adfuturum, qui in suo nomine congrcgarentur. Congregari autem
in suo nomine censentur, quoties eas observant leges et condi
tions, quas voluit observari. Tournely, praelectiones theologicae deDeo et divinis attributis, I, 165. Journet») fiitjrt benfelben
(Bebauten in feinen praelectiones theologicae de ecclesia Christi,
I, 384 nod) weiter aus: (Deus) episcopos permittit omnibus hu
manae infirmitatis periculis obnoxios esse, metus scilicet, ambitionis, avaritiae, cupiditatis etc.
�(29)
bie neue ©efcbâftêorbnung.
115
baff man tlar fclje, e§ fei nidjtä aiibcreö ba gefdjeljeu,
afe baff bie Slufidft bet ganjeu SSelt jufammengetrageu
)
*
worben.
(Sollte fid; alfo geigen, baff auf bern Goucil feineoweg«
„bie fXufidjt bei ganzen tatljolifcfjcn SBelt jufammengetragen"
worben, baff vielmehr TMjrijeitebcfdüiiffc gefafft worben
feien welche mit bent ©tauben eines beträchtlichen Sfjeilö
ber Äirchc im SSibevfprud) fielen, bann würben gewifc in
ber tatlfolifdjcn SSclt bie fragen aufgeworfen werben:
£>aben nufere SSifdwfe richtig Bcuguiff gegeben bon bem
(Glauben ihrer ©iocefen? unb wenn nicht, finb fie waljr=
I;aft frei gewefen? über wie fommt es baff il;r 3cu9niB
nicht beamtet worben ift? bafc fie majorifirt worben finb?
3?on ben Antworten bie auf biefe fragen erteilt werben,
Werben bann bie ferneren Greigniffe in ber 5bird;e bebingt
♦) Et que les autres consentent si évidemment à leur assem
blée, qu’il sera clair, qu’on n’y ait fait qu’apporter le sentiment
de toute la terre. (Histoire des variations, 1. 15, n. 1OOO.) Unb
barum forbert ber WÜ ©elafiu« ju einer bene gesta synodus nidfct
nur, baß fie nad) Sdfrift unb îrabition unb nad) ben firdflidjen
«Regeln ißre Gntfdjeibungen gefaßt habe, fonbern and), baß fie von
ber ganzen ^irdje angenommen fei : quam cuncta recepit ecclesia
(Epist. 13 bei £'abbé ConcilIV, 1200 unb 1203). Unb «Rico te be^
merft gegen bie GaWiniften: Ils ont une marque évidente que le
Concile, qui se dit Universel doit être reçu pour tel, dans l’accep
tation qu’en fait l’Église. (Prétendus Réformés convaincus de
schisme. 2,7. p. 289.) ©ieftirdje gibt ben Goncilien Beugniß (nicht
etfl Autorität), fotvie fie burd) ihren biblifdjen Ganoit ben einjelnen
æüdjern ber Sibel Beugniß gibt, roäfyrenb natürlich bie innere Au
torität berfelben nicht von ber itirdje ausfließt. Sie ift auch batestis,
non autor fidei.
�116
SDöUinger, bic neue @ef<$äft$orbnung.
(30)
fein. Unb barum ift au cf) in ber ganzen Äirdjc bic bollftc
fßublicität ftetö als ju einem (Soncit gehörig gewährt worben; benn cS liegt ber gefammten djriftlidjen SBelt ijodjlicf»
baran nidjt nur ju wiffen bafj etwas bort befdjloffen wirb,
fonbernaudj ¿u wiffen wie eS befdjloffen wirb. 2ln biefem
Hßic hängt gulefct atieS, wie bie benfwürbigen ^a^re 359,
449, 754 u. f. w. beweifen. Stuf baS ßoncil »on Orient
hätte man fid) be^üglidj beS jwangSweife auf erlegten <Sdjwei=
genS nidjt berufen follen; benn erftenS würbe bort blofc
eine ^Dialjnung gegeben, unb ¿weitend betraf bie <5rinner=
ung nur bie 23etanntmadjung oon (Entwürfen, welche, was
heutzutage bei bem <5tanb ber ißreffe nidjt meljr möglich
wäre, bamals in ber $erne mit wirtlichen ^ecreten oer=
wedjfelt würben.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Einige worte uber die unjehlbarfeitsadresse und geschaftsordnung des concils und ihre theologische bedeutung zwei gutachtung von J. V. Dollinger
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Dollinger, J. V.
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Place of publication: Munchen
Collation: p. 87-116 ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Text in German.
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Rudolph Oldenbourg
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1870
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Theology
Germany
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Conway Tracts
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Text
■ THE EXAMINER:
A Monthly Review of Religious and Humane Questions,
and of Literature.
Vol. I. —FEBRUARY, 1871. —No. 3.
Article I.— Unitarian Leaders.
[These sketches were written while watching the pro
ceedings of the recent meeting of the Unitarian National
Conference. Though slight, and hastily set down, they
aim to be just. They refer in part to persons who were not
present in the meeting alluded to.]
REV. DR. BELLOWS
Is well known to the general public. In the Conference
he appeared as the President of the Council of Ten, which
is the executive committee of the organization! His report
in this capacity opened the work of the conference! In
several respects Dr. Bellows stands in a position almost
pontifical. His abundant energy, his large and broad
intelligence in ethical and religious matters, his usual cath
olicity of spirit, the exceptional warmth and vigor of his
fraternal sympathies, and his great gifts as a writer and
preacher, have justly entitled him to a position not accorded
to any other among the leaders of Unitarianism. It is at
the same time to be said, that a somewhat pontifical temper
is thought by many of Dr. Bellows’s brethren to detract
unhappily from his usefulness as unofficial primate of the
denomination, while his long-time habit of giving way to
LIBRARY
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Congress, in the year 1871, by Edward C. Towne, in the OfT.ce of the
Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
I
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Unitarian Leaders.
extreme inspirations, now in the direction of unrestricted
liberty, and now as entirely in the opposite direction, gives
great uneasiness to the less eminent but more consistent
managers of denominational affairs. The more radical
repress with difficulty their dissatisfaction with the conces
sions which Dr. Bellows has made to extreme conservatism.
On the other hand, the more conservative entertain un
feigned disgust at the equal concessions which their primate
has made to radicalism. It cannot be denied by any, how
ever, that in the report made by Dr. Bellows he stood
between the two extreme which divide his brethren, and
*
even stood above them, both in the gentleness and firmness
of his entirely Christian spirit, and in his sincere effort to
state the common ground occupied by the widely separated
elements pf the caflamunion, that of faith in God, whether
through the Christ off God or the Spirit of God, Christian
union justly frecogjiized between all who believe in “the
God behind both Christ and Spirit.”
REV. E. E. HALE,
, The popular preacher and magazinist of Boston, represents
the onljheecognized denominational publication, “ Old and
New,” of which Mr. Hale is the editor. Five thousand
dollars was given by the American Unitarian Association
towards establishing “ Old and New,” and some benevolent
individuals gave the venerable “ Christian Examiner ”
thirty-five hundred dollars to “ go up higher,” and it went,
leaving the field.to Mr. Hale’s enterprise. In the opinion
of some of the more thoughtful and scholarly of the Unita
rian divines, Mr. Hale has not met just expectations.
Not a few—Rev, Dr. Hedge for example—deem “ Old and
New” of little off no account to any serious religious work,
its notes of really religious utterance are so few and feeble.
Some go so far as to energetically stigmatize the publica
tion as unpardonably superficial, a sugared mush of pleasant
words which can be liked once, can be endured a few times,
but cannot be accepted for a moment as the latest literary
�Unitarian Leaders.
203
legacy of Unitarianism to the American people. These
would gladly give a handsome sum to induce “ Old and
New ” to follow the “ Christian Examiner ” “ up higher.”
Even Dr. Bellows, in his calm, judicious report to the Con
ference, did not hesitate to mingle with kindly praise of his
beloved friend’s labors, an earnest intimation that Mr. Hale
had not yet done what he was supposed to be under a pledge
to do, and decided warning that further disappointment on
the part of the denomination would hardly be borne with
patience. It is but just to say for Mr. Hale, that he has
both consulted the market, which makes but a limited
demand for any other than cheap work in popular maga
zines, and his own genius, which is essentially genial rather
than thoughtfull and interested more in strewing pleasure
in the everyday path of common people, than in leading
the march of the saints and thinkers, or heading the fray
of zealous faith.
REV. CHARLES LOWE,
The popular secretary of the American Unitarian Associa
tion, is a remarkable illustration of modest powers used
with a wisdom hardly ever associated with a more striking
and more daring order of genius. Of delicate physical
constitution, of a peculiar sweetness of spirit and gentle
ness of manner, cautious in thought and unambitious in
action, he yet goes so directly to the point of every matter
with which he has to deal, and takes his stand so conscien
tiously and firmly, with such breadth of spirit and such
profound sympathy with all things lovely and of good
report, as to find himself recognized as one at least of the
pillars of the Gate Beautiful of the Urratarian communion,
if not in fact, in himself alone, the most exact contempo
rary expression of the Christian Liberty through which
Channing taught his disciples to seek entrance to the king
dom of God.
JWES FREEMAN CLARKE,
As he likes to be called, without his titles, was the Secretary
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Unitarian Leaders.
of the Association, now represented by Mr. Lowe, during
a p^iod ten years ago, when the seeds of present agitation
were being sown; and at that time no one could have more
nobly held up the Unitarian standard of spiritual freedom.
As an earnest friend of Theodore Parker, and a sufferer
from insisting upon Christian recognition of that great
heresiarch, before Unitarianism had begun to build his
monument,—when in fact it was still stoning him,—Mr.
Clarke earned a most honorable fame among the earliest
friends of the progress which has now become intensely
radical, and this he did not in any respect forfeit during
the period of his secretaryship in the American Unitarian
Association. It was, however, always the case that Mr.
Clarke belonged by his most cherished beliefs to orthodox
Unitarianism. Few of Theodore Parker’s critics have
appreciated his theology less than Mr. Clarke, or have
more positively questioned that radical reformer’s success
as a seeker for Christian truth. The recent eminence of
Mr. Clarke,—now Dr. Clarke,—as a preacher and denomi
national writer, has brought his theological conservatism
into particular prominence, and has given the impression
that age is cooling the more liberal sympathies of his
earlier career. It can be pretty confidently said, neverthe
less, that any wanderer from the stricter churches, or any
fugitive from the darker faiths of the modern world, who
may come to the Gate Beautiful alluded to above, will find
himself passing very close to the ever-warm heart of one
of the purest and noblest men now living, James Freeman
Clarke.
REV. F. H. HEDGE, D.D.,
Rarely presses to the front in any assemblage of liberal
Christians, though he should be recognized as the finest
thinker and ablest writer the denomination has had since
Mr. Emerson withdrew to an exclusively literary position.
Like Dr. Clarke, Dr. Hedge is in one direction conserva
tive—that of a strenuous demand for close connection with
the Christianity of the past; yet he is essentially a trans-
�Unitarian Leaders.
20.5
cendentalist by the greatness of his intellect, a calm seer
who looks out with clear eyes over the highest summits of
human thought, and views both discussions and conclusions
in the purest light of unclouded heavenly reason. Not
even Mr. Emerson has more deeply penetrated the mystic
secrets of divine reason, nor more happily separated in the
spectrum of his thought the elements of the uncreated light
which is to all religious minds the essence of revelation.
If any man now living is competent to report to the ear of
this generation the best echoes of eighteen Christian centu
ries, and in fact the utterances of the “still small voice” in
all ages and places of human faith, Dr. Hedge is entitled to
such rank.
REV. C. A. BARTOL, D.D.,
The successor of Dr. Lowell, in that watch-tower of spirit
ual edification, the pulpit of the West Church, Boston, is
one of the beloved and distinguished leaders of Unitarianism, in spite of his life-long determination to abstain from
all sectarian connection. He is a rare example of the spir
itual insight which makes a. successful preacher, the power
to look through forms to sympathies, and touch the deeper
chords of feeling, in the vibration of which the Christian
heart most readily recognizes the visitation of the divine
compassion. Had he so chosen, Dr. Bartol might have cul
tivated, with eminent success, the difficult field of theologi
cal speculation, and he does not, with all his simplicity and
gentleness, lack the robust qualities necessary to the high
controversy of religious opinion. It was his deliberate
choice to entirely devote himself to edification through
pulpit ministry and pastoral labor, and here he stands
second to none among his brethren.
REV. WM. H. FURNESS, D.D.,
Of Philadelphia, is in the same category as Dr. Bartol: he
1 is a Unitarian leader, without ever meddling with the con
duct of denominational affairs. The most genial of natures
is in him matured by thorough and varied culture in litera-
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Unitarian Leaders.
ture, art, and social graces, until he justly ranks among the
most charming masters of the interpretation and illustra
tion of Christian grace and truth. It has been the single
study of Dr. Furness, through all his active life, and by
many successive efforts, to reproduce the true likeness of
ideal humanity, as he reads it in the person of Christ. The
consummate art of the painter appears in every stroke of
his work, but, with most readers, it is less easy to be sure
of the historical fidelity of the picture. The latest, and
probably the final attempt of Dr. Furness to interpret the
person and career of Christ to the modern world, will be
found in a new book from his pen, bearing the simple title
“ Jesus,” which has just issued from the press of J. B.
Lippincott & Co.
REV. W. P. TILDEN,
Who conducted the opening service of the Conference, and
gave to that service a tone of profound faith in the broadest
communion,—through the presence of the indwelling
Father, in the children now, as in the Master eighteen cen
turies ago, “ God in us as in him,”—deservedly ranks with
the leaders of the denomination, for his single-hearted fer
vor of faith, and hope, and charity, and his zealous labors
for the promotion of practical Christianity. Originally a
New England ship-carpenter, his largeness of spiritual
nature and irrepressible enthusiasm for humanitarian and
religious work, pointed him out to Rev. Caleb Stetson, one
of the eminent Unitarian leaders of the last generation, as
peculiarly qualified for effective service in the liberal pulpit;
and this anticipation has been fully justified by all the
events of Mr. Tilden’s career. Without attempting to share
the special labors of Unitarian learning and thought, Mr.
Tilden, who is now among the elder men of the body, has
established a just claim to be considered one of the practi
cal apostles of the work and fellowship of Unitarianism.
And in the same category should be set that worthiest of
good men, and most excellent and earnest of fathers in the
church,
�Definitions from Carlyle.
207
REV. SAMUEL J. MAY,
"Whose long life has beautifully exemplified the power of
zealous goodness, and the charm which always attaches to
a character of which simplicity, sincerity, and the fervor of
unmixed kindness are the chief elements. Mr. May was
magna pars of the great anti-slavery conflict, and has lately
embodied in an interesting and valuable volume, his “ Rec
ollections” of that holy war. In ripe old age, he is as
fresh in fervor as if youth still kept the fountain of his life,
and almost promises to stay here indefinitely, unless the
powers up higher repeat in full, as they have in great part,
the experiment of the patriarch who walked with God, and
was not, for God took him.
Article II.—Definitions, from Carlyle, of Religion, of Pa
ganism, and of Christianity.
“ Religion. . m The thing a man does practically believe
(and this is often without asserting it even to himself, much
less to others); the thing a man does practically lay tc
heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations
to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny
there.”
“ Recognition of the divineness of nature 1 sincere com
munion of man with the mysterious invisible Powers visi
bly seen at work in the world around him, . . is the essence
of all Pagan mythology, H. . sincerity the great character
istic of it, . . . looking into nature with open eye and soul:
most earnest, honest!childlike, and yet manlike; with a
great-hearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a true,
loving, admiring, unfearing way. . . . Such recognition of
Nature one finds to be the chief element of Paganism : rec
ognition of man, and his moral Duty, comes to be the chief
element only in purer forms of religion ; . . here indeed is
a great distinction and epoch in Human Beliefs; a great
landmark in the religious development of Mankind. Man
�208
“ Jesus Christ an Inferior Man.”
first puts himself in relation with Nature and her Powers;
not till a later epoch does he discern that all Power is Moral,
that the grand point is the distinction for him of Good and
Evil, of Thou shalt and Thou shalt not.”
“ Pagan Religion is indeed an Allegory, a symbol of
what men felt and knew about the Universe; and all relig
ions are symbols of that, altering always as that alters.”
“ Christianism; faith in an Invisible, not as real only,
but as the only reality; Time, through every moment of it,
resting on Eternity; Pagan empire of Force displayed by a
nobler supremacy, that of Holiness.”
“ The germ of Christianity, . . is hero-worship, heartfelt
prostrate admiration, submission, burning, boundless, for a
noblest, godlike Form of Man, . . for the great man, with
his free force direct out of God’s own hand, as the indis
pensable saviour of his epoch . . Christianity is the highest
instance of Hero-Worship.”
Article III. — “Jesus Christ an Inferior Man.” — Inde
pendent.
The Independent of November 24 devoted its leading
editorial to the topic, Jesus Christ an Inferior Man. It
placarded this sentiment where it met the eyes of we know
not how many scores of thousands of persons. It rung
the changes upon it until it had repeated the epithet of
contempt twenty-one times, through a column and a half
of feeble rhetoric or feebler snuffle. Appealing to pi pus
fiction, to sacred myth, to goody incident, and goodish
anecdote, and to various historical characters, reputable
and disreputable, it frantically cried shame on the shame
less Examiner for calling Jesus “an inferior man.” The
old pagan, Constantine, and “another emperor, immortal
for infamy,” with that modern master of selfishness, whose
imperial line reached the finale of its infamy at Sedan the
other day, it grouped effectively round Dr. Kane, while the
latter planted a toy cross on “ the northernmost iceberg of
�‘‘ Jesus Christ gin Inferior Man.”
209
the frozen sea,” a “ beautiful, dreary, and perilous cere
mony,” which we, forsooth, could not look on with even
“ a faint pulse of sympathy,” because of our “little criti
cism ” about the “ inferior man 1 ”
This representation of what we were said to have said
about the popular man-image of God has gone the rounds
of the religious press, in editorials and paragraphs, and
probably reached an audience a hundred times as large as
we could reach, or even a thousand times as large, and with
an effect towards breaking down faith in the Christian idol
very much greater than The Examiner, by any circulation
whatever, could have produced. The Independent conspicu
ously posted the intelligence that Jesus Christ had been
thrust ignominiously out of Christianity, had been tumbled
like a heathen idol out of the temple of religion, by a man
who professes Christian faith ! It was very stupid if it
supposed that such an announcement could fail to have a
most disastrous effect upon common faith in Jesus as a
supposed express image of God. For it is not calm argu
ment, nor labored appeal, which have most effect on the
average mind, but sharp, strong assertion, pithy catchwords,
keen epithets,—-just like this which the Independent has
placarded, Jesus Christ an inferior man. Bold to rudeness
or profanity though it be, it is all the more a blow the force
of which cannot be parried. In passing it round, the reli
gious weeklies offer themselves to their enemy as the ass’s
colt offered his back to the Lord Christ.
It is particularly interesting to an iconoclast to see his
work done for him, when the echo of his own word is the
only clear, strong point of the utterance. What do we
care for Kane on an iceberg, or Napoleon arrogantly pre
tending that he knew men, or Constantine guessing or
feigning he saw a cross in the sky, or t’other heathen, con
fessedly “ immortal for infamy,” who, perhaps, did finally
tremble before the “ Galilean,” as many a. wretch certainly
has? Theology is not the science of accidental confessions
of great scamps. Napoleon “knew men,” did he? Knew
�210
“Jesus Christ an Inferior Man.”
the divine side of man, did he? Was just the man to say,
“ I know men, and Jesus Christ was not a man?” Why
not consult the present Napoleon, and get his certificate
that Jesus was not a man ? These “ immortal-for-infamy ”
fellows have such an eye for deity, and can give such sure,
testimony to the godhead of a young Jew of eighteen
centuries since 1 It is really touching, isn’t it, to find how
handsomely they make out their useful certificates that
Jesus was not a man at alf and of course was not“ an inferior
man.”
But here we must say that the words placarded by the
Independent, in the article to which we have alluded, were
never used by The Examiner, nor any words like them.
The expression was copied by the Independent from a con
temptuous sentence of D. A. Wasson, whom we had asked
tor evidence of the “ imperial” greatness of Jesus, and who
eked out the meagreness and feebleness of his reply by sar
casm and sneers, intended to confute us by bringing us into
contempt. He professed to find in what we had said, the
theory that ‘‘Jesus was an inferior man, whom Providence
selected for the express purpose of showing what might be
made of an inferior man,” although in fact we said that
u the child of Joseph and Mary fairly obtained, and must
always hold among men on earth, one of the greatest prov
idential places of human history.” If we also said that his
life was “ simple and humble,” and that he was “ without
any particular greatness of intellect or character,” we said
this in the course of a protest against Mr. Abbot’s attempt
to stand outside a definite relation to him ” as “ the stand
ard bearer of a great movement of mankind.” The words
which Mr. Wasson used were worse than contemptuous,
therefore; they told one of those half truths which are
worse than downright falsehoods. We had not intended to
say this, and should not have done so had not the Indepen
dent given so wide a circulation to Mr. Wasson’s gibe. To
the Independent we beg to say, Beware of second-hand learn
ing, for, from the day that there began to be stories afloat
�Mr. Wasson’s “Medicines.”
211
about the young rabbi of Nazareth, to this present time,
second-hand knowledge has made the current Christianity
a fabric more of fiction than of fact. For instance, Jesus
was not the original author of anything contained in the
Sermon on the Mount. As a distinguished Hebraist of our
time has said, that discourse was perfectly familiar in the
streets of Jerusalem before it was delivered by Jesus; and
both the truths of it and its spirit may be referred to the
truly great Hillel much more justly than to the young
master who was but a pupil and a child, when a rash ambi
tion cost him his life.
Article IV.—Mr. Wasson’s “ Medicines” or IIow to “ See
Jesus.”
In one of the shorter articles of our first issue, we said
that “ it would give us great pleasure to seethe evidence on
which Mr. Wasson pronounces Jesus ‘ an imperial soul,’
and the historical ground for his assumption that the young
Nazarene enthusiast expected ‘ a reign of morals pure and
simple,’ not the reign of an individual, nor of a nation. ”
Mr. Wasson has made a reply to this demand, in the
Liberal Christian. In this reply he first alleges, That we
are in the condition of De Quincey, when he pronounced
Socrates and Plato a pair of charlatans, “ betraying the
extent to which his judgments might be dictated by his
humors,” and presenting a case of “ disease, to be contro
verted with medicines; not with logic and testimony. ”
But what medicines will suffice to prove that Jesus is “ an
imperial soul ?” Is it by calomel or ipecac, by vomit or by
purge, that we may arrive at Mr. Wasson’s view? It is
truly very unkind in our friend to refer us to promiscuous
drugs. We might retire on a dose of blue pill for example,
and wake up Calvinist, as fierce as Fulton, who glories in
having “preached hell in Boston ” to so much purpose ; or’
having distressed our stomach with an emetic, we might
bring ourselves to a condition requiring the small beer and
�212
Mr. Wasson’s “ Medicines ’’
water-gruel Christology of brother Tilton. To proof num
ber one, therefore, alleged by Mr. Wasson, we beg to ask
the particular medicines he would recommend.
In the second place, Mr. Wasson, in reply to our demand
for proof of the “ imperial ” greatness of Jesus, alleges
this: “I see in Jesus an amazing elevation of soul; Mr.
Towne looks on the same picture, and beholds only a daub,
or, at best, a work of little merit. The question, accord
ingly, what Jesus was in character and quality of spirit, is
one which I cannot discuss with him.” Which is, in other
words, “I am right, evidence or no evidence.” Mr. Was
son says, we “ do not entertain the question, which of us
two sees more truly.” But that is exactly the question we
do entertain, and the settlement of which we hoped to
reach, by hearing Mr. Wasson’s evidence, and by contro
verting it with other and weightier proof. We asserted our
belief that Mr. Wasson depended more on imagination than
on historical proof, and here we convict him of it. lie
avows that Jesus is an amazing picture to him, and that we
do not see it as he does, simply because we have not the
eye for it. Very well, but Mr. Wasson’s eye is not histori
cal evidence. He glorified the first disciples, as “ large
popular imaginations,” expressly ascribing their recognition
of Jesus to the largeness and the popular quality of their
imagination. And now he confesses that it is all in his
eye. Medicines and imagination, then, are, so far, what
Mr. Wasson recommends to us, if we would “ see Jesus.”
But Mr. Wasson goes a step further. He names Nicolas
and Colani. He avows that he makes certain “ discrimina
tions,” and we look with care to see what they are. He
rejects the Fourth Gospel. So far, good. The Fourth
Gospel is a theological story, and a poor one at that, though
some of the finest things are preserved in it. Again, he
rejects “ the most extended and explicit of the Messianic
passages in the Synoptical Gospels,” “ upon the showing of
M. Colani.” If he means that he clears Jesus of the charge
of Messianic pretension in a Jewish sense, merely on the
�Or “ How io See Jesus.”
'
213
showing of Colani, he rests, as we feared he did, on the very
narrow basis of insufficient investigation. Not a tithe of
the weight of modern scholarship is on that side. The one
fact most surely proven in regard to Jesus is, that he under
took to be the king of the Jews, and lost his life in conse
quence. To cite. Colani as evidence of the contrary, is to
cite the opinion of a worthy preacher—not the indorsement
of a real scholar; much like quoting Dr. J. F. Clarke.
Mr. Wasson disposes of this point in five lines. He merely
states that Colani has satisfied him. But this is the key of
the controversy, the question whether Jesus entertained a
false Messianic ambition. If Colani has satisfied Mr. Was
son that he did not, either potent drugs or a “ large popular
imagination’'’ must have assisted the effect of Colani’s
superficial and unsatisfactory handling of the subject.
In/the third place, Mr. Wasson feels sure that oral tradi
tion, assuming that the Christ must have put forth claims,
ascribed to him pretension of which he was not guilty.
In fact, however, the evidence still existing, that Jesus put
forth these claims, cannot be set aside by this or any other
imagination of what may or must have been ; while, if Jesus
did undertake and failed, every motive to drop out of sight
the evidence of the abortive undertaking, must have worked
during the years through which the tradition was oral, thus
making it almost certain, that whatever evidence of this
has survived, is to be regarded as peculiarly significant and
weighty. So far, therefore, from throwing out the evidence
that Jesus was a pretender to Messiahship, we ought to
regard it as more strictly historical than anything else in
the record. It is by imagination here, also, not by sound
scholarship, that Mr. Wasson reaches his conclusion.
And, finally, Mr. Wasson thinks it certain, that Jesus
was greater than his immediate followers knew him to be,
and that we must assume, on the one hand, that the best
things reported were not lent him by the disciples, who had
nothing to give, and that other things not so good, were
due to their failure to comprehend. But the fact is, that
�214
Mr. Wasson's “ Medicines.”
the story of Jesus was worked over by oral report, after a
supposed resurrection was thought to have proved him to
have been the Messiah. “Large popular imaginations”
had charge of it, and made what they chose of it. And
the good things of the story (the ethical and spiritual
truths') were current, just as much before. Jesus and apart
from him, as they could be after him. Or if he brought
them together, he did not originate them. Hillel was as
much greater than Jesus as Channing than Chadwick, or
Theodore Parker than Mr. Morse. We intend to speak
exactly. And Hillel’s spirit was, as that of Jesus was not,
fully and invariably that of the best things in the Sermon
on the Mount. He gave to Christianity the Golden RuleHis school of teaching and influence was as much more
important than that of Jesus, as his years, and learning,
and character surpassed those of the young enthusiast
whose dreams interrupted the course of human progress,
from Judaism onward, with eighteen centuries of worship
of a man, and untold inhumanities wrought in the propaga
tion of his pretension. On the one hand then, the belief
that Jesus had been proved the Messiah, moved his disciples
to make the best story they could, and, on the other hand,
they could copy fine truths from current teaching, just as
easily as to repeat them from Jesus, who had but copied
them at the best, so that we are bound to assume, not that
Jesus lost in the story of him, but that he gained in it
immensely, so much so as to be more the creature of it)
than a fact of history. Thus, briefly, do we dispose of Mr.
Wasson’s “ discriminations,” on the basis of which he says
he has made up a critical judgment. We find every one of
these, except the first, unscholarly to a lamentable degree.
But if we had not done this, it would be easy to show
the vice of Mr. Wasson’s conclusion. Por he says that he
proceeds “ to make up a critical judgment,” by “ endeavor
ing first to catch the tune of his mind, his action and char
acter, by meditating upon those sayings of his, and those
incidents of his life which are of such a quality as to carry
�John Brown on the Scaffold.
215
their own credentials.” Imagination, again ! Sayings and
incidents which carry their own credentials ! The Qolden
Rule, for example, or other fine truths, proof of the charac
ter of Jesus, because they are so fine, when, to a certainty
Jesus did not originate either the terms or the tone of the
purest Christian teaching, and did originate the baleful
pretension of his own claim to divine position ! Mr. Was
son must try again. He has not given us a scrap of evi
dence that Jesus was eminently great, either in thought or
in principle. We do not wonder that he began with recom
mending drugs, and then offered the use of his eye, for cer
tainly his “ discriminations” are of no weight whatever, nor
is his “ critical judgment ” entitled to any authority. It
is very well to have read Nicolas, and what there is of
Colani may be looked at with profit, especially if one looks
and passes on, but neither Mr. Wasson nor any other advo
cate of an exploded superstition can afford to be contemptu
ous in a matter of scholarship, on so meagre a support.
We ask Mr. Wasson again for evidence, and hope he will
give us more on the main point than he does when he says,
“I am satisfied on the showing of M. Colani.”
Article V.—John Brown on the Scaffold and Jesus on the
Cross.
Before secession, civil war, and emancipation, had shown
the leader of the Harper’s Ferry enterprise to have been the
providential herald of the greatest overturning of modern
times, there were few persons who would not have been
shocked at the mere suggestion of comparing John Brown
with the most remarkable prophet-judges and prophet
chieftains of familiar Hebrew story. The most plausible
view at first was that he was a crack-brained fanatic, who
might even escape the penalty of his mad crime under the
plea of insanity. It soon became evident, however, that
this madness had more method and character than the
sanity of ordinary men] Two bitterly prejudiced witnesses
said of the hero of Harper’s Ferry :
�216
;
;
,
I
I
I
,
John Brown on the Scaffold
“It is vain to underrate either the man or the conspiracy.
Captain John Brown is as brave and resolute a man as ever
headed an insurrection, and, in a good cause, and with a
sufficient force, would have been a consummate partisan
commander. He has coolness, daring, persistency, the stoic
faith and patience, and a firmness of will and purpose unconquerable. He is the farthest possible remove from the
ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman. Certainly it was one
of the best planned and best executed conspiracies that ever
*
failed.
“ They are themselves mistaken who take him to be a
madman. He is a bundle of the best nerves I ever saw,
cut, and thrust, and bleeding, and in bonds. He is a man
of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, and indomitable. . . . lie
inspired me with great trust in his integrity, as a man of
truth. . . . Colonel Washington says that he was the cool
est and firmest man he ever saw in defying danger and
death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot
through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand
and held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men
with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm,
and to sell their lives as dearly as they could.”f
The opinion of the martyr himself upon the proposal to
put in the plea of insanity on his behalf was unequivocal
and indignant. In addressing the court before his trial he
said : “I look upon it (the plea in question) as a miserable
artifice and pretext of those who ought to take a different
course in regard to me, if they took any at all, and I view
it with contempt more than otherwise. ... I am perfectly
unconscious of insanity, and I reject, as far as I am capable,
any attempts to interfere on my behalf on that score.” To
this we may add the convincing allusion of one of his latest
letters : “I may be very insane, and I am so if insane at all.
But, if that be so, insanity is like a pleasant dream to me.
* C. L. Vallandigliam.
f Henry A. Wise.
�And Jesus on the Cross.
217
I am not in the least degree conscious of my ravings, of my
fears, or of any terrible visions whatever; but fancy my
self entirely composed ; and that my sleep, in particular, is as
sweet as that of a healthy, joyous little infant. I pray G od that
he will grant me a continuance of the same calm but de
lightful dream, until I come to know of those realities which
eyes have not seen, and ears have not heard.” Mary
Brown, who had always been the sharer of her husband’s
plans, said emphatically : “I couldn’t say, if I were called
upon, that my husband was insane—even to save his life;
because he wasn’t.] She declared that if her husband were
. insane he had been consistent in his insanity from the first
moment she knew him.
But more than all else the perfectly grand manifestation
of character, made to the whole world during John Brown’s
forty-two days before the gallows, settled the question of
his mental condition. The conversations, speeches in court
and letters from prison, of John Brown, convict him of any
thing but mental weakness. Beginning with the precious
• fragment of autobiography written for the young son of Mr.
George L. Stearns, the recorded utterances of this uncul
tured man of the people have a fine literary quality which
indicates remarkable purity of intellectual tone. Their
style alone speaks a man of clear head and pure taste. And
x their moral elevation is so complete, the sentiments which
they report are so good and so great, that we are forced to
confess ourselves in presence of a miracle of character.
There seems to us no doubt that John Brown, shepherd,
tanner, wool merchant,farmer, Kansas chieftain, provisional
constitution maker, and Harper’s Ferry commander, must
be classed with the greatest characters of history, because
of his remarkable union of clear vision, pure conscience,
and perfect courage,—the insight of a prophet, the most un
compromising love of right, and absolute intrepidity in
action. In amount of quality he stands with the very few
supreme men of the race, the founders for mankind of civil
ity and religion. And for combination of the grand types
VOL. I.—NO. 3.
2
�218
John Brown on the Scaffold
of character, is it too much to say that, as we see him in
his transfiguration before the scaffold, his figure is nobler
than that of any earlier hero of our race — the wisest,
purest, bravest of mankind ? Standing on this latest stage
of time, instructed, chastened and inspired by a situation
quite beyond any hitherto arranged in history, it was in the
order of Providence that the mount of this martyr should
plant the standard of our march above Calvary, as Calvary
planted it above Sinai. Not that we compare, in respect to
nature, the now deified Christ of Galilee and the’ just now
despised fanatic of Harper’s Ferry. They were equally
common men. We compare only the Jewish figure with
the American figure, the man on the cross with the man
on the scaffold, and say confidently that in John Brown on
his scaffold, Eternal God has lifted the standard of human
advancement higher than it was lifted in the Christ of Cal
vary. Or to put it in other words, and words justified by
that which Jesus himself said, the true Christ-Son of God,
Heaven-anointed soul, which was manifested in Jesus, and
was to be manifested in his humblest disciple, the least of
these his brethren, is manifested to-day in the American
martyr as it was not, and could not be manifested in the
Messiah.
The eindmce is close at hand. At this moment let it suf
fice to present one point of this, the point which is most
important and most conclusive. The world knows the
story of the trial of Jesus—not the trial before Pilate, but
the trial in his own soul. Theological ingenuity has been
exhausted in the attempt to explain this without damage to
the orthodox theory that Jesus was a person of the deity;
but in vain. Give Jesus no more benefit of ingenious
hypothesis and pious prepossession than we give Socrates,
Paul, Giordano Bruno, and John Brown, and we are com
pelled to say that either one had a courage which Jesus did
not possess. Estimate fairly the mental anguish of Savon
arola and of Edward Irving, who died unvisited by the super
natural intervention they had with absolute faith looked
�And Jesus on the Cross.
219
for, the one hung up in chains in the flames after forty-two
days of torture, the other wasted by distressing disease
through days and months of unanswered agonizing prayer,
and it cannot be denied that their trial was far heavier than
that of Jesus. It is idle to ascribe to the Jewish martyr a
superhuman sensibility to evil; for if superhuman at all, he
was superhuman in courage and endurance not less than in
sensibility. If he were not equal to perfect endurance, as
he plainly was not, we but make his weakness the greater
the more we lift him above humanity. The anguish of his
prayer and the wail of the cross, on the lips of a mere child
of Galilee, wrung from the heart of a peasant-Messiah, when
he had really looked for intervention by miracle which did
not come, can be readily explained, without denying the
spiritual elevation of Jesus. We say, then, that in forecast
ing events, and in meeting the turns of fate, he fell short of
the perfection possible to human nature. We recognize
that it was not his mission to do all the things which man
in his most heroic mood can perform, that he represents a
stage in the elevation of our race, by no means our final
attainment. And we confidently compare facts to show
that the American martyr was, in respect to courage under
the heavy blows of fate, superior to the man of Nazareth.
In the garden of Gethsemane we see Jesus “ in distress and
anguish,”—as Mark puts it, “ in great consternation and
anguish,”—and hear him say to his disciples, “ I am in ex
ceeding distress, ready to die.” The bare existence of this
fact is significant; the communication of it, especially to
disciples who could not help himkif they would, marks a
mind utterly shaken out of self-possession. And how con
clusive to the same effect is the prayer, thrice repeated, of
Jesus: He fell upon his face and prayed, saying, “My
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But net
as I will, but as thou wilt.” A second time he prayed, sav
ing, “My Father, if this cup cannot pass from me, but I
must drink it, thy will be done.” Still again he prayed
a third time, saying the same words.
r
�220
John Brown on the Scaffold, Etc.
Setting aside the theory that Jesus was not what he
seemed to be, we have here a man engaged in an almost
desperate effort to meet his fate. The effort of submission
is sincere and grand; it lifts Jesus into the position of a
leader of mankind; considering especially his Jewish limi
tations, how naturally he had looked for supernatural inter
vention, how purely and nobly too he had desired this as
the true coming of God to man, and how really to his eyes
the power of healing the body, with inspiration which
enabled him to instruct and control the mind, had seemed to
him the beginning of miracle, we may'justly see in this
effort, so distinctly conceived and so resolutely attempted, a
manifestation of the very divinity of human nature; but it
is vain to deny that effort is a stage behind attainment. Not
only does the consternation of an experience like that of
Jesus argue a failure to foresee possible duty, but still more
the agonizing effort to accept the situation shows a decided
deficiency of heroic equipment. This deficiency, we repeat,
admits of an explanation, in the case of Jesus, whose em
inence was of purity more than of force, which does not
pluck him from his lofty position of anointed master of the
Christian ages. By the usage of his people Jesus had barely
come of age; he was contemplative rather than executive
in his temperament, more spiritual than practical, and al
most without other education than that of meditation and
prayer. He was in fact an inspired child of Nazareth; more
than that, he had the heart of a pure girl in the breast of a
Galilean peasant. Thus he naturally enough failed to meet
his fate with the serenity of prepared courage, but the ex
planation of the failure does not explain it away. He failed
conspicuously, and as conspicuously John Brown, bringing
back the great example of Socrates, did not fail.
�Theodore Parker’s Antagonism, Etc.
221
Article VI. — Theodore Parker’s Character and Ideas.
■ Chap. III.—His Antagonism with the Religious World.
We come now to the question of Theodore Parker’s
“ antagonism with the religious world.” The reviewer,
whose judgment our discussion starts from, regrets that Mr.
Parker was not “ thrown into intimate relations with Evan
gelical scholars,” and says “ it is singular how rarely he met
such, and how kindly he spoke of them, as of Professors
Stuart, Porter and Woolsey.”
That Theodore Parker found but three or four evangeli
cal scholars who gave him occasion to speak kindly of them,
is doubtless a singular fact, considering the fundamental
principles of Christian religion. Perhaps it is not so sin
gular a fact that Theodore Parker spoke kindly, very kindly,
of these exceptions to the rule. I wish the reviewer had
given a list of the evangelical scholars with whom Mr.
Parker might have had relations of intimate Christian broth
erhood. He mentions Stuart, Woolsey, and Porter, neither
of whom ever pretended to consider Parker a Christian
man and brother. The little intercourse which took place
between Theodore Parker and Stuart, Woolsey, Porter,and
the chief of the New Haven school of theology, Dr. Taylor,
was marked by a manly effort of good will on their part,
and by generous appreciation on his part; but it would be
a great mistake to suppose that these men, the best of their
class, ever felt at liberty to do justice to Theodore Parker.
Their honest principles forbade it. They could suppress, in
his presence, the unbrotherly severity of their judgment
upon him, but they could not offer him Christian brother
hood. And it was not merely that they assumed that he
did not want fellowship. If he had wanted it ever so much,—
and no man has borne the cross of lonely service with a
deeper sense of the value of brotherly fellowship,—they
must in conscience have dropped the mask of generous
courtesy, and shown him all the resolute hardness of their
hearts. Prof. Porter discussed Mr. Parker’s opinions with
�222
Theodore Parker’s Antagonism
charity, and reviewed him with kindness. But even he, so
exceptionally gentle and just, must have resisted, to the last
degree of bitterness even, any attempt to remove the limits
of communion, and make Christian fellowship broad enough
to include the great heretic. President Woolsey could not
fail to act the Christian gentleman in any intercourse with
such a man as Theodore Parker, for by nature and by cul
ture, he is very noble, but even he can feel and show con
tempt for unorthodox struggles in a sincere soul. As to
Dr. N. W. Taylor, who was at once the ablest divine and
the noblest gentleman of all that New Haven circle, I have
heard him tell of his interview with Parker, and how they
crossed broad-swords, and whose head came off. It was in
the spirit of Prof. Park, in the great Boston Council, wnen
he said, “ A man who has studied theology three years, and
has read the Bible in the original languages, and is not a
Calvinist, is not a respectable man.”
I know-what the orthodox spirit in the best men is capa
ble of attempting. I know how the conscience of a solitary
thinker, without help in men or books, may be set upon
and tormented by evangelical surroundings. I have had
said to me, “as a heathen man and a publican”—a hard word
for which there is supposed to be pretty good evangelical
authority. No doubt the souls in whom there is great out
break of new faith and radical thought do sometimes sin
grievously against the pure fitness of things in their demon
strations, but that is not all of their hard case; they not
only become obnoxious in that way, by their own fault, but
they almost invariably become criminals and outlaws, in
the view of the evangelical world, from the hardness and
bitterness of the evangelical spirit. Not only are they dealt
with very harshly for errors which are treated tenderly
where no heresy exists, but they are terribly punished for
that innocent and pure faith which is in them the profound
necessity of a sincere conscience.
It is plain to me that Theodore Parker’s critic does not
consider how infinite is the bitterness of the cup which
�With the Religious World.
K
223
evangelicalism, in all its common forms^ presses to the lips
of one who has stripped himself of precious dogmatic beliefs
to undertake a more daring, more heroic exercise of faith
in God and labor of love than the current Christianity per
mits. Therefore I beg to assure him, upon abundant expe
rience, that a man confessing heresy heartily, must have a
face of brass to presume on “ intimate relations with evan
gelical scholars,” except as a relic of very close youthful
friendship. And if he had the shining qualities of an arch
angel on earth, and withal bore his cross honestly in the
world, doing with his might the work given him to do, he
could not but seem, to evangelical scholars of strict convic
tion, of “ no form nor comeliness—no beauty that they
should desire him.” No worse men than President Wool
sey have thought the dungeon and the fagot needful in the
discipline of demonstrative departure from orthodoxy. The
spirit of the age has, indeed, reduced marvelously the tem
per of orthodox defence of the faith, but the time has hardly
come, certainly had not come in the day of Mr. Parker’s
encounter with the religious world, when liberality could
be consistently practiced by evangelical scholars.
It is, I trust, one result of the appearance of Mr. Parker,
to disclose to some of the wiser defenders of correct tradi
tional faith, the necessity of adjusting their position once
more, to conform more closely to the demand of the Chris
tian spirit. Possibly the day is not far off when the scholars
our critic wishes Mr. Parker might have met, will be
able to accept, within evangelical limits, absolute liberality.
That is to say, holding firmly to the evangelical doctrine of
redemption, its necessity, plan, and operation, they will
relax the severity of their dogmatic convictions upon minor
points, so far as to make character the ground of human
fellowship, and to leave to God alone, the searcher of hearts,
all judgment as to the amount and style of creed necessary
to start either a soul on the road to heaven, or a teacher of
Truth on the way of the knowledge of God. It is easy for
me to think of liberality thus carried to perfection, within
�224
Theodore Parker's Antagonism
evangelical limits. Let our vain decisions as to the times
and seasons of God’s grace and power, be wholly set aside.
Say, if we must, that God hath appointed this way and no
other, the literal gospel of Christ, but leave the administra
tion of this way to Him with whom a thousand years are as
one day.
There is no Biblical evidence to compel acceptance of the
dogma of limited probation. Insist on the possibility of
the worst with the evil and the disobedient, but with the
honest, earnest and faithful seeker for Truth and lover of
God, insist as strongly on the certainty of the best. Go
down to deep below deep, in the experience of true men,
until you find for them a saving tie to God’s administration
of true redemption, rather than suffer our human judgment
to pronounce that there is little or no hope for an honest
soul misguided by an erring intellect. The possibility of
final loss may be, indeed, urged, and the whole terror of
absolute peril brought to bear, to persuade to deeper hon
esty, more serious inquiry, and more humble crying unto
the spirit of Truth, b,ut let it be in love, in hope, in firm
faith, so that the Christian spirit may bind all in one, and
the Holy Spirit, if it may possibly be, bind all to that mercy
seat before which we are all one in absolute need.
It is possible for this to be. It only requires to believe,
as humanity and divinity, even within the strictest evangeli
cal limits, require, that for those who seek there is no closing
of the chances, no limit of opportunity, no inadequacy of
eternal divine providence. Grant that the path is beset
with perils; grant that the abyss of final loss may receive
us at the next step; but say this of all, because of sins
and unworthiness of a moral sort; never say it with a lim
itation to the case of “ that publican,” who is such only by
reason of intellectual error. I heard the New Haven Dr.
Taylor say, very near the close of his life, that he knew he
might fail of heaven. Let this be the form in wlfich we
doubt as to human chances of acceptance with God. Let
this humility penetrate and bind in one all who feel the
�'With the Religious World.
225
burden of moral evil. Then it will be easy to feel that the
grace which is extended to sinners, will not need to be fur
ther extended to embrace all who try to come unto the God
and Saviour of squIs, whatever may be the fault, or, as our
critic says, the “vice” of their conception and confession
of the things of God.
It would be a noble enterprise if eminent evangelical
scholars would unite in, we will say, an Academy of Chris
tian Studies, the aim and use of which should be to vindi
cate the principle of liberality, to throw the shield of Chris
tian charity and Christian encouragement over all honest
and capable pursuits of divine Truth. In two ways espe
cially would this improve exceedingly the position of the
evangelical school. It would provide Christian discipline
for radicalism; and it would show to the world that evan
gelical faith is not afraid of inquiry. Radicalism is forced
to exaggerate the individualism of its method, because the
hand of every man is against it. Give it a place, its due
place, in the school of Christian studies, and at once its
temper must become more moderate, and its demonstra
tions less dangerous to the order of the religious world.
Had Mr. Parker been treated in this way from the begin
ning, there is every reason to believe that his mind would
have acted, upon questions of dogma, with none of that vol
canic energy which made him seem to the evangelical world
a tremendous engine of destruction! And instead of
becoming the leader and hero, not only of elect believers in
whom the spirit and the life had wrought profound convic
tion, but of the throng of deniers in whom serious convic
tion was less developed, he would have stood forth the
exponent of the modern tendency of the Christian faith.
I anticipate the reply to this, that at his best Mr. Parker
would have been an enemy. But I think the assumption of
this reply a mistake. Grant that the best of Mr? Parker’s
belief was erroneous. I go back of his dogmatic convic
tions, then, to his moral and spiritual tendencies, and un
hesitatingly affirm the necessity of accepting these as suffi
�226
Theodore Parker’s Antagonism, Etc.
cient, under the ample providence of the power and grace
of God, for cordial Christian fellowship. Let Professor
Park and President Woolsey have said to Mr. Parker,
“ Brother, we differ with you entirely in doctrinal method
and convictions, but in allegiance to the law of love and to
the spirit of Truth and of Holiness we agree; the soul, and
the soul’s union with God in moral loyalty and spiritual
yearning and devotion, are the foundation,—the Christian
foundation ; in that we meet, alike putting on the new man;
now let us reason together, and labor in one spirit of love
to God and love to man, with good hope in the eternal
providence of God with us, until we all come in the unity
of the faith unto a perfect man,”—let this have been said,
and realized in the attitude of the evangelical school, and
the modern world would have lost its great heresiarch, the
Christian world, so-called, would have gained a great apos
tle of natural religion.
Mr. Parker’s great work in Boston, and in America, had
never been undertaken if even his own sect, the Unitarian,
had had the liberality it ought to have had. In his letter to
his first parish, upon leaving them for Boston, to which he
was called solely to vindicate freedom of religious teaching,
Mr. Parker said:
“ If my brethren of the Christian ministry had stood by
me, nay, if they had not themselves refused the usual min
isterial fellowship with me, then I should have been spared
this painful separation, and my life might have flowed on
in the channel we have both wished for it.”—Life, vol. I,
p. 26L
In a letter to Rev. Mr. Niles, written the year before his
removal to Boston, Mr. Parker states what no one can rea
sonably doubt, that he had no choice but to accept individ
ualism or abdicate his own manhood. He says:
“I must of course have committed errors in reasoning
and in conclusion. I hoped once that philosophical men
would point out both; then I would confess my mistake
and start anew. But they have only raised a storm about
my head; and in a general way a man wraps his cloak
�A Letter of Theodore Parker.
227
about him in a storm and holds on the tighter.”—Life, vol.
Z, p. JfhO.
Now I ask, is it not evident that a divine design, work
ing through the robust nature of this Socratic Samson of
truth and righteousness, wrought deliberately and wisely
the rough antagonism of Theodore Parker to the popular
churches, in order to convict them, one and all, of want of
the Christian spirit, and to utter, in tones that should ring
round the world, the demand of that spirit, in this new
time, for a liberality in religion adequate to sustain, with
all honest believers and teachers, a true Christian fellow
ship ? Theodore Parker, nailing the new theses of human
ity on the doors of recognized Christian communion,
though he made the very walls of the temple tremble to their
foundation, was no lawless destructive, no mad troubler
of communion, but the providential sign of a new reforma
tion in Christendom, the Luther of emancipated faith, the
angel of a new resurrection of that holy spirit which was
the truth in .Tesus, and has been the truth in the Christian
ages, and shall be, in redeemed humanity, sole author and
authority of pure and undefiled religion.
Article VII.—A Letter of Theodore Parker.
Rev. John T. Sargent, who was intimately associated
with Theodore Parker, writes to us as follows :
I welcome your articles just opening in The Examiner
on Theodore Parker. It may interest you to know that I
have large files of letters from him, which have a value so
far as they might illustrate your main topics, bis “ charac
ter and ideas.” Most of them, it is true, are of that pri
vate and social character not intended for the public, 'and
were occasioned by that peculiar relation into which I was
thrown in consequence of my exchange of pulpits with him,
when such an expression of fellowship was looked upon
with distrust, even by the so called “ Liberal” Unitarians.
But there are others so expressive of his well known sympa-
�228
A Leiter of Theodore Parker.
thics for all the great interests of humanity, that portions of
them at least ought to be seen. Take, for instance, the
following extracts which I copy from one under date of
September 18th, 1859, when he was abroad in Montreux,
Canton de Vaud, Switzerland :
“It is Sunday, to-day, and my thoughts turn homeward
with even a stronger flight than on any other days of the
week, so I shall write a little to one of my dear old friends
— ‘ a friend indeed,’ also a brother in the same ministry.
It is the day when the services at the Music Hall are to
begin again I believe, but where I shall no more stand; for
I sent in my letter of resignation some days ago, as duty
and necessity compelled. But my affection will always go
with the dear old friends who gather there, and on Sundays,
when the Music Hall is open, I always come as a silent
minister to look at the congregation, and have ‘ sweet com
munion together,’ though we no longer ‘walk to the house
of God in company.’ It is a tender bond which gets thus
knit by years of spiritual communion :—I think not to be
broken in this life. But here, as you know, Sunday is quite
different from what it is in New England; devoted more
to gaiety and to social festivity of a harmless character.
But to-day is the Annual Fast all over Switzerland, and the
land is as still as with us in the most quiet town in New
England. I like these Swiss people. They are industrious,
thrifty and economical to an extraordinary degree,—intelli
gent, and happy. I sometimes think them the happiest
people in Europe, perhaps happier than even we in Massa
chusetts, for they are not so devoured by either pecuniary
or political ambition. * * * What a condition the
Unitarians are in just now I They put Huntington in the
place of Dr. Henry Ware, and he turns out to be orthodox,—
and, as I understand, won’t go into the Unitarian pulpit of
Brooklyn, N. Y., but officiates in the great orthodox
Plymouth church hard by. Then brother Bellows comes
out with his ‘ Broad (T) church,’ and, while talking of the
‘ Suspense of Faith,’ represents the little sect in no very
�A Letter of Theodore Parker.
229
pleasant light. Meantime, The Examiner—(certainly the
ablest journal in America,) reports to the denomination
the most revolutionary theologic opinions, and this, too,
with manifest approbation thereof. Witness the half-dozen
articles within so many years, by Frothingham, Jr., some
of Alger’s, that of Scherb’s on the Devil, and the three on
India, China, and Asiatic Religions, by an orthodox mis
sionary, now living in Middletown, Conn.; a noble fellow
too. What is to become of us ? To me it is pretty clear
the Progressive party will continue to go ahead in a circu
itous course, for Progress is never in a straight line. No
progressive party will go back describing a line with analo
gous curves.
“ It is beautiful to see the gradual development of religion
in the world, especially among su h a people as our own,
where the government puts no yoke on men’s shoulders.
Little by little they shake off the old traditionary fetters,
get rid of their false ideas of man and God, and come to
clear, beautiful views and forms of religion. No where in
the world is this progress so rapid as in America, because,
in our Northern States, the whole mass of the people is
educated and capable of appreciating the best thoughts of
the highest minds. Of course, foolish things will be done,
and foolish words spoken, but on the whole the good work
goes on, not slowly and yet surely. I am glad the Catho
lics have the same rights as the Protestants;—if they had
not I should contend for the Catholics as I now do for the
negroes. But I think that, after Slavery, Catholicism is
the worst and most dangerous institution in America; and
I deplore the growth of its churches. I know the power of
an embodied class of men with unity of sentiment, unity of
idea, and unity of aim, and when the aim, the idea, and
the sentiment are what we see and know, and the men are
governed by such rules, I think there is danger. Still, it is
to be met, not by Bigotry and Persecution, but by Wisdom
and Philanthropy. I don’t believe Catholicism thrives very
well even in a Republic, but it loves the soil a despot sticks
�230 '
A Letter of Theodore Parlier.
his bayonet into. Since Louis Napoleon has been on the
throne of France, the worst class of Catholic priests have
come more and more into power ; that miserable order, the
Capauchins, has been revived and spreads rapidly. More
than 300 new Convents have been established since the
‘ Coup d’ Etat,’ and are filled with more than 30,000 devo
tees already. But in liberally governed Switzerland, Cathol
icism does not increase, but falls back little by little. No
Jesuits are allowed to actin the land. In a few generations
we shall overcome the ignorance, stupidity, and superstition
of the Irish Catholics in America, at least in the North, but
before that is done, we shall have a deal of trouble. Soon
Boston will be a Catholic city if the custom continues of
business men living in the country; and we know what use
a few demagogues can make of the Catholic voters. It
only requires that another capitalist offer the Bishop $1,500
or so if he will tell his subjects to vote against a special
person or a special measure. All the Catholics may be
expected to be on the side of Slavery, Fillibustering, and
Intemperance. I mean, all in a body; this Romanism will
lead them to support Slavery;—the Irishmen to encourage
Fillibustering and Drunkenness. But good comes out of
evil. I think the Irish Catholics with their descendants,
could not so soon be emancipated in any country as in our
own dear blessed land. So, we need not complain, but only
fall to and do our duty,—clean, educate and emancipate the
‘gintieman from Corrk.’
“ How goes it with the ‘ Poor ?’ and with the ‘ Boston
Provident Association,’ with which you are officially con
nected ? All well, I hope. I am not quite sorry the ‘ Reform
School’ at Westboro is burnt down. The immediate loss
to the State is, to be sure, a great one, but the ultimate loss
would have been far more, for it was a school for crime,
and must graduate villains. I wonder men don’t see that
they can never safely depart from the natural order which
God has appointed. Boys are born in families ; they grow
up in families, a few in each household, mixed with girls
�The Index on Christianity Again.
231
and with their elders. How unnatural to put 500 or 600
boys into a great barn and keep them there till they are one
and twenty years of age, and then expect them to turn out
well and become natural men, after such unnatural treat
ment ! At the beginning, Dr. Howe, really one of the
most enlightened philanthropists I ever met in America or
Europe, proposed a ‘ Central Bureau,’ with a house of tem
porary deposit for boys, and that an agent should place them
in families throughout the country. A quarter of the
money thus spent, would have done a deal of good. I
wonder if you have ever been up to the ‘ Industrial School
for Girls,’ at Lancaster. To me this is one of the most
interesting institutions in the good old State. If I were
Governor of Massachusetts, I think I shouldn’t often dine
with the 1 Lancers,’ or the 1 Tigers,’ or even the ‘Ancients
and Honorables,’ but I should know exactly the condition
of every jail, and ‘ House of Correction,’ in the State, and
of all the institutions for preventing crime and ignorance.
If Horace Mann had been Governor, I think he would have
done so. Here in Europe my life is dull, and would be
intolerable were it not introductory to renewed work on
earth or another existence in Heaven. I am necessarily
idle here, or busy only with trifles which seem only a stren
uous idleness. Such is the state of my voice that I aril
constrained to silence, and so fail to profit by the admirable
opportunity of intercourse with French, German, and Rus
sian people who now fill up the house. I do not complain
of this, but think myself fortunate to be free from pain.”
Article VIII.—'The Index on Christianity Again.
In the Index of January 7th, Mr. Abbot prints a “ synop
sis of Free Religion,” which commences with a criticism of
“ Christianity as a System,” some of the points of which
surprise us more than anything Mr. Abbot has previously
said. What, for example, is he thinking about when he
says, “ Regarded as to its universal element, Christianity is
�232
The Index on Christianity Again.
a beautiful but imperfect presentation of natural morality ?”
His own opinion may separate morality from faith in God,
and make the former only the universal element of religion,
• but no Christianity that ever was, has separated these two
universal elements, or thought of presenting religion, in its
general aspect, as other than the two-fold passion of the soul
of man, towards man and duty on the one hand, and
towards God and heaven on the other.
But this is not the worst of what we deem our friend’s
misrepresentation of “ Christianity as a System.” Having,
as we have seen, made Christianity to consist, as to its uni
versal element, in a “ presentation of natural morality,” he
then states that, “ Regarded as to its special element, Chris
tianity is a great completed system of faith and life,” and
that “ the chief features of this system are the doctrines of
the Fall of Adam, the Total Depravity of the human race,
the Everlasting Punishment of the wicked, and Salvation
by Christ alone,” and that “ it is the worst enemy of liberty,
science, and civilization, because it is organized Despair of
Man.” He then goes on to define “Free Religion as a
System,” and finds it to be “ organized Faith in Man.”
Between the two there exists, he asserts, “ an absolute con
flict of principles, aims, and methods.” He declares that
“ the one ruled the world in the Dark Ages of the past,”
and that “ the other will rule the world in the Light Ages
of the future,” while “ their battle-ground is the Twilight
Age of the present.”
To us this is scandalously unfair. It is no more true that
Christianity is despair of man than it is that free religion is
faith in man. But granting Mr. Abbot his definition of
free religion,—which to us, and to the majority at least of
free religionists, leaves out the religion of Free Religion,—
it is an amazing disregard of the simplest and plainest facts
which permits the statement just quoted, of the sum and
substance of Christianity. Christianity is not organized
despair, but the contrary. One of the means generally
adopted by Christian propagandists to rouse men to “ come
�The Index on Christianity Again.
233
to Christ,” is the preaching of despair, but our friend
knows perfectly well that this is a means only, employed by
teachers of a religion whose chief word is hope, and that
this means is not employed except to induce mankind to
accept the “ hope” which Christianity teaches as her great
lesson. Christianity has never been preached as simple
despair of man, and Mr. Abbot owes it to his honorable
devotion to truth to withdraw the conspicuous assertion that
it consists in so dark and dreadful a thing. “ The worst
enemy of liberty, science, and civilization !” It connot be
said with a particle of justice. Of 79sei«7o-Christianity, the
darker human side of historical Christianity, Mr. Abbot can
speak as harshly as he chooses, without provoking our chal
lenge, but of “ the great completed system of faith and life,”
which, in his own words, Christianity is, he ought never, it
seems to us, to speak as he now speaks in his “Synopsis of
Free Religion.”
We beg him to tell us why he omits from his view of
Christianity as a “ great completed system of faith and life”
everything which constitutes it, in the general opinion of
mankind, except the four dogmas named by him as its
“ chief features.” And in particular, why does he remove
from their universally admitted place, as features of Chris
tianity chief above all others, the two supreme Christian
tenets that God is and that he is Our Father, and that
man is the offspring of God and all men members one of
another in human brotherhood? Even the false side of
historical Christianity contains other chief features than the
four doctrines named by Mr. Abbot, such, for example, as
the doctrines of a special revelation of redemption made
through the Bible, and of the Godhead of Jesus as the agent
of this redemption, and of the administration of this re
demption' by special divine influences, and these doctrines,
however false they may be, cannot be summed up in despair
of man, but intend rather great hope for man; and in all
fair judgment they stand above the darker dogmas of Fall,
Depravity, Punishment, and Limitation of redemption, and
vol.
i.—no. 3.
3
�234
The Index on Christianity Again.
are more entitled than these to give distinctive character to
Christianity, as Mr. Emerson recognizes when he sums up
Christianity in “ faith in the infinitude of man.”
The deplorable fact is that Mr. Abbot, in this instance,
defines Christianity by the darker half of its darker side,
not only leaving out of sight its great and glorious prin
ciples of God’s Fatherhood and man’s brotherhood, its two
supreme rules of love to God and love to man, which make
its bright side, but also leaving out entirely .the more
humane and hopeful of its false dogmas. There would be
nothing at all of Free Religion if it were defined thus by
the worst aspects of its worse side. Nothing that ever was
on earth can bear judgment so grossly unjust. The con
trasts drawn by Mr. Abbot are not legitimate. The past
has not been given up to “ the worst enemy of liberty,
science, and civilization,” nor will the future be ruled by
“the best friend of progress of every kind.” There has
been a vast deal of human freedom in religion before now,
and there will be a vast deal of bondage to authority in the
religion of the future. Not all men have been deceived in
the past, and not all escape delusion now. We heartily
approve vigorous, positive assertion of convictions, but we
must regard some of our friend Abbot’s dogmatizing as not
one whit more respectful towards human freedom than the
least warranted assertions of the popular creeds, inasmuch
as it is not based in evident truth, but in very serious neglect
and disregard of true facts, and does not stop a moment to
consider that its assumptions are generally denied, but lays
down the law of individual opinion precisely as if it were
the law of divine authority. We trust we speak with mod
eration, and with due respect for our friend’s eminence as a
religious teacher, but really we know of nothing in the
movements of religion at the present time more to be
regretted, than Mr. Abbot’s attempt to prove that Christi
anity is all blank despair, and Free Religion all pure faith.
Neither one nor the other is true.
�Why does Mr. Abbot Object, Etc.
235
Article X.— Why Does Mr. Abbot Object to Mr. Sen’s Faith
in God?
We could hardly name two more genuine religious believ
ers and teachers than Keshub Chunder Sen, the Indian
reformer and prophet, and our friend Abbot, at Toledo, the
editor of The Index. The latter has as deep, as pure, as
earnest faith in God as can be anywhere found. Such
sentences as the following are gems of spiritual truth:
“ My whole religion centres in the fact of this perennial,
this unutterable revelation of Eternal Being in the soul of
man;”—“Life is lifted into heaven, in proportion as we
repose in this embrace of the All-Encompassing Soul;”—
“ It is the conception of Nature as the living self-manifes
tation of God, that keeps trie fires of faith still burning in
the inward temple of the soul;” “Pure Religion is itself
the presence of the Infinite Spirit, making itself felt in the
soul of man;”—“The great task of Free Religion is to
prove the ability of each soul to draw its nutriment from its
native soil, dispensing with mediation, and coming into
primary relations with the All-Permeating Deity;’-—“ That
which calls out all high and pure affection is the divine
element, the God in man ;”—“ The lofty and tender senti
ment, the divine sympathy in eternal things, which marks
the completest unity of allied natures, is rooted in the con
sciousness of God;”—“That consciousness of the One
Divine which makes possible to us our loftiest intercourse
with congenial minds, lies also at the root of the sentiment
of the universal brotherhood of man ;”—“ The same repose
in the universal life of God which enables two friends to
enjoy the pure delight of spiritual fellowship, enables, nay,
compels them, to recognize the fundamental unity of their
race, and to cherish that inner consciousness of it which is
the true love of man ;”—“ In the love of God we become
friends to each other, and, in a large sense, friends of man
kind as well; and in this broadening out of the private into
the public, of the individual into the universal, friendship
�236
Why does Mr. Abbot Object to
achieves its highest perfection, and crowns, itself with wor
ship of the Divine.”
To every word of this Mr. Sen would say a hearty amen,
and it would seem as if the two men, being so agreed,
i could walk together in the closest brotherhood. The dis
position of the pious and eloquent leader of the Brahmo
Somaj, of India, was expressed quite recently in a letter to
the Free Religious Association, printed in The Index of
November 24. In that letter Mr. Sen said, “I am sure
that in the fulness of time all the great nations in the East
and in the West will unite and form a vast Theistic Brother
hood, and I am sure that America will occupy a prominent
place in that grand confederation. Let us then no longer
keep aloof from each other, but co-work with unity of heart,
that we may supply each other’s deficiencies, strengthen
each other’s hands, and with mutual aid build up the house
of God. Please take this subject into consideration, and
let me know if you have any suggestions to make whereby
a closer union may be brought about between the Brahmo
Somaj and the Free Religious Association,—between India
and America,—and a definite system of mutual intercourse
and co-operation may be established between our brethren
here and those in the New World. Such union is desirable,
and daily we feel the need of it more and more. Let us
sincerely pray and earnestly labor in order that it may be
realized under God’s blessing in due time.”
To this brotherly word of one who “ crowns friendship
with worship of the Divine,” Mr. Abbot called attention in
the following editorial, printed in the same number of The
Index, under the head, “ A Vital Difference.”
“ An interresting letter, addressed to Mr. Potter by
Keshub Chunder Sen, of India, will be found in the
‘ Department of the Free Religious Association ? This
native reformer, whose late visit to England attracted so
much attention, is desirous of ‘mutual intercourse and
co-operation ’ between the Association and the Brahmo
Somaj. While most cordially reciprocating his brotherly
�Mr. Sen's Faith in G-od?
237
sentiments, we feel constrained to point out an important
difference in their bases of organization. The Brahmo
Somaj, as its name implies, has a Theistic creed as its bond
of union ; the F. R. A. has its bond of union in the simple
principle of Freedom, in Fellowship. Theism, as a creed, is,
in our judgment, little, better than Tritheism. . . . The
friendliest and most brotherly relations should subsist
between the F. R. A. and the Brahmo Somaj; but we must
keep clearly before the public the all-important distinction
between creeded and creedless organization, and forbear, out
of sentiment or sentimentality, to swamp Free Religion in
a ‘ mush of concessions.’ ”
Imagine Mr. Sen receiving the Index, with his letter
printed in the department officially occupied by the Free
Religious Association, and finding that the same number
contained an editorial, warning the public against equal
recognition of him, as a swamping of Free Religion in a
mush of concessions I And that simply because he and
his companions have earnest faith in God!
It is mere words when Mr. Abbot objects to a creed.
No man living has more distinctly laid down, insisted on,
and fought for a creed, than Mr. Abbot. He made a creed
in fifty articles a year ago, and he has just made another
in thirty-two articles, which he calls a “ Synopsis of Free
Religion.” As long as he believes anything, which he
can state in articles, he will have a creed. As long as
*
he devises systems of assertions, and lays them down
nakedly and without qualification, he will have a creed of
the most positive character. We do not object to our
friend’s annual experiment of a downright creed, a set of
positive articles, bold and bald assertions, putting forward
* Creed.—“A definite summary of what is believed; a brief exposition of
important points, as in religion, science, politics, etc.; especially a summary
of Christian belief; a religious symbol.”
“ Symbol.—(Theol.) An abstract or compendium of faith or doctrine; the
creed, or a summary of the articles of religion.”—Webster.
Where does Mr. Abbot get the word “creeded?”
�238
Why does Mr. Abbot Object to
his individual opinion as absolute truth. It is one very
proper way of working on the human mind. But for a
man, who has made two creeds within thirteen months, to
object to Mr. Sen’s equal standing, because the former
believes in God, will not answer.
It happens that Mr. Abbot thinks religion possible with
out faith in God, while Mr. Sen finds the deepest truth of
religion in filial trust in God, and that the latter thinks
quite well of Christianity while the former does not think
well of it at all. But Mr. Abbot’s opinions here are just as
much part of a creed as Mr. Sen’s. Indeed the former
holds his notions on the subject far more rigidly, and asserts
them far more dogmatically than the latter holds and asserts
his views. We do not blame or bewail our friend’s dogma
tism ; let him drive ahead with all his might; but it is
absurd for him to accuse Mr. Sen of having a creed in regard
to God. We could not name a position recently taken in
the religious world which more emphatically merits what
ever stigma should attach to the most positive of creeds,
than our good friend’s position about God and Christianity
as neither of them essential to religion.
And this position not merely has the form and tone of a
creed, or articles of a creed, but it has the tenor, to us, of a
very bad creed. It is a sad enough thing to “ stand squarely
outside of Christianity,” because it involves so general a
refusal of good fellowship, but of thinking of religion with
express exclusion of faith in God, and trying to organize
the law and gospel, the rule and consolation of faith, with
out including the sentiment of the “ Our Father,” is to us
the most terrible of mistakes, not because we have any
aversion to honest atheism, or any wish to put a brand upon
candid infidelity (so called), but for the simple reason that,
in general, faith in God Our Father is the central and fruit
ful principle of blessed religion, and he who dissuades men,
or deters them, or debars them, as Mr. Abbot is doing, from
the exercise of unquestioning filial trust in the Divine Pater
�Mr. Sen’s Faith in God ?
239
nity, is doing the average soul more harm than all other
religious teaching can do him good.
We have given our friend’s new creed, in the Index of
January 7, a respectful study, and see how he arrives at
“ E PLURIBUS UNUM ”
as “ the great watchword of the ages/’ but to us, and we
think to mankind generally, “E PluHus Unum” will not
displace “ Our Father,fl nor any sense of what we are, in
onrselves, and to one another, take the place of the Con
sciousness of God, and the consolation derived from remem
bering HIM in whom we live, Mdflmove, and have our
being. To keep a lively sense of the being, and goodness,
and perfect power of the alone supreme and blessed God,
is not to swamp religion in a mush of concessions. Mr.
Sen’s wish for a Theistic Brottflrhood of all the great
nations, merited sympathy and respect from Mr. Abbot,
and these only. It was no more legitimate to object to it
than it would be to require the mass of childifln to limit
their interest in home pleasuBs to such as orphan asylums
can offer. And in the name of all that is sacred and consol
ing to the heart of man, we beg MiflAbbot to abate the
rigor with which he insists upomkccommodatwg religion to
atheism and to materialism. We will deal respectfully and
fraternally with these honest restrictions of human hope
and faith, but we cannot see wl®any man who has faith in
God and the blessed world of spirit should think it neces
sary to hide that faith, and to base a creed upon suspense of
natural happy trust. In general the atheists, materialists,
and professed “infidels,” are exceedingly positive in their
views, as well as frank and outspokenly Let them be so.
But on the other hand, let those who have firm faith in a
Living Soul of all things, and in Eternal blessed Life, stand
as frankly and firmly for their trust and their thought. If
Mr. Abbot does not care toflhus stand for his best thought
and faith, let him at least cease to insist upon suspense of
faith in our brotherly Bllowship, since the demand is wholly
�240
The Old and the New Christianity.
unreasonable and extremely hurtful. A “ Theistic Brother
hood” does not imply the exclusion of anybody, and not to
show what faith we have in God is to do great hurt to our fel
lows, as well as to be unfaithful to our own vision.
Article XI.— The Old and the New Christianity (Concluded).
Translated from the French of N. Vacherot.
*
After the first ecumenical councils, dogma having
received its constitution almost complete, it would seem
that its history must be finished, and it only remained to
pursue that of organization and church discipline. How
ever, the history of dogma still continues, if not for estab
lishing, at least for the teaching of doctrines. The great
theologians whose discussions prepared the way for the
council of Nicoea, had, with all their subtle distinctions,
preserved, with their Platonic learning, the consciousness
of the highest religious verities. It was rather the teaching
of John which inspired them than that of Paul: but it was
still the vivifying breath of Christian thought. When that
thought fell upon the barbarism of the middle ages, it
found no method of exposition or instruction other than
the philosophy of Aristotle. We know what this became
in the hands of his interpreters of the Sorbonne and of the
universities of the middle ages. The name Schoolman
tells the whole story of distinctions, divisions and ver
bal discussions. If doctors, such as St. Anselm and St.
Thomas, were able to maintain Christian thought in its high
import, it was because both had a spirit sufficiently high
and sufficiently deep to comprehend whatever in the genius
of Plato and Aristotle is most like that thought. Yet we
may question if the extremely Aristotelian philosophy of
St. Thomas would have been to the liking of Paul, of John,
and of the fathers of the church. We will not speak of
* In the last line of Art. VI. (p. 181), of last number, strike out the word
“not,” and read “ could easily accommodate itself.”
�The Old and the New Christianity.
241
Christ himself, who never let slip an occasion to show his
antipathy to every kind of scholasticism. If he would not
have driven from his church the respectable doctors of the
Sorbonne, as he did the traffickers of the temple, we may
believe that the author of the Sermon on the Mount would
not have set foot in schools of this sort, where the spirit of
his teaching was scarcely better kept than the letter.
There is surely a great difference between the teaching
of the gospels and epistles and scholastic theology ; but per
haps a still greater between the primitive church and the
Catholic church governed by the court of Rome. While
reading the historians of Christianity, and particularly M.
Renan, we naturally picture to ourselves those happy and
charming little Christian societies, with such free manners,
such active faith, such simple practice, in comparisonOth
the strong and minute discipline, the mute and passive obe
dience, which characterize the government of our great
Catholic societies of the middle ages. The truth is that the
rising Christianity had no more an organized church than it
had a fixed set of doctrines. It is subject to the same law
as all things which are of this world, or exist in it: it was
obliged to be formed before developing, and to be developed
before organizing. The blessed anarchy of the first Chris
tian societies may be envied by liberal believers as the ideal
of religious societies in the largest acceptation of the word;
but at that time this religious condition was rather the
effect of a provisional historic necessity, than of a welldetermined theory upon the free action of the religious
conscience. As soon as Christian society had attained some
little degree of development and multiplied the number of
its churches, it experienced the need of a more exact disci
pline and of some kind of central government. When
Christianity became under Constantine the religion of the
empire, the bishops were already exercising an actual
authority over the consciences of the faithful. It is to be
observed that the councils, save that at Jerusalem, which
was little more than a name, began to assemble from this
�242
The Old and the New Christianity.
time, under the more or less imperious patronage of the
Ceesars of Byzantium—a circumstance very perilous to thb
independence of the church. Religious monarchy was a
necessity of the times. If it had not had as a head a pope
at Rome, it would have had one in the emperors at Con
stantinople. We see this clearly later in the examples of
the Eastern and of the Russian church, the one being sub
ject to the Caesars of the Lower Empire, the other to the
czars of Moscow and St. Petersburg. All the emperors of
Constantinople, from Constantine down, set about dogma
tising. He allows himself to condemn Arius, although
later he embraced his doctrines ; and in what terms does he
condemn him? “ Constantine, the conqueror, the great,
the august, to the bishops and people of Judea: Arius
must be branded with infamy.” There is nothing more
curious than his letter to the two great opponents in the
Council of Nicoea. “ I know what your dispute is. You,
patriarch, question your priests in regard to what each
thinks about some test of the law or other trifling question.
You, priest, proclaim what you never ought to have
thoughtjor rather what you should have been silent
upon. The inquiry and response are equally useless:
All that is well enough to pass the time or exercise
the ingenuity, but should never reach the ears of the
common people. Pardon each other then the impru
dence of the question and the unsuitableness of the
reply.” Does not this suggest a Romish priest shutting the
mouth of two complaining parties ? His son, Constantins,
speaks even more freely : “ What part of the universe
are you,” writes he to Liberius,. bishop of Rome, “ you
who alone take the part of an unprincipled wretch (Atha
nasius), and break the peace of the world and of the
empire ?”
The establishment of the discipline and organization of
the church were the work of the councils presided over by
the popes, while the government of Christendom was the
peculiar function of papacy. The adversaries of that insti
�The Old and the New Christianity.
243
tution have seen in it only the advent of a monarchial gov
ernment succeeding a sort of democratic and republican
organization of the primitive church. They have not suffi
ciently comprehended that it was also a necessary and
urgent guarantee of the independence of the Christian
church, which, to triumph more easily and quickly over
paganism, had placed itself under the hand of imperial
despotism. If religious liberty of conscience was to suffer
later from the autocracy of the court of Rome, inspired
more by traditional policy and diplomacy than by the
thoughts and feelings of the true religion of Christ, the lib
erty of the church was then and always that of an establish
ment which, in raising the bishop of Rome above all the
others and giving to him for a see the ancient capital of the
known world, freed the management of spiritual affairs from
the yoke of political powers, whatever they might be, mon
archical, aristocratic or democratic. However, the trans
formation of the Christian church was complete. If any
one wishes to judge what ground has been gone over from
primitive Christianity down to present Catholicism, let him
compare the council of Jerusalem with the council of 1869,
where, they say, is at length to be proclaimed the dogma of
the personal infallibility of the sovereign pontiff in the per
son of Pius IX, and consequently the principle of absolute
monarchy applied to the government of a spiritual society
is to be fully realized: an admirable completion to the edi
fice, of which the founder could hardly have dreamed, nor
indeed his first apostles !
Such, in substance, is the history of Christianity from its
advent down to the middle ages. It is very difficult to see
only the word, the hand and the spirit of God in the devel
opment of an institution where error, darkness, superstition,
and persecution have too large a part to prevent traces of
human infirmity being manifest even in dogma. But, in
whatever manner one explains this history, whether he
only considers human causes according to the philosophic
method, or brings in supernatural causes according to the
�244
The, Old and the New Christianity.
theological method, it is a constant fact that Christianity
has obeyed, in its development on the theatre of time and
space, the law of all human institutions, that it has passed,
in doctrine and government, through all the phases of
things which spring up, grow, become organized and defi
nitely established. After having followed it in the move
ment of expansion which takes it continually farther from
its origin, it remains for us to follow it in the movement of
return, which is constantly bringing it back under the
influence of modern times.
HI.
We are about the middle of the fifteenth century, after
the taking of Constantinople. The Roman church no longer
finds in its peculiar world either heresy or resistance. Doc
trine has been for a long time fixed. The teaching of
doctrine is regulated in its least details in accordance with
the scholastic method. Discipline itself is organized and
regulated in its most minute prescriptions. The Catholic
communion resembles an immense army .which moves or
stops, fights or rests, on the orders of its commanders.
Woe to him who speaks, thinks or prays other than as the
formulary directs. Silence even is suspected among those
of whom the church expects a complete confession or a pro
fession of faith. Nothing is more imposing than this silent,
absolute, infallible, government of consciences, where the
word of command as soon as uttered by the mouth of one
man is reechoed in the most remote parts of the Christian
world, without a single voice being able to protest. And
as if that discipline were not sufficient, the court of Rome
has its indefatigable police of the inquisition, to seek out
and denounce the crimes of heresy and sorcery to pitiless
judges, who condemned to the stake thousands of victims.
Suddenly the star of the renaissance rises upon this world,
and driving away the last traces of the darkness of the mid
dle ages, floods with light the dawn of modern societies.
Before the arts and sciences of antiquity, Gothic art and
�The Old and the New Christianity.
245
scholastic science fall into disrepute. And it 19 not the
learned and lettered world alone which receives, admires,
yea, gazes with unbounded delight upon these marvelous
works of classic accuracy, of material grace, of strong
thought, of exquisite taste, of incomparable language,
whose secret the human mind seemed to have lost; it is
also the religious world, it is especially the court of Rome
and its foremost Italian dignitaries.
We cannot positively say that the renaissance caused the
reform. Protestantism, we must not forgetlwas born of a
simple administrative question, the granting of indulgences :
confining itself to a change of discipline, it kept the doc
trines almost without alteration. The great reform which
it accomplished was, to free the religious conscience from
the tutelage which weighed so heavily upon it, and which
left it no initiative, either of thought or of sentiment,
before the word of God interpreted and formally uttered by
the authority of the church. Now every thing was there,
at least in principle. What matter that the new religion
did not touch the credo, if all doctrine was henceforth
wholly subject to a free interpretation of the Scriptures by
the reason and conscience of believers ? Doubtless, as there
is no church without authority, the reformed church had,
also on its part, a council and creed in the Augsburg con
fession; but the principle of individual initiative had been
so affirmed before the contrary principle of official author
ity, that no effort of Protestant orthodoxy, if this expression
may be applied to the reformation, could arrest its course,
even in the lifetime of the great reformers. The door was
open to liberty in matters of faith. The future was to show
that no necessity of discipline could close it: but for the
moment, if we only consider its doctrinal bearing, the
reform was confined to a very slight simplification of
dogma. The worship of saints, worship of the Virgin,
adoration of relics, in fine, the most serious of all, the
eucharist, were the principal objects of reform in what con
cerned dogma, purely so called. Luther was not only a fer
�246
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The Old and the New Christianity.
vent Christian, he was a consummate theologian, who
would not hear to any one’s touching the holy ark of doc
trine. He was more convinced than Leo X. and the gay
wits of his court of the justice of eternal punishment, of
the efficacy of grace, of the predestination of the elect and
the damned, of the existence and puissance of the devil, of
the wily power of sorcerers, of the real presence of Jesus
Christ in the host. The boldest thing the reform did in
the way of doctrine, was the substitution of consubstantiation
for transubstantiation in the sacrament of the eucharist,
attempting thus to reconcile the preservation of the mate
rial substance with the presence of the divine person. The
court of Rome did not take fire, as Calvin did, on the ques
tion of heresies, and if it still allowed heretics, like Bruno
and Vanini, to be burned by the tribunals of the inexora
ble inquisition, we cannot think it was done with as much
zeal as Calvin manifested in the trial of Michse’. Servetus. In
religious matters, it no longer showed much wrath or en
thusiasm; its passion was elsewhere.
The leading thought of the reform was quite other than
that ofencroaching upon dogma. The spirit which gave
rise to it was too Christian to touch any thing but the
organization of the church. The religious faith of the
people whom the voice of Luther had won over, demanded
nothing more. The natural sciences were not yet born,
and philosophy was still given over to scholastic disputes,
or engaged in the subtle commentaries of the: learned upon
the books of antiquity. Christian dogma, such as the Old
and New Testament had made it,—Alexandrian theology
and scholastic theology,—had not yet been positively contra
dicted, either by the revelations of the natural and the his
toric sciences, or by the interior revelations of the modern
conscience. Beside, in emancipating the conscience, the
reformation reanimated and strengthened Christian thought,
stifled by scholasticism or enervated by the renaissance.
The faith of the new believers went back to the doctrines of
Paul, which the wholly practical sense of the Roman church
�The Old and the New Christianity.
247
had modified, and even to the Old Testament theology.
Luther and Calvin took up again with a vigor and a harsh
ness which the Catholic church seemed to have forgotten,
the doctrines of necessity, of omnipotent grace, of the stern
justice of a powerful God, mild toward the just, terrible to
his enemies.
But when light had begun to be thrown upon philosophy
by the progress of the material sciences, upon conscience
by the progress of moral science, the spirit of reform in the
Christian world was obliged to attack dogma itself, and it
cut off from it as useless every thing which hindered it
from accommodating itself to modern science and con
science. How could they indeed preserve that barbarous
theology of the Old Testament, which confounds in its''
cruel justice, the Bible says in its vengeance, children with
fathers, the innocent with the guilty ? How keep that psy
chology and those moral principles of Paul which make of
sin a question of species and not of individuals, and which
take away from man all the merit of his works by attribut
ing it to God ? How take literally the miracles and other
facts of Biblical history before the scientific revelation of
the immutable laws of nature? And was it not becoming
very difficult to preserve that mysterious theology of the
Nicsean creed when already all high metaphysical specula
tion was falling into discredit ? Was it possible to this
heavy ship of scholastic Christianity to sail in the new
waters of a sea as strong as the modern world, if a way
was not found of lightening its weight and simplifying its
means of locomotion ? The new Christianity was then
obliged to abandon all the cosmogony and a considerable
part of the theology of the old Bible, the fundamental dog
mas of Paul s teaching, and, at last, the great mysteries of
the divine nature, which it found, if not in opposition, at
least useless to a healthy religious life. Let us render jus
tice to the clear and resolute spirit of the eighteenth cen
tury. It attempted little subtilizing or equivocating with
texts : it loyally made the sacrifice of every part of Chris-
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The Old and the New Christianity.
tian dogma which was found in contradiction with experi
ence, history, reason, conscience, preserving scarcely any
thing of it except that which constitutes its truth and
worth. When Kant, Lessing, and later, Schleiermacher,
and all that great school of German theology speak
of Christianity, it is almost always in that sense. Their
Christianity is that which sustains, fortifies, purifies and
consoles the soul, much rather than that which engages the
intellect in the mysterious depths of its metaphysics, or
fetters the will in the bonds of its discipline. In that, this
school has largely opened the way to the Christianity which
later was to push forward the reform movement to the
entire suppression of dogma, by preserving only morality,
and morality, too, reduced to the ideal of the life and the
teaching of Christ. Such seems also to have been the
spirit, if not the explicit teaching of the generous part of
the French clergy who embraced the principles and hopes
of the revolution. It was by attaching themselves to the
moral and purely evangelical side of doctrine, that priests
like Faucher and Gregory wished to reconcile Christianity
with the principle^ of reason, of liberty, of justice, of fra
ternity, which that revolution had inscribed upon its pro
gramme. In this sense, it is just to say that the eighteenth
century remained Christian while ceasing to be Catholic,
and that over that part of society which was won by philoso
phy, religion still preserved a certain sway.
This work of simplification which was already bringing
back dogma to its source, was arrested, at the opening of
the nineteenth century, by a wholly opposite movement,
whose aim, on the contrary, was the complete reinstatement
of Christian thought in modern science and philosophy.
The eclecticism of that epoch exerted itself everywhere, in
England, and in France, as well as in Germany, to show,
by an ingenious method of interpretations and explanations,
that all science and all philosophy were at least in germ in
Christianity; all was, to rightly interpret the texts. So
Genesis was harmonized with the geology of certain Eng-
�The Old and the New Christianity.
249
lish savang, the Kicene creed had a place in the metaphysics
of Schelling and Hegel, and the hard doctrines of Saint
Paul themselves, found their explanation and fortification
in the mystic philosophy of certain contemporary schools.
The learned world was quite astonished to learn that there
was a Christian astronomy, geology and history, just as
there was a theology and a morality with this name. Indeed
all the sciences took a peculiar aspect from the new point of
view in which the eclectics of those times placed themselves.
This method had at first great success, thanks to the genius
of the men and the disposition of the times; but this suc
cess could be only ephemeral, because such a manner of
procedure was contrary to the true spirit of the nineteenth
century, a critical spirit, if any ever were so. Besides, the
method was not new: it has a well known name in the
philosophic and religious history of the human mind. Neoplatism had attempted it for paganism with an ardor, a per
severance, a brilliancy, a positive failure, which we need not
recall. For a century like ours, so severe in its methods, so
well informed in natural and historical facts, this kind of
speculation was not science, it was something which savored
now of mystic dreaming, now of political compromise, or
again of Alexandrian exegesis.
This eclecticism was a pure accident, in spite of all the
appearances of reality ! The law which governs the mod
ern history of Christianity, soon resumed its sway I the
progress of purification and simplification grew more and
more pronounced; criticism breathed upon these scaffoldings
so laboriously and sometimes so artistically constructed.
Sober science would no longer lendlitself to that which it
must regard as a play of wits, if not the illusion of a liberal
faith desiring to be of its century at the same time as of its
church. The spirit of reform which fashions the ChrisWn
societies of to-day no longer loses its time and its genius in
reconciling contradictions or confounding differences. With
a firm and bold hand, the doctors which itlnspires separate,
in Christianity, morality from dogma; that is, in their
VOL. I.—NO. 3.
4
�250
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The Old and the New Christianity.
understanding, the true from the actual, the essential from
the accidental, the eternal and immutable from the tempo
rary and variable. To the history of the past, they refer
all the details of dogma properly so called, from Paulinian
and Alexandrian theology to scholastic theology, keeping
only what in their eyes constitutes the basis, the essence,
the very spirit of Christianity, the mild and lofty teaching
of Jesus. And yet, as it is difficult not to find in that teach
ing, so pure and perfect, some indications which recall the
narrow genius of the people to whom the Christ belongs,
the doctors of liberal Christianity refer their religion to the
ideal rather than to the evangelical reality, and, without
denying the latter, preserve of the legend only the figure of
a Christ truly divine, in that he has no longer anything in
common with the sufferings of humanity. Suppose that
Christ really was the man of whom the gospels tell us, the
school, or, if you please, the church of which we speak,
does not make of this an essential point of its religion. The
ideal suffices for it, and, not finding a richer and higher one
in the modern conscience, it proposes it to the faith of the
present, to the faith of the future, as the ideal itself of the
human conscience.
Jfo one has better defined this Christianity than Mr. F.
Pecaut, one of its most noble and most serious doctors.
“ It is not,” he says, “ that we attach to this name of Chris
tians a superstitious value or a sort of magic virtue ; but,
whether we will it or not, our moral and religious ideal is
in its essential features the same as the ideal of Jesus, and
we are his posterity. . . . The ineffaceable glory of the
gospel, its immortal attraction, is always its being the good
news, the news of grace, of the spirit of life which assures
us of the love of God, and frees us from the servitude of
remorse and evil. That is a revelation appealed to by the
human soul, and consequently written on its inmost tablets:
the seers attempt to read it in themselves, and from age to
age they are learning among various peoples to decipher the
name of the Father, until Jesus, by pronouncing it loudly,
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251
makes the old earth, weary of long efforts, leap with exceed,
ing j°y« Hence, as from a generous spring, escape in rivu
lets of living water the best sentiments which are henceforth
to render fruitful Christian civilization, humility, confi
dence, unwavering hope, innate dignity, devotion towards
even the wicked. Does any one to-day conceive of a relig
ious idea superior to that ? Who would wish to repudiate
it? who would dare to deprive his brothers of it, and to
deprive himself of it ? It is the very depth of ourselves
so humane, so natural, but so deep and so uncomfortable
for the profane eye to read, that men in their exuberant
delight have believed it supernatural and superhuman.”
This is why the liberal Christian takes his place in the
school of Jesus: not of Jesus the Messiah, the eternal
Word, the second person of the Trinity, but of Jesus, the
Son of man, the gentle and humble-hearted master who
gives repose to the soul, the master whom love of the
Father and tenderness for the least of his brothers raised to
such a moral height that he felt himself the beloved son of
whom the heavenly Father had no secrets in pure, good
and holy things. Such is the true, the eternal Jesus, he
who founded religion upon conscience and opened to
humanity the gates of the celestial city. Is it the spirit of
God which speaks by that mouth, or the spirit of Satan, as
the Roman Church has it? If Christian sentiment is not
there, where then is it ? If this is not the language of the
true children of God, where shall we find it ? As to us,
whom people accuse, it is true, of having a somewhat large
measure in this sort of things, we believe that there are
many ways of being Christian. One may be so according
to the spirit or according to the letter. He may be so with
Jesus, with Paul, with John, with the Alexandrian theo
logians, with the doctors in the Sorbonne, with all tradition,
as the Catholic Ghurch directs. Does it not seem that to
be Christian with Christ alone, receiving inspiration only
from his spirit and his example, is to be it in the best, the most
Christian manner? If any one says that it is only chosen
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The Old and the New Christianity.
souls essentially religious for whom such an inspiration can
suffice for living in Christianity, and that, as 1o the rest, all
the formality of dogma and traditional discipline is neces
sary, we do not deny it. Upon this ground, many ways of
looking at the matter may be reconciled. What appears to
us harsh and almost odious, is the intolerance of the friends
of the letter towards the friends of the spirit, so that it is pos
sible to say that in drawing near the hearth of every relig
ious faith, the soul of Christ, in order to receive more and
more warmth, life and purification, we get farther away
from the religion of Christ.
Like doctrine, like church: absolute liberty under the
law, or rather under the spirit of Christ. Where there is
no longer dogma, to speak strictly, there can no longer be
discipline and government. Every believer is his own
priest, as his true Bible is his own conscience enlightened
by the light of the gospel ideal. In fact, it is not a church,
but a society of the believers who instruct, guide and help
each other; it is indeed the communion of brothers of the
free spirit in the most modern acceptation of the phrase.
From whatever source the spirit breathes, it is always wel
come; they receive it and become penetrated with it with
out demanding of those inspired any other title to the confi
dence of all than the excellence of their nature or the supe
riority of their wisdom. As to the Scriptures, for this new
church, every grand or fine book is a bible; it is sufficient
if it answers to what is most pure and holy in the conscience
of each one. It is indeed always the soul of Christ which
makes the religious life of the new Christians; but between
it and them there is no intermediate agent, no traditional
teaching, no authority which imposes its decisions. It is
not enough to say, no more pope; no more councils, they
say, no more synods, no more creeds, even if agreed upon
by all. It is the reign of that divine anarchy of which the
primitive church had been only a very feeble image, and
wThich is the ideal itse f of every truly spiritual communion.
�The Old and the New Christianity.
253
IV.
We see what Christianity becomes by simplification after
simplification, from the reformation down to our time, just
as we saw what it become by complication after complica
tion, from its advent to the reformation. This double spec
tacle gives rise to quite difibrent reflexions, according as one
contemplates it as an orthodox Christian, a liberal Chris
tian, or a historian. Where the orthodox Christian finds
only subject for admiration in the ancient period of the his
tory of that religion, and for regret in the second period,
where the liberal Christian, on the contrary, has only regrets
for the one and hopes for the other, the philosophical histo
rian undertakes to comprehend and explain whatever is
necessary in the double movement, in a sense contrary to
religious thought. With the orthodox Christian, he accepts
the entire dogma, no longer as one single and same revela
tion of which all the parts are equally in conformity to the
ideal itself of Christianity, but as a succession of doctrines
corresponding each to a historical fatality of its existence.
Leaving to the liberal believer the ideal point of view, and
himself, in his quality of historian, holding to the point of
view of actual fact, he finds that Christianity, in respect to
the condition of the society it was to conquer, could do it
only by accommodating itself to the instincts, needs, habits
and necessities of human nature, at any particular moment
of its history. Thus he comprehends how, to become a relig
ion in the positive sense of the word, it was necessary that
Christianity pass from the morality of Jesus to the theology
of Paul; how, to become the religion of the most metaphys
ical and most mystical part of ancient society, it was neces
sary for it to pass from the teaching of Paul to the high the
ology of the gospel of John and of the Nicene Creed. So,
at length, he comprehends that, to become the religion of
the middle ages, it has been obliged to descend from these
speculative heights to the practical necessities of a disci
pline as minute as rigorous. Like all the institutions whose
development history shows, Christianity did not have the
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The Old and the New Christianity.
choice of means in extending, establishing and preserving
itself. Whatever were its origin and its peculiar genius, it
had no more freedom of conduct than any other human
institution. It could not escape the law which regulates the
development of everything in time and space; the ideal is
realized only on conditions which do not always permit it
to maintain the purity of its principle or of its origin. Thus
the philosophic historian finds himself in harmony with the
orthodox Christian upon the legitimacy of the dogmas and
institutions with which primitive Christianity enriched
itself or complicated itself, as one may choose to call it.
But he is in harmony with the liberal Christian in quite a
different way. Here it is no more historical necessity that
he has in view, it is the light itself of the idea which makes
him know where he is in the quite opposite religious move
ment which has been in progress since the end of the
middle ages down to our time. The necessity, if this word
may be employed, of the progress which is elevating the
religion of Christ, fallen in the darkness and barbarity of
the middle ages, is no longer an exterior and material law
of reality ; it is an interior and wholly spiritual law of the
idea, which, finding a nature better and better prepared,
whether in individuals or in societies of modern times,
develops itself more and more freely, realizes itself more
and more completely, in proportion as-it feels itself better
sustained by the state of civilization which corresponds to
its expansion. Consequently, without sharing the regrets
of the liberal Christian in all that concerns the past, the
philosophic historian comprehends and judges as a continual
progress, in the literal sense of the word, the work of puri
fication and simplification which is going on in Christian
souls and churches since the renaissance, which restores
liberty to religious faith by the reformation of Luther, and
which is freeing the teaching of Christ from either the subtilties of the Alexandrian creed, or the severity of Paulinian
dogma, to show it to the modern world in all the purity of
its light and in all the power of its worth. If he cannot be
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255
hostile or even indifferent to the history of dogmas and
institutions which have served in the establishment of
Christianity, how much more will he be in sympathy with
the history of the struggles maintained aud efforts attempted
in order to free it from the fett'ers that weigh upon it to-day,
and to bring it back to this high ideal of every truly Chris
tian conscience, which, in certain quarters, is confounded
with the ideal itself of the modern conscience !
What will be the future of liberal Christianity in the pres
ent societies ? If the question were only concerning some
particular reform, attempted by certain men, at some given
time, in view of creating a certain church, all foresight
would be rash. What have become of all the reforms so
ardently preached by the reverend Catholics of our country
who wished to shake off the yoke of Roman discipline or of
scholastic theology ? We know the fruitless efforts
attempted with this intent by Lamennais, Buchez, BordasDumoulin, and Huet. What will become of the movement
of which the apostles of liberal Protestantism have consti
tuted themselves the promoters ? It seems as if everything
concurs for the success of such an enterprise, the devotion
of the men, the favor of circumstances, the essentially popu
lar simplicity of the teaching. Is not this the religion of
those simple in heart and spirit, as Jesus taught it to the
people of Galilee ? In it, appeal is not made to theology,
to metaphysics, to erudition, or to criticism ; it is made only
to conscience, which alone must respond. In perceiving
and loving, all the new Christianity lies; feeling the inner
truths, the heart truths, that is, the beautiful, the just and
the good, and loving them in the person of Christ.
We are not of those whom the passion for pure philos
ophy would render indifferent to such a progress of the
religious life. It is a beautiful idea to make the name of
Christ-the symbol of human conscience, and to surround
the popular teaching of morality with the aureole of such a
tradition. We shall not make so soon a philosophic human
ity. If we could produce such a religious humanity, does
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256
The Old and the New Christianity.
it not seem as if philosophy might patiently await the day
of its complete triumph, if it is ever to come? What a
dream is that of the liberal Christians ! Christianity appears
to them like the tree which was to cover the world and can
yet do so. This tree, planted at Golgotha for the punish
ment of Jesus, watered with his blood, enveloped with the
divine benediction as with a vivifying atmosphere, left to
natural growth and grace from above, would have first
touched the heavens, and soon embraced the .world in the
universal expansion of its branches. The strong and
learned culture of a Paul, a John, of the Alexandrian fathers
and the scholastic doctors, makes of it the sturdy tree which
history gives us for contemplation, with roots taking deep
hold of the soil, a short and massive trunk, boughs clasped
and interlacing, a rough bark, an-d foliage so thick as to
intercept the rays of light. And as, with such a constitu
tion, the sap could not rise, it was obliged to betake itself
to the ends'of the branches, instead of concentrating itself at
the heart of the tree, to force it to its highest development.
And then, after the brilliant Alexandrian vegetation, after
the solid scholastic organization, either from lack of cir
culation or from a wrong direction of the sap, the tree
grows weak and bends under the weight of the branches
which pull it earthward; it covers the world of the middle
ages with a thick shadow under which everything grows
benumbed or sleeps. What did the reformation have to do
towards righting the tree and making it resume its growth
towards heaven ? To recall the sap to the trunk by lop
ping the dead branches and those too low. It is this work
begun by the first reformers, which liberal Christianity con
tinues, by disengaging the tree more and more from every
thing which prevents it from shooting heavenward. Thus
will it become the tree of life under which the religious
faith of humanity will find again the air, light and fragrance
which strengthen without intoxicating, which calm without
stupifying.
Will the dream become a reality? Only God and his
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257
prophets know; but there is one thing which three centu
ries of progress teach us with certainty; it is that the relig
ious world is on the way to the ideal dreamed of by its
freest children. Because some see it still in large majority
attached to dogma and its most minute details, they con
clude that it has not changed and will'not change, that the
orthodoxy of Rome, of Augsburg or of Geneva, holds it con
strained by its narrow formulas. It is an error. To any
one who looks into the matter closelySt is manifest that the
spirit is gaining light more and more in the Christian con
sciences of our times through the letter which so long
pressed it down. If any one wishes to judge of the im
portance of the religious movement which is going on in
the midst of modern societies, he must not form his opinion
from the bold enterprises which suddeily burst forth and
come to nothing; he must follow the slow and sure evolu
tion taking place in the souls in appearance the most in
bondage to the letter. Everything has kept its position,
everything appears equally firm in Christian dogma as
authority imposes it on its believers; but there is only one
place, even in the Catholiq world, where one does not see
that it has its dead and its living partsk that these latter
alone constitute its worth and can assure its future. Alas
for him, especially in these times, who forgets that the let
ter kills and the spirit gives life! It seems that the true
genius of the new times equally escapes the conservatives
who cling to the past and the men who would revolution
ize the future, to see the illusion of the former and the dis
couragements in store for the latter. Our age has, at the
same time, a liking for tradition and for progress. It
remains faithful to the one by'keeping the letter; it serves
the other by being inspired with the spirit. It is plain that
it is more and more out of conceit with and mistrusts theat
rical strokes and the sudden changes of scene called revolu
tions in the history of human societies. Evolution is what
it would appear is to be the preferred form of modern pro
gress. We do not know what the future reserves for the
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The Old and the New Christianity.
religious world. We see indeed liberal Christianity
redouble its efforts and extend its conquests ; we see it in
America, with Channing, Parker and their disciples, draw
crowds and found new churches; we see it in Europe radi
ate in all the great centres of religious life, at Paris, at
Strasburg, at Geneva, the city of Calvin, at London, at
Berlin, at Florence. We should not be surprised, neverthe
less, if this movement did not descend from the high and
free society of the sons of the spirit into the depths of the
religious world, and if the immense majority of Catholic
or Protestant Christians kept the formulas of orthodoxy,
while gaining light from science and becoming penetrated
by the sentiments of modern conscience.
It would be rash in us to pry into the Catholic and
Christian consciences of our times, and pretend to see into
them more clearly than the believers themselves; but it
seems to us that their faith is no longer all of one kind as
in the past. The faith of our fathers in the middle ages,
and even in the first centuries of modern times, embraced
all its articles of dogma in one single affirmation, invincible
and absolute; nothing in it then either wounded the con
science or revolted against reason. To-day there is taking
place, asfit were without its knowledge, a distinction, if not
a separation, in the depth of the religious conscience.
Everything is accepted which the authority of the church
imposes; but people make really two parts of the subject
matter of tradition, one comprehending everything which
no longer answers to the reason, science, or conscience of
ourBime; the other, one whose eternal and universal truth
will never be behind the progress of modern civilization.
Surely no one can call himself Catholic if he does not sin
cerely profess a belief in eternal punishment, in the resur
rection of the body, in original sin, in the mystery of a God
three in one, and even in many other dogmas of less
importance; but how many believers attach to these things
true faith, the faith of the feeling? They believe in them
because it is the law of the church; but the heart of the
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259
Christian is elsewhere, it is in those ideas of purity, of
justice, of fraternity, of love, which the evangelical teaching
breathes, and which the believer finds in the newest inspi
rations of the modern conscience. This is, if not the only
faith., at least the living one of the religious souls of our
time; the other is only a traditional faith which people
affirm, and will perhaps always affirm, but which they do
not feel alive in their hearts.
Such are those revolutions, which are no more understood
at Rome to-diy than they were in the time of Luther, which
indeed cannot be understood there, because Rome is the
seat of Romanism, rather than of Christianity. The saying
is from the duke of Orleans, and has a yet wider applica
tion than he who let it escape in a moment of discourage
ment intended.
“ Ta regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.” The
verse of the poet is still true. Christian Rome has always
left theology to the doctors of the universities and of the
religious orders, keeping for herself the science of canonical
law and the art of governing. Unfortunately for her,
neither that deep science nor that consummate art are suffi
cient to direct the Christian world in present circumstances.
It is with the religious democracy as with political democ
racy; in order to live they both want more and more
freedom and light, less and less discipline and government.
At the very moment when civilized society aspires to
govern itself, the Romish church reaches the most absolute
formula of personal government. One need not be a pro
phet to predict that such a regime will no more be the law
of the religious than of the political societies of the future.
The spiri-t of liberal Christianity will prevail over the
wholly political genius of Roman Catholicism, not by a
schism, which is not created in a time of so little zeal for
questions of dogma, but by a slow and continued trans
formation of the religious conscience, tending more and
more to conformity with the moral conscience of modern
society. When Protestants like M. de Pressense, when
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J
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260
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The Old and the New Christianity.
Catholics like MM. Dupanloup and Gratry, come to take
for their own church the name even of liberal Chris
tianity, which -is the symbol of the boldest reforms of the
day, we feel that the court of Rome cannot stop the course
of religious thought. In freedom and by freedom was the
great battle of Christianity fought and won in its heroic
age, even in spite of oppression and persecution from with
out. I know no other means of reconquering the world
to-day.” (De Pressense, Hist, des Trois Siecles de l’Eg. Ch.)
Rome is not of this opinion. There are indeed many
degrees in liberal Christianity; the liberty of the Catholics
cannot have such a career as that of Protestants; but Rome,
which understands discipline, comprehends them all in that
universal malady called the spirit of the age, not perceiving
that the true danger which threatens its church to-day, is
the lethargic sleep of a passive and servile faith. It is said
that it is not the freethinkers that cause it the most discom
fort at this time; we readily believe it, and so much the
more as it has never had a taste either for the mystic the
ology or for the scholastic science of these barbarians of the
AVest, for the Germans or the Gauls of any times, which
seem to it to continually wish to go up to the assault of the
Capitol. When Italian finesse does not smile at it, it is
uneasy about it, knowing by a long experience how much
the erudition of the former and the eloqence of the latter
interfere with or trouble her in the manceuvers of her skill
ful diplomacy. They are as children to that great mistress
in the art of governing, but terrible children whose too
violent love for the church of Christ has more than once
agitated and shaken the church of Rome. Such is its mistrust
ot discussion, that, from the advent of modern times, it has
not felt the need of rallying around it the highest lights and
the best forces it found in its own bosom, and that, for its
great combat against the modern spirit, it has counted on
the Inquisition, on the Jesuits, on the favor of princes, on
the adroitness and patience of its diplomacy, on everything,
in short, except the councils. Trusting only to her own
�The Story of a Damned Soul.
261
wisdom, for more than three centuries Rome has governed
and administered her empire without their co-operation,
and now that she has just assembled one, it is to have a
dogma proclaimed which henceforth strikes the institution
with impotence. Then, hearing no longer those disagree
able contradictions which are to have their last echo in the
present assembly, she will be able to live or to sleep in
peace, like the bird which hides its head under its wing at
the approach of the enemy. The fact is, Rome does not
like noisy outbursts, even from the writers and orators
which defend its cause. What it likes, is neither the great
heart of a Lamennais, nor the generous soul of a Lacordaire,
nor the noble and liberal spirit of a Montalembert, nor the
broad and high preaching of a Father Hyacinthe, nor the
fiery polemics of a Gratry, nor the calm dialectics of a
Maret, nor the beautiful and strong eloquence of a Dupanloup, nor, above all, the somewhat worldly wisdom of a
Darboy, nor even the acrimonious temper and satirical spirit
of a Veuillot; it is mute obedience among all its subjects,
without any distinction of character or talent. But, if the
great satisfaction of being mistress of her own house costs
her the dominion of the Catholic world, Rome will have
met the fate of all powers which do not comprehend that
henceforth in liberty alone is the security of all authority.
E. Vacherot.
Article XI.—The Story of'a Damned Soul.
The Examiner and Chronicle, the leading Baptist journal
of the country, calls us to account for the interpretation
put by us upon a passage of Bickersteth’s “Yesterday,
To-day, and Forever,” which we took to refer to Theodore
Parker. Our critic is quite right. The “ Theodore ” of
Mr. Bickersteth’s epic is a Roman youth, the son of a
Christian mother, who, for the love of a pagan girl, goes
over to his father’s paganism, and is soon after killed in
battle, and as particularly and painfully damned, as if the
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existence of God Almighty depended on it. We confess
to having misinterpreted Mr. Bickersteth, and now propose
to make amends by giving him, and our critic above named,
the benefit, first, of our explanation and apology, and second,
of a reproduction of the story of Theodore’s eternal dam
nation.
The intense anxiety of orthodoxy to get Theodore Parker
fast and sure in hell, was so great, even before Mr. Parker’s
death, as to break out in a prayer-meeting devoted to the
purpose of stirring up Jehovah to give instant attention to
the business. The recollection of this, suggested to us that
Mr. Bickersteth, whose whole work shows him entirely
capable of such a thing, had taken occasion to give assurance
that orthodox desires had been attended to. We had read
his horrible poem all the way from the account of creation
to the end, and could neither recall, nor discover upon
examination, any clue to the meaning of the “ Theodore ”
passage. We had missed the story of Theodore by not
reading one of the preliminary books, in which it comes in
as an episode, where Oriel tells how his first experience of
escorting a soul to hell was in the case of a youth by the
name of “ Theodore,” a youth of “ noble birth,” and “ high
and generous bearing,” whom he had “ fondly loved,” and
whom, nevertheless, he “ bore to his own place in yonder
realms of wrath.” We retract, therefore, the charge that
Mr. Bickersteth particularly and personally damned a
mighty enemy of orthodoxy. It was a generous youth, son
of a pagan father, and drawn, by fond human love of a
pagan girl, to depart from the faith his mother had educated
him in, whom the magnanimous singer of hell and damna
tion singled out for particular horrible mention. We
guessed wrong. Mr. Bickersteth did not strike at a great
heresiarch, to warn daring heretics; he struck at the
unconverted son of a pious mother, to warn a Mrs. Stowe,
and whoever thinks God may be pitiful to Christian mothers,
that inexorable hell cannot be so escaped, in any instance
whatever. We particularly beg pardon of the Examiner
�The Story of a Damned Soul.
263
and Chronicle for robbing its client of a portion of his elab
orately fiendish devotion to orthodoxy. It occurred to us,
when we found the poet saying, “Thus passed the centu
ries,” and then mentioning a name as having startled him,
because it was “ so familiar,” that he must refer to one of
his contemporaries, and we had no doubt that the intense
anxiety of the orthodox world to make sure of Theodore
Parker’s defeat on earth and damnation in hell, had found
convenient, disguised expression in Mr. Bickersteth’s vision.
Our secondary inference, that the mother was damned
with the son, is fully justified by the context of the passage.
“ Theodore is represented as stealing a hurried glance
“ upon a form
us,” with the thought, “ could it be his
mother ?” The Examiner and Chronicle says of our mistake
about the passage, “ All this comes of mistaking below us
(below Oriel and the poet-seer) for below him.” But in fact
the poem had described the damnation of the rebel angels
e
o
as going on below Oriel and the seer, so that
“ As their cry of piercing misery
“ From out that yawning gulf went up to heaven,
Standing upon its rugged edge, we gazed,
Intently and long, down after them;”
and immediately upon this, the lost of earth had been sum
moned to take their turn, whereupon Oriel, says the poet,
“ Spake,
“ With tears, of that which passed beneath, our feet”
The very next local allusion is the “ below us,” which tells
where Theodore saw his mother; and if “below us” is not
equivalent to “ beneath our feet,” which referred, two pages
before, to the damned, we do not understand plain language.
However, going back some seven thousand lines, to the
actual story of Theodore, it becomes plain that the poet
intended to show us how the son was damned to everlasting
hell, but the mother to everlasting heaven, and “ no breath
of useless prayer escaped his lips,” or her’s either. Will
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The Story of a Damned, Sold.
the Examiner and Chronicle face the honest fact here, and
permit its readers to see that its poet’s lesson, in the dam
nation of Theodore, is blacker, a thousand fold, than the
one we mistakenly pointed out? Meanwhile we invite our
readers, who can stomach as blasphemous heathenism as
superstition ever fathered, to trace with us, in Mr. Bicker
steth’s sulphurous pages, the story of a pious mother’s
son particularly damned, for a sign to maternal love that
for the impenitent dead there is possible no other doom
than “ Gehenna’s burning, sulphurous waves.”
The angel attendant of the seer who tells the vast story
of Mr. Bickersteth’s poem, is called Oriel. He points out
to the seer the road to hell, and is asked whether he has
ever been there.
“ Oriel replied, with calm, unfaltering lip,
And with his words his countenance benign
Grew more and more severely beautiful;
The. beauty of triumphant holiness,
The calm, severity of burning love.”
Is not this exquisitely satanic in conception ? Oriel had
been to hell “ thrice,” and the recollection brings to his
countenance the calm severity of love, “burning to. the
lowest hell,” as the full phrase is. The occasion which
particularly comes to his mind was this :
“ The first
Of disembodied human souls I bore
To his own place in yonder realms of wrath,
Was one I fondly loved, of noble birth,
Of high and generous bearing.”
He was “ born of Christian mother,” the wife of a Roman
consul, who himself kept the old faith of his pagan fathers.
5
“ An aged priest baptized him Theodore,
God's <71/% his mother whispered. And thenceforth
She poured upon him, him her only child,
The priceless treasures of a mother’s heart.”
�The Story of a Damned Soul.
1
265
Oriel was his guardian angel, and relates that the boy’s
home,
9
“ Unlike
The moated fortress of a faithful house,
Was ever open to the spirits malign.”
That is to say, the father not being a saint, devils had con
stant access to the young Theodore! Nevertheless, if the
“ severely beautiful ” Oriel tells the truth, “ not an arrow
reached him.” Innate depravity alone was his ruin, says
the explicitely theological angel. And yet he seems to
ascribe to the father a malign influence;—
11 The mother teaching prayers the father mocked!
And yet her spell was earliest on her child,
And strongest. And the fearless Theodore
Was called by other men, and called himself,
A Christian. Love, emotion, gratitude,
All that was tenderest in a tender heart,
All most heroic in a hero’s soul,
Pleaded on Christ’s behalf.”
Theodore was trained to arms, and joined the army of
Constantine, in the struggle against Maxentius,
“ When it chanced,
In sack of a beleagured city, he saved
A Grecian maiden and her sire from death;
Her name Irene, his Iconocles;
Among the princes he a prince, of all
Fair women she the fairest of her race,
Not only for her symmetry of form,
But for the music and the love which breathed
In every motion and in every word.”
Theodore loved her, but his suit was met with the answer,
from Irene’s father,
“ Never shall my child be his
Who kneels before a malefactor’s cross,”
vol. i.—no. 3.
5
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The Story of a Damned Soul.
A determination approved by Irene, who was pagan enough
to abhor the idea of worshipping an undoubted man. The
odore struggled hard,“ now cleaving to his mother’s faith,’’
and “now driven from his anchorage.” “God’s Spirit
strove with him,” and unsuccessfully, says the accurately
Calvanistic Oriel, although he—Oriel —was good enough
to “ ward the powers of darkness off,” while “ the awful
fight was foughten, ’ and give God a fair chance with the
young man. The poet is determined to clearly reveal the
inability of the Heavenly Father (and the human mother)
to save this fine youth, even when Oriel vigilantly and
successfully warded off hellish fraud and violence.” The
bad heart of the youth brought him to this decision:
“ 11 cannot leave that spirit
Angelic in a human form enshrined.
She must be mine forever. Life were death
Without her.’ And straight entering, where she leaned
Upon her father, as white jasmine leans
On a dark pine, slowly, resolutely,
As measuring every word with fate, he said,
‘ Irene, if the choice be endless woe,
For thy sake I renounce my mother’s faith:
I cannot, will not leave thee. I am thine.’ ”
That night the three escaped to the army of Maxentius;
a “soldier’s spousal” was celebrated; and the morning
brought the fatal battle. Mr. Oriel relates, with calm
severity of damning love, that Theodore rose, a desperate,
maddened, hell-inspired blasphemer, “in his eye a wild,
disastrous fire,” and “ the tempest raging in his heart, and
went
Impetuously into the thickest fight,
And prodigies of valor wrought that day,
Felling beneath his fratricidal blade
Whole ranks, his comrades and his brethren, late
Brethren in faith and arms.”
We suspect Mr. Oriel here of being an arrant liar, and
�The Story of a Damned Soul.
267
wonder that the poet-seer did not bid him go “ squat like a
toad ” at the ear of Rev. J. D. Fulton, with this part of his
tale. But we will hear from him Theodore’s end:
£< An unknown arrow, not unfledged with prayer,
Transpierced his eye and brain. Sudden he fell;
One short, sharp cry; one strong, convulsive throe,
And in a moment his unhappy spirit
Was from its quivering tabernacle loosed.”
The first cry of the disembodied soul, says Oriel, was,—
“ Mother, where art thou, mother ? where am I ?”
a cry which Oriel answered by seizing his “ fondly loved ”
charge, with a stern announcement of orders from Almighty
Power to convey him to hell. Theodore was “ submissive,”
without “ lamentations,” and without “ proud reluctances
and vain despite,” as Oriel led him hellward. But as they
advanced on the dreadfully darkening way, and “the hope
less captive gazed a long, last gaze” upon sun and stars,
“ A groan brake from him, and he sobbed aloud—
4 My mother, oh 1 my mother, from thy love
I learned to love those silent orbs of light,
God’s watchers thou didst call them, as they peered,
Evening by evening, on my infant sleep,
And mingled with my every boyish dream:
Are they now shining on thy misery ?
Who, now that I am gone, will wipe thine eyes ?
Who, mother, bind thy bruised and broken heart ?’ ”
Oriel now states to Theodors that his mother, will think
he was slain a Christian and has gone to heaven, whereat
the doomed young man expresses feelings of which Oriel
says,
44 Never will this heart forget
The impress of the look he cast on me.
He had not wept before; but now a tear
Hung on his trembling lids, through which he looked
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The Story of a Damned Soul.
Such gratitude as utter hopelessness
May render, .... a look which said
‘ I thank thee as the damned alone can thank;
Lost as I am, hell will not be such hell,
The while my mother thinks of me in heaven.’ ”
At last “ the iron gates of hell ” are reached, after a march
of interminable horror, through a desolate ravine, in the
palpable darkness of which the radiance of Oriel’s form, as
we can readily believe, was but “ a faint and feeble torch.”
The “ adamantine doors ” receive their victim and his
escort; Oriel conducts Theodore to a barren mountain, and
“ God looked upon him,” with his “ dreadful eye,”— not
with its full hell power, but “ half eclipsed,” yet with such
severely loving effect that to the doomed man,
“ The very air he breathed
Seemed to his sense one universal flame
Of wrath, . . . H . . and a low wail
Ere long brake from those miserable lips—
‘ 0 God, and is this hell ? and must this last
Forever ? would I never had been born I
Why was I born ! I did not choose my birth.
0 Thou, who did’st create me, uncreate,
I pray Thee. By Thine own omnipotence
Quench Thou this feeble spark of life in me.
0 God destroy me. Grant this latest boon
Thy wretched, ruined child will ever ask,
And suffer me to be no more at all.’ ”
To this “ aimless, bootless prayer,” the quite contented
Oriel replies,
“ Thou cravest what Omnipotence can do,”
but wont do, because “ Omniscient Love decrees ” damna
tion,
“ And therefore vainly dost thou now invoke
Almighty Power to thwart All-Seeing Love.”
�✓
The Story of a Damned Soul.
269
Even the “free service” of God, “justice interdicts,”
that being “heaven’s perennial joy.” “ Hades knows no
other law ” than “ passive submission ” to damnation,
“And here there is no sentinel but Glod;
His Eye alone is jailer; and His Hand
The only executioner of wrath.”
With this pungent doctrine of Moloch, Oriel proposes to
leave Theodore, while he catches a glimpse, “permitted
him by God,” of Paradise, and is moved thereby to indulge
“ idle phantasies of hope,” which Oriel, mindful of Calvinistic problems, turns back to extinguish, “ in mere pity.”
Convinced thus that there is no hope for himself, Theodore
cries out,
,
'
“ But is there not a hope
For one I briefly, passionately loved ?
*******
Tell her, in mercy tell her where I am,
What suffering—what must suffer evermore :
It may be she will turn and live. And if,
Whene’er my mother’s pilgrimage is passed,
And she, entering the gates of bliss, shall search
Through every field of yonder Paradise,
To find her only son, and search in vain,
If then thou wilt but try and comfort her—■
What way I know not, but thou know’st—and should
Her restless eye intuitively glance
Towards this valley, instantly divert
Its gaze else wither, thou wilt have done all
I ask for, and far more than I deserve.”
To which the insensate, pitiless, damnation-contriving
Oriel replies,
“Thy prayers to thine own bosom must return.”
*******
“ I leave thee in thy just Creator’s hands.”
Fifteen centuries now passed, and Oriel received orders
�The Story of a Damned Soul.
270
from the Almighty to join an embassy sent forth to
“ traverse hell in all its length and breadth,” and announce
the near approach of the judgment day. Of this Oriel
says,
“First to that mountain valley, where I left
Lost Theodore, I bent my course. 0 God !
The solemn change which fifteen centuries
In hell had written on his fearful brow.”
The further description, and the elaborate speeches ex
changed, represent Theodore as entirely converted to high
Calvinism, and quite convinced that hell-fire,—the “ veilless
blaze” of the “Dreadful Eye,” which is to come after
the judgment, will be after all the greatest possible boon,
“repressing with flame the fertility ” of “ the ineradicable
germs of sin,” though never able to extinguish them. And
to this extraordinary exposition of the divine imbecility, or
indisposition, to eradicate sin, the judicious angel gave
Theodore no opportunity to reply, but sped on his way to
advise the hellions of the speedy Second Advent of the
Messiah, making expository remarks, as he went, vindicative
of hell in general, and of particular hell for the generous
youth to whom he had been guardian angel.
To follow the story we must turn now to the ninth book
of the poem, which is called “ The Bridal of the Lamb.”
Here we hear Messiah say,
“ Now is the day of vengeance in my heart,
And now the year of my redeemed is come; ”
and we behold
“ Messiah seated on a snow-white horse
Of fiery brightness, as the Lord of hosts,
Apparelled in a vesture dipped in blood.”
In due time the Last Judgment is at. hand, and the hosts
of darkness gather in one final conspiracy,
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271
“ When from the frowning heavens again that sound,
Which shook the first fell council of the damned,
More terrible than thunder, vibrated
Through every heart Jehovaffls awful laugh / ”
And now
“ Messiah spake again, His voice
Resounding from the jasper walls of heaven
To hell’s profoundest caves.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
and' Death and Hell,
With dreadful throes and agonizing groans,
Disgorged their dead, the lost of every age,
In myriads, small and great confusedly.”
These are all brought back to earth to resume their
bodies, which were to be “ made fit to endure the terrors
of the wrath to come.” Then the book of life is read, and
the redeemed deceived to the right hand of the Judge.
The rebel angels are damned in order, ending with the
Arch-fiend, whose head Messiah crushes with “ his burning
heel.”
“ And for a space no sound was heard. But then
It seemed the crystal anpyr^m clave
Beneath them, and the horrid vacuum sucked
The devil and his armies down . . .
To bottomless perdition.”
After this the lost of mankind are summoned, and among
them is specially observed Theodore. Then
“ The Judge arising from his throne,
Bent on the countless multitudes convict
His vision of eternaBwrath, and spake
In tones which more than thousand thunders shook
The crumbling citadel of every heart,—
‘ Depart from Me, ye cursed, into fire,
For the devil and his hosts prepared,
Fire everlasting, fire unquenchable;
Myself have said it: let it be : Amen.’
*
*
*
*
Again the floor
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The Story of a Damned Soul.
Of solid crystal where the damned stood
Opened its mouth, immeasurable leagues;
And with a cry whose piercing echoes yet
Beat through the void of shoreless space, the lost
Helplessly, hopelessly, resistlessly,
Adown the inevitable fissure sank,
As sank before the ruined hosts of hell,
Still down, still ever down, from deep to deep,
Into the outer darkness, till at last
The fiery gulf received them, and they plunged
Beneath Gehenna’s burning sulphurous waves
In the abyss of ever-during woe.
"
“ All shook except the Throne of Judgment. * *
The Hand that held the scales of destiny
Swerved not a hair’s breadth: and the Voice which spake
Those utterances quailed not, faltered not.
But when the fiery gulf was shut, and all
Looked with one instinct on the judgment-seat,
To read his countenance who sate thereon,
He was in tears—the Judge was weeping—tears
Of grief and pity inexpressible.
And in full sympathy of grief the springs
Gushed forth within us; and the angels wept:
Till stooping from the throne with His own hand
He wiped the tears from every eye, and said,
1 My Father’s will be done: His will is mine;
And mine is yours: but mercy is his delight,
And judgment is his strange and dreadful work.
Now it is done forever. Come with me
Ye blessed children of my Father, come;
And in the many mansions of His love
Enjoy the beams of His unclouded smil<£f
So saying, as once from Olivet, he rose
Majestically toward the heaven of heavens
In the serenity of perfect peace:
And we arose^with him.
But what of those
Who from the place of final judgment hurled,
Had each his portion in the lake of fire ?
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273
No Lethe rolled its dark oblivious waves,
As some have feigned, betwixt that world of woe
And ours of bliss. But rather, as of old
Foreshadowed in the prescient oracles,
The smoke of their great torment rose to heaven
In presence of the holy seraphim,
And in the presence of the Lamb of God,
For ever and for ever. At the first
Nothing was heard ascending from the deep
Save wailings and unutterable groans,
Wrung from them by o’ermastering agony;
But as His Eye, who is consuming fire,
Unintermittingly abode on them,—
Silence assumed her adamantine throne.”
The One-Eyed Dread having thus attended to his ene
mies, snivelled a pretence of grief to accommodate a passage
in the New Testament, and got his red-hot look so fixed on
the damned that they burned horribly without useless wail
or groan, there roll away “ages of a measureless eternity,”
and at last the voice of “ hell’s dethroned monarch ” breaks
the silence with an elaborate confession of the dogmas and
arguments of Calvinism, ending with
“ Lost, lost: our doom is irreversible:
Power, justice, mercy, love have sealed us here;
Glory to God who sitteth on the throne,
And to the Lamb for ever and for ever.”
<
The voice was hushed a moment; then a deep
Low murmur, like a hoarse resounding surge,
Rose from the universal lake of fire:
No tongue was mute, no damned spirit but swelled
That multitudinous tide of awful praise,
‘ Glory to God who sitteth on the throne,
And to the Lamb, for ever and for ever.’ ”
H
The reader who has not made himself familiar with the
severities of damning love may imagine that the One-Eyed
�274
z
The Story of a Damned Soul.
Horror called a Lamb took off now his eye of consuming
fire, and'permitted the hellions to cool a trifle. Not he, if
he knew the catechism. On the contrary, he held on the
hotter, as the only sure thing for his glory, and the devil is
made to say pensively and submissively, at the Lamb’s hellhot look,
“ I see far off the glory of thy kingdom
Basking in peace, uninterrupted peace:
But were I free, and were my comrades free,
Sin mightier than myself and them would drag
Our armies to perplex those fields with war.
Only thus fettered can we safely gaze;
Thus only to the prisoners of despair
Can Mercy, which is infinite, vouchsafe
Far glimpses of the beauty of holiness.
Woe, woe, immedicable woe for those
Whose hopeless ruin is their only hope,
And hell their solitary resting-place,”—
/
which makes it plain that if the Fount of Hell, the Lamb’s
Dreadful Eye, should cool ever so little, to all eternity, it
would be very bad for the damned, whose only hope is in
sizzling patierroly under the merciful vengeance of the
Moloch Eye.
There is bug one more point to be made, that of the
advantage to the saints of having the damned always in
view, the happiness a redeemed mother, for example, will
feel from gazing occasionally on her Theodore—her God’s
gift—smoking in the frying-pan of the Lamb’s “ infinite
mercy,” and kept from unconverted pranks of human love
by the “ immedicable woe ” of “ hopeless ruin.” In his
closing pages Mr. Bickersteth labors to make this evident.
He seems to be of opinion that the saints would be too
happy in heaven, or on the redeemed and restored earth,
but for interesting reminiscences of damnation and occa
sional contemplation of the woes of the lost.
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The Story of a Damned Soul.
“ Haply such perfectness of earthly bliss,
And such far vistas of celestial light,
Had overcharged their hearts. But not in vain
The awful chronicles of time. And oft
When dazzled with the glory and the glow
That streamed from Zion’s everlasting hills,
Messiah or his ministers would tell
Rapt auditors how Satan fell from bliss,
The story of a ruined Paradise,
The foughten fight, the victory achieved,
But only with the endless banishment
Of damned spirits innumerable and men
From heaven and heavenly favor, which is life.
Nor seldom he, who strengthened human sight,
As with angelic telescope, to read
The wonders of the highest firmament,
Would bid them gaze into the awful Deep
Couching beneath; and there they saw the lost
- ...
For ever bound under his dreadful Eye,
Who is eternal and consuming fire,
There in the outer darkness.
*
*
*
That which men witnessed of the damned in hell,
By unction of the Spirit at God’s command,
Was in our gaze at will, whene’er the smoke
In mighty volumes rising from the Deep,
Blown devious by God’s breath athwart the void,
Dispersed. Nor turned we always from the sight; (
Should not the children share their Father’s thoughts ?
Should not the Wife her husband’s counsels learn?
*
*
*
*
*
*
And in the cloudless joys of heaven and earth
Haply this sight and knowledge were, to us
The needful undertones of sympathy
With Him.”
So ends the tale. The mother of our Roman youth is
with the redeemed; her husband and only child in hell. To
keep her from a surfeit of happiness the Lamb gossips with
her about the fall and damnation of spirits and men;
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Prospects and Purposes.
strengthens her vision so that she can distinctly see what
is going on in hell; and so brings her into sympathy with
the effects of his red-hot Dreadful Eye. Who says Amen
to this heathenism ?
The Examiner and Chronicle.
Mr. Beecher's Christian Union.
The Chicago Advance.
The Independent.
The Congregationalist and Recorder.
The Watchman and deflector, etc., etc.
Article XI.—Prospects and Purposes.
We believe we may now say, with confidence, that the
permanence of The Examiner is fully assured. We have
had to make a month’s delay, to consider difficulties and
provide resources, and for this reason, date our third issue
February, instead of January. Our enterprise is a difficult
one, but we lack neither faith nor courage, and we find
willing and strong friends. The Examiner will not die.
It is gaining noble support, and much ampler than we
expected.
Our position in a field already occupied by The Rad
ical and The Index, has a two-fold explanation. We
undertook to interpret religion and kindred themes, under
the Christian name, which The Index rejects, and with the
purpose of earnestly and definitely controverting the pseudo
Christianity of existing sects, much more than The Radical
has chosen to do this. Our views of the error and mischief
of Jesuism, either as orthodox theology or as liberal heroworship, are much more distinct and decisive than those of
contemporary liberalism. Neither The Radical nor The
Index seem to us to have illustrated full emancipation from
the current sentimentalism and unscholarly prepossession,
which have made Jesus more than a common man, and
better, for help and comfort, than the natural dependence of
�Prospects and Purposes.
277
man, the God and Father of all souls. We propose to
have the exact truth of history told about this young Jew
ish aspirant to earthly Messiahship, and the plain truth of
theology taught in regard to the absolute insignificance of
him, or any other man, where the question is of the eternal
life, the destiny and the blessedness, of the creatures of
GOD. It is time to cry Great Pan is dead, and perempto
rily to remand Jesus, the God-man, Lord and Saviour, mas
ter and hero, to his proper humble place, as in himself a
quite common and erring man, and in his providential posi
tion a standard-bearer for similar quite common and erring
men, of faith in God’s presence, without mediator or mes
senger, with every soul of man.
On the other hand we desire to resist, with all the force
of what we deem just thought and sound learning, the
theory of The Index that Christianity is to be separated from,
and that the new movement of faith is to disavow the pre
vious steps of our common humanity. Not only is there
vast power to be kept in the just weight of what has been
best in Christianity, but the connection is one absolutely
essential to the consolation, by religious teaching, of the
suffering millions. We had rather a thousand fold silence
our private opinions, and study and practice the simpler,
more universal, and always most heavenly truths of practi
cal Christianity, as a lay member, a novice or penitent, in
the Catholic church, than to join our friend Abbot in his
stupendous misrepresentation of Christianity. Not that we
shrink from any surgery of truth, lor would hesitate a
moment to give Mr. Abbot a place with us in The Exam
iner, for fair consideration of his views, and full defence of
them, but simply because, when all has been said, his con
clusion is, to us, the most unwarranted and lamentable
which an honest thinker and earnest scholar ever arrived
at. We profoundly honor our friend, whose position we thus
criticise; he has on every ground as much right to his opin
ion as we to ours; we cherish no aversion towards him as
a religious teacher, and will gladly stand anywhere with
�278
Prospects and Purposes.
him, but of what 13 to us the utterly unfit expedient of
seething the kid in his mother’s blood we will unmistaka
bly speak our mind to the end of the chapter. And we
have abundant evidence that in so doing we can render
important service to the emancipation of the public miud
from superstition, and the healthy development of free reli
gion. In general, with many exceptions of course, the
purification of faith results in a free and large comprehen
sion of Christianity, not in rejection of the connection or
the name. With Mr. Abbot’s organ (much more than with
Mr. Abbot himself), it results in a singular stringency ot
speculative doubt and reserve, which flatly forbids us to be
Christian, and hardly permits us to cherish a comfortable
thought of God. Our special hope and desire, on the contrary, is to cultivate a very great, and fervent, and fruitful
thought of God, and to make clear that this, as it is emphasized in “Our Father,” is the ever-enduring truth of Christiani ty.
The lament, or the complaint, of some of our critics, that
The Examiner is the organ of one man, bespeaks a mi-understanding of our editorial plans. To such as take a
friendly interest in our effort to conduct a monthly review
such as The Examiner is, we need say but a word in explanation of our purpose, which is to editorially bring together
the ample testimonies of literature, and make the greatest
and best minds of this and other times help to fill our pages.
To us literature is the true scripture, and it is a neglected
scripture. Lessons far richer and greater than the current
divinity knows, are scattered through the better writings
of mankind, from the time of Socrates to the present day.
To edit and publish these lessons of neglected inspiration,
to gather and set forth to the public of common readers
these contributions of unrecognized prophets, marking
their force and fairly interpreting their significance, is a
legitimate work.
And in this work we can also have the aid of many of
the best living writers, the leaders of thought and faith and
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279
science in all parts of the world, whose best selected words
we can properly and acceptably reproduce in our pages.
Two distinguished French writers have already instructed
our readers, and Emerson, Parker, Max Miiller, Mr. Abbot,
and others have been heard in the numbers already issued.
We shall make this feature of our plan more distinct as we
go on, and have no doubt that our readers will be satisfied
of the wisdom of our aim. And in addition to this, we
*
shall secure, as our plans develop, the very best aid which
contemporary thought and learning, at home or abroad, can
furnish, in the form of original contributions prepared
expressly for The Examiner, English, French, German,
and other voices, as well as American, speaking through a
publication in the heart of our new world, to the audience
of earnest inquirers which we are gathering.
It is not too much, we trust, to ask our friends to work
earnestly for us now, with the full expectation of permanent
and complete success. To give more time for this, and to
enable us to put our regular publication-day back to the
middle of the month, we shall bring out our next number
for April, and have it ready March 15. This will make ©ur
first year of the publication (12 numbers) end with the
current year.
* There is variety enough, and richness enough, in the current expres
sion of the human race to give us more than we can possibly use. Our
work will be, as near as possible, to gather out of this unrolling scrip
ture of mankind the fact, thought, principle, life, which are the voice
of man and the voice of God in the world to-day; sometimes citing
exact words of contemporary utterances, as in our translated article,
and the numerous extracts scattered through other articles; sometimes
reporting the substance of a new or fresh page of revelation; and
sometimes entering upon a critical examination of the book, the man,
the life which merits attention.
�280
Wanted, a Moralist for Dr. Clarke’s Statesman.
Article XIII.— Wanted, a Moralist for Dr. J. F. Clarke’s
Statesman.
The title under which Dr. J. F. Clarke discoursed of
political matters, in a recent number of Old and New—
“Wanted, a Statesman,”—assumed enough in itself to
warrant us in looking for superior wisdom in the essay,
whether it dealt only with the failure of our politics, or also
went on to lay down a policy of its own. To our great
surprisel we found, under this title, some remarks as
ill-considered as'the worst parts of Dr. Clarke’s theological
treatises, not the sound wisdom of a cautious thinker, nor
even the correct views of a careful observer; but crude
observations of a deplorably careless sentimentalist, such as
we so commonly find in second-rate sermons. Take, for
example, Dr. Clarke’s solution of the Alabama question,
gravely proposed by him in an exposition of what he con
siders the statesmanship wanted by us :—
“ Great Britain either did right or did wrong. Leave it
to herself to decide which. Let Gen. Grant request our
minister to request the British Government to decide that
question, and inform it beforehand that we are ready to
accept its conclusion. If Great Britain, through her govern
ment, says that she did right, we will accept that solution,
and drop the subject; only in that case, we shall, of course,
have the right to do the same. Whenever she has a rebel
lion in her empire, or is engaged in a foreign war, we shall
have a right to do to Great Britain exactly what she did to
us. We shall take just as much pains as she did, and no
more, to keep pirates from going out of our ports, to prey
upon her commerce. If she likes this programme, let her
say so.”
This may be astute statesmanship, to leave to Great
Britain to say whether those who lost by the rebel cruisers
fitted out in British ports have any just claim upon her, and
also to leave to her prejudiced decision to settle the future
law of the matter, but at least we may deny the morality,
in case Great Britain refuses what we are sure is justice, of
�'Wanted, a Moralist for Dr. Clarke’s Statesman.
281
determining to imitate such refusal of justice the first
chance we have. As a sentimentalist, Dr. Clarke might
have said, “ If Great Britain thinks she did right, let us sayno more about it, and when our chance comes, we will
shame her neglect and treachery by scrupulous justice and
fidelity.” He would then lie open only to the charge of
unjustly sacrificing the claims of our citizens, and of yield
ing needlessly a grave point of law, merely for a burst of
sentiment. But when he advises that we yield now, and
make it up in hard hits by and by, he proposes the policy of
the cowardly savage, a statesmanship which would soon
carry the world back to the settlement of all questions by
stealthy blows of the strong hand and the wily craft of
aboriginal passion.
We introduced in our last issue, on p. 184, a barbarism,
anti Christum, etc^intending to indicate by a note that we
used it as a barbarism. Our meaning was, that if the Uni
tarians were to forget their culture and take a position in
the spirit of the expression in question, it would be better
than to dawdle disreputably about Zion waiting for the
Lord to come and claim the contents of the Unitarian
napkin.
VOL. I.—NO. 3.
6
�BOOKS'.
Plutarch's Morals—A Bible of Greek “ Grace and Truth.’'*
—What mean these five goodly octavos, with their more
than twenty-five hundred pages of the writings of a pagan
of the last half of the first Christian century? They are
published under auspices the very best which America
could afford. No house in the country, or indeed anywhere,
would be less likely than Little, Brown & Co., Boston,
whose imprint these volumes bear, to make either a com
mercial or a literary mistake, in a matter so serious as this
evidently is. So, also, the name of Prof. Goodwin argues
not less certainly that so large and difficult a task was not
attempted except for most weighty reasons. And when we
learn that the revision carried through by him has been
beset at every step with unusual perplexities, yet has been
accomplished with the utmost pains, and is evidently a
signal success, we conclude, unhesitatingly, that Plutarch’s
Morals must have merits rarely found in the productions of
any age. To confirm this conclusion, if confirmation were
needed, what witness more competent than Mr. Emerson ?
lie is the acknowledged master of the best school of
American literature, and the man of all men now living
to pass judgment on, and to authenticate to the thoughtful
and working world of to-day, any studies, ancient or
modern, in the important field of ethical science and prac
tical wisdom. If, therefore, he gives unstinted praise, we
need not wait to turn over these twenty-five hundred pages
to be convinced that something rich and rare is set before us.
* Translated from the Greek, by several hands. Corrected and revised by
William W. Goodwin, Ph.D., Professor of Greek Literature in Harvard
University. With an Introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 5 vols., 8vo.,
$15. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
�Plutarch’s Morals.
2E3
As a matter of fact, however, we had known for some
years that a certain old translation of Plutarch’s Morals,—
an extensive collection of essays by the author of the famous
“Lives,”—was esteemed by Mr. Emerson, both from the
Greek wit and wisdom garnered in it, and for the singular
vigor, freshness, and breadth of its English style, one of
the most precious bibles of mankind. We had had the use
of a copy of this translation — it is a very rare book — and
had made a selection of its richest texts; and from Mr.
Emerson himself we had learned, some time since, of the
plan for its revision and reproducEon, and of the hope
which he cherished that it would introduce to the studious
and earnest believers and workers of our day “some good
paganism.”
The labors of some forty or fifty English university men
produced the version now re-presentedftnd made it, in Mr.
Emerson’s judgment, “a monument of the English language
at a period of singular vigor and freedom of style.” Still, the
old book was “ careless and vicious in parts,” as a transla
tion, and sadly needed the improvement which ProflGoodwin’s accomplished hand has given it. And happily,Ehe
thorough revision which has made the translation faithful
to the Greek original, has proved throughout a vindication
of Plutarch, a restoratibn of clear and accurate statements
where the old version gave something absurd and unintel
ligible.
Plutarch belonged to the generation second after that of
Jesus. He was just coming to manhood when Paul ceased
from apostolic labors. The essays which are called his
“ Morals,” were written at the moment when Christian
teaching was fairly in the world, but before it had made
any appreciable impression upon paganism. If they contain
lessons of rare and gracious wTisdom, these lessons show
what paganism was capable of at the very hour when
Christianity, as popularly interpreted, claims to have found
the light of ethical and religious teaching Blean gone out.
�284
Plutarch's Morals.
The “ Lives” and the “ Morals” of Plutarch, taken together,
form a large body of history and instruction, of chronicle,
character and catechism, retold and retaught, newly narrated
and freshly expounded and enforced, at just the moment
when our popular Christianity pretends that the world of
ancient life and faith was without form and void, and dark
ness brooded over a chaos which waited the creating breath
of Divine interference through Christ. As Mr. Emerson
says, “ Plutarch occupies a unique place in literature, as an
encyclopaedia of Greek and Roman antiquity.” He is a
kind of bible of ancient faith and practice, an evangelist of
the best, in ideas and in examples, which the old pagan
world had to offer. It is worth while, therefore, to know
what his gospel is, and to compareBits truths and errors
with the truths and errors of the system which has so long
put all other systems aside, with the claim that they all
failed of grace and truth, and that it alone had the word of
lifeH
Mr. Emerson says of the “ Morals,” the sermons of
Plutarch, “ I know not where to find a book — to borrow a
phrase of Ben Jonson’s—1 so rammed with life.’ ” Plutarch
in general he pronounces “ a chief example of the illumina
tion of the intellect by the force of morals.” Other
points of the explanation and vindication of the Greek
essayist by the American, appear in the following sentences,
which we cull from the Introduction to the edition of the
“ Morals ” now before us :
“ Whatever is eminent in fact, or in fiction, in opinion,
in character, in institutions, in science — natural, moral, or
metaphysical, or in memorable sayings, drew his attention
and came to his pen with more or less fullness of record.”
—(The reason of Plutarch’s vast popularity is his humanity.
Nothing touches man but he feels it to be his. He has
preserved for us a multitude of precious sentences, in prose
or verse, of authors whose books are lost; and these
embalmed fragments, through his loving selection alone,
have come to be proverbs of later mankind.”—“Now and
then there are hints of superior science. You may cull
�Plutarch’s Morals.
285
from his record of barbarous guesses of shepherds and
travelers statements that are predictions of facts established
in modern science.”—“ His extreme interest in every trait
of character, and his broad humanity, lead him constantly to
Morals, to the study of the Beautiful and Good. Hence
his love of heroes, his rule of life, and his clear convictions
of the high destiny of the soul. La Harpe said ‘ that Plutarch
is the genius the most naturally moral that ever exist
ed.’ ”—“Plutarch is genial, with an endless interest in all
human and divine things.” — “ Plutarch thought ‘ truth
to be the greatest good that man can receive, and the good
liest blessing that God can give.’ ”—“ His faith in the
immortality of the soul is another measure of his deep
humanity. He believes that the doctrine of the divine
Providence, and that of the immortality of the soul, rest on
one and the same basis.”—“lean easily believe that an
anxious soul may find in Plutarch’s chapter called ‘Pleasure
not attainable by Epicurus,’ and his ‘Letter to his Wife
Tiihoxena,’ a more sweet and reassuring argument on the
immortality than in the Phaedo of Plato; for Plutarch
always addresses the question on the human side, and not
on the metaphysical; as Walter Scott took hold of boys
and young men, in England and America, and through
them of their fathers. His grand perceptions of duty lead
him to his stern delight in heroism; a stoic resistance to
low indulgence; to a fight with fortune; a regard for truth ;
his love of Sparta and of heroes like Aristides, Phocion,
and Cato.”—“But this stoic, in his fight with fortune,with
vices, effeminacy and indolence, is gentle as a woman when
other strings are touched. He is the most amiable of men.
He has a tenderness almost to tears, when he writes on
‘Friendship,’ on ‘Benefitsflon ‘The Training of Children,’
and on ‘The Love of Brothers.’ All his judgments are
noble. He thought, with Epicurus, that it is more delight
ful to do than to receive a kindness. . . . His excessive and
fanciful humanity reminds one of Charles Lamb, whiist it
much exceeds him. . . . His delight in magnanimity and
self-sacrifice has made his books, like Homer’s Iliad, a bible
for heroes.”
We cannot here go at length into proof from Plutarch’s
own pages, of the existence in him of a veritable revelation,
worthy to be compared, in many great and noble respects,
with anything ever indited for the instruction of mankind.
�286
Plutarch’s Morals.
In brief, we declare our unhesitating judgment that
Plutarch, pagan chronicler and moralist though he be, is as
well worth earnest and reverent study as that Bible which
has been so long thrust upon us as the only and the infallible
rule of divine truth. In our opinion, the revelation which
is contained in Socrates, Plato, Philo Judaeus, Plutarch, and
the other representatives or inheritors of Greek wisdom, is
much richer than that which we have accepted from the
Hebrews and Hebrew-Christian mind. As the words Christ
and Christianity are Greek, so the best part of our truest
Christianity is from Greek teaching rather than Hebrew,
and far the largest, and deepest, and purest fountain of
divine truth, is in the scriptures which commence with
Socrates and Plato, and which have their fourth gospel in
the “Morals” of Plutarch, as they have their Acts of the
Apostles in his “ Lives.”
’ It may seem a rude judgment in the face of current
Christian opinion, but we cannot help it. We feel no call
to respect the crass ignorance and gross superstition which
still make accredited Christian judgment, in the matter of
divine revelation, a baseless prepossession, no more just
than Hindoo, Chinese, or Mohammedan prepossession. If
the world of Christendom had spent as much pains in the
free study of Greek chronicle and exposition as have been
given to the law and gospel derived from Jewish sources,
we have no doubt that the average enlightenment and ele
vation of mankind would be very much greater than at
present. The simpler and more superstitious books have
commanded attention, and the world meanwhile has lost
fifteen hundred years, and only now begins to walk with
the best masters of paganism. It did not surprise us when
Mr. Emerson said to us, speaking of Plutarch, “ We want
some good paganism.” The study of divinity will take a step
as important as any ‘ revival of learning ’ that ever was,
when Greek Socrates shall displace Hebrew Samuel, Plato
Paul, and Plutarch John and Matthew’, aud study shall seek
�Plutarch's Morals.
287
for great thoughts, humane principles,, and manly examples
rather than waste itself on the®uperstition that one young
Jew and certain Jewish books shut up both God and God’s
truth in themselves, and that the first and last labor of
investigation is to vindicate this pretension. We will un
hesitatingly compare Plutarch alone with the whole Bible,
not to show that he avoids error, but to prove that he more
fully and more profoundly grasps essential truth, and that
on the grand points of ethical and theological teaching he
is infinitely wiser than the popular Christian interpretation
of so-called holy writ. We shall make it our duty to bring
forward proof of this from time to time, as our space and
plans will permit. In conclusion now we merely cite a few
specimens taken from the first pages of Vol. I. of the
“ Morals.”
0S'<3hr,a'tes, ^t^as be’perceived "anyfierceness of spifiT
h
*s
to rise within him towards any of his friends, setting him
self like a promontory to break the waves, would speak with
A lower voice, bear a smiling PowntenancS,, and look with a more
*
yentie'eye $ andtehusl by bending thexother way and moving
contrary to the passion, he kept himself from falling or
being worst®d^S|
“Observing that many have begun their change to virtue
more from being pardoned than being punished, I became per
suaded of this: that reason was fitter to govern with than
anger,” JI
“Good temper doth remedy some things, put an orna
ment upon others, ^udgweete^^thermiU
“ If every one would al way s rep eat th e question of Plato
to himself, But am not I perhaps sum aone
and
turn his reason from abroad to loofei into himself, and put
restraint upon his reprehension of others, he would not make
so much use of his hatred of evil in reproving other men, seeing
himsaH:
in need fgrgat. indulgonc^^jg
“ J^rnTve affl vnlwest, 1
Jimpedoelelp.as a
divine thing, ‘ To fast from evil.’ ” — From Concerning the
Cure of
�288
The Invitation Heeded.
“Atheism, which is a false persuasion that there are no
blessed and incorruptible beings, . . is very lamentable and
sad. For to be blind or to see amiss in matters of this con
sequence cannot but be a fatal unhappiness to the mind, it
being then deplved of the fairest and brightest of its many
eyes, the knowledge of God.”
“ Atheism hath no hand at all in causing superstition ;
bull superstition not only gave atheism its first birth, but
serves it ever since by giving it its best apology for existing,
whgh, although it be neither a good nor a fair one, is yet
the most specious and colorable.”
“There is certainly no infirmiB belonging to us that
contains such a multipllity of errors and fond"passions, or
that consists of such incongruous and incoherent opinions,
as this of superstition dotl3f It behooves us, therefore
to
*
do our utmost to escape it; but withal, we must see we do it
safely and prudmtly, and not rashly and inconsiderately, as
people run from the incursions of robbers or from fire, and
fall into bewildered and untrodden paths, full of pits and
precipices. For so some, while they would avoid supersti
tion,Rea® over the golden mean of true piety into the harsh
and coarse extreme of atheism.”—From Of Superstition or
Indiscreet Devotion.
The Invitation Heeded—Reasons for a Return to Catholic
Unity.—By James Kent Stone.
*
The activity of the Catholic Publication Society has been
for some time one of the signs of theKimes. It represents
an earnest school of American Catholics, whose gifts and
graceJcannot be denied. We have a shelf of the books
which have come from this school within a few years, which
we highly prize as one of the genuine fruits of contempo
rary religious activity, although much which these volumes
contain must be winowed out as mere chaff of tradition. In
our judgment the new school of Catholicism is much more
humane, sensible and religious in its literature, both books
and tracts, than the Protestant orthodoxy ^represented by
* The Catholic Publication Society, New York, 1870.
�The Invitation Heeded.
289
the Tract Societies and Publication Houses which flood the
country with cheap superstition; superstition, too, which is
absurd and cruel.
This school finds a new recruit, and a valuable one, in
the author of The Invitation Heeded. Dr. Stone appears to
great advantage in his deeply sincere, earnest and able argu
ment and appeal, which he does not confidently urge with
out having profoundly felt. We can lend a hearty sympa
thy to the deep, spiritual tones of such a man’s plea, and
challenge for him the respectful attention of his religious
contemporaries, although the opinion within the limits of
which he now attempts religion has no more practical value,
weight, or interest to us than any other hallucination of
misguided sentiment] Dr. Stone treats first of the Church
considered in certain historical aspects, such as the attitude
of the world towards it, its perpetuity, its guardianship of
morals, the failure of its great foe Protestanism, its relation
to civilization, and its asserted complicity with persecution.
In the second part of his work he deals with the Church as
a Divine Creation, under the heads of incarnation and in
spiration, infallibility, scripture, antiquity, and the signs of
the true church. The third, and concluding part, considers
the Church as an organization, or the relations of the Pri
macy to Christianity; to prophecy, to antiquity, to unity, to
authority, and to infallibility. Into the merits of the argu
ment we cannot here enter, but we can assure our readers
that they can see in these pages just how pious and earnest
men are obeying certain sentiments taught them by Chris
tianity, by going over to Romanism. And we think no
man engaged with religion can sympathetically follow Dr.
Stone’s plea through to the end without being wiser and
better for noting the aspects of experience which it discloses.
Pew readers accustomed to the assumptions of faith which
are dictated by sound reason will have ary difficulty in see
ing where Dr. Stone’s illusion is, or how it is that his logic
has constrained him to join himself to the largest historical
�290
Mommsen’s Rome.
result of the primitive Christian movement. If we did not
believe in the universality of inspiration and incarnation,
and had to assume that the creature can return to the Crea
tor only through creature mediation by Christ and the
church, we should make haste to follow Dr. Stone. As it is,
we bid him good speed into the Roman fold, but propose,
ourselves, to stay outside and take the chance of their being
God enough for all creation. We have a shrewdy guess that
the supply of Divine grace is not materially lessened, much
less exhausted, by what the Primacy has shut up in Roman
limits.
Mommsen’s History of Rome, the American edition of
which, published by Charles Scribner & Co., New York, is
now completed by the appearance of the fourth volume,
merits recognition by both critics and readers, as without
exception the finest existing account of the course of events
from the origin of Rome, and the earliest political life of
Italy, to the time when Caesar put an end to the Roman
Republic!in the year 46 B. C. The scholar finds in the fruits
of Mommsen’s labors much more than learned study in this
field has ever before achieved; fuller discovery of facts,
more just appreciation of causes, more faithful and more
complete reproduction of real features of Roman life, and
a method and style of the highest and noblest art. But
none the less does the mere reader, who wishes to be carried
along by a trustworthy and attractive recital, find in Momm
sen a guide whom it is a profound pleasure to follow. The
secret of this two-fold success of the work is in the author’s
union of learning and masterly intelligence with simplicity,
earnestness and vigor.
It is one of the most satisfactory peculiarities of study, as
the best scholars undertake it, that it demands real facts and
actual truths, and counts no cost great which adds to veri- .
tableBcnMledge. We are able now to come at a great deal
of historical truth, where heretofore we have had to put up
with traditions W’hich were in large part misrepresentations
�Froude’s England.
291
of fact, even when they were not pure inventions of igno
rance, or fictions of imagination. We rejoice in this new
fidelity of study to truth, both for its results in such resto
ration of the picture of humanity as we have an illustration
of in Mommsen’s Rome, and for what must come from the
inevitable application of it to the history of religion, which
has been with Christians a mass of misrepresentation in the
case of all other religions than their ownland for their own
a tissue of fiction and false tradition, persisted in with a
bravery of unveracity fcr which the whole history of man
kind besides affords no parallel. Dr.Mommsen tells the
story of conquering Rome down to a period very near the
era of Christianity. He is expected to go on with the nar
rative through the period of the empire, and mil thus give
us important aid in comprehending the world into which
Christian teaching penetrated. At present, however, the
work is complete. The English translation was made from
the fourth German edition, and the reprint is in Scribner’s
excellent library style, four handsome volumesBwith com
plete index, and sold at the very low price of $2 a volume.
Scribner’s edition is decidedly preferable to the English.
Froude’s History of England has extended to twelve vol
umes, covering the events from the Fall of Wolsey to the
Defeat of the Spanish Armada, and is now brought to a
close, because the author deems that he has already tres
passed too much upon the patience of his readers, and
because, although he has not reached the end of the reign
of Elizabeth, where he at first proposed to stop, he has gone
far enough to accomplish his main purpose, which was “to
describe the transition from the Catholic England with
which the century opened, the England of a dominant
Church and monasteries and pilgrimages, into the England
of progressive intelligence.”
It is not our purpose to attempt even a brief criticism of
the work which Mr. Froude thus brings to a close. Its
�292
Eroude’s England.
fascination as one of the grand stories of the world, told
with singular eloquence, need not be celebrated here. But
one remark in particular we wish to make, in justification
of the unstinted praise which we deem it but right to
bestow upon Mr. Froude’s work. It is not yet time to write
the final history of an epoch so closely connected with our
own as that in which “ the England of progressive intelli
gence” had its birth. Dr. Mommsen can write of Rome,
and Mr. Lea can write of early and mediaeval Christian
pretension, with the confidence of judicial decision, because
the one and the other have been sufficiently investigated to
be thoroughly known, and readily comprehended and
judged. The turns and problems of Roman historv are
simple, as soon as they are seen in the light of actual facts,
and even Christianity, as it took outward form in an organ
ized church, only needed to be fairly seen as it was to be
conclusively judged as the most woful defeat of the Chris
tian spirit, and most heinous outrage upon human rights.
If Christians generally do not admit this, it is only because
their prejudice loves ignorance rather than knowledge,
and deliberately excludes the light, that in complete dark
ness it may continue a pretension which every candid
scholar in Christendom knows to have no warrant whatever,
nor even the shadow of an honest excuse. But no such
judicial certainty is possible in the case which comes before
us in Mr. Froude’s volumes. We are hearing the pleas of
great advocates, and must continue so to do for a long time
to come. Mr. Froude is an advocate worthy of the field
into which he has entered, in thoroughness of learned
study, in penetration and vigor of thought, in profound and
glowing sympathies, and in earnest eloquence. The course
of his great story commands our deepest interest at every
step, and if we cannot feel on all points that historv utters
through him her conclusive word, we nevertheless are con
scious that no such plea in her court has been made before,
touching this matter of the transition from Catholic England
to the England of progressive intelligence, and that very
�The Library of Wonders.
293
much which Mr. Froude so eloquently urges will appear in
the final verdict of the tribunal of coming time. The story
is a long one, but we can hardly wish that there were less.
In fact we hope that Mr. Froude may yet carry out his
original purpose, and go on to the end of Elizabeth’s reign.
The twelve volumes which now complete the work are
brought out in three styles by its American publishers,
Charles Scribner & Co.; a large paper edition at $5 a
volume, a library edition at $3 a volume, and a capital
popular edition at $1.25 a volume.
The Illustrated Library of Wonders, a translation of which
is in course of publication by Charles Scribner & Co., was
immediately successful on its first appearance in Paris, and
seems hardly less popular in America. Eighteen volumes
of Scribner’s edition are already out, and eleven more are
to appear shortly. One of the last published volumes,
however, Lighthouses and Lightships, is chiefly an English
work, and the entire series has been edited by English
hands. These volumes, in their proper place, as stories of
science told for the entertainment and instruction of un
learned and uncritical readers, fully deserve the welcome
they have received, and one much wider still which we
cannot doubt they will‘obtain. They are just the sort of
books which are needed in the popular library and on the
household book-shelf, attractive with their numerous illus
trations, entertaining and readable in matter and style, and
full of information, suggestion, and intellectual stimulus.
The titles of the volumes already published are, Thunder
and Lightning; Wonders of Optics; Wonders of Heat;
Intelligence of Animals; Great Hunts; Egypt 3,300 Years
Ago; Wonders of Pompeii; The Sun; The Sublime in
Nature; Wonders of Glassmaking; Wonders of Italian
Art; Wonders of the Human Body; Wonders of Architec
ture; The Bottom of the Ocean; Winders of Acoustics;
Lighthouses and Lightships; Wonderful Balloon Ascents;
and Wonders of Bodily Strength and Skill. Price per
vol., in scarlet cloth, gilt backs, and printed on very nice
paper, $1.50.
�264
The Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil.
The Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil, by Ch.
Fred. Hartt, which Fields, Osgood & Co. have just published,
forms an elegant octavo of above 600 pages, enriched with
73 illustrations and a large and valuable map, and completed
by an excellent index (price $5). In form, therefore, it is
worthy of the place which its author and publishers propose
for it, as one volume of the “ Scientific Results of a Journey
in Brazil, by Louis Agassiz and his travelling companions.”
It seems to us still more worthy of its ,place among the
fruits of the “Thayer Expedition” to Brazil, in the scien
tific excellence, and in the great interest, of its matter. It
was at first the intention of Prof. Hartt to make the work
embr|pe merely the results of his explorations as geologist
of the expedition under Prof. Agassiz, together with those
of a second journey made by himself, independently; but,
happily for the public, the studies incidental to the prepa
ration of the matter for the press, led to a considerable
expansion of this plan, and we now have a general work
which incorporates with the results of recent investigation
all that is most valuable in previous works on the geology
and Physi°al geography of Brazil. We note with special
satisfactions also, the strong terms in which Prof. Hartt
announces his indebtedness to the people of Brazil, and his
“ sincerest wish in acknowledgment of so much kindness
to be to some humble degree instrumental in removing
false Jmpressions so current about Brazil, and to make the
tesourcegof the empire better known in America.”
It would be of no avail to attempt, in a brief notice, to
give a just idea of the store of facts about Brazil which
this rich volume contains. Prof. Hartt takes us from prov
ince to province, over the great field of his explorations,
along the extensive coasts, up rivers and through forests,
over plains and mountains, until he has shown us the whole
face of the land, has pointed out to us its striking features
and its most remarkable objects of interest, when we feel
almost as if we had ourselves probed the soils, hammered
the rocks, inspected the corals, brought to light the treasures
■
�Margaret, a Tale of the Real, Etc.
295
of caves, threaded the forests, and otherwise gathered the
elements of a complete sketch of that great region which
Brazil is. Not only will students of science receive this
volume with particular satisfaction, but whoever is practi
cally interested in the resources of South America, and its
opportunities for enterprise, will find in it a trustworthy
guide to an extensive knowledge of important facts, while
to all who acknc wledge the duty of acquainting themselves
with the great regions of. the earth as. the seats of human
life, it will render a great and grateful service.
Margaret, A Tale of the Real and the Ideal, Blight and Bloom, by
Sylvester Judd, is a New England classic, a true picture out of the
quaint, sweet, homely life which a gentle parson such as Sylvester
Judd was loved to move in and portray. Time but adds to its value.
If it were not a picture which the press can multiply, it would speedily
become a work of price, as one of the choicest remaining illustrations
of manners and men of the genuine New England which is passing
rapidly away. Happily a new edition can reproduce for a new gene
(
*
ration of readers every line of Judd’s masterpiece, as undoubtedly
future editions will transmit the wise and beautiful tale to future gen
erations interested to study, and able to take delight in, the by-gone
New England. Mr. Judd was one of the earlier apostles of sweetness
and light, a very true and pure soul emancipated by graces of charac
ter and clearness of intelligence from the old dark creed of the Puri
tans. He became-a saintly teacher of charity, justice, and faith, as he
found these impersonated in him to whom he looked, without worship,
but with reverence, as his guide, friend, and Master, and the helpful
and friendly Master of all the sons® of men. One aim of hi® tale was
to bring back to his readers the simple, natural humanity of the ideal
Christ, which was to him the actual leader of life, and so to give to
whoever could accept it a gentle,Hiving guide and Reacher in place of
the half awful, half absurd Jesus of Puritan theology. In this aspect
the book is twenty-fold more available now than it was when Mr. Judd
first gave it to the world, twenty years ago, because the popular con^i
ception of the Christ has come round very largely to the view which is
so admirably illustrated in Margaret# But Mr. Judd was more an
artist than a theologian, and made a capital tale of real life rathe© <
*
than a religions treatise. He will be increasingly honored and loved
�296
Immortality.
by all readers who know how precious a thing is a true, simple'
impressive picture of wholesome realities, as they were seen by him,
and were portrayed with photographic accuracy. The present edition
is in a very neat volume from the pre'-s of Roberts Brothers, Boston.
Price $1.50. We shall take a future occasion for criticising Mr.
Judd’s view of the ideal, “ self-wrought,” perfection of Jesus, which
we deem as far from radical truth lying before it as it is in advance of
the Puritan idea which it had displaced. Meanwhile we can promise
our readers a rich repast in Mr. Judd’s beautiful pages, and trust
many of them will place Margaret among their choicest books.
Immortality. Four Sermons preached before the University of Cam
bridge. Being the Hulsean Lectures for 1868. By J. J. Perowne, B. D.
Published by A. D. F. Randolph, New York. These lectures, which
only profess to be “ a fragmentary contribution to the literature of
a great subject,” may be profitably consulted as an able recent
evangelical attempt to prove that life and immortality are revealed
through the Christ of orthodoxy alone. The first discusses the theories
of materialism, of pantheism, and of spiritism. The second treats of
Egyptian, Greek, and Oriental faith, and failure of faith, in immor
tality. In the third we are shown the hope of the Jew, which is
found on a cursory examination to be “ no advance whatever upon the
pagan system,” yet is finally thought to have been “ brighter and
truer than that of the wisest of the heathen,” because so clearly
implied in the doctrine of a near relation of the soul to God. In the
concluding chapter, the hope of the Christian is set forth as resting
on two facts, the resurrection of Christ, and the inner life of the Spirit.
The general fairness, sincerity and thoughtfulness of the work are
worthy of praise. It opens a great subject, the critical examination
of which, as handled by Mr. Perowne, we shall return to at a suitable
future time.
If our readers are acquainted with the little books entitled Arne,
and The Happy Boy, they will eagerly accept a third from the same
source, a little volume of stories of Norwegian and Danish origin, with
the title The Flying Mail, Old Olaf, and Railroad and Churchyard,
published in very tasteful style by Sever and Francis, Boston. Arne,
and The Happy Boy, which the same publishers introduced to us in
an English translation, were delightful specimens of the current
fiction of Norway, stories by Bjornstjerne Bjornson, a simple, pure,
and touching painter of human life and passion in the land of the
northmen. They were a real addition to our treasures, at once works
of real art, and transcripts of pure nature, from a field in which nature,
human and other, possesses an unique interest. In the little volume
before us the third of the stories is by Bjornsen. The first is by
Goldschmidt, a Danish writer famous in his own country, and the
second by Mrs. Thoresen, a countrywoman of Bjornson. They all
have the same fine flavor of simple nature, and make together a
charming little book.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Examiner: a monthly review of religious and humane questions, and of literature. Vol. 1, February,1871, no. 3
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [Winnetka, IL.]
Collation: [201]-296 p. ; 25 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Contents include: Unitarian leaders -- Theodore Parker's character and ideas.
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[s.n.]
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1870
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G5449
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[Unknown]
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Periodicals
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Examiner: a monthly review of religious and humane questions, and of literature. Vol. 1, February,1871, no. 3</span><span>), 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>
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Religion
Unitarianism
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Revealed religion: its claims on the intellect and on the heart impartially discussed in a series of letters from a father to his son
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 62, [4] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Covers and edges of most pages stained with red ink. Annotations in pencil and ink. Indecipherable writing in pencil on front cover. By "A Wrangler and ex-member of the University of Cambridge".
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E. Truelove
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1870
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G5781
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Religion
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Revealed religion: its claims on the intellect and on the heart impartially discussed in a series of letters from a father to his son), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Christianity-Controversial Literature
Religion-Controversial Literature
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Text
EFFICACY OF OPINION
IN
MATTERS OF RELIGION
BY THE
REV. W. R. WORTHINGTON, M.A.
,
“ Est genus hominum, qui esse primos se omnium rerum volunt
Nee sunt.”
Terence.
---------
•
r
•>_
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS. SCOT£,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
1870.
Price Sixpence.
«'
a
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. W, REYN ELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�ON
THE EFFICACY OF OPINION
IN
MATTERS OF RELIGION.
NCE upon a time there was a great controversy
as to the comparative merits of knowledge and
opinion. That controversy has been stirred again in
onr own day ; or rather it has not been stirred at all,
but judgment has been given upon it with but scanty
regard to the arguments. The “ religious world ”
has declared in favour of opinion. Theory rides in
its coach, and Fact trudges on foot. This venerable
error which so long discredited philosophy, and which
it is the crowning glory of philosophy to have got rid
of, is the besetting sin of the science (falsely so called)
of theology, and is doubtless the chief reason why,
with modern thinkers, the profession of theology has
fallen somewhat into disrepute.
Generally speaking, we profess to esteem truth above
everything. If a man is on his trial for murder, the
witnesses are sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, to the best of their know
ledge. But if the question is as to the sanity of the
murderer, skilled witnesses are summoned to give
their opinions upon the state of his mind. The value
of their opinions is measured by their capacity to. form
O
�4
On the Efficacy of Opinion
an. opinion, and their capacity is measured by their
knowledge of cases in point. But often their opinions
are opinions only ; they cannot be implicitly relied on;
they are mere makeshifts which the court is compelled
to put up with, so long as perfect knowledge is not to
be had. This is an unsatisfactory state of things • and
in this and similar instances (which are plentiful),
opinion, compared with knowledge, appears to disad
vantage.
Its inferiority may be inferred in other ways. In
some things, e.g., political questions, truth is evolved
from the conflict of opinions ; and, beyond all contra
diction, the end is more precious than the means.
Further, when truth is known and established, all
controversy upon it is at an end; there is no room for
disputing ; men are of one mind about it who were at
odds so long as it was a matter of opinion. The har
monising power of knowledge is a circumstance
greatly in its favour.
Passing into the region of theology, we are sur
prised to find a totally different set of principles at
work. We find opinion to be the ‘ be-all and the end‘ all ’ there,—dissent from the reigning opinion counted
for a crime—knowledge studiedly depreciated or valued
only as it is subservient to opinion—reason, as it is
absurdly cried down on the side where it is strongest,
as absurdly cried up on the side where it is weakest—
the oracle of society not the well-informed scholar,
the shrewd observer, the original thinker, the candid
reasoner (a kind of men who have a strong aversion
to hazarding opinions), but the voluble man of ortho
doxy, who for anything anybody knows belongs to no
school,
But that where blind and naked Ignorance
Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed,
On all things all day long :
and we naturally ask, “ How can such things be, and
�in Matters of Religion.
$
« what can orthodoxy have to say for itself? ” Its de
fence will take some such line as this : That Revela
tion is not like other things, and not to be judged ot
by ordinary rules. That religious opinions, not being
capable of demonstration, belong to the province not
of knowledge, but of faith. That right faith and con
sequently right opinions, are essential to holiness ot
living. We will take these propositions in order.
I From the position that Revelation, being a thing
sui generis, is not subject to ordinary laws to the posi
tion that it is subject towhatever laws orthodoxy may
please to impose upon it, is but a step. Fruits of this
doctrine we see every day. Who has ever attended to
a controversial sermon or perused a controversial trea
tise, and not been completely bewildered with the
amazing arbitrariness that characterises them. t e
violent associations of ideas, the axioms that are axio
matic in nothing but their insusceptibility of proof,
the foregone conclusions wrung from worse than
doubtful premisses, the fallacious demonstrations of
the truth of “the Gospel,” the imaginary exposures
of the folly or the knavery of the captious objector r'
Leaving such absurdities, let us ask these questions :
Given that Revelation is a thing sui generisin what
does its distinctive character consist, and how does
that distinctive character affect the value of opinion
as such ?
.
T
The knowledge of divine things differs, I presume,
from the knowledge of all other things either (a) in
the method of acquiring it, or (/3) in the nature of the
knowledge acquired—or both.
.
.
(a). The way in which a thing is communicated to
our knowledge has nothing whatever to do with the
character, utility or importance of the thing itself.
Knowledge is knowledge, however we come by it.
Had the law of gravitation been revealed to Moses
�6
On the Efficacy of Opinion
instead of being reserved for the observation of
Newton, it would have played the same part in the
universe, and have afforded the same exercise for men’s
faculties that it does now. Had gunpowder been a
supernatural and not a natural invention, it would
still have been subject to the same conditions, and
have answered the same purposes for good and evil
as^ at this very moment. Opinion gains nothing on
this ground.
.
(/3). What is really distinctive in the knowledge of
divine things is the transcendent importance of divine
t mgs. Their interest is universal and everlasting.
Moses was inspired and Newton was inspired; but
whereas Newton was inspired to teach science, Moses
was inspired to teach religion. The source of their
teaching* was the same ; the channel by which it came
to them may or may not have been the same too ; it is
in the subject-matter of their teaching that we are
conscious of so momentous a difference. Now, in
every concern of life we observe that the value’ of
knowledge rises, the value of opinion sinks, in direct
proportion to the importance of the subject-matter.
In proportion, therefore, as God is supremely great, so
the knowledge of God, which in the intellectual signi
fication of the words is theology, in their moral signi
fication, religion, is not only of infinitely more impor
tance than knowledge of any other subject, but of
infinitely more importance than any opinion on the
same subject. We find then, that, far from annihi
lating the rule I contend for, the peculiar character of
Revelation only intensifies its force. The New Testa
ment speaks clearly enough to the same effect. As re
gards opinion : “ Whosoever killeth you will 77m7>; he
“ doeth God service.” “ I verily thought with myself
that I ought to do many things contrary to the name
of Jesus of Nazareth ”—things for which we read
that the Apostle obtained mercy only because they
�in Matters of Religion.
7
were done “ ignorantly in unbelief.” As regards
knowledge : “ This is life eternal, that they know (1)
“ thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou
hast sent.” 44 Grod will have all men to be saved, and.
“ come to the knowledge of the truth.” The reason why
the unlearned and ignorant men who had been with
Jesus were enabled to smite so effectively the philoso
phies of heathendom was that their conflict was not
between so many sets of opinions, in which they
would possibly have been worsted, but between sets
of opinions on the one hand and a set of facts on the
other. The superior weapon won.
II. The incurable uncertainty of so many religious
opinions, which in the eyes of the philosopher is their
weak point, constitutes, in the eyes of those who are
not philosophers, their principal attraction. . The phi
losopher would argue that an opinion being, as it
were, a temporary implement, an endeavouring after
truth, is good for nothing when it ends in itself, serves
no ulterior purpose, does not further the discovery of
the truth which it relates to, inasmuch as that truth
is beyond the grasp of the human intellect. To the
authority of the Church, in such a case, he would pay
little regard, knowing that all the heads in the
world put together are as incapable as one head of
solving a problem which has been proved to be inso
luble. No amount of gazing will avail to bring the
invisible into sight, and why strain our eyes in vain,
or, what were worse, shut them and pretend to see ?
The religious world will reply, as one man, that these
uncertainties and difficulties and impossibilities were
intended to try our faith; that there is no room for
faith where there is no room for doubt. Which, in the
first place, is a begging of the question; for while
(1) ^lyvdxTKovfft is the preferable reading in John xvii. 3.
�8
On the Efficacy of Opinion
allowing that there is something to be said in my
favour, it supposes the question already decided in
yours: in the second place, the founder of a religion
who designedly leaves difficulties in the way of its
being received must in all reason share the blame of
its being rejected; as the master who leaves money
about to try his servants’ honesty may thank himself
to . some extent if they steal it: and, lastly, about the
things which are really necessary to salvation, there is
no doubt whatever. For religion in general is based
upon certain fundamental principles which are beyond
the reach of dispute; to which the Christian religion
in particular adds certain historical events, the proof
of which is to be looked for not in faith, but in
history.
HI. It will be alleged that much of what we have
called the knowledge of God really is resolvable into
opinion; and that so far we must admit opinion to be
conducive to righteousness of life.
Thus we have
said that religion is based upon certain indisputable
principles; e.g., that God is true. Supposing, then,
a man to be of opinion that God is not true, he will,
in all probability, either be a liar or be in a fairway of
becoming one. But that God is true, I contend, is no
more a matter of opinion than that things which are
equal to the same thing are equal to one another is a
matter of opinion. Truth is an attribute of God, which
may have been for any number of ages unknown, butwhich being declared is instantly accepted ; it is seen
at once to be an essential part of his being, an insepa
rable concomitant of his name. To deny it, as to
deny the axiom about equal things above mentioned,
is not heresy but insanity, not to be argued either with
or about. The same may be said in regard of any
other of the divine attributes, justice, mercy, omnipo
tence, omniscience.
The same cannot be said in
�in Matters of Religion.
9
regard of speculative opinions, Arian, Afhanasian,
Sabellian, or what not, about the composition of the
godhead. That which commends itself to the con
science of mankind stands on a distinctly higher level
than that which commends itself only to the intellects
of particular men. In the first chapter of the epistle
to the Romans the apostle denounces those heathen
whose immoral practices had so blunted their moral
sense as to render them indifferent to what by nature
they knew of God. But of their theological opinions,
if any they had, he takes no notice whatever. For
opinions are not faith; “ Believe on the Lord Jesus
“ Christ and thou shalt be saved,” does not and cannot
mean, “ Hold my doctrine of the atonement, or you shall
“ not be saved.” Not in this sense is practice founded
upon doctrine: is it not nearer the truth to say that all
human righteousness is founded upon, in other words,
is a following of, the divine righteousness, by his con
formity or non-conformity to which every child of
man shall be judged ?
Hitherto we have considered what may be called
respectable arguments in favour of opinion. There
are one or two more of a different character behind,
unavowed indeed, but which, in practice, I believe
carry considerable weight.
It is curious to observe how the man who has made
up his mind on a point invariably deems himself
entitled to set at naught the man who keeps his judg
ment in suspense. It is true the hesitation of the
latter may be due to his knowing both sides of the
question, the positiveness of the former to his knowing
only one; but your thorough-going dogmatist does
not care for that. He has his opinion, and with him
opinion is a royal road to moral and intellectual
superiority. All he wants to make him perfectly
happy is to get a number of people about him to
share his ideas, confirm one another’s convictions,
�io
On the Efficacy of Opinion
and enhance one another’s conceit. The conceit of
such cliques—the portrait of them in 1 Corinthians
iv. 6-10 is unmistakable—is as unlimited as it is
ridiculous. Now, the “ religious world ” is simply a
big clique. How it hugs itself in its self-complacency !
how coolly, almost innocently, it passes its censures
on those who are not of it I with what a thrill of
pleasure it welcomes a stranger who unexpectedly
speaks its language ! with what terror and disgust it
listens to arguments tending to a conclusion it has
rejected ! All the while “ understanding what it says
“ and whereof it affirms ” as much as animalcules in a
drop of water understand about the gulf-stream. A'
little sound knowledge would abate its infatuation;
what reason, then, it has to be in love with opinion,
when opinion responds so heartily to its self-love !
There is yet another reason. Dethrone opinion, and
what becomes of the privilege of persecuting ? The
exercise of this blessed privilege is two-fold : as it
pertains to persons in authority and to persons not in
authority. Whenever the State has persecuted, it has
done so for reasons of State. It is an error to suppose
that in the good old times the State kept a conscience,
and in that conscience believed it to be its duty to
punish all who dissented from its religion. Thus in
England, Romanists and Dissenters were persecuted
simply because the State thought it impossible for
Romanists and Dissenters to be loyal and peaceable
citizens. As soon as it began to perceive that they
both might be and were as good citizens as any
English churchmen the persecuting laws were doomed,
notwithstanding the efforts, the too-successful efforts,
of ignorance and bigotry to prolong their sinful and
despicable existence. Now in mental as in bodily
concerns, individuals, like States, obey the same in
stinct of self-preservation. Opinions, existing upon
sufferance, are endangered by the presence of opposite
�in Matters of Religion.
11
opinions. Hence the impulse to persecute opposite
opinions.
Persecution and dogma have ever been
brethren in arms. For three centuries, during which
the Church itself was the victim of persecution, the
Christian conscience was satisfied with the apostolic
regvda fidei, which, avoiding abstract dogmas, recited
just such facts connected with the past, and such con
victions respecting the present and the future, as
were profitable for personal holiness. Heretics con
travening the rule were fought with their own
weapons. But in after-days, when the Church had
won its way to empire, and was in a position not
only to teach, but to enforce its teaching by the arm
of the law, then heterodoxy was dealt with in another
spirit, and orthodoxy regulated by other standards.
Inevitable controversy conceived and brought forth
councils, and councils being finished brought forth
definitions of doctrine.
These definitions were
nothing else than encroachments upon common land,
which, once enclosed, could never again be thrown
open. And so, by degrees, the vast system of dog
matic theology grew up, not so much by develop
ment as by accretion, out of which it was as hard for
the inquirer to disentangle the simple truths of the
Gospel of Jesus, as it would be for a Yorkshire
villager of the last century, if suddenly resuscitated in
this, to identify the site of his cottage home in the
stupendous manufacturing borough that has swallowed
up the neighbourhood.
Failing to find what he
wanted, he must go where the authorities sent him.
Failing to obey his orders he was speedily taught what
prayers for magistrates, that they might have “ grace
“ to execute justice and maintain truth,” meant. The
Reformation, while it purged our Church of much
that was Popish in detail, did not purge away what
was worst in Popery, viz., that Popish spirit which
speaks thus: “ Believe as I do, or take the conse-
�12
On the Efficacy of Opinion
“ queuecs.” In the place of one Pope it only set up a
multitude. The result is, that while the State has
abandoned the practice of persecuting, individuals,
with rare exceptions, have not. True they have not
such scope for their energies as they could wish, but
they go manfully to work, considering “ the diversity
“ of times and men’s manners.” If they cannot kill
their brethren by way of doing God service, they can
pick their pockets for the same pious object. If they
cannot hang, they can give bad names. If they can
not visit you with a sentence of the “ greater excom“ munication,” they can send you to Coventry, which
does nearly as well. Now, that a clique, which would
be nothing if not numerous and noisy, should have the
power of subjecting its victims to so much unmerited
annoyance, sometimes to the extent of ruining them
in purse and prospects, is intolerable enough; but
infinitely more intolerable, because so deadly in its
effects, is the tyranny thus exercised over men’s minds.
Right dear in the sight of the clique is the stifling of
inquiry. The intellectual light of the world is put
out in the blaze of its brightness. The intellectual
salt of the earth, in all the freshness of its savour, is
trodden under foot of the vulgar. The branch of
original and independent and healthy and vigorous
thought is by rude hands cut down and cast into the
fire. Everywhere we are confronted with the miser
able spectable of—
art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
which made the soul of Shakespeare weary of his life.
Why ? as Caesar says of the “ great observer ” who
“ thinks too much,”
such men are dangerous.
Danger I danger I is the monotonous cry of the
bigot who, in the same breath in which he professes
�in Matters of Religion.
13
an unbounded confidence in his convictions, unwit
tingly gives his profession the lie.
To conclude. The pre-eminence popularly assigned
to opinion, as it is false in principle, is detrimental in
practice : detrimental to knowledge—for, to take but
one instance, there is no more stubborn impediment
to a right understanding of the Scriptures than a
pre-conceived theory of inspiration; detrimental to
charity—for while opinions are cherished for their
own sake, opinions destined never to become certain
ties, so long on their account will people bite and
devour one another, until they are at length con
sumed one of another. Thus do religious opinions
defeat the purpose of religion 5 which is to lead us to
the “ knowledge of the truth,” and to promote “peace
“ on earth, good-will towards men.”
�The following Pamphlets and Papers may be had on ad*
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to Mr Thomas Scott, Mount Pleasant, Ramsgate.
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of the Church of England. By “Presbyter Anglicanus.” Price fid.
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South Australia. Price 4d.
A Few Words on the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and the Divinity and
Incarnation of Jesus. Price Cd.
Questions to which the Orthodox are Earnestly Requested to Give Answers.
Thoughts on Religion and the Bible. By a Layman and M.A. of Trin.
Coll., Dublin. Price 6d.
The Opinions of Professor David F. Strauss. Price 6d.
A Few Self-Contradictions of the Bible. Price Is., free by post.
English Life of Jf.sus, or Historical and Critical Analysis of the Gospels;
complete in Six Parts, containing about 500 pages. Price 7s. 6d., free by post.
Against Hero-Making in Religion. By Professor Francis W. Newman.
Price 6d.
The Religious Weakness of Protestantism. By Professor Francis W.
Newman. Price 7d., post free.
The Difficulties and Discouragements which Attend the Study of the
Scriptures. By the Right Rev. Francis Hare, D.D., formerly Lord Bishop
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The Chronological Weakness of Prophetic Interpretation.
By a
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On the Defective Morality of the Neyv Testament. By Professor
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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On the efficacy of opinion in matters of religion
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Worthington, William Robert
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 13, [1] p. 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Publisher's list on unnumbered page at the end.
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Thomas Scott
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1870
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G5496
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Theology
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Christianity-Controversial Literature
Conway Tracts
Doctrinal
Theology
-
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�����
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The tragedy at Mohawk Station
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Clifford, Josephine
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Place of publication: [California]
Collation: 203-207 p. ; 24 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publication information from KVK. Marks from adhesive tape on p.3.
Please note that this pamphlet contains language and ideas that may be upsetting to readers. These reflect the time in which the pamphlet was written and the ideologies of the author.
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[s.n.]
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1870
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G5734
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USA
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Conway Tracts
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THE EXAMINER:
A Monthly Review of Religious and Humane Questions,
and of Literattire.
Vol. I. — NOVEMBER,
1870. — No. 1.
aMjicago;
OR,
THE BACK STAIRS TO FORTUNE.
“ Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper, as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do.
Not light them for themselves : for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues ; nor nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use.”
Measurefor Measure.
CHAPTER I.—Introduction.
I WILL frankly say, that my object in writing this serial is. to
strike a succession of the hardest blows I can, at follies, vices, and
crimes, which I find around me, in the society, religion, and types of
character which are current among us.
It is now nearly twenty-eight years since I was walking home one
winter s night with my father, to our log cottage on the west bank of
the Fox river, some thirty-five miles from Chicago, when certain
questions he put to me about my soul and my future destiny,—we
were returning from a “ prayer and inquiry meeting,”—led me to
take the oaths, as it were, of awful fealty to God, and to set my heart
upon intense seeking after the invisible path by which human feet
find entrance to divine life. And for more than a quarter of a cen
tury, from extreme youth to manhood, I have not ceased to contend
with myself, and with all the forces of the world besetting me, for the
attainment of that ideal of a heart right with God, which was before
my young imagination when I first consecrated my powers to religion.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Edward C. Towne, in the Office of the
Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
VOL. I.—NO. I.
�o
Crazy Chicago.
The lesson I have best learned is, that I am to myself, by many
varieties of ignorance and short-coming, fault and transgression, the
greatest hurt and hindrance; so that it were extreme stupidity and
wrong in me to attempt to cudgel mankind out of my path, as if the
world only stood between me and the gates of light; or to complain
of my earthly condition, as if but for cloud and storm, and the inces
sant turning of earth into her own shadow, I could get away easily
enough on the wings of my own endeavor to some place of eternal,
unclouded day. Out of the depths I confess that I am of the earth,
earthy, born of the dust and compact of common clay, and that for
me there is no problem more immediate and urgent than that of
detaining the incarnate spark in my own breast, and finding other
than the meanest cradle for that of God which is born into my own
life. These pages will bear constant witness, I trust, to my “ personal
conviction of sin,” even if I should not be found spitting out in the
presence of the public the husks I have been fain to eat, and should
hesitate, for decency’s sake, to do as the Pharisees, with their manners
mended in the school of Christ, now do, raise, with smitten breast,
the publican’s wail, to be seen and heard of men.
And it will always appear in what I write, unless I come greatly
short of my aim, that in no case do I propose that kind of judgment
which denies excuse and knows no arrest of the severities of justice.
I mean to comprehend, and to deal generous justice, even when I
strike the hardest and crush the most unsparingly ; believing that so
it is with the truth, and that in the final judgment of perfect wisdom
and absolute power, there is complete reconciliation of the criminal
and the court, and no such thing at last as the chains and prison of
uupitying penalty.
Very many good people on earth, appealing to God in heaven and
to the Devil in hell, are, indeed, still digesting the sour wrath against
wrong which comes of crudeness of faith and virtue, and are still
muttering, boldly or slyly, the foul curses of heathenism, in creeds
Catholic, Calvinist, and other, against the race of mortal men ; but I
no more propose to deem that sort of thing Christian, or decent, or
other than spiritually unclean and detestable, than I propose to accept
human sacrifice and the banquets of pious cannibalism.
The study of follies, faults, and crimes in men, is the study also of
human nature, and no delineation of the former can be true, or even
tolerable, to a just mind, which does not pick out the threads of the
original fabric, and show the work of the Creator under all the marred
�Crazy Chicago.
3
life of the creature. God forbid that I should forget, or fail to
indicate, in speaking of what goes sadly wrong in the details of human
life, that for every soul made in the divine image, there is adequate
discipline, causing a final tendency of character, and of the whole
course of being, to good, even the perfect and eternal good which is
the aim of God and the end of the kingdom of heaven. In the end,
therefore, whatever plainness and sharpness I may use, I hope to
speak kindly of men and of women, and permit my readers to see,
even on the back stairs to fortune, angels ascending and descending,
under whatever disguise and humiliation of soiled humanity.
But let it be understood that I do not mean to forbear criticism
and the exposure of facts, because of my personal consciousness of
deficiency and fault, and my unswerving faith in good in all and
divine good will to all. I shall analyze and portray life as I find it,
and shall take every suitable occasion to pierce the very core of our
doubtful and difficult questions, and to depict in their naked reality
the characters which swarm along the new paths of our new
civilization.
I have the blood of this new life in my own veins ; its great hopes
throb in my heart; I have closely observed and faithfully studied its
manifold, marvellous manifestations; and I feel wholly convinced of
the immeasurable course it is to run, and of the absolute necessity of
making haste to prepare the full success of that course, by culture
such as never before was needed, and never yet has been produced.
New elements of a new world are gathered in this great chaos which
we call The West, and the ever enduring spirit of truth, order,
beneficence, which has had so varied incarnations in human history,
seems destined to attempt here a new manifestation, to the interpre
tation of which new seers must be called. While greater masters of
prophecy prepare their burden, I propose to utter my word, in a
faithful picture of certain aspects of things about us, the criticism of
which, and reform of which, must precede any satisfactory establish
ment of a culture suited to our needs, which are the needs of
enterprise and liberty vastly greater and more radical than were ever
before ventured on.
It must not be thought, as my title may suggest, that I am about
to hold up the great city of the West to contempt. I use her name
to designate a type, a new expansion of energy and freedom, fully
believing that the event will show her to be one of the great centres
of the modern world. Incident to the progress which she represents,
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Crazy Chicago.
are insanities of enterprise and liberty, the aggregate of which I may
justly call Crazy Chicago. And in thus naming my picture, I leave
myself at liberty to introduce features brought from far, illustrations
of American insanity which I have gathered in other fields, and which
I am able to use to more advantage than the particular instances
nearer the scene of my tale. Crazy Chicago is an American product.
Some of the elements which mingle in the aggregate designated by
the term, are seen to best advantage in New York or Boston, though
doubtless the natural attraction of all is to the city whose name I use.
Here then, in my story, let them come, and let us behold in one
view the worst and the best of our new march of American energy
and freedom.
CHAPTER II.
It was impossible not to pity her. Only three days before a
bride, and a widow before the sun went down on her wedding-day,
she was journeying with her lover’s remains to lay them where the
new home for the new life had been prepared; and now an inexpli
cable event brought an additional and wholly unthought of shock.
The baggage car, in which was contained the casket of precious clay,
had taken fire, and was already enveloped in fierce, devouring flames.
Nobody could tell how it had happened, but the car, with all its
contents, was burning up. Had some careless person packed matches
in his trunk, along with something readily combustible, and so fur
nished the seed of this destruction ? Had a spark stolen in by an
accidental crack, and fallen on stuff easy to ignite ? Surmises were
abundant, but even the most plausible left the origin of the fire a
mystery. There were two baggage cars, and this one, entirely filled
with through-baggage, express matter and mails, had not been opened
since the train left P------ , ten hours before. The engineer was as
much at a loss as any one, as to how it had happened. He could
only say that he suddenly became aware that this closed and locked
car was bursting out in flames on all sides, and that to stop the train,
to uncouple and drag forward the burning mass, and to himself cut
loose from it, were barely possible for the tongues of flame which shot
fiercely out in every direction. A sense of awe stole over every one,
such as inexplicable manifestations of destroying power always excite,
when it was generally known that no one could tell how the confla
gration had originated.
�Crazy Chicago.
5
The utmost exertions of all hands did not suffice to break open a
door, or to get out even a single trunk, box, or mail-bag. Even the
attempt to lift one side of the car, by means of poles and rails, and
throw it over, and off the track, was of no avail. There was no
alternative but to let the fire rage until the chief weight of the
burning mass should be dissipated. It would not take a very long
time to make that heavy load almost as light as nothing, tossing its
elements back into the womb of air and chaos of dust whence they
came. Half a ton of letters, the business and love of New York and
New England written out by thousands of scribes, would become a
few pounds of ashes and lost cloudlets of elemental matter, within a
couple of hours. The huge pile of boxes and trunks, with the varied
belongings of a crowd of persons, things mean and things precious,
things gay and costly, and things cheap and vile ; the gentleman’s
apparel and keepsakes; the lady’s rich collection of necessities of
comfort, beauty, and pride; the student’s books, and love tokens, and
single best suit; and similar treasures of different classes of travelers,
were dissolving in that raging furnace, and their elements flying
away to the treasuries of nature. The full light of noon-day softened
the fire spectacle, extinguishing somewhat the white tips of the
tongues of flame, but still an intensely raging fire was evidently doing
its cruel work. And in the very heart of the fiery pile lay all that
death had left of Marion White’s husband.
Had there been no peculiar distress in the event, almost every one
would have watched the progress of the flames with bitter regret for
his or her own personal loss, but when it was known that those low
wails of irrepressible anguish in the second car were because of a
body burning up,— the last relic of one day of wedlock to a young
bride,— the single thought which pressed upon all hearts, was of
compassion for this unusual aggravation of a dreadful woe. Rough
men as well as gentle, and women commonly thoughtless of either
pleasure or pain not their own, as well as those not bereft by a false
life of the power of womanly sympathy, moved about or looked sadly
on, with that air of real compassion which always seems like a soft
outbreak in human flesh of the divine tenderness. Not a soul there
but sincerely pitied Marion White, for her great sorrow, and for this
strange after-blow of suffering. No one knew her; but her name,
which was distinctly marked on her traveling-bag, had been passed
from one to another in the crowd, as tenderly and reverently as
communion bread and wine are handed about when sacrament is
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Crazy Chicago.
administered. It was, indeed, one of the hours when the religion of
our common sympathy, and our common awe before invisible realities,
held its service of communion, and swayed all hearts with its gracious
power. There were bad men standing by, to whom greed was more
than grace, and women looking on who had grown sadly faithless to
womanhood through pride, or passion, or harshness of virtue and
heathenism in religion,— whom in this moment the kingdom of heaven
baptized, so that ever after they were under one memory at least of
sweet human nature, touched once at least with love towards the fellow
creature and natural trust towards the Providence which is behind all
our mysteries and all our woes. The lookers on had, indeed, been
less than human, if the quick tenderness of sympathy had not flushed
every face, and they had not thus tried dumbly to ease Marion White’s
load of pain. But it was only as the hour wore on, and when most
of the passengers were gone to watch the last work of the fire and to
prepare to throw the wreck from the track, that the terrible distress
of the doubly bereaved young wife began to abate a little.
Could she but have thought, there was nothing really dreadful in
this funeral pyre. But she did not think, not even as much as she
had begun to do before the suddenness and strangeness of this
experience came upon her.
The religion which tradition had taught her required a gloomy
contemplation of death. It barely offered its “professors” a candle
of hope for a passage through this valley of terrors, and neither she
nor her lover had ever consented to become “ professors.” There fell
no light, therefore, on the path of her bereavement, from any knowl
edge she had had of Christian faith. On the contrary, all her
instruction, every thing she was accustomed to hear, and even the
prayer in the dreary funeral service, had carefully excluded every
ray of light, and forced her desolate heart upon either blank despair
or desperate trust. The despair was too terrible for endurance, yet
she could not have trusted, if it had been for herself alone. On either
side of her way, as she strove to follow the departed spirit to which
they said “God had joined” her, she saw the Jesus of Christian
superstition,* clothed in blood and breathing fire, and the Devil of the
same dreadful tale, only less horrible than the Judging Christ, while
* A recent evangelical poem, “ Yesterday, To-day and Forever,” which has already had a very
wide circulation, describes the Lord Jesus as rising from the “ Bridal Supper of the Lamb ” to
say, “Now is the day of vengeance in my heart,” and going forth G Apparell’d in a vesture
dipped in blood,” while his angels cry,
“ Ride on and prosper! Thy right hand alone
Shall teach thee deeds of vengeance, and Thy shafts
Shall drink the life-blood of Thy vaunting foes,”
�far before yawned bottomless perdition, and over all was that Infinite
Horror, the presence of “ an angry God.” That it was a heathen
mythology which had created this picture, she could not be expected to
know, but she soon did know, by some better revelation than she had
been taught, that the angry God, the lake of fire, the nearly infinite
devil, and the Jesus of the judgment-throne, were shapes of fear
known only to p ious fiction.
The unreality of customary religion had strongly impressed her
ever since she had first had its lessons pressed upon her attention.
Without distinctly reflecting, she had gathered a strong impression,
and in fact reached a profound conviction, that the usual administra
tion of Christian dogma was formal only, and was wholly false to the
real faith both of ministers and peoples. It was her nursery experi
ence over again, only the tales of catechism, and creed, and church
worship, while solemn and grim as grown men could make them, were
less real than Blue Beard and Jack and the Bean Stalk,— mere
mummery kept up by decent custom and vague fear,— or by the
difficulty ministers found in extricating their real faith from this
customary, consecrated, and said to be Divine Form. She had so
clearly felt this, without distinctly expressing it even to herself, that
the general idea that pious fiction is as much a rule in the religion of
sects and churches, as pleasant fiction is in the nursery, was perfectly
familiar to her.
When, therefore, early impressions and the influences about her,
conjured up the usual dreadful picture of the gods of Christian
heathenism,— Jesus, Satan, and Jehovah,— it was inevitable that her
brave love should recur to the thought that these shapes of terror had
no sanction in any human or any Christian truth.
This, her own individual thought, which had had but a timid
existence in her mind, would have hardly served her needs when the
shadow of utter darkness fell on her life, but for the fact that love
and desperation nerved her spirit, and together drove her upon the
experiment of trust. And once that she dared brave the triune
Horror of her early creed, the conviction grew into dauntless vigof,
that the real truth would unmask and dethrone this image of complex
dread. Of Devil and angry Jehovah, in fact, she at once found the
fear entirely gone. The dreadful figure of the Judge alone remained
to plague her timid trust in God. Unhesitatingly, however, using
this simple liturgy of Old and New Testaments, ‘The Lord is my
Shepherd’ — ‘Our Father which art in Heaven,’ — she defied, for
�Crazy Chicago.
her lover’s sake, and trusting Love as true God and God as true Love,
the Messianic Lord of Vengeance, in whom she had wholly lost the
simple Christ of history.
A bitter feeling that some dreadful pretension, in parable or in
false report of parable, had done a most cruel thing to human hearts,
in affording a basis for the fiction of damnation, entirely separated her
from the thought of the teacher whose prayer she had on her lips,
and whose faith towards God her heart repeated. He was less than
nothing to her; he was wholly excluded from her sight; nor can one
wonder, who considers the extent to which Jesus, in the existing
records of his life, apparently lent himself to the idea of a Messianic
avenging deliverer.
“ I have hated Jesus ever since I was a little girl, and first read
about giving bad people to the devil to be put in hell fire,” were actual
words of a perfectly simple, perfectly just, and exceptionally Christian
experience, on the part of one, a very simple, earnest woman, who
could not be expected to discriminate the gross Judaism of some
things in the teaching of Jesus from the pure Christian truth of other
parts of his doctrine.
A resolute idealist, who sets out with the assumption that all the
bad words in the New Testament are to be read any way but simply,
in order to get a good meaning into them, may easily enough create
a Jesus all transcendent goodness and greatness, and think it very
strange that the millions do not see all colors white as he does, but
this is no exploit for common minds. And to many, who have
been diligently instructed in that orthodoxy, which says, as Ecce Deus
expresses it,— “ Christ must be more than a good man, or worse than
the worst man ; if he be not God, he is the Devil,” — it is impossible
to see the real teacher, as he speaks real truth, the attention is so taken
with the figure which he makes, or is represented as making, in some
scene which has no true revelation in it.
Women are commonly the sufferers who revolt finally against the
Jesus of pious fiction, and utterly, though secretly, turn away from
gospel and epistles, to the simple revelation which nature, and provi
dence, and inspiration, furnish to their own hearts. The young wife
of our story was such a sufferer and recusant. Instantly that her
mind became composed to reflection, she found herself a Christian
without Christ, an unfaltering believer in precious truths of God, and
eternal life, which had come to her under the Christian name, and
with that divine quality of mercy which the word “ Christian”
�Crazy Chicago.
9
seemed to most signify in the best Christian hearts, and yet a resolute,
defiant disbeliever in the whole form of creed and custom on which
had been enthroned so long the Judging Christ. The whole matter
had become divided, and a great gulf fixed between the one part and
the other, all the realities of God, and mercy, and heaven on one side,
and the fictions, the forms, and the black idols on the other. Defiance
of the latter was part, for the moment, of the faith with which she
regarded the former.
It was to this state of mind that Marion White had come, when the
sudden intelligence of the burning of her husband’s body threw her
from all self possession, and brought back upon her, with excess of
terror, the gloomiest impressions she had ever had. It seemed almost
as if the offended Judge had kindled those flames, to devour the dead
form, and give her a horrible symbol of the second death, to which
her lover had been received in hell torment. The event was so
unexpected and so inexplicable, and so harrowing at the best, even if
she could have remembered that it was no more than “ dust to dust,”
that, even with a more resolute mind, she must have been made
unusually susceptible, for the time, to dark impressions and depress
ing thoughts, such as early religious associations had always tended to
force upon her. Had her faith met at that moment with disastrous
overthrow, and fear recovered possession of her trembling spirit, it
would have been no more than usually happens. A plausible, tender
appeal to her sense of helplessness, to her feeling of ill desert, to her
natural terror in view of destruction, might have extinguished in her
heart the pure aspiration of the child towards the Father in Heaven,
and fastened on her some one of the forms of current Christian
heathenism. No such advocate was at hand, however, and with the
moving on of the train, and her final departure from the last relic of
her past, Marion White struggled out of the depths with a sad strength
of soul which she was destined never to lose.
CHAPTER III.
There were two persons in the car with Marion White, who each
had an impulse to offer her assistance, of the sort which sympathy
endeavors to render on such occasions. Both of them had the
clerical title, and both were ministers of religion, but they were every
way a singular contrast to each other ; they had in fact no more in
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common than the publican and the Pharisee in the temple. That one
of the two whose presence might have been of real service, we will
call, without his title, John Paul, a modest, earnest gentleman of
nearly fifty, whose countenance told a plain story of very profound,
and possibly very sad, experience. Him, however, we must defer
introducing, because he was anticipated by the Rev. Athanasius
Channing Blowman, a clergyman of national reputation, who was
en route to Chicago to deliver his celebrated lecture on Napoleon
Bonaparte and Modern History.
The Rev. Athanasius Channing Blowman was still a young man,—
thirty-three perhaps,— but he did not lack assurance, and he felt it
incumbent upon him to employ his pastoral, not to say his episcopal,
authority, with the sighs and tears of Marion White. Not that he
was a priest of ‘ The Church,’ much less a bishop, for he belonged to
a small denomination of heretics, and had only the standing which
excessive self-assertion gives; but he made a large and loud claim as
a “minister of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” and he held in
great esteem that prophecy, wherein the master assured the disciples,
“ He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and
greater than these shall he do.” It was from the last clause of this
text that Athanasius Channing Blowman purposed to preach in the
Chicago Opera House, on the Sunday evening previous to his lecture,
which would be given on Monday night.
Nature had used inexplicable freedom in mixing characters in this
young apostle. There was a little of Pope Hildebrand, just enough
to warrant the sublime assurance with which he had demanded and
obtained ecclesiastical dignities, on the various boards engaged in
managing the machinery of the sect. Of Tom Paine, Voltaire, and
any nameless mountebank, there were about equal parts, giving a
considerable dash of irreverent common sense, of egotistic wit, and of
grand and lofty tumbling with figures of speech, epithets fit and unfit,
and the usual weapons of sensational oratory. It was, however, in
personal appearance, that Athanasius Channing Blowman believed
himself indubitably in the line of prophets and apostles, and of his
“ Lord and Master.” Probably he would never have been called a
handsome man; and he certainly was not interesting in appearance;
but he had quite unusual stature, an animated countenance, eyes that
habitually flashed, or were meant to flash, and locks, abundant and
dark, worthy of an Apollo. Two thoughts frequently came to him
through the smoke of his cigar, that the figures of “ the Lord Jesus,”
�Crazy Chicago.
11
in pictures by very old masters, strangely resembled tbe person he
appeared in what he called “ my glorified moments,” and that Apollo
Athanasius Channing would have been a name strikingly suitable for
one who had added to the substance of Greek wisdom and orthodox
inspiration, the advanced views of most reputable heresy, and whose
lofty aim it was to invite Moses and Elias, Catholic and Calvinist, to
abide with him on his mount of transfiguration, “ our elevated liberal
views.”
In the matter of actual religion, this Apollo Athanasius once
naively confessed that it was the unknown quantity in his problem of
life. At the very first of his ministry he had inclined wholly to the
most V radical” paths, and he never had had, or could have, any
other than “ radical ” private opinions. But preferment, such as it
could be had in his sect, did not lie in that direction, and really the
workings of his mind were not so positive as to compel him to minister
one set of opinions rather than another. He went over, therefore, to
the conservative side of the denominational conventicle, and shouted
the shibboleths of orthodox heresy at the head of the “ right wing.”
Here he thought it mighty clever to confute the “ radicals,” who said
much of “ intuition ” and “ inspiration,” by confessing, as if that of
course settled the matter, that his soul was as empty of “ inspiration ”
as a brass horn of the Holy Ghost; and that of “ intuition” he had
never known any more than a dutch cheese; propositions which
nobody felt able to dispute. The single passion of his nature seemed
to be, to raise his voice loudest of all among “ the chief speakers,” and
to persuade himself that he led the van of the Christian religion,
because he was a successful sensational preacher.
In fact, however, the Christian religion, with all its sins of error
and wrong upon it, would have been infinitely indebted to this fellow
if he had looked up some honest employment. There undoubtedly
ought to be a quasi-hell just at present, convenient to urgent mundane
necessities, into which all not honest teachers of religion might be
thrust, long enough to smoke out thejr pretension, and save their
souls, as by fire, from the worst break-down of character to which
man or woman can come. The emptying thereby of numerous
pulpits, which it costs from $7,000 to $12,000 a year to keep a star
performer in, would do no harm whatever to public virtue or popular
interest in religion, and would rid us of a prodigious amount of
humbug, besides turning over to modest and honest labor, and to
good character, quite a number of persons originally capable of a
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career much nobler than that of careless, reckless, sensational
administration of no-truths, half-truths, and lies, in the name of
religion.
It was a pet conceit of young Mr. Blowman, since he had taken
charge of the “ conservative liberal movement of the Christian mind,”
to constitute himself spokesman of the latest discovered true intent of
the only original gospel of “ Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,”
and invite the warring sects of Christendom to say after him this last
revised and finally genuine Christian confession of faith. It was not
that he really had any particular faith to confess himself, but he
imagined himself competent, as conductor of a metropolitan religious
theatre, drawing crowded houses every Sunday morning and evening,
to give a good guess at the average religious notions afloat in the
popular mind, and had no hesitation in assuming that a compend of
such notions would have prodigious popular success.
With his usual largeness and boldness of view, he purposed
obtaining what he called a “ Consensus,” or agreed-upon statement
of beliefs, endorsed by leading divines,— selected by himself from all
parts of Christendom, and addressed by a circular letter under his
own hand,— as an authoritative exposition of faith and practice. To
his mind it was plain that large numbers of the popular clergy of
various sects would welcome so good an opportunity to fall into line
under one banner, and behind a leader whose star was so undeniably
in the ascendant, wherever theatres and opera houses had opened
their doors. The “ liberal views” of his own sect rendered the bare
suggestion of a “ Creed ” dangerous, not because there was really any
indisposition to have a creed, in a small and sly way, by a sort of
ecclesiastical thimblerig, but from the average aversion of the sect to
call the distinctly proclaimed confession by the usual name, the
general impression seeming to be that clever sleight-of-hand infidelity
to the boasted principle of liberty, would escape detection, and
enable the body to save appearances.
In this peculiar exigency, our young apostle was very lucky to hit
on the Latin term, Consensus, which at once sounds neither definite
nor dangerous, and has an impressive suggestion of dignity and
divinity, as much as to say, reversing a scripture word, “ It seems
good to US and to the Holy Ghost.” This term he almost considered
a divine suggestion, only he was not sure that the assumptions of that
word “ divine,” such as the existence of God. inspiration, etc., were
not a little doubtful, useful but misty, while of his own cleverness he
�Crazy Chicago.
13
was certain beyond a doubt, and on the whole preferred to assume
that, in the absence or inattention of Divine Wisdom, and “the Lord
Jesus ” having left the excelsior opportunities to future disciples, he
had invented a kind of Nicholson pavement for religion, over which
ark and hearse, the hope and the terror of traditional faith, might
trundle, smoothly as never before, their glorious onward way.
He often said to himself, and to his numerous admiring confidants,
the quasi-religious clever fellows, of both sexes, who constituted the
voluntary vestry of his grand metropolitan conventicle, “ The Church
of Holy Enoch,” that he should never forget the hour and the
moment when the scheme of a “ Consensus ” occurred to him. It
was on his first visit to Chicago, when for the first time he was driven
down Wabash Avenue, by the Hon. Jupiter William. His calmness
of mind had been disturbed for a moment by the contrast between
his own elegant patent-leather “ Oxford ties ” and the “ heavy kip ”
of the Hon. Jupiter William’s unvarnished boots, resting conspicu
ously on the front seat of the carriage, when suddenly, as the vehicle
swept round into the Avenue, and rolled with soothing smoothness
along the block roadway, a kind of vision brought a recurrence of his
frequent thoughts on the momentous subject of a “ banner-statement
of belief,” and in a moment, as if a Latin Dictionary,— a sealed book
to his education,— had been let down between the scraggy and
smutty trees which line this “ superb drive,” he read this word of
words for his purpose, Consensus, and instantly imagined a grand
turn-out of ecclesiastical vehicles, rolling in noiseless majesty in the
wake of his suggestion, over the way his cleverness should lay down.
From that moment “Consensus” had been his banner in the sky.
Fie had had the word illuminated, and framed in velvet and gold, to
stand on his study table. And straightway he had proceeded to write
out fairly his compend of all known winds of doctrine, attaching thereto
his own bold, decisive, oecumenical signature, Athanasius Channing
Blowman, preparatory to receiving the concurrent attestation of elect
fathers and brethren to whom he would vouchsafe circular epistolary
application. This compend, which was meant to be to the original
materials of prophecy, gospels, and epistles, what an ordered and
elegantly served dinner would have been to the great sheet let down,
full of things clean and unclean, of Peter’s vision, had been printed
in gilt and colors, on a large, elegant broad-sheet, and also in a primer
executed in the richest style of the designer’s art.
It was the broad-sheet which had best pleased the eye and heart of
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the author, because the first words and the last, the title and the signa
ture, stood as he deemed they should, in one view, the Alpha and
the Omega of this last authoritative interpretation of revelation; and
then it suggested a new Luther, nailing theses of everlasting gospel on
the doors of “ Atheism, Free Religion, and Romanism,” with “ blows
heard in heaven.” “Consensus” and “ Blowman I ” Would not
numberless Simeons now say, “ Mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
which thou hast prepared before the face of all people ? ”
But the broad-sheet was less convenient than a primer to hand
about, and less durable in the frowsy pockets of unctious youths
who besieged the pulpit steps, at close of service on Sunday nights,
for more words of everlasting bunkum; and then report had it, on too
good ground, alas! that the Reverend Doctor Archangelicus Sanctus
Sanctorum, had made contemptuous reference to the “Consensus” as
“ Blowman’s Handbill,” and really threatened a split in the party of
“ us and the Holy Ghost,” unless “ us” used somewhat more reserve
in presence of the long time “ Liberal ” Vicar of the “ Lord Jesus.”
The primer, therefore, had finally engaged the ardent dogmatic and
aesthetic interest of the inventor of “Consensus.” and was already
privately published, while the large scheme of concurrent attestation
was delayed, until due attention could be afforded it. Some experi
ence which Mr. Blowman had had, with a richly printed and orna
mented insurance tract, which his popular pen had been engaged to
write, and which the enterprising managers, with plenty of other
people’s money to spend, had brought out regardless of expense, now
came in play. Suffice it to say that heavy tinted paper, border lines
which varied with each page through all the colors of the rainbow, a
text printed in old English black letter, with illuminated initial letters
in blue, scarlet, and gold, and an illuminated cover, done in chromo
lithograph, were the main features of the “ Consensus ” primer, the
striking effects of which had moved Blowman to soliloquize, “ Wonder
what J. C. would say to that,” these initials being his usual, strictly
private, familiar designation of the personage professionally spoken of
as “ our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
It was with two or three of these gay picture books in his hand
that Mr. Blowman improved an opportunity to take the seat directly
in front of Marion White, soon after the train had left the scene of
the fire. It was not difficult for him to introduce conversation, as it
certainly would have been for John Paul, or for any other person of
quick sympathies.
�Crazy Chicago.
f
15
“ Permit me, dear Madame, to hand you a short statement of
religious beliefs,— liberal beliefs, Madame, which may afford you some
suggestions.”
“Thank you; you are very kind. It is not a Tract Society —
thing — is it ? ”
Great emotions are apt to induce extreme frankness, which Marion
White had certainly used in intimating the disgust she felt for the
“ blood of Jesus ” leaflets of heathenism which Tract distributors had
so frequently thrust upon her. Her Quaker uncle, good Thomas
White, had long ago shown her that the Tract Society had no moral
character, and her own sense of religious truth had led her to consider
such of its publications as had come in her way as very stupid illustra
tions of the sentimentalism of Christian superstition. The bare
thought of one of these vulgar appeals to fear, and selfishness, and
gross credulity, excited in her an intense desire to cover her grief and
her faith from every eye save that of the One, who was to her the
Lord our Shepherd, and the Father in heaven. However, she did
not wish to be impolite, and then Mr. Blowman’s primer certainly did
not bear the aspect,— generally mean and smutty,— of Tract Society
origin; she added therefore, with some hesitation :
“ I shall be happy to look at it at some time,” and handed it to her
traveling companion, a brother, a youth of eighteen perhaps, who had
found himself not good for much during these last hours of his sister’s
trouble.
Mr. Blowman responded, “ You hold some form, I presume, Madame,
of Christian faith, and are able to —;” exactly what, Mr. Blowman
did not himself know, and the clear, frank eyes of Marion White so
evidently spoke of knowledge, that he dared not make a random
reference; so he stopped, quite at his ease, however, letting a manner
of high self-assurance serve as a resting-place for his broken question,
until he should see what particular hope it might be which kindled
so pure a light in those saddened eyes.
It was painful for Marion White to speak at all just then; it was
torture almost to uncover her heart; but all the more because of the
pain did she reply from her deepest feeling and her most distinct
thought,—
“ I suppose I do not hold any form of what is called Christian faith,
but I believe very strongly indeed.”
That was a distinction quite beyond the Blowman mind, which, to
use a colloquial phrase, ‘took s'ock’ in certain forms and in the
�16
Crazy Chicago.
‘ Lord Jesus,’ as the impersonation of these forms, but of faith apart
from these knew no more than the unborn know of life. But it did
not become the author of the “ Consensus ” to be puzzled, or to betray
any desire for information on that to him, most remote of subjects,
real faith apart from assent to forms, faith without the touch or sight
of a symbol or idol. Accordingly, to set himself duly above this
young woman, who evidently had something like a ‘ radical ’ conception
of the nature of faith, or rather imagined herself having faith, such
as ‘ radicalism ’ represented it necessary to have, Mr. Blowman, with
his lofty oecumenical tone, said,—
“ Ah, indeed, Free Religion ? ”
The hardly veiled sneer of this question did not escape the notice
of Marion White. The evident skepticism of Mr. Blowman she
readily discovered. It was not the first time she had taken notice
that infidels and scoffers, by any real rule of genuine faith, are to be
found often enough under clerical profession of the popular creed.
Indeed, it had seemed the nearly universal rule, with the class of
ministers she had known, to contemptuously call in question the
natural and genuine experience of spiritual things which people
commonly had, in order to thrust upon everybody the orthodox tradi
tional preconceptions, and compel human hearts to come unto the
Father by the orthodox way. To her simple honesty, her fervent
moral integrity, and her always quick and direct faith in the divine
love and care, this clerical trick had come to seem as barefaced and
unworthy as any other form of false and faithless behavior. Mr.
Blowman, therefore, who apparently meant to intimate that her faith
was a delusion, she looked on with sad wonder, quite unable to
comprehend that any man, seeing her sorrow, and hearing her confes
sion of strong trust, should think it fit, or other than false and wicked,
to carelessly mock at her confidence, and by implication warn her of
the folly of trust such as hers. Exactly what the terms Mr. Blowman
had used, might mean, Marion White did not know, but she saw at
once what they might in truth mean, and she understood clearly that
Mr. Blowman intended to express decided disapproval of the confes
sion she had made. Her first impulse was to say no more, but her
eyes involuntarily turned directly to her questioner, with the frank,
quiet honesty in them which moved her to speak at all, and once that
her attention was taken by Mr. Blowman’s clerical cut and counte
nance, and she saw the unreality, the pretension, the ecclesiastical
frivolity even, of the man, a wholesome force of truth seized her, and
�Crazy Chicago.
W
(
17
she answered, with gentle firmness, and just enough brokenness of
feeling to make every tone of her voice pathetic, —
“ I do not know what you, Sir, may mean by free religion, and
therefore, cannot answer your question. But I confess that I do feel
entirely free to accept religion as my own experience has taught it to
me, and do believe that this freedom is justified by all really religious
truth. Your pamphlet has a very pretty cover, Sir, and your views
are doubtless very good if you believe them, but a Father in heaven
must have better ways of coming to our souls than by ministers and
tracts, or books and histories. I have not seen or heard anything,
since my trouble came, which did me any good, except the kind faces (
of people, and their loving words. All the religion which has come
to me has come of itself, in my heart, with my feelings which only
God knows; and that has kept coming almost all the time, so that I
feel almost as if I were God’s only child, and could not trust him
enough. I hope you do not consider such feeling wrong, because it
seems to me that ministers ought not to kill such religion, merely
because it is free and separate from their views. If God gives religion
to his children, so that it is a new life in their souls, like an angel
child born into a mother’s arms, it cannot be right for anybody to
meddle with it or injure it. I think I could not believe in anything
which would take away any of my faith in God’s being near to me
himself, and taking care of me himself.”
There was a pleading earnestness in Marion White’s concluding
words, which might have led an observer to suspect that she looked
on Mr. Blowman as no better than one of the servants of Herod, who
were sent to slay the infant Jesus, and that she was half afraid he
wished to murder the divine hope which was born in her heart, and
to which she clung with more than a mother’s passion. So many
ministers had seemed to her no better, towards the actual religious
experiences of people, than Herod’s purpose about Jesus, that uncon
sciously this fear did lend a tone to her manner. The Jesus of the
churches had become, so long since, a jealous king, to whom knees
must bend and heads bow, and his ministers had lent themselves so
completely to the Jesuit office of making his kingship the chief
interest, and had so unscrupulously used cruel violence against all
religion, springing up in human hearts, which turned to God directly,
without regard to the king-mediator’s claim, as sole keeper of access
to God, that Marion White, with her unusual possession of natural
and genuine direct faith in God, could not but feel distinct and strong
VOL. I.—NO. I.
2
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Crazy Chicago.
aversion, in the presence of any interference with her religious
experience.
For once in his life Mr. Blowman was nonplussed. He had
thought himself an Apollo of ministers to young women; indeed he
had, as near as his dry, wooden nature could, indulged in the spiritual
concupiscence which so commonly befouls the Protestant confessional;
he believed few females could remain unmoved to tender devotion
under the flash of his eye, and the shake of his locks ; to the best of his
belief, — and he kept a list. — not less than seventy young womeD, of
tolerable charms, worshipped through him, and closely associated the
bliss of heaven with his handsome person; while of unattractive
feminine devotees, who had languished under his flashing eye, he
imagined there must already be several meeting houses full in various
parts of the country, and that his retinue of houris, in the “ fields of living
green ” revealed in the hymn book, would perhaps astonish even the
angels, and go far to entitle him to high rank in the kingdom of “ the
Lord Jesus; ” but here was an instance quite contrary to his philos
ophy and practice of apostleship, a young and sweet woman, in special
need of consolation, who evidently saw neither charm nor help, either
in the Lord Jesus or in him, and who amazed him still further by the
clearness and earnestness of her direct, free confidence in God ! He
did not feel quite easy as he turned away, keeping the seat in front of
Marion White, but quite unable to carry on the interview, and gazing
fixedly out of the window to console his wounded vanity with a
pretence of important occupation for his mind. The thought really
plagued him, as the train sped over the prairie. ‘ What if one might
believe really in God, as he believed in himself, and feel the nearness
of Infinite Spirit, as he felt the visible and tangible fact of his own
person ! If that were so, what might not a man become as a minister,
not of historical recollections, but of actual divine inspiration!’ The
grandeur of the idea teased him, but not into faith, and he gradually
composed himself to abide in the old assumptions, and to go on in the
old way.
�Charles Dickens and his Christian Critics.
CHARLES DICKENS AND
19
HIS CHRISTIAN CRITICS.
The theological heathenism which still sticks to Christianity, has
few consistent, outspoken representatives. Total depravity, wrath of
God, blood atonement, and damnation, are rarely taught in the
orthodox pulpit, and still less rarely applied. It is commonly felt to
be brutal and infamous to rigidly apply them, and worse than useless
to honestly teach them. People do not want to hear of these dogmas,
and they are outraged by any direct application of them. To stand
over a human creature, in the presence of the loving and the weeping,
and argue of depravity, wrath, atoning blood, and damnation, with
intent to intimate that a soul has gone to hell, is commonly felt to
show a kind of cannibal appetite.
Undoubtedly “ Calvary,” as theologically understood, means human
sacrifice, or worse than that, and damnation certainly means that, but
average decent people want to forget it, even if they are not ready to
put it out of their creed. They feel the horrible heathenism of it,
although they have not yet definitely rejected it, and they no more
wish to recall the “ blood of Jesus,” and all it has implied, than they
wish to attempt appeasing God by drawing a butcher knife through
the throat of the eldest son. The sacrifice of Isaac, so often said to
be typical of Calvary, they do not more truly leave behind, than they
do the sacrifice of Jesus, justly assuming that the blood of Jesus has
no more to do with redemption than father Abraham’s knife. When,
therefore, a minister of religion flourishes the old heathen knife over
a dead man, and talks of hell and blood as if Moloch were his god,
and he wanted to cut somebody’s heart out for a sacrifice, the ortho
dox world is not less shocked than the heretic and secular world.
The Tremont Temple Baptist pulpit of Boston, is occupied by a
clergyman,— Fulton by name,— whose theology is that of Abraham’s
knife, and of what he calls the “ reeking cross.” He reads human
history, he tells us, “ in the light of burning Sodom and in the
presence of a reeking cross,” and advises us that “ the mighty tidal
wave of Almighty wrath approaches,” and that all of us who are not
“ clothed in the blood of Christ ” will go to “ hell, the prison-house
of the damned.” It would seem that this Fulton must burn brim
�20
Charles Dickens and hìs
stone, and keep a puddle of blood on his study table, and must, on
special occasions, visit slaughter-houses and hangings, to derive
inspiration and imagery for his gospel of Golgotha and GehennaHe has the fierce, “reeking” godliness of unadulterated heathenism,
and teaches that God hates us like hell, and only restrains his
vengeance a moment, to speedily roll in horrible destruction over us,
and be a hell of torment to us forever. The impatience of God to
drink our blood, is the striking feature of his theism; the necessity to
us of being all over blood,— dipped in the blood of Jesus,— if God is
to be kind to us, is the chief word of his gospel; and the certainty
that, if we reject this vile gospel of blood, God will damn — damn —
damn us, is his one prophetic utterance.
We are not surprised, therefore, to find that his humanity is on a
par with that of the pious cannibalism which enjoins the sacrificial
eating of aged relatives, or that of the Mormon Danite doctrine of
murder as a means of grace, killing people to save their souls. He
takes a great, and loving, and beloved soul, such as he confesses
Charles Dickens to have been, and “ eats him raw,” to use a Greek
metaphor,— damns him to hell, to use his own choice vocabulary,—
as a matter of mercy and truth to us who, vainly and villainously, as
he deems it, trust that God will be kind to our great brother, and
will lead him in the way of eternal life. Merely for appearance’s
sake, he professes not to pronounce “ an opinion as to the home of
his soul,” but he does this nevertheless, and in terms which add
blasphemy to brutality. He “ leaves him with God,” and expounds
“God” as meaning “hell.” And this disgusting Calcraft of
preachers, with his blood-reeking gospel of pious ferocity, asks us to
hear him as a minister of Christian grace and truth ! It is much as
if the slaughter-house offal should be brought us in place of butcher’s
meat; Mr. Fulton keeps the refuse of Christianity without its truth.
The truth of Christianity teaches us to implicitly trust the paternal
sovereignty of God, and to hope the best, and believe the best, and
have full assurance of the best, in any and every instance of the
offspring of God, simply on the ground that God’s care is perfectly
adequate to secure the best. The theological heathenism, which has
so long made part of Christianity, and which undoubtedly is
suggested, if not found, in Jesus and Paul, as part of the heathen
tradition which helped give an envelop, husk, or shell, to Christian
truth, denies the fact of this care of God, chiefly on these grounds, as
now explained, that God cannot consistently be a kind father to
�Christian Critics.
21
unworthy children, and that, even if he could be, the nature of the
freedom he ought to give his children forbids it. That is to say, if
God should effectually influence us, here or hereafter, to be good, and
thereby make us holy and blessed, he would violate our creature
freedom, and if he should concern himself to do this while we were
disobedient, he would fail to show due respect for good character,
which can be fitly shown only by penalty, and that not helpful and
redemptive 1
It is disgraceful, but it is true, that so-called theologians, supposed
to have had at least a common education, and entrusted with the
instruction of the community, unite in forbidding God Almighty to
train up his children in the way in which they should go, and, with
one accord, doubt whether the creatures would walk in that way, even
if the Creator were permitted to use all the powers of divine paternal
discipline. They assert the inconsistency of moral discipline with
human freedom I To persuade, even with the utmost care and
wisdom of God, is to violate the will! A human father may do this,
yea, must do this; but God must not do it I The human father is
derelict in duty if he do not aim to break the disobedient will, and
bring to repentance and perfect obedience; but it is God’s duty to
avoid doing this!
Is it possible to conceive a more absurd doctrine ? Here are the
moral offspring of Deity, made susceptible to moral influence, capable
of due development only under moral influence, and to be brought
under human good influence as much as possible, and yet we are
asked to believe that God must not use good influence, or at least
must avoid using this effectively, because he would thereby make his
children holy and happy forever, at the dreadfid cost of violated free
will! That will do to tell in Tremont Temple. Christian common
sense knows better.
The other point of the popular dogma about God, is no less absurd,
and, besides, it is wicked, if any dogma whatever can be said to be
wicked. This forbids God to make men good, lest thereby he should
not seem to love goodness and hate sin. It forbids God to be kind
and helpful, in divine moral and spiritual ways, lest by so doing he
get the reputation in the universe of a bad moral character. The
mere suspicion that the Father-Creator will deal so wisely with his
creature children as to redeem them finally every one, excites an
orthodox theologian as a red rag is said to do a wild bull. Universal
redemption, by the perfect fatherhood of God, is the abomination of
�22
*
Charles Dickens and his
desolation set up in the holy place of orthodoxy, because, if it is a
fact, then orthodoxy is heathen folly.
Dr. J. P. Thompson, of the Broadway Tabernacle Congregational
church, New York, wrote a book a few years since to prove the neces
sary damning effect of the love of God, on the ground that true love
must respect right, and that right forbids God to be a Father to
sinners. According to the orthodox idea, God must stand off from
the sinner and deal out every possible hurt and pain, by way of
proper penalty. That is the word, “penalty.” Dr. Thompson called
his book “ Love and Penalty.” A more exact title would have been
“ Damning Love.”
By “ penalty ” the orthodox dogmatist means punishment which will
hurt and will not help. This damning penalty, — hurting the sinner
and taking care /wi to help him, or in any way do him any good,—
this infernal, hellish, damnable infliction of unmitigated evil, — is said
by orthodoxy to be the only means by which God can show proper
regard for goodness and suitable dislike of sin. Orthodoxy is fiercely
anxious to have God show that he hates sin. Prophesy to it of God’s
showing that he loves goodness by making every soul good, and it will
retort that such a God is good for nothing, a mere sentimental driv
eller, a goody Being, whose “ throne ” is not worth an hour’s purchase.
Hatred of sin, “ burning to the lowest hell,” is the orthodox charac
teristic of Deity.
Now of this conception of divine law, pure Christian truth knows
nothing whatever. The justice of God is paternal and effective. Its
embodiment is perfect fatherhood. Such a thing as penalty intended
to do evil only, is unknown to Deity. Nothing more would be needed
to make God devilish than the adoption of such penalty. Divine
penalty is intended to do good only, and would not be divine if it
were not redemptive. All the judgment of God looks to reform, and
all divine execution of law causes repentance and obedience. It is
simply by want of faith in God, that the question is, or can be, raised,
whether a soul will fail of holiness and blessedness. Orthodoxy
assumes that God has no more wisdom than our human law embodies,
and that our miserable failure to deal with offenders is an example of
justice which Deity cannot surpass. It stubbornly, blindly, wickedly
almost, refuses to see that fatherhood is the better type, and that the
justice of God must appear, not in harsh, ineffective judgeship, but in
effective, paternal discipline.
�Christian Critics.
23
The “ Our Father,” then, is the true Christian word; the Judge
of the parable is a suggestion from heathenism. Away, therefore,
with the abominable doubt whether a great soul is on the way to
heaven. Away with the brutal and blasphemous suggestion that
Charles Dickens, “ in the hands of God,” is in hell.
Mr. Beecher said of Dickens, —
I
,
/
“ I think that his death produces more the feeling of personal loss than
any since the death of Walter Scott. His books are books of the household
— broad, tender, genial, humane. No man iu our day has so won his way
to the hearts of the people; he took hold of the great middle class of feeling
in human nature, Whether he was a Christian or not, in our acceptation of
the term, God knows. . . One class of men we feel to be Christians — they
are producers of spiritual influences ; another class produce malign influ
ences. . . I recollect hearing my father say of Bishop Heber, after having
read his life, that he doubted whether he was a Christian ; he thought he was
a moral man and had ‘nateral virtoos.’ I think none of us now would share
his doubts. . . All that Dickens wrote tended to brace up manhood; the
generic influences of his writings were to make men stronger, and to make
the household purer, and sweeter, and tenderer. . . I consider him as the
benefactor of his race. Providence did not call him to the spiritual element;
but it gave him no mean task, and equipped him with no mean skill for his
work. . . About the question of his spiritual work we cannot decide. But
we cannot help being grateful to God that he raised such a man up to do a
great work ; and he did his work well. . . I thank God for the life and works
of Charles Dickens.”
This was said in reply to the following remark, made by a Mr. Bell,
at one of Mr. Beecher’s Friday Evening Lectures,—
“There are very few men whose works have a more beneficial influence
in our homes, or of whom we have thought with more kindly interest. We
have all loved the man; but, when I ask myself whether or not Charles
Dickens was a Christian, I can’t help feeling sorry that such a man has passed
away and left us in doubt about his future.”
It was this doubt, whether Dickens would be found to have gone to
hell or to heaven, to which Mr. Beecher attempted to reply; and his
reply, after a sufficient summary of Mr. Dickens’ good and great work
in the world, was “ God knows — we cannot decide.” That is to say,
a good and great work in the world, is not evidence of hopeful Chris
tian character, and does not warrant faith that the doer of that work
will not be damned
Assuming no more than Mr. Bell and Mr. Beecher admit, in regard
to the good work of Dickens, we may say that he oW the Sermon on
�24
Charles Dickens and his
the Mount as thoroughly and largely as any man of his generation,
and that no man living when he did, was more bound to his fellows
by simple and true love than he was. Even the Tremont Temple
cannibal had to say, “all men loved him; he loved all men.” Yet
Mr. Beecher professes not to know whether we may believe that this
great and good man, who was so bound to his fellows by the covenaut
of love, a universally beloved benefactor of his race, has escaped hell,
and may be expected ultimately to reach heaven ! The Brooklyn
prophet thanks God for the life and works of Charles Dickens, and
yet pretends to be “ in doubt about his future.” He does not even
demand that his dead brother’s great and good life be considered
enough to give him a start towards heaven, just enough at least so
that one can feel sure that he has escaped hell! He concedes that, for
all we know or may believe, Dickens is damned !
Mr. Beecher knows better than this. He has a faith which is
utterly misrepresented by the doubt he here confesses. Why did not
the occasion bring out his real faith, and manifest his Christian
common sense ? Because he is, to use plain terms, a Time-Server.
He is afraid of the orthodox public, who buy Plymouth Pulpit and The
Christian Union, and are expected to buy the “ Life of Christ” which
he is writing. If ever hesitation, timidity, faithlessness, ought to be
lashed without mercy, it is when a minister of faith, such as Mr.
Beecher is, offers a stone for bread, a doubt in place of truth, in
answering, in any instance, the question under which so many hearts
are pressed down to the ground and crushed almost out of life,
whether a good life, without special faith in the atonement, is
ground for sure hope that God will be kind. If Mr. Beecher did
not trust, and could honestly say so, the case would be wholly altered.
He had the trust, but gave instead a doubt. He answered the most
serious and widely applicable question which could have been put to
him, by an evasion, the effect of which was a falsehood. He makes
us ask the question, whether to be a Christian, in his “ acceptation
of the term,” includes honesty and courage. And knowing that it
does, we wonder how much he lacks of being half as good a Christian
as Charles Dickens was.
There is a much braver man in the pulpit of Park Street Church,
Boston. He is less endowed with inspiration than Mr. Beecher, but
what he sees, and all that he believes, he dares to preach. We refer
to Mr. Murray. He said of Dickens, —
�Christian Critics.
25
“That the man loved his fellow-men, I know; that he loved his God, I
hope, and have faith to believe. In thought I stand uncovered beside the
tomb in which his body sleeps, in silent sadness, that so sweet and gentle a
spirit is taken from the earth. In reverent gratitude I thank the Lord that
he did bless mankind with the birth of such a mind. I thank him as for a
blessing vouchsafed to me personally. I feel that I am a better man than I
should have been had no Charles Dickens lived. . . Farewell, gentle spirit!
Thou wast not perfect until now! Thou didst have thy passions, and thy
share of human errors; but death has freed thee. Thou art no longer
trammeled. Thou art delivered out of bondage, and thy freed spirit walks
in glory.”
It was in reply to this that Mr. ‘ Believe-or-be-Damned ’ Fulton
said,—
“It is a more than mistake for any man who takes Christ’s gospel for
authority to intimate that death frees a man from human errors, delivers him
from the bondage of sin, or permits him to walk the realms of light. . . He
[Dickens] stands naked before God. . . With what is he clothed upon?
Nothing wrought by himself will answer. The blood of Christ alone cleanseth from all sin. . . Does love won from men insure eternal life? The
question confronts us. Is it or is it not a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the Living God? . . Never, since I received my commission to preach,
have I seen such universal desire to push by the peril, and ignore the teach
ings, of the gospel. Jesus says, ‘Whosoever believeth, and is baptized,
shall be saved. Whosoever believeth not shall be damned’ . . . Now is
the time to bring the truth home. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
the living God.”
If a recent criminal, with the double infamy on his soul of marital
brutality and cowardly assassination, had been sentenced to be
hanged, and had summoned to his side, as a sympathizer on the
woman-and-marriage question, our Gehenna apostle of Tremont
Temple, and we had seen the Baptist minister on the scaffold, with
an execrable wretch in his hands, we should have beheld the former
unhesitatingly offering salvation to the latter, and confidently urging
it upon him, on the single condition of penitent faith in the atoning
blood of Jesus, if, indeed, the two were not already fellow-communi
cants. But when Charles Dickens dies without a moment’s warning,
and falls instantly into the hands of God, and is found not clothed
in the blood of Jesus, and a minister who preaches a gospel which
pushes by ‘ Believe or be damned,’ far enough to give the Almighty
a decent moral character, and to anticipate from the fatherhood of
God respectable care of human creatures, intimates that the hands of
God mean kindness, help, deliverance, redemption, and that a good
�26
Charles Dickens and his
and great soul gone to God has emerged from the valley and shadow
of mortal limitation, and failure and trouble, and has entered upon a
path which will grow brighter and brighter until it reach the perfect
light of heaven, then, behold ! we hear that “ It is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God ! ” The Baptist minister would
assume to administer redemption, and to send a murderer direct to
heaven, but not all the powers of the world to come, not even God
himself, may meet the soul of Charles Dickens and guide it to the
realms of light.
We beg some one to explain to Mr. Fulton that the world to come
has at least as ample an equipment for ministering to souls as this
world, and that it is highly probable, considering that God, the holy
angels, and the blessed saints, are neither fiends, fools, nor Fultons,
that our departed who arrive in that world, as babes born into a new
life, will be received with due care, and aided to find in the new
sphere the blessed way of eternal life. It seems to be according to
the gospel in Tremont Temple, that God’s hands in the world to
come, are much as the hands of what are known as “ baby-farmers ”
are in this world, and that most of us, as soon as God gets hold of us,
may expect to be spiritually put out of the way, murdered, and
thrown, not to the dogs, but worse, to the devils.
The tribute of Dr. Bellows to the genius and character of Charles
Dickens, was at once remarkably appreciative and strikingly signifi
cant. The gist of it was in these words :
“ Rarely have the genius and gifts of the individual soul been so empha
sized as in the world-wide interest and sorrow felt in the extinction of that
shining lamp suddenly dashed from the altar of literature—Charles Dickens.
The burning coal at which a million hearts ignited their dull fancies is
quenched. He that wrote more and better than any novelist of his time,
who had the dangerous field of the comic for his peculiar sphere, yet never
penned a line that dying he could wish to blot, can add nothing to the inex
haustible store of his creations. . . His aim was always pure and
generous and high ; to exalt integrity and truth, to abase falsehood, cruelty
and hypocrisy ; and to do it by stealing upon universal sympathies, and
leaguing all the fun-loving and pathetic sensibilities of the soul in the
service of a common humanity. He enlisted ordinary universal man in his
cause. Whom profound moralists, Christian preachers could not reach, he
touched and ruled. His spiritual knife was so sharp and so sheathed that
its edge was neither seen nor felt while it did its surgical work. He
wrought, doubtless, many a substantial conversion from the purposes of
crime, or folly, or cruelty, by a dose of laughter, whose tears are oftener
more purifying than those of sorrow. He made hypocrisy, selfishness, and
�Christian Critics.
27
sentimentality, absurd and contemptible, when it would have been of no
avail simply to prove them sinful and wrong. But, after all, what I envy
him most for is . . . the immeasurable sum of great, unadulterated
pleasure he has given the world ; the countless hours of amused and
absorbed gratification he has brought into all sorts of homes in both hemi
spheres. Ah ! what a godlike thing it is to Bhed so much self-forgetfulness
and balm into the sore and tired heart of humanity ! . . . As a vindicator
of the intrinsic worth of all human souls, Dickens, not a professed moralist,
has excelled all the professed moralists and preachers and teachers of his
day. If he was not a Christian, he was a glorious instrument of God’s
providence, and may shame, at the great account, many whose Christianity
is unquestioned, but whose usefulness and worth are taken on trust. Let us
be cautious how we raise questions about the Christianity of men like
Washington, Lincoln, or even Charles Dickens ; lest the profane should say,
‘What is the use of a Christianity which such men could live without ? ’
The sword of bigotry has two edges, and often cuts off the bigot’s own head
when aimed at the victim of his self-righteousness. We can well leave such
men to Christ’s own judgment seat, while we try to emulate their usefulness
and bounty of life and character.”
With these words before us, we are reminded of the evident fact,
that Nature, in the large, divine sense, the Substance and Soul of
all this universe of men and things, has very diverse modes of mani
festation. In other words, God speaks to us through varied special
organs of his presence, a Socrates, a Paul, a Spinoza, a Wesley, a
Parker, and the numerous other lights, greater and lesser, of our
race. It is made quite plain by the statement above given, that
Charles Dickens was, in a peculiar way, a remarkable servant of
Infinite Grace. In him dwelt a power to give innocent and whole
some pleasure which may well lead us to own that he was a true
apostle. Honestly toiling, as he did, to unseal the fountain of our
purer and happier sensibilities, and achieving his task, at once with
unexampled fidelity and unexampled success, he is as much entitled
to Christian gratitude and reverence as any master or prophet of all
the ages.
Undoubtedly we had this treasure in an earthen vessel, the excel
lency of the power being of God, as it has always been, and always
must be, but none the less is it evident that the God of all consolation
had shined marvellously into that simple, kindly, capacious heart,
with the true and blessed illumination of eternal wisdom, love, and
faith. There is more pure and undefiled religion in the writings of
Charles Dickens than in all that has been said by orthodox theologi
cal speculation since Paul began confusedly to inquire into the ways
�28
Charles Dickens and his
of God with man. These inspired pages, from the hand of a “ god
like ” genius, which glow with the pure light of a tender humanity,
and from which has been reflected so immeasurable a sum of unadul
terated pleasure, so vast and varied a consolation of human souls, just
as truly betoken the presence of God with man, and the love of God
freely shed abroad in the world, as do gospels and epistles, prophecies
and psalms, or anything whatever which has been called revelation.
The author was no better, perhaps, than Matthew the publican, or
Paul the preaching tent-maker, or Jesus the Nazarene carpenter and
Galilean enthusiast, but then God made him, and made him with
what he deemed sufficient pains, and he came into his generation, and
passed through it, as honest a lover of his fellow-men, as simple and
true and glorious a man, as ever human heart warmed to, or eye of
heaven looked upon with pleasure; and when his winning, heart
lightening, soul-cheering words ran like a river of heaven through
the common life of his fellow-men, his work was no mere human
meddling and making, but one of the eminent manifestations of the
divine mind.
If theological scoffers say nay to this, and angrily accuse us of
depreciating an old story of God with us some two thousand years
ago, we beg to say with emphasis that we know of nothing more
senseless and hurtful than the rank atheism which forever assumes
the absence of divine inspiration in the great and good of our own, or
indeed of any age, and that we should as soon think of maintaining
that Charles Dickens was an automaton, as that he spoke, in his
many brave and blessed words, without a flood-tide of motion in his
soul from the Holy Ghost.
Dr. Bellows acknowledges that Dickens touched and ruled those
whom Christian preachers and moralists could not reach; that he, as
a vindicator of the intrinsic worth of all human souls, excelled all the
professed moralists and preachers and teachers of his day; and that
he was a glorious instrument of God’s providence, and may shame
many whose Christianity is unquestioned. He deems it well to be
cautious about questioning the position of Dickens before God, and
advises, in case he is to be condemned and cast out, that unquestioned
Christians keep quiet about it, until Christ’s judgment seat shall be
set, and the matter can be attended to without danger of profane
interference. Such at least seems to be the implication of Dr.
Bellow’s statement. He does not venture to say that Dickens was a
Christian, and is sure to reach heaven. He implies that he was not
�Christian Critics.
29
a Christian, as he understands Christianity. He doubtless knew that
Mr. Dickens no more sympathized with dogmatic Christianity than
he did with dogmatic Mahometanism, and that it would be as dis
honest, as it was useless, to pretend that any other than natural
religion had any place in his life or played any part in his writings.
But he cannot avoid recognizing that such as he was, in his beneficent
genius and his providential mission, he stood above the usual Christian
level, and did a better than common Christian work. Thereby Dr.
Bellows shows conclusively how inadequate is his separation between
false and true in his appreciation of Christianity, and how much he
needs to revise his interpretation, in the light of such grace and truth
as he confesses to finding outside what he deems the Christian
confession. The superstition which made Jesus a Lord Messiah, and
erected for him a Messianic judgment seat, is found wanting in
presence of an example of inspiration such as Charles Dickens was.
It is in the Christianity of pure and simple faith in God our Father
in heaven, and of love towards the fellow-man, that a life such as the
beloved story-teller lived, finds its full explanation and its due recogni
tion. There was no sham in that life; can as much be said of any
life which still enshrines the dead superstition that Jesus was, or at
least was meant to represent, God ? There was no snuffle in the
simple, genuine religious experience of that man; can as much be
said of any intelligent man who still pretends to append ‘ for Christ’s
sake ’ to his prayers ? And when the marvellous play of Dickens’
peculiar faculties began, and the creations of his observation and
in agination filled the stage, we saw no false light, no beggarly display
of ecclesiastical old clothes, not a half page, not a line, devoted to
popular superstition, but an honest human spectacle, under the ample
natural light of infinite heaven. There was honest humanity in
Charles Dickens, in degree and quality unknown to the professional
confessors of religion, and very much truer to the Christian ideal
than anything these official and officious Christians can show.
�30
The Woman and the Trial.
THE WOMAN AND THE TRIAL.
When individual histories lead up to some Golgotha, where
“striving against sin” ends in some dreadful death and terrible
crushing of living hearts, and the conspicuous awful tragedy chal
lenges universal attention, an observer endued by his knowledge and
his faith with the power of prophetic anticipation, cannot fail to look
for some large and worthy significance of the scene, although, in
general, intelligence and virtue may barely keep timid watch afar off,
and the great world may sweep by in an undisturbed torrent of
condemnation and contempt. In such a spirit do we believe that a
prophet to-day would interpret the spectacle recently made by an
assassination, a marriage, a murder-trial, and the passing of one
crushed woman across the stage of public observation.
It was the foul assassination of as true, pure, and gallant a man as
honor ever crowned. It was as just and holy a marriage as religion
and law ever celebrated. It was as wicked a mockery in court as has
been perpetrated since Pilate sat, Peter evaded and equivocated, and
the mad rabble of Jerusalem yelled for the delivery of Barabbas and
the shedding of innocent blood. And the woman, who was condemned
when an assassin went out free, passed from the stage as true to holy
truth, as pure of stain or sin, and as sure to draw all pure hearts to
see the crime against her and to seek its remedy, as was ever holy
martyr in the furnace of dreadful trial. There is one sufficient use
of such scenes, to point great lessons of difficult revolution, and compel
adequate attention to wrong which lies embedded in some one of the
sacred traditions of mankind.
The first lie, to the races which inherit the ancient Hebrew tradi
tions, was that which charged upon woman the fault of human fall
from grace and truth. The deepest wrong of Hebrew barbarism, was
the law of fierce masculine assertion of prerogative, according to which
the wife was made “ one flesh ” with her husband, and put under his
absolute power, to be in subjection to him for things carnal and
earthly, as he to God for things moral and heavenly. The religious
instinct never erred more seriously and needlessly than in imagining
for a divine hero a birth outside of wedlock, nor ever guided belief
�The Woman and the Trial.
31
more completely astray than when it brought a god-man upon earth
by a way remote from the common path of ordinary human entrance
to life. Christian record and tradition, in asserting, as the great law
of marriage, “they twain shall be one flesh,” and doing little more
than to sanction and cover up the fleshly instincts of the ruder and
ruling sex, has remained at the level of barbarism only less than in
the perpetuation and consecration of heathen notions of God, of human
nature, and of the destiny of souls.
To a faithful thinker, who joins to thought deep and disciplined
emotions, such as make that rarest of gifts and most perfect of attain
ments for a man, a complete pure heart, it cannot but be plain that
marriage ought not to mean power, possession, or even opportunity
and liberty, on the part of the man, but consideration, care, protec
tion, the greatest, and tenderest and bravest possible. The vocation
of the wife to maternity is so significant, so wonderfully sacred, and
her part in the sacraments of a united life has so much of utter
surrender in it, so much pain and sorrow too, and so beautiful a charm
and blessing with it, that only as blind animals, hurried into heedless
liberty, with no just reflection and no proper consideration, do men
assert power, instead of affording protection.
Unhappily very many enter upon wedlock with no proper knowledge
of the wrong and the right of the relation. Love before marriage is
forced to be considerate, and naturally takes a noble tone. Love
after marriage is supposed to be quite another thing, as regards a
chief feature of the union, and too commonly sinks at once to a level
which is far more of the flesh than of ideal truth.
Possibly one party consents as much as the other, and neither may
be conscious, as the tone of mutual relations ceases to be divine, what
it is which is at fault. The man perhaps contents himself with such
gratification as his lower nature finds, and lets the hope of sacrament
go as a dream of his days of inexperience. In some of these instances,
possibly, — perhaps in many of them, — the woman also accepts the
low view, though we would fain believe that in most cases of the class
in point, the wife barely submits to the situation, even if she do not
revolt against it.
On the supposition that ignorance of the real laws of marriage is
the main occasion of this failure of wedlock to be nobly happy, and
that, while the woman is generally the greater sufferer, one party is
no more to blame than the other, the case is yet terribly bad ; bad for
the husband, who fails of true manly love and loses the blessing of
�32
The Woman and the Trial.
true response to such love; worse still for the wife, whose womanhood
is abased and degraded, if not outraged: and most of all bad for the
children, who are not born under influences of natural holiness and
genuine pure happiness, but come as incidents, if not as untoward
accidents, of the united life.
The lazy acquiescence of social and religious sentiment in this state
of things; the assumption that the animal aspects of human nature
must present some such picture at the best • and the rigor and fury
even with which formal marriage, the outward fact without the real,
is insisted on as a fit cloak to these uncomely doings, ought to cover
our civilization and our Christianity with overwhelming confusion and
shame. The fact is that even decent society is but half civilized, and
is very little Christianized, in this matter of marriage.
But the state of things just described is by no means the worst
which the student of society will find. Numbers of husbands in
every community stand at a much lower level than that we have been
considering; the level, we blush to say, of irresponsible brutalisin.
The masculine instinct for exclusive possession of the object of
affection is naturally very strong. It easily becomes fierce. And
when the husband’s interest in virtue is chiefly the result of this
instinct, and he erects his jealousy into absolute law, we behold a
very peculiar, and often very dreadful transformation of wedlock,
under which the only sacredness recognized is that of the husband’s
right to possession of the woman bound to him by marriage vows.
By this theory of marriage one woman is devoted to one man, made
his sacred property, and placed under absolute and awful obligations
to be his without reserve or remedy until death end the service. It
is assumed that a man may so have one woman, if he will get her and
keep her under the sanction of a marriage compact. It is even
claimed that this right of the man to the woman, of the male to the
female, is one of the most sacred rights of existence ; so that no fouler
crime can be than to interfere with the exercise of this right. A
perfectly savage virtue watches against the violation of this law of
the conjugal possessor’s right. No regard for the woman, not even
of a coarse and common sort, enters into it. She may be a crushed
victim of the most brutal abuse, but the “ laws of marriage ” are still
supposed to protect her tyrant’s right to have and to hold her as his
own. The worst forms of crime against woman outside of marriage,
are held of no account compared with touching a woman to the injury
of the man’s right to her. Numberless sad and dreadful incidents of
�The Woman and the Trial.
33
wicked undoing of woman will pass without notice, but report one
deliverance of an outraged, broken-hearted wife, out of the power of
a brutal master, and the whole herd of virtuous human brutes is
thrilled with righteous indignation.
It was this virtuous brutalism which lately delivered an assassin
from the deserved penalty of manifold infamous crime. The hesita
tion of wise and just representatives of public virtue and exponents
of public opinion, to lay bare the ingrained rascality of the virtue
fiercely paraded on this occasion, shows how little courage for the
just comprehension of the matter has been cultivated by our civiliza
tion. In the one man who had so cheerfully risked his life, and
more than his life, his good name,— and had lost one if not both,—
to render help to a helplessly outraged woman, there was more clear
insight and spotless courage, with one dash of^rashness, as the bravest
spirits almost always have it, than in a regiment of those who lent
the countenance of their concern for the laws of marriage to the brute
and assassin over whom a court of pretended justice made villainous
mockery of law.
It is possible to make excuses for the lamentable failure of wellmeaning members of society to be found on the side of justice, by the
side of a worse than murdered woman. It is also possible to give an
explanation of the mad concourse and mad clamor .of the virtuous
rabble, whose fierce rage blazed so hotly around the altars of unholy
brutalism, as if in real defence of some sacred right. These masters
of a servitude more dreadful than any other known to human
experience, with their deluded sympathizers among women, are
natural enough results of the lower tendencies of human nature, or of
extreme ignorance, and the prevalence of a tradition which lacks both
the doctrine and the spirit of adequate justice to woman. The
influence of Hebrew heathenism, coming through the channel which
also brought the best lessons of religion and humanity, has made
Christian society an easy refuge for the hideous wrong we are
contemplating. Ample explanation of this monstrous failure of
justice and departure from truth, will not be far to seek as long as
accredited Christianity, in the name of a half-heathen tradition, for
bids and resists free inquiry for the truth, and proceeds upon the
twofold assumption that man is by nature base, and his lower instincts
unclean at best, and that righteousness cannot come in mens’ lives
and character by actual discipline and culture, but must come as a
cloak of imputed merit. In like manner, excuses for timid inhumanvol. i.—no. i.
3
�34
The Woman and the Tidal.
ity, for total failure of comprehension, such as were pointed at by
Jesus in the priest and Levite who “ passed by on the other side,”
are close at hand. It is much easier and safer not to meddle with
wounded folk, of any of the classes against whom popular prejudice is
virulent. A wife left half dead, under the operation of a brutal
interpretation of the laws of marriage, will get little or no sympathy
from the ordinary administrators of religion and guardians of social
order.
The instances of Mrs. Stowe and Mr. Beecher may be cited,
particularly in view of their final judgments pronounced in The
Christian Union of June 18. If the latter yielded to a just request
and a generous sympathy, when he assisted at the death-bed mar
riage, he evidently came to regret afterwards that he did not pass
virtuously by on the other side. In “ The Meaning of the Verdict,”
the leading article of The Christian Union of June 18, he disa
vowed any Christianity he may have shown before, and summed up
the case for brutalism. We omit names, in quoting Mr. Beecher’s
cold, barbarous homily, because we cannot join in any unnecessary
rudeness to the persons on one side of the case, and will not pollute
our pages with the names on the other side. Mr. Beecher says,—
“Whether------ was worse or better than the average of his journal
istic friends—whether the unhappy woman who has assumed his name is a
pattern of all wifely virtues; whether------ was in the habit of drinking to
excess, and whether, being a drunkard, he was more or less an affliction to
his wife than drunken husbands generally are to their wives, are questions
which need not be agitated further. Higher and wider than all such debates
about persons is the question, What is the Meaning of the Verdict? ... It
was as clear a case of killing with deliberate intention and with no other
warrant than private vengeance, as ever was submitted to a jury. But the
verdict was ‘Not Guilty.’ What does that verdict mean? . . . Just
what was meant by that famous verdict in another case, often quoted but
not found in the books, ‘ Served him right.’ The phrase, ‘ Not Guilty,’ in
this case, means not that------ did not kill------- , but that he ought not to be
punished for that killing. The lesson of the verdict is that any man who
has as much reason as------ had to believe that his wife has been seduced
from her fidelity to him, has a right to do what------ did. .
. The law is
that an adulterer may be punished with death, at the discretion and by the hands
of the injured husband.”
We are not at a loss to characterize the assumptions and the sig
nificance of this statement
It means the sacred right of brutalism,
and it assumes the indifference of all other facts in comparison with
�The 'Woman and the Trial.
35
the crime of delivering a woman from a brute. No need to ask out
of what hell the woman fled, or from what fiend she was protected,
or with what heroism of sanctity that protection was given, the one
important fact being that a brutal man was deprived of his victim,
and the one sacred law being that such interference with marital brutalism may be punished by summary assassination.
Mr. Beecher
appears to dreadful disadvantage in this justification of horrible mani
fold crime. Had he been a vindicator of the New York negro riots,
and appealed to law in justification of Kuklux outrage, we might
have been prepared for the present lapse from manly mercy, consid
erate justice, large comprehension of principle, and fearless devotion
to holiness and truth.*
Mrs. Stowe went to no such extreme, in the judgment which she
pronounced. In fact she condemned with as little harshness, and as
much womanly sympathy and Christian charity, as possible. But she
condemned. In her article mentioned above, she brought in the case
under cover of an elaborate exposition of Christ’s treatment of a
woman “convicted of adultery.” From that she argued to this case
“of a woman not guilty of this offence,” and announced that she saw
“only evidence that a much tried woman in circumstances of great
hardship and perplexity has in certain respects lamentably erred in
judgment.” She then instantly turned away from the woman before
her, to loudly profess her concurrence with “ the sensitiveness of the
community in regard to the enduring sacredness of the marriage
bond,” and her opinion that the “ whole domain of marriage ought
to be guarded by laws as inflexible as those of nature,” and that indi
viduals on whom “they bear severely,” “must be content to suffer for
the good of the whole.” At most she only asked that the judges of
her sister consider, that under extreme tortures “principle often may
become bewildered, and even religious faith may give out,” and that
they temper judgment as Christ tempered the sentence of the woman
“convicted of adultery.”
The offensive association of her sister with the adulteress, the com
prehensive approval of the concern about marriage, which lent so
much support to an assassin, and even gave eclat to the last crime of
a human brute, and the rigorous demand for inflexible protection to
every species of conjugal right, suffer who may thereby, enabled Mrs.
* Mr. Parker said of Mr. Beecher, in connection with the John Brown affair, “Beecher
showed that part of him which is Jesuitical,—not so small a part as I could wish it was. How
ridiculous of Sharpe’s-rifle Beecher to be preaching such stuff at this time; but he can’t stand
up straight unless he have something as big as the Plymouth Church to lean against.”—
Parker’s Life and Correspondence. London Ed., Vol. II., p. 394.
�36
The Woman and the Trial.
Stowe to fully save her credit with the worst expouents of brutalisni,
and completely undo any purpose she may have had to speak a word
of justice, mercy, and holiness on behalf of her sister. Using threefourths of her two columns to come to the point that this woman
to-day was not an adulteress, and almost all the rest of her article to
protest her own desire that marriage should be chains and slavery to
all who find it unhappy, she barely gave a few lines to a half-plea for
the outraged sister on whose behalf she purported to speak.
Yet this same Mrs. Stowe lately served to two continents a nauseous
tale of horrible abomination, polluting men’s and women’s thoughts,
as far as our language is read, with needless mention of nameless
crime, and has not to this day betrayed the smallest regret for her
deed. Does it make so much difference on which side popular taste
and prejudice are ? The same Mrs. Stowe, in her “ Old Town Folks,”
gave the pure young girl of the story to a libertine, who had long
had an unwedded but devoted wife; and when this wronged woman
came upon the scene, within a few hours after her betrayer’s new mar
riage, and all the facts of her love and surrender and fidelity were
before the new bride, the latter saw no wrong whatever in taking
from her outcast sister her all, and felt no hesitation in consummating
wedlock with a convicted villain, because,—as Mrs. Stowe makes her
say,—“7 cazí7iu¿ help loving him; it is my duty to; I promised, you
know, before God, ‘for better for worse’; and what I promised I must
keep; I am his wife; there is no going back from that.” The young
lover of this second wife of a bigamist, took his lady’s fate patiently,
and at the end of four years received her, then a widow, as his bride.
Such admirable patience with bad men’s triumphs, and such con
sent of women to outrage under decent cover of regular marriage,
was the lesson with which Mrs. Stowe left us at the close of “ Old
Town Folks.” Her woman’s instincts made no plea for a creature
wronged as much as woman could be wronged. Testifying that this
rejected woman had shown “ all the single-hearted fervor of a true
wife”; that she had taken her position from “a full and conscientious
belief that the choice of the individuals alone constituted a true mar
riage”; that her betrayer had urged this view and ‘‘assumed and
acted with great success the part of the moral hero during their early
attachment”; that she ‘‘fell by her higher nature,” believing that
‘•she was acting heroically and virtuously in sacrificing her whole life
to her lover,” and that “ her connection had all the sacredness of mar
riage”; testifying these things, and making the new wife confess, “I
�The Woman and the Trial.
37
can see in all a noble woman, gone astray from noble motives; I can
see that she was grand and unselfish in her love, that she was per
fectly self-sacrificing”; Mrs. Stowe yet permitted no one to even
suggest that this woman had the smallest right to the man whom she
had so given herself to for years, and to whom she had borne what
was to her at least a child of pure love. Taking care to interpose a
marriage ceremony, that and nothing more, Mrs. Stowe showed us the
libertine of her tale, in the presence of the two wives, the one bound
to him by years of “ single-hearted fervor of a true wife,” and still
loving him with “full and conscientious belief” that theirs was a
“true marriage,” and the other bound to him only by the ceremony
of a few hours before; and made the former admit, and the other
claim, that the ceremony had created a relation compared with which
the relation based on actual wifehood of love and life need not be so
much as considered. And the new wife gave this reason first of all
for keeping the other woman’s husband, “ I cannot help loving him,”
and then supported herself by: “it is my duty to; I promised, you
know, before God.”
We have very small respect indeed for anything Mrs. Stowe may
say after choosing such a picture with which to conclude her tale of
Old New England. ^And until such leaders of opinion in ethics and
religion, as Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs. Stowe, learn to respect
realities of truth, at least as much as they do mere forms, and are
neither unable nor afraid to look at the real facts of tragic lives, and
to declare for justice and holiness, at any cost whatever to decent
shams, popular religion and popular ethics will be despicable. We
deem it shameful in Mr. Beecher that he dared cheer the heart of a
hel/ion with words of downright approval. We utterly refuse to Mrs.
Stowe the privilege of making any apology for a woman whose errors
of judgment do not do her a hundredth part of the discredit which
the author of the Byron scandal has justly earned. The theory
assumed in the closing scene of “Old Town Folks,” that wifehood is
nothing compared with legal marriage, that a woman may take her
sister woman’s actual husband, if that sister woman has had no legal
sanction of the marriage, and she can get the man under legal sanc
tion, is infinitely more immoral than any possible lack of respect for
formal marriage. The duty of holiness and fidelity in all actual
union, is the profound truth on this subject. Until Mrs. Stowe
appreciates it she had as well not meddle with any important aspects
of the woman question. We speak thus strongly with great regret.
�38
The Woman and the Trial.
because we would gladly see, and celebrate, in Mrs. Stowe, insight and
courage worthy of a woman of marked ability and character. But at
this juncture, we cannot forbear strong speech, remembering as we do
a spotless man dead, and a spotless woman living “at the sepulchre,”
while Mrs. Stowe only ventures to beg the brutalism of our time to
consider that these two did not commit adultery.
At present we do the persons just mentioned, one of whom is
beyond reach of either praise or blame, the honor to assume as self*
evident at this moment, to any decently informed person, that they
stand high above any judgment which their generation may pronounce
upon them, the one for heroic womanly endurance of brutalism, out of
far more than just respect for the supposed “laws of marriage,” and
the other for heroic manly obedience to simple dictates of mercy and
honor, with a most exact and noble sense of the sacredness of woman
hood and of the absolute sanctity of true marriage. It may be our
privilege at a future time to add some contribution to the evidence
which has already forced this verdict upon the purest and most
thoughtful of our contemporaries. We content ourselves now with
emphasizing, as fully as we can, our declaration, that brutalism ought
not to find shelter under the laws of marriage; that any decent
delivery of a woman from brutalism is just and right; and that the
instance now awaiting the decision of our social philosophy can not
possibly be brought under any other head than that of perfectly fit,
and strikingly noble, delivery of an exceptionally pure and true
woman from a brute. The question how far legal and conventional sup
ports of brutalism were rashly overleaped, in the crisis and catastrophe
of this drama, need not be answered, before pronouncing the actors in
the scene immaculate, and cannot be answered in any such way as to
raise any just doubt of their perfect purity of purpose. Further
more, it becomes all, who seek a wise solution of our social perplexi
ties, and hope for more truth of character and life in the most
important of human relations, to distinctly advise the undisguised
exponents of virtuous brutalism—the editor of the New York Sun,
for example; that they can only render themselves infamous by such
criticisms and reports as they were guilty of during the late trial.
�Dr. J. F. Clarke against Theism.
39
DR. J. F. CLARKE AGAINST THEISM.
The American Unitarian Association has recently published a small
book, from the pen of Dr. James Freeman Clarke, entitled, “Steps
of Belief, or, Rational Christianity maintained against Atheism, Free
Religion, and Romanism.” Like the previous theological work of the
same author, “Steps of Belief” is in some respects excellent, in
others very unsatisfactory. We forbear criticism of many points
which invite it, and merely consider Dr. Clarke’s attempt to elevate
his sort of Christianity at the expense of “ pure Theism,” which is to
us true Christianity.
It would not be unfair to ask, in view of the title above quoted,
whether Dr. Clarke objects to freedom or to religion itself, and if to
neither, as he would doubtless reply, why to the combination ? But
we may take him in hand quite as well from another point of view.
He identifies free religion and theism. “ The second step of belief,”
he says, “ is from theism to Christianity.” The advocates of free
religion, he tells us, “ deny that Christianity is any advance beyond
theism.” And in chapter third of this portion of his book he attempts
to “ show wherein Christianity is an advance on pure theism.” Of
course we may inquire what objection he makes to theism? Or to
put the matter more clearly, why does he deem faith in God through
Christ better than direct faith in God ? It must be because Christ
is more to him as a direct object of faith, than God. But he makes
Christ a mere man, at most “ a perfect man.” He must, therefore,
in his theism, make very little of God, as a direct object of faith, if he
goes upward from religion towards God directly, to religion towards
God through Christ. And since his “rational Christianity ” is only
religion towards God through a man, it must be regarded as a species
of idolatry, like the Romanist’s devotion to the Virgin Mary.
To show Dr. Clarke’s method of comparing theism and Christianity,
we may cite the following statement:
“ In all the dimensions of space [depth, height, breadth, length] we find
in Christianity something in advance of theism. It is deeper in its life,
higher in its aspiration, broader in its sweep, more far reaching in its per
petual advance.” P. 166.
This is arbitrary assertion. What is deeper than the life of God,
or higher than the thought of God, or broader than the love of God,
or more far-reaching than eternal union with God ?
�40
Dr. J. F. Clarke against Theism.
Another specimen of Dr. Clarke’s treatise will show from how low
a theism he steps up to the level which he deems the highest Chris
tian ground. Thus he says :
“Theism reasons about God; Christianity lives from him and to him.
Theism gives us speculations and probabilities ; Christianity, convictions
and realities. . . Theism says light is the life of men; Christianity declares
that life is the light of men.” Pp. 143, 144.
If this means anything, it is, that direct faith in God is mere
doubtful talk, by which a man cannot live, while faith in God through
the man, Christ, is a deep and real life for the soul. All which we
set down as Dr. Clarke’s opinion, and are sorry that he did not take
more of a step when he undertook to rise from atheism to theism.
Another bit of Dr. Clarke’s argument is as follows:
“ The apostles of free religion take more pleasure in standing apart, to
think; than in coming together, to live. . . If thought could ever become a
fountain of life, it would have done so in the case of Socrates. . . But, though
always seeking he seldom found.” Pp. 147, 148.
Doubtless Dr. Clarke tells us here what he supposes true, about the
thinkers and their Greek master, and believes that he has done them
justice. He seems to have known Socrates and free thought only by
vague heresay, and to have spoken out of the entire honesty of entire
ignorance. As, however, he is arguing down “ pure theism,” or pure
direct faith in God, he might have remembered, without knowing any
thing at all about the apostles of free religion and Socrates, that the
point to be made was, that simple direct faith in God makes men
lonely and barren thinkers, while faith in God through the man,
Christ, makes them sympathetic and fruitful believers. Will he
venture to assert this ?
Dr. Clarke appears to be profoundly ignorant of the true method
and matter of that pure direct faith in God, which constitutes the life
and power of pure theism. He gets hold of a sentence of Rev. Samuel
Johnson, or an affirmation of Rev. Mr. Abbot, and deals with it as if
in it he saw the necessary measure of pure theism, and limit of free
religion. He catches a mere glimpse of Socrates, and talks of the
master of Plato, and the most fruitful teacher of all time, as if he
would have been better for some instruction in a Sunday School. Of
the range, the richness, and the living power of true thought of God,
or indeed of thought at all, he seems to have no conception. With
him to think means to puzzle over dark enigmas; and to think of God
�Dr. J. F. Clarke against Theism.
41
to chop logic with the scholastics. His idea of religion by direct faith
in God, as in pure theism, is, that it is not religion, but a mere vain
attempt at religion.
In order to do Dr. Clarke’s Jesuism no injustice, we will now quote
at length several of his statements :
“ Christianity is an historic religion, with a Founder, a church or commun
ion, with its sacred books, its rites and ceremonies, its faith and its morality.
These doctrines, worship, books, church, and morals, all have the historic
person of Jesus for their centre and source. Theism, or Free Religion, on
the contrary, is a system of belief and method of life which grows up in the
human mind, independently of any such historic source, proceeding only
from the soul itself. P. 141. Christianity is essentially a stream of spiritual,
moral, and intellectual life, proceeding from Jesus of Nazareth. He did not
present it as an intellectual system, but it overflowed from his lips in his
da’’y intercourse with men. Hed'd not speak from his speculation, but from
his knowledge. He spoke what he knew, and testified what he had seen.
This living knowledge created like conviction in other minds. The truth
was its own evidence. Man needs this knowledge. We need to know God,
not merely to think it probable that he exists. We need to live in the light
of his truth and his love. We do Dot get this knowledge of God by reading
books of theology, but by communion with those who have it. If we have
any such faith in God, how did we first obtain it. We caught it as a blessed
contagion, from the eyes and lips, the words freighted with conviction, the
actions inspired by its force, of those who have been themselves filled with
its power. They too usually have received it from others; though after
wards it may have been fed by direct communion with God. It is a trans
mitted as well as an inspired life. . . The deeper, purer, loftier they [the
great modern prophets] are, the more do they love to trace back the great
master-impulse to Jesus of Nazareth. ‘ Of his fullness have we all received,’
say they, ‘and grace upon grace.’ . . Abandon this current, . . and God
becomes an opinion; duty, a social convenience; immortality, a perhaps.
Pp. 145, 146. The doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement have
always been the pivots of Christian theology. The incarnation means, God
descending into the soul of one man to make all humanity divine, to unite
earth with heaven, time with eternity, man with God. The elevation of the
human race, so justly dear to the modern theist, is made possible by this
great providential event in human history. By the law of mediated life,
God is lifting humanity to himself, and penetrating the boundless variety of
his creation with as pervasive a unity. . . Those who were afar off are made
nigh by the blood of Jesus. His death and resurrection have set the seal on
this great atoning work, which is as effective now to create love to God and
to man as it was in the beginning. Pp. 154, 155. God comes near to the
soul in Jesus Christ; through Jesus Christ our sense of sin is taken away;
through Christ, mortal fears are replaced by an immortal hope. . To adhere
to Jesus as the Christ of God, is the very root of Christian experience. Pp.
�42
Dr. J. F. Clarke against 1 heism.
156, 157. Love to Christ is the method of progress, the law of freedom, the
way to knowledge, and the unchecked impulse to God. P. 166. The one
great outward proof that Jesus was thus the Christ of humanity, the ordained
Leader of the human race to God and to each other, is found in his resurrec
tion. . When Jesus appeared to die, he did not die; he remained alive. When
he seemed to go down, he did not go down; he went up. When he seemed
to go away, he did not go away ; he remained. . . The objections to this view
are chiefly a priori and metaphysical. Pp. 114 and 115.
Dr. Clarke appears to believe in a strict external system of tradi
tion and belief, the only channel through which life can come from
God to human souls, and that system he sums up in the “Lord Jesus
Christ,” whom he yet regards as a mere man,* but “a perfect speci
men of the human race.”
Freedom dies in the presence of such a fact, if it be a fact, and
religion equally sinks into nothing with no other direct object of faith
than “ a perfect specimen of the human race.” And seeing the utter
absurdity of taking the historic Jesus as this “ perfect specimen,” the
thoughtful believer must find himself worshipping towards a very
poor idol if he attempt to follow the instruction of Dr. Clarke.
This conception of a historic religion, with the historic person of
Jesus for its centre and source, and distinguished from religion born
in the soul under influences not external and historic, logically points
to an infallible church,—to Romanism in fact. Dr. Clarke puts his
torical human transmission above providential divine instruction and
inspiration, and, therefore, leaves little room to question that the most
direct and largest historical human result of original Jesuism must
be the true faith.
Moral, intellectual and spiritual life comes to us, Dr. Clarke says,
from the man, Jesus, a contagion caught from his person and life by
the first disciples, and historically transmitted. The comprehensive
teaching of theism, that God himself, by perfectly adequate means,
instructs and inspires and disciplines his moral creatures, and so
directly conveys to them the gift of his own eternal life, Dr. Clarke
considers a baseless theory, the delusion of certain absurd people who
“ stand apart to think,” and who “ even prefer speculation to knowl
edge.” Instead of accepting the theistic doctrine of incarnation, the
universal saving presence of God in all souls, he asserts that God
descended “into the soul of one man,” and that “the elevation of
the human race is made possible by this great providential event.”
* “We agree with the Naturalists, that Christ was a pure man, and not superhuman.” P. 133.
�Dr. J. F. Clarke against Theism.
43
And not only does he thus deny the universal providence and
inspiration of God, and reduce the Almighty to dependence upon a
Galilean youth for effective communication with and control of the
human race, but he appears to adopt the wretched superstition that
“the blood of Jesus” is the agency through which God must reach
man.
Neither nature, whose suggestions are so varied, so quickening,
and so universal; nor the universal providence of human events,
which speaks so clearly, so fully, and so powerfully to the thoughtful
student of human life and human history; nor the unceasing inspi
ration which floods the understanding and heart of man, and
marvellously guides the seekers of all the world into one simple faith
in God, are anything to Dr. Clarke, so absorbed is he with worship
through his man-image of God. Omit to look on this image, he says,
and “God becomes an opinion; duty, a social convenience; immor
tality, a perhaps.”
That it is so to him, we do not doubt. We endeavor to accept his
assertion that he knows no other root of Christian experience than
adherence to Jesus; that the death and resurrection of Jesus, alone
or chiefly, induce him to love God and man; and that the proof to
him that this is the true way, he finds in the resurrection of Jesus.
Such external construction of religion, and such reference of its
power to human facts, are doubtless undertaken by Dr. Clarke in
good faith. He undoubtedly believes theological science need say no
more than that Jesus went up when he went down, and that the
objections to this view are chiefly a priori and metaphysical.
The Christianity which Dr. Clarke sets up against Theism, is not
Christian, but Jesuit. Christian religion knows no other object of
faith than God, the “ Our Father” of the prayer of Jesus. The
Jesuism which makes Jesus an object of religious faith is pseudo
Christian. That Jesuism which makes Jesus very God, has some
claims to be considered religion. But that which makes him, as Dr.
Clarke’s does, a mere “ perfect specimen of a man,” is no religion at
all; it is mere hero-worship. And that in fact Dr. Clarke labors to
establish, the worship of Jesus as a hero. For ourselves, we decline,
equally in the name of religion and of Christian teaching, to adopt
the confused sentimentalism of Dr. Clarke’s method, and the feeble
Jesuism of his conclusions. We believe in God.
�44
The Unitarian Situation.
THE UNITARIAN SITUATION.
I.—Mr. Hepworth Relieves Himself.
“There are times when one must relieve himself or die,” said Rev
Geo. II. Hepworth, in the meeting, last May, of the American Unitarian
Association. The Secretary of the Association, Rev. Charles Lowe,
had presented an admirable paper, justifying the general Unitarian
determination to do without a creed, and to depend on the spirit and
the life as a basis of union, when Mr. Hepworth came forward, regard
less of the general disapproval of his intention, to move for a committee
to prepare an “ as-nearly-as-may-be ” representative statement of faith
of the Unitarian denomination, and said, “ Your frequent applause (of
Mr. Lowe’s address) did not daunt my determination to speak because
there are times when one must relieve himself or die.” Of course Mr.
Hepworth could not be expected to assume that the Unitarian body
would prefer the other alternative ; so he proceeded to relieve himself.
The gist of his demand he thus expressed,—
“I want that there shall be a definite signification attached to the word
‘Unitarianism.’ . . The thing it seems to me is demanded; demanded now,
or else we, 1 honestly believe, as a denomination, go under. . . The next two
years will settle, I honestly believe, the fate of the Unitarian denomination.
. . I want a statement of the average views of the Unitarian denomination,
. . something with the endorsement of the Unitarian denomination upon
it.”
How this authoritative statement of faith should relieve Mr. ■
Hepworth, our readers may not quite understand. It seems, how
ever, that be expected it to be good for his back. “Give me,” he
said, “ a single Unitarian document, that I can put my back against.”
How desperate he considered his need of a document to put his back
against, may be judged from his concluding sentence, — “ It is a small
thing to ask for, yet I cannot get L, I suppose, but I waDt to give you
notice I am not exactly down, and I am going to keep this thing going
until I do get it.”
Theodore Parker said of Mr. Hepworth, — “ Hepworth would make
a powerful preacher, if he did not drown his thought in a Dead Sea of
words. What a pity ! You don’t want a drove of oxen to drag a
cart-load of potatoes on a smooth road.” This criticism was provoked
by the earliest failure of Mr. Hepworth’s back, when he withdrew
from an engagement to speak at a meeting held in Boston to express
�The Unitarian Situation.
45
sympathy with the family of John Brown, because he found it would
not be considered decent for him to take ‘ the other side.’ Mr.
Hepworth has needed something to put his back against ever since
John A. Andrew, in that great meeting, said that he had supposed
there was but one side to the question of sympathy with the family of
the Harper’s Ferry martyr.
It appears, from Mr. Hepworth’s speeches on the subject, that he
has made “a document” himself, and has found it useful in bringing
inquirers into the Unitarian fold. He tells us that a similar document,
endorsed by the denomination, would double the nifmber of Unitarians
in less than five years, and that without it Unitarianism will “ go
under” within two years.
The simple meaning of this is that Mr. Hepworth is a prodigious
egotist, who is of late ambitious to appear as the maker of the denom
inational creed. He has no idea whatever of accepting any statement
other than his own. His demand is that Unitarianism endorse his
document. This demand he presses with stupid insolence, imagining
that he will be sustained because his document is conservative.
Originally belonging to the radical wing of Unitarianism, and now a
self-appointed leader of the right wing, be has but one leading aim, to
push himself. This aim he follows with insane disregard of all the
decencies of the matter. We regret the necessity of speaking so
harshly, but feel that we ought to say more rather than less of this
ecclesiastical charlatan. The recent overturning of the Liberal Chris
tian vrds his work, done in a spirit and with a purpose which ought to
exclude h,im from the confidence of every honest and honorable
member of the Unitarian body.
II.—Robert Collyer’s “ Amen ” to Hepworth.
The concurrence of Rev. Robert Collyer with Mr. Hepworth’s
demand for an authoritative statement of faith, caused a great deal of
surprise. Mr. Collyer said, in support of Mr. Hepworth, —
“ His feeling about some statement that we could use when we stand up
and preach, has been my feeling too. . . I felt like saying, Amen, to the gist
of his proposition, and wanted to feel that I stood with him. . . My reason
for it is exactly the same as that which he has given as his primary reason.
. . Letters and requests in person come to me continually, like this, ‘Cannot
you give us something that bears the stamp of authority from your body?’
It should be no test of fellowship to bar any man out, . . and if next year
�46
The Unitarian Situation.
we find that it does not express the honest religious faith of our body, it
shall be altered, . . and made to express then what new light may have
come to us from above.”
This was again explained by Mr. Collyer, in one of the meetings of
the Western Conference in June, after some one had suggested that
his creed should be stamped, as railroad tickets are, “ good for this
day only.” Mr. Collyer then said, —
“ If we can present this thing to the inquiring mind as the statement of
five hundred intelligent Unitarians, it will have a good deal more weight
than the statement of any single individual, that is all I ever meant.”
It seems incredible that Mr. Collyer should not see that the stamp
of external authority must injure rather than help the force of truth.
Inquiry has developed no principle more important than this, that
truth stands best on its own evidence, and always loses when made to
rest on an authority outside of itself. If Mr. Collyer wants to employ,
in preaching, a statement bearing the stamp of authority, he wants to
use a purely and strictly orthodox method, in place of the liberal
method. The latter invariably says, ‘ examine and judge for your
selves what is true,’ and it scrupulously avoids introducing any pressure
of authority. The orthodox method appeals to authority, and largely
succeeds in preventing inquiry. It would be a bastard liberalism
which should admit the use of this appeal to authority. Any real
success in such appeal, would be an encroachment of mischief of the
most serious and dangerous sort. And not merely would actual free
inquiry be checked, but all freedom to inquire will be put in peril. It
is a purely chimerical expectation that possessors of authority would
use it for instruction of inquirers only, and not for judgment on doubt
and denial. At this moment the Unitarian body, as organized in the
National Conference, lends its authority to the dogma of the lordship
of Jesus, as thorough a superstition and yoke of heathenism as was
ever fastened upon men’s minds by religion, and this creed is used as
a test, a rule of judgment, and law of condemnation.
But if the idea of using authority without abusing it were not a
delusion and a snare, it would be worse than useless to attempt to
influence inquirers by means of an endorsed statement of faith. There
may be single instances now and then of inquirers foolish enough to
give weight to such a creed, but in general any such attempt to urge
doctrines on the ground that they had been endorsed by “ five hundred
intelligent Unitarians,” or by five hundred thousand even, would at
�The Unitarian Situation.
47
once raise suspicion and provoke contempt. The evidences for
important truths, apart from ordinary human endorsement, are so
significant and decisive, and the fact of ordinary human endorsement
is, in itself, so insignificant and inconclusive, that a religious teacher
could hardly do a worse thing than to confess that he depended at all
on the fact that his sect had voted the creed he urged. The power,
either for good or for evil, of such a vote, is over those who are
already within the connection. In general it is a power of tyranny
and outrage upon dissenting members of the fellowship. At least it
is not a power of persuasion with outside inquirers.
Granting, however, that there would be no tyranny in voting a
denominational creed, and that it might be possible to use such a
creed with good effect, it still remains, and always must remain, that
a Unitarian statement of faith is as impossible as a Unitarian Pope.
The fact which causes so many questions as to the beliefs of Unita
rians,— which occasions so many to ask, “What do Unitarians
believe ? ” — is a fact which ought to show Mr. Collyer the utter
absurdity of talking about a Unitarian statement of faith. Twenty
decidedly different and distinct statements would not represent Unitarianism. Unitarianism is like our national union; it is a union of
individuals, each independent and sovereign in respect to certain most
important matters, while owning allegiance to the common fellowship
for certain other matters. What Mr. Lowe, the Secretary of the Amer
ican Unitarian Associatian, calls “ the spirit and the life,” is the basis
of union in the Unitarian body. With reference to beliefs, the rule is
liberty and diversity, “ every man fully persuaded in his own mind,”
“every one of us give account of himself to God,” and “every man
receive his own reward according to his own labor.” The one great
principle, which has given life and honor to Unitarianism, has been
this recognition of the duty of individual persuasion, and the liberty
of individual difference, in the matter of beliefs. And he must be
exceedingly heedless of facts which are patent to every observer, who
forgets that the Unitarian body now embraces a great diversity of
beliefs, and can no more be represented by one statement of special
beliefs than the different states of our Union could be represented by
one political creed, except as to certain very general principles. The
representative statement of Unitarianism is its immortal declaration of
liberty and diversity. The demand for any other representative state
ment,— for any sort of statement of beliefs, — assumes that Unitari
anism, founded in liberty, has been so far a comprehensive error.
�48
The Unitarian Situation.
It is undeniable, however, thac the votes of the National Confer
ence, affirming the “ lordship of Jesus,” have created an official
Unitarianism, a Unitarian ecclesiasticism, not founded on the principle
of liberty and diversity, but based, as strictly as any sect in the world,
on a creed, and that creed a contemptible superstition. The lordship
of Jesus, in any Unitarian sense, is nondescript. It is anything but
religious and Christian. If it can be assumed that Jesus is very God,
the lordship of Jesus is religious. Deny that he is God, and the
assertion of his lordship drags that grand term The Lord from its only
true Christian significance, and makes it a cover for putting into
offices of Deity one who confessedly is not God. Taken alone, as the
one article of a creed, and the single foundation stone of an ecclesias
ticism, the lordship of Jesus, in any or all of the Unitarian senses, is
the most beggarly, the narrowest, and most barren creed ever devised.
The day when this creed, which has no iota of religion in it, but is
purely a partisan watchword, was adopted, and the other days on
which it was re-affirmed, each time against protest as distinct and
vigorous as outrage ever provoked, were days of shameful treason to
the genius of the Unitarian movement.
Many years since, the Rev. Dr. Eliot, of St. Louis, an excellent
man in his way, but something of a pope, and an apologist for slavery
during the days of Anti-Slavery excitement, seceded from the Western
Unitarian Conference, because that body adopted some resolution of
sympathy with the cause of the slave. Not only did he go out in
wrath, but he never returned? This Dr. Eliot was unfortunately
named on the original committee appointed to prepare a constitution
for the National Unitarian Conference, and he it was who demanded
the lordship-of-Jesus basis, against the judgment of the committee,
and who compelled its insertion by threatening secession I This playing
pope on the part of one man was the original occasion of giving to
the conference a dogmatic basis.
The wrong could not have been consummated, however, had not
Dr. Bellows espoused it, and carried it through in a spirit even worse
than that in which it was conceived, a spirit at once of treason and
of anger. Dr. Bellows had given pledges, as distinct and full as
could be asked, which required him to exclude dogma from the basis
of the Conference, and to respect without qualification the principle
of liberty and diversity. These pledges he disregarded, as recklessly
as if honor were but a name, when he consented to meet Dr. Eliot’s
demand, and to report a basis for the Conference, which asserted the
�The Unitarian Situation.
49
lordship of Jesus. And when he encountered resistance to his plan,
he took a high tone, the tone of a pope, and gave way to bad temper
besides, as if it were but right for him to visit the anger of an
offended pope on his radical brethren. These are the simple facts in
regard to the creed adopted by the National Conference. Drs. Eliot
and Bellows originally forced that creed upon the Conference, in a
way not one whit better than that of Pope Pius at Rome. Mr.
Hepworth brings forward his creed, because he thinks he can play
pope.
That Mr. Collyer should lend his support to so palpable an iniquity,
is as sad as it is surprising, whether we consider his own good name
as a teacher of religion, or the influence he can exert. It would
seem as if he must have seen enough of Unitarianism to show him
that wide diversities exist in it, such as will always make people ask,
“What do Unitarians believe?” and will forever render it impossible
to answer this inquiry by any one statement of faith. Does Mr.
Collyer mean to assume that it would be either honest or honorable,
or anything better than an outrage and a lie, to put forth his creed,
or any creed which he could endorse, and say of it, “ This is what
Unitarians believe”? The answer made him in the Western Confer
ence, by a lawyer of high character and sound judgment, “ This
proposition is a delusion and a humbug,” deservedly rebuked his
assumption that a creed could be made useful. Let him join in
getting one voted, and he will find that he has put his hand to a
business which can only end in mischief and shame.
III.—Rev. A. D. Mayo Settles the Question.
Rev. A. D. Mayo sustained Mr. Hepworth’s demand for a creed, in
a very characteristic way. He said:
“Sooner or later we must meet the issue which brother Hepworth has
presented; the whole Christian world is looking at us and expecting us to
meet it. If we are found skulking, I believe the modern world will just
drop us, and we shall be left a little association of independent churches to
do anything we have a mind to, but the world will lose all its interest in us.
and that will be the end of us ”
Mr. Mayo is the most positive and most dismal of Pharisees. Why
should a man skulk into a dark closet, he would say, when the universe
looks for his appearing at the corner of the street ? Why should he
forfeit the interest of mankind by sneaking to prayer with the publi
can, when justification so abundant awaits broad phylacteries and
VOL. I.—NO. I.
4
�50
The Unitarian Situation.
pompous self-assertion ? How absurd and contemptible to content
ourselves with devout doing of God’s will, when the rewards of
“Lord, Lord,” are so much more immediate and certain! Blow no
trumpet, and let the modern world just drop us? Do justice, love
mercy, and walk humbly with God, and that the end of us? Indulge
the enthusiasm of humanity and the passion of free communion
with God, when seventy sanhedrins of seventy sects already summon
us to judgment, and the whole menagerie of inquisitors thirsts to
extinguish us? Such, it would seem, is the appeal of Mr. Mayo.
This appeal Mr. Mayo took occasion to vindicate in the meeting of
the Western Conference, in an elaborate address on “The Vocation
of The Western Unitarian Church.” The gist of that address was
that Unitarianism has been governed by the rule of liberty long
enough, and that it ought now to go back to the old and universal
orthodox method, define and adopt an orthodoxy of its own, a fixed
correct creed, and work hereafter by means of, and on the basis of,
this definite and established creed, excluding further free-thinking,
and attempting no further progress.
“Hitherto,” he says, “we have had a creed of one article, spiritual
freedom, and all our loosely-jointed organization has revolved around that.
We have been rather a spiritual exploring expedition on the frontiers of the
church than a well defined branch of Christendom.” “Liberal Christianity
remains,” he tells us, “an undefined and diffused spirit of free-thinking,
irresponsible as the wind, and vast as the mind of man.” Unitarians, again
he says, are “an extended picket-line backed by no army,” in danger of
being “gobbled up and left to pursue their ‘scientific religious’ investigation
inside a spiritual Andersonville, with such comfort as may there be found,”
which he thinks would be “a sad coming down from our dreams of illimitable
and irresponsible individuality.”
“The Unitarian body,” Mr. Mayo
declares, “must soon decide this final question: Is it a Church and apart of
Christendom, or is it a dissolving view of spiritual pioneers on the border-land of
Christian civilization? We may indulge in spiritual vagrancy till we lose the
confidence of the country, and expectation no longer turns our way. Our
widely-roving Unitarian enterprise in the West must consolidate into a
number of Christian churches that agree substantially in their understand
ing of Christianity, their methods for its propagation, their relation to other
Christian churches, and their relation to other communities outside of
Christian belief. . . If we decide that we are not a Christian church ip
this sense, then let us go home, each to his own city or hamlet, and pursue
religion on his own account; for the Western people will no longer concern
themselves with our existence.”
�1 he Unitarian Situation.
51
The criticism here made upon the Unitarianism of Dr. Channing
and Theodore Parker, that it was indefinite, vagrant, irresponsible,
and outside Christian limits; the judgment pronounced upon the
historic Unitarian principle of spritual freedom, that it served well
enough to organize “spiritual vagrancy” and “general free-thinking”
upon, and should now be displaced by the opposite principle, that of
dogma and ecclesiasticism; the proposition to consolidate the Unita
rian movement into a body of orthodox Unitarian churches; and the
reason for doing this, to keep the confidence of the country and the
interest of the Western people, and to escape “a spiritual Anderson
ville,”— these are points of Mr. Mayo’s plea which are criticised the
moment they are stated.
The two great principles of pure Christian religion, loyalty to God
and love to man, are sneered at by Mr. Mayo in this fashion,—
“ Religion is not solely, or chiefly, an affair between one man and the
Power he may choose to call his ‘ Maker.’ . . A Christian church
cannot live long on the assertion, it is good to be good; it is lovely to
love.” Chinese, Hebrews, Mormons, Spiritualists, and Oneida Com
munists, he says, do as much as that. If we do no more, the Western
people will no longer concern themselves with our existence, and that
will be the end of us. Could there be a more lamentable infidelity
than this? If Mr. Mayo represents anybody but himself, we are sorry
for the communion which includes such an element.
IV.—Dr. Bellows Protests.
It is never possible to tell on which side of the Unitarian question
Dr. Bellows will be found. In the Hepworth debate last May, he
came out emphatically and eloquently for liberty and diversity. He
said that he would not submit his faith to “ any statement which the
Unitarian body, as such, is prepared to make, or can honestly make,
or make without deceiving itself and without deceiving everybody
else.” He declared that “the Christian religion at this present time
needs a body which will restrain itself, and not undertake to bind
itself by a positive statement which will strangle its growth. He
insisted that Unitarianism must continue to occupy a position of
“ absolute and perfect liberty.” He besought his brethren not to let
Robert Collyer’s “seductive voice,” “incline or seduce you into any
falsification of the fundamental principle of our body.” “ Let every
man,” he said, “ give the best statement he can make, and send it out
on its own authority.”
�52
History of the Devil.
Now let Dr. Bellows cdnsent to take the lordship-of-Jesus dogma
out of the basis of the National Conference, and Unitarianism may
again mean “ absolute and perfect liberty,” and he cease to be
universally known as Mr. Facing-Both-Ways.
HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
His Rise, Greatness
and
Downfall.
[Translated from the Revue des Deux Mondes.]
Among the fallen monarchs whom time, yet more than sudden revolutions,
has slowly brought down from their thrones, few are there whose prestige
has been as imposing and as abiding as that of the king of hell, —Satan.
We can safely employ the expression fallen in speaking of him, for those of
our contemporaries who yet profess to believe in his existence and power,
live just as if they did not believe in them; and when faith and life no longer
impress each other, we have a right to say that the former is dead. I speak,
of course, of our educated cotemporaries; the others are no longer of account
in the history of the human mind. It has seemed to us, too, that it would be
interesting to bring together in one view, and to describe in their logical
genesis, the transformations and evolutions of belief in the devil. This is
almost a biography. An occasion has been furnished us by a recent and
remarkable work which we owe to a professor of theology in Vienna.*
Notwithstanding some tedious passages, the book of Professor Roskoff is an
encyclopaedia of everything relating to the matter, and the author will not
complain if we borrow freely from his rich erudition.
I.
The origin of belief in the devil is quite remote; and, like that of every
belief more or less dualistic, that is to say, based on the radical opposition of
two supreme principles, it must be sought in the human mind developing
itself in the bosom of a Nature which is sometimes favorable, sometimes
hostile, to it. There is a certain relative dualism, an antagonism of the I
and not-I, which revealsitself from the time of man’s birth. His first breath
is painful, for it makes him cry out. It is through struggles that he learns
to eat, to walk, to speak. Later, the effort indispensable to his preservation
will reproduce this perpetual struggle under other forms. When the religious
sentiment awakens in him and seeks first its object and support in visible
nature, he finds himself before phenomena which he personifies; some of
which are agreeable and loved, such as the aurora, the fruits of the earth,
and the refreshing and fertilizing rain; the others terrifying and dreaded,
• “ History of the Devil,” by Gustave Roskoff, Professor of the Imperial Faculty of Protestant
Theology in Vienna.
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53
like the storm, the thunder, and the night. Hence good and evil deities. As
a general rule and by virtue of that simple egotism which characterizes
children and the childhood of peoples, the dreaded gods are more worshipped
than those worthy of affection, which always do good of themselves and
without being entreated. Such is at least the convergent result of the observa
tions of all the travelers who have a near view in either hemisphere of peoples
living in a savage state. It is needless to add that their divinities have no
moral character properly so called. They do good or evil because their
nature is thus, and for no other reason. In that, they only resemble their
worshippers. Indeed, man always projects his own ideal upon the divinity
which he adores, and, all things considered, it is in this very manner that
he comes into possession of all which he can comprehend of divine truth.
He always has the feeling that his god is perfect, and that is the essential
thing ; but the traits of this perfection are always more or less those of his
ideal. Some one once asked of two little swine-herds in some remote prov
ince of Austria: “ What would you do, if you were Napoleon?” “I,” said
the younger, “ would put a whole pot of butter on my bread every morning.”
“Andi,” said the other, “ would watch my hogs on horseback!” Thus,
too, a Bushman, when invited by a missionary, who had tried to give him
some notions of morality, to cite some examples showing that he knew how
to distinguish good from evil, said: “Evil is other people who come and
take my wives ; good is me when I take theirs.” The gods of savages are
necessarily savage gods. They usually have hideous forms, as their wor
shippers think themselves bound to become hideous to go to battle, or even
simply for adornment. To them, the beautiful is the odd and grotesque ; the
mysterious is the strange, and the strange is the frightful. To our European
ancestors, the stranger was at the same time the guest and the enemy. With
all due deference to poets, the religion of peoples of this class is tantamount
to the adoration of genii or demons of a bad character. When we pass from
savage peoples, who live only by hunting and fishing, to shepherds, and
especially to agricultural peoples, this adoration of evil deities is no longer
as exclusive. Il et we usually find among them the worship of dreaded gods
predominant. For example, let us cite only that simple prayer of the
Madecassians, who recognize, among many others, two creative divinities*
Zamhor, the author of good things, and Nyang, of the bad :
“ 0 Zamhor! we do not pray to thee. Good gods do not want prayers.
But we must pray to Nyang. We must appease Nyang. Nyang, wicked and
powerful spirit, do not make the thunder roll above our beads ! Bid the sea
keep its limits. Spare, Nyang, the ripening fruits. Wither not the rice in
its flower. Let there be no births in the evil days. Thou knowest the
wicked are thine already, and the number of the wicked, Nyang, is great.
Then torment no more the good.”
It would be easy to multiply facts attesting this characteristic of the
religion of primitive peoples, that terror has more to do with their piety than
veneration or love. Hence the great number of malevolent beings of the
second order which all inferior religions recognize and which are found in
the popular superstitions long clinging to religions of a more elevated spiritual
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History of the Devil.
level. In the great mythologies, like those of India, Egypt, or Greece, the
apparent dualism of nature is reflected in the distinction between the gods
of order and production and those of destruction and disorder. The feeling
that order always gains a decisive victory in the battles between the oppos
ing forces of nature, inspires myths like those of Indra the conqueror of the
storm-cloud, of Horus avenging his father Osiris, wickedly put to death by
Typhon. In developed Brahminism, it is Siva, the god of destruction who
concentrates and puts to work the disturbing elements of the universe. Siva
is besides the most adored of the Hindoo gods. In Semitic polytheism,
dualism becomes sexual, or rather, the sun being always the principal object
of adoration, the supreme god is conceived under two forms, the one smiling,
the other terrifying, Baal or Moloch.
This double character of the divinities worshipped is not less striking
when one studies the most "poetical and most serene of polytheisms, that of
Greece. Like all the others, its roots go down into the worship of the visible
world, but more than elsewhere, unless we should except Egypt, its gods join
to their physical nature a corresponding moral physiognomy. They have
conquered the agents of confusion which under the names of Titans, Giants,
Typhons, threatened established order. They are then the invincible preser
vers of the regular order of things; but, as, after all, this regular order is
far from always conforming itself to the physical and moral well-being of
man, the result is that the Greek gods have all, in varied proportion, their
amiable and their dark side. For instance, Phoebus Apollo is a god of light,
a civilizer, inspirer of arts, refiner of the soil and of souls, and yet he sends
the pestilence, is pitiless in his vengeance, and not very prudent in his
friendships. One may say as much of his sister Diana, or rather the moon,
who is personified now under the enchanting image of a beautiful and chaste
maiden, now under the gloomy physiognomy of a Hecate, a Brimo, or an
Empusa. The blue mists of the horizon of the sea are at first beautiful blue
birds, then daughters of the wave, admirably beautiful down to the waist,
who bewitch navigators with their sweet love songs; but alas for those who
allow themselves to be seduced! This physiognomy of mingled good and
evil is a common trait of the Hellenic pantheon, and is continuously manifest,
from the supreme pair, Jupiter and Hera (Juno) to the under-world couple,
zEdoneus or Pluto and his wife the beautiful Proserpine, the Strangler.
Latin mythology suggests the same class of reflections, and, in what is
peculiarly its own, is still more dualistic than Greek polytheism. It has its
Orcus, its Strigae, its Larvae, its Lemures, etc. Sclavonic mythology has its
white god and its black god. Our Gallic fathers had not very attractive
divinities, and the old Scandinavian-Germanic gods unite to valuable quali
ties defects which render intercourse with them at least difficult. Wherever
in our times one has kept a belief in hob-goblins, witches, fairies, sylphs,
water-nymphs, we find this same mingling of good and bad qualities. These
latter relics of the great army of divinities of the former times are at the
same time graceful, attractive, generous when they wish to be, but also
capricious, vindictive and dangerous. It is important to regard all these
facts in seeking the origin of the devil, for we shall see that he is of compos
�History of the Devil.
55
ite order, and that in several of his essential features he is connected with
the dark elements of all religions which have preceded Christianity.
There is nevertheless one of these religions, which, in this special point of
view, calls for a little more attention to its fundamental doctrines: it is the
Zend-Avesta, or, to employ the usual expression, that of the Persians. It is,
in fact, in this religion that the divine hierarchy and belief appear under the
influence of a systematic < ualism applying to the entire world, moral evil
included. The gods of light and the gods of darkness share time and space.
We do not speak here of Zerwan-Akerene, time without limit, who gave birth
to Ahuramazda or Ormuzd, the God of good, and to his brother Ahriman,
the God of evil. This is evidently a philosophical notion much more recent
than that primitive point of view originating with the Zend religion, which
recognizes only two powers equally eternal, continually at strife, meeting for
combat on the surface of the earth as well as in the heart of men. Wherever
Ormuzd plants the good, Ahriman sows the evil. The story of the moral fall
of the first men, due to the perfidy of Ahriman, who took the form of a serpent,
presents most striking analogies with the parallel account in Genesis. In
regard to that, it has often been alleged that the Bible story of the fall was
only borrowed from Persia. This opinion seems to me without good found
ation, for in the Iranian myth the genius of evil is considered disguised. In
the Hebrew story, on the contrary, it is plainly a serpent which speaks, acts,
and brings upon all his progeny the punishment he suffers. We must then
allow to this story the merit of superior antiquity, if not in its present, at
least in its primitive form. The substitution of a disguised god for a reason
ing and speaking animal, denotes reflection unknown to the ages of mythical
formation. It was reflection, too, which, in later times, led the Jews to see
their Satan under the traits of the serpent of Genesis, although the canon
ical text is as contrary as possible to that conception. I prefer, then, to
regard the two myths, the Hebrew and the Iranian, as two variations, differ
ing in antiquity, of one and the same primitive theme, originating perhaps
when the Iranians and the Semites were living together in the shadow of
Ararat.
However this may be, the fact yet remains that in the most seriously moral
polytheism of the old world, one meets a religious conception which
approaches very near to that which Semitic monotheism has bequeathed to
us under the name of the devil or Satan. Ahriman, like Satan, has his
legions of bad angels which only think of tormenting and destroying mortals.
Not alone physical evils, as storms, darkness, floods, diseases and death, are
attributed to them; but also evil desires and guilty acts. The good man is
consequently a soldier of Ormuzd, under his orders opposing the powers of
evil; the wicked is a servant of Ahriman and becomes his instrument. The
Zend doctrine taught that at last Ahriman would be conquered and even
transformed to good. This latter characteristic distinguishes him favorably
from his Judeo-Christian brother; but one may well ask himself here how
far this beautiful hope made a part of primitive religion.* Of one thing we
♦There have been also theological Christiane, like Origen, who believed in the final conversion
of Satan.
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History of the Devil.
are certain, that the connection between the Jewish Satan and the Persian
Ahriman is very close, and this is only very natural when we think that of
all the polytheistic peoples the Persians are the only ones with whom the
Jews, emancipated by them from Chaldean servitude, kept up prolonged
relations of friendship.
Nevertheless, we shall try to prove false the quite wide-spread opinion which
sees in Satan only a transplanting of the Persian Ahriman into the religious
soil of Semitism. True, the Jewish and the Christian devil owe much to
Ahriman. From the moment when the Jewish Satan makes his acquaintance,
he imitates him, he adopts his manners, his morals, his tactics, he establishes
his infernal court on the same pattern ; in a word, he becomes transformed
to his likeness; but he was already existing, though leading an obscure and
ill defined life. Let us endeavor to sum up his history in the Old Testament.
The Israelites, as we have shown in a previous article, believed for a long
time, with other Semitic peoples, in the plurality of the gods; and the
dualism which is found at the bottom of all polytheisms must consequently
have assumed among them forms peculiar to the religions of the ethnical
group of which they made a part. In proportion as the worship of Jehovah
excluded all others, this dualism must change its forms. Believing still in
the real existence of the neighboring divinities, such as Baal and Moloch,
the fervent adorer of Jehovah must consider these gods immoral, cruel and
hostile to the people of Israel, much as people looked upon demons of another
age. We may go farther, and surmise some relic of a primitive dualism, or
of an opposition between two gods formerly rivals, in that enigmatic being,
the despair of exegetes, which, under the name of Azazel, haunts the
wilderness, and to whom, on the day of expiation, the high-priest sends a
goat on whose head he has put all the sins of the people. Only we must add
that in historical times the meaning of this ceremony seems lost even to
those who observe it, and there is in reality nothing more opposed
to all dualism than the strictly Jehovist point of view. If we except the
books of Job, of Zachariah, and of the Chronicles, all three being among
the less ancient of the sacred collection, there is not one word said of Satan
in the Old Testament, not even,— we repeat it because almost everybody is
deceived thereupon, notwithstanding the evidence of the texts,— not even
in the book of Genesis. Jehovah, once adored as the only real God, has and
can have no competitor. He holds in his hand all the forces, all the energies
of the world. Nothing happens, and nothing is done, on the earth, but he
wills it; and more than one Hebrew author attributes to him directly,
without the least reserve, the inspiring of the errors or faults which were to
be attributed at a later period to Satan. Jehovah hardens those whom he
wishes to harden; Jehovah strikes down those whom he wishes to strike
down, and no one has a right to ask why; but, as he is also believed to be
supremely just, it is admitted that, if he hardens the heart of the wicked,
it is that they may dig their own graves, and that, if he distributes blessings
and evils according to his will, it is to recompense the just and punish the
unjust. The Hebrew could not always hold to this notion, too easy in theory, too
�History of the Devil.
57
often falsified by experience; but he held to it long, as is evident from the
class of ideas out of which we see Satan finally born.
Hebrew monotheism did not exclude a belief in celestial spirits, in sons of
God (bene Elohim), in angels, which were supposed to surround the throne of
the Eternal like a Heavenly army. Subject to his orders, executors of his
will, they were, so to speak, the functionaries of the divine government.
The administering of the punishment or favors of God devolved directly
upon them. Consequently there were some whose office inspired more fear
than confidence. For instance, it is a spirit sent by God which comes to
punish Saul for his misdeeds, by afflicting him with dark thoughts which the
harp of David alone succeeds in dissipating. It is an angel of the Eternal
that appears to Baalam, with a naked sword in his hand as if to slay him,
or which destroys in one night a whole Assyrian army. After a time they
distinguished especially an angel which might pass for the personification of
a guilty conscience, for he filled, in the celestial court, the special office of
accuser of men. Doubtless sovereign justice alone, and in the plenitude of
its sovereignty, made the decision, but it was after pleadings in presence of
the adverse parties. Now the one whose business it was to proceed against
men before the divine tribunal, was an angel whose name of Satan signifies
an adversary, in the judicial as well as the proper sense of this word. Such,
indeed, is the Satan of the book of Job, still a member of the celestial court,
being one of the sons of God, but having as his special office the ‘continual
accusation of men,’ and having become so suspicious by his practice as
public accuser that he believes in the virtue of no one, not even in that of
Job the just man, and always presupposes interested motives for the purest
manifestations of human piety. We see that the character of this angel is
becoming marred, and the history of Job shows that, when he wishes to
accomplish the humiliation of a just man, he spares nothing Satan
appears, too, as the accuser of Israel in the vision of Zachariah: (iii. 1.)
The result of this peculiar character, and the belief that angels intervene in
human affairs, is that Satan had no need of Ahriman in order to be dreaded
by the Israelites as the worst enemy of men. From that time, it was
common to suspect his artifices in private and national misfortunes. Conse
quently, the fatal inspirations which previous Jehovism had attributed
directly to Jehovah, were henceforth regarded as coming from Satan. We
find in the history of king David a curious example of this evolution of
religious belief. King David one day conceived the unlucky idea, considered
impious even from the theocratic-republican point of view of the prophets
of his time, of numbering the people. In regard to this, the second book of
Samuel (xxiv. 1) says that God, angry against Israel, incited David to give
the orders necessary fcr this work; on the contrary, the first of Chronicles
(xxi. 1), recounting the very same story, begins it in these terms: “Satan
stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.” Nothing
shows better than this comparison, the change that had taken place in the
interval between the preparation of the two books. Henceforth the mono
theist attributes to the Adversary the bad thoughts and the calamities which
he had formerly traced directly to God. It is even to be presumed that he
A
"
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History of the Devil.
finds some religious comfort in this solution of certain difficulties which must
begin to weigh upon him, for, as in proportion as the idea of God becomes
higher, people can no longer be contented with the simple theories which
could suffice for less reflecting ages.
So we see in the character of adversary of men, of an evil disposed being,
of the angel Satan, the origin, properly so called, of the Jewish and
Christian devil. We need not then rudely identify him with the more or
less wicked divinities of the polytheistic religions. That he has with them
affinities which become continually more close, we fully admit; but his
appearance is quite distinct, and even had the Jews never been in contact
with the Persians, we should have received from Jewish tradition a complete
Satan. Satan, then, is not the son, nor even the brother, of Ahriman; but
we may say that the time came when the resemblance was so great that it
was possible to confound them. Indeed, in the apocryphal books of the Old
Testament, which are distinguished from the canonical books of the same
collection, by the Alexandrian and Persian elements in them, we see Satan
increase in importance and prestige. The seventy, in translating his name
by diabolos, whence comes our word devil, also define exactly his primitive
character of accuser; but henceforth he is something quite different from
that. He is an exciting agent of the first class. He is a very high person
age, counted among the highest rank of angels, who, envious of a still
higher position, was banished from Heaven with those other angels who
were accomplices in his ambitious schemes. Now hatred of God is with him
added to hatred of men. Here begins the imitation of Ahriman. Like the
Persian god, Satan is at the head of an army of wicked beings, who execute
his orders. We know several of them by name; among others Asmodeus,
the demon of pleasure, who plays a great part in the book of Tobias, and
whose Persian origin, since the learned researches of M. Michel Brtial, can
no longer be doubted. In consequence of this increasing importance, and
his separation from the faithful angels, Satan has his kingdom apart, and
his residence in the subterranean hell. Like the Persian Ahriman, he
wished to harm the work of creation and attacked men, whose innocent
happiness was insupportable to him. From that time, it is represented that
it was he, who, like Ahriman, addressed the first woman under the form of
the serpent. Then it was he who introduced death and its horrors; conse
quently the adversaries that he dreads the most, are men capable by their
superior sanctity of fortifying their fellow men against his insidious attacks.
A host of diseases, above all those which, by their strangeness and absence
of exterior symptoms, defy natural explanation, such as idiocy, epilepsy,
Saint Guy’s dance, dumbness, certain kinds of blindness, etc., are attributed
to his agents. It is supposed that the thousands of demons who are under
his orders escape continually from the vents of hell, and,— like the demons
of the night in which people had always believed,— haunt from preference
waste lands and deserts; but there they tire, they become thirsty, whirl
giddily about without finding rest, and their great resource is to find lodg
ment in a human body, in order to consume its substance and be refreshed
by its blood. Sometimes even, they take up their abode in many. Hence,
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the demoniacs, or possessed, spoken of so many times in evangelical history.
Yet Jewish mythology wculd not carry to the extreme thi^ resemblance to
Ahriman. Satan, for example, would never dare to attack God directlyOrdinarily even certain formulas, in which the name of the Most High
occurred in the first line, sufficed to exorcise him, that is to say, to drive
him away. His power is strictly confined to the circle which it pleased
divine wisdom to trace for his dominion. Dualism, therefore, remains very
incomplete. On the other hand, the Jewish Satan is never to be converted.
A prince of incurable evil, knowing himself condemned by the divine
deerees to a final and irremediable defeat, he will always persist in evil, and
will serve as executioner to Supreme justice, to torment eternally those
whom he has drawn into his terrible nets.
Such was the state of mind on this point in which the first preaching of
the gospel found the Jewish people. The messianic ideas, too, on their side,
in developing themselves, had contributed much to this enrichment of the
popular belief. If the devil, in this order of ideas, did not dare to oppose
God, or even his angels of high rank, he did not fear to resist openly his
servants on the earth. Now the Messiah was to be especially the servant of
God. He was to appear in order to establish the kingdom of God in that
humanity which was almost entirely subject to the power of demons.
Consequently the devil would defend his possessions against him to the last
extremity, and the work of the expected Messiah might be summed up in a
bodily and victorious struggle with the “prince of this world.” This is a
point of view that one should never forget in reading the gospels. Satan
and the Messiah personified, each on his side, the power of evil and good
engaging in a desperate combat at every point of collision. Never would
Jesus, for example, have been able to pass for the Messiah in the eyes of his
countrymen, had he not had the reputation of being stronger than the
demons every time those possessed with them were brought to him.
It is a question which has greatly interested modern theologians, to know
if Jesus himself shared the beliefs of his contemporaries in regard to Satan.
To treat this question as we should, we should have to stop longer on other
points foreign to this history. Let us simply say that nothing authorizes us
to think that Jesus would, from compliance with popular superstitions, have
feigned beliefs which he did not share; but let us add that the principles of
his religion were not in themselves favorable to beliefs of this kind. No
where does Jesus make faith in the devil a condition of entrance into the
kingdom of God, and were the devil only an idea, a symbol, these conditions
would remain literally the same. Purity of heart, strong desire for justice,
love of God and of men, these are all demands completely independent of
the question of knowing whether Satan exists or not. Hence when Jesus
speaks in an abstract, general manner, without any prepossession from
circumstances of place or time, he regularly eliminates the person of Satan
from his field of instruction. For example, he declares that our bad thoughts
come from our heart; according to the Satanic theory, he should have
attributed them to the devil. Sometimes it is plain that he makes use of
popular beliefs as a form, an image, to which he attaches himself no positive
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History of the Devil.
reality; he finds material for parables in them; he addresses as Satan one
of his disciples who is endeavoring to persuade him to withdraw from the
sufferings which await him, and who by his very affection becomes for him
a momentary Tempter One may remark the same thing in studying the
theology of St. Paul, at least in his authentic epistles. St. Paul evidently
believes in the devil, and yet with him moral evil is incident to the mortal
nature of men, and not to the exterior and personal action of a demon. In
a word, the teaching of Jesus and of Paul nowhere combats the belief in the
devil, but it can do without it, and its tendency is to dispense with it. We
see this tendency in our days, when so many excellent Christians have not
the least anxiety about the king of hell; but it was one of those germs of
which the gospel contains many, which needed a different intellectual atmos
phere in order to grow. What I have related will explain why much more
is said of the devil in the New Testament than in the Old. The belief in
the devil and the expectation of the Messiah had grown up side by side.
Yet let us remark that if the New Testament speaks very often of Satan, of
his angels, of the spirits “who are in the air,” and of the devil seeking
whom he may devour, it is more than sober in the descriptions that it gives
of them. A certain spiritual reserve hovers still over all that order of
conceptions; the devils are invisible; no one attributes to them palpable
body, and a crowd of superstitions which arise later, from the idea that we
can see and touch them, are still unknown. Yet, at the commencement of
our era, we may consider the period of the origin of our Satan as concluded.
He represents the union of polytheistic dualism and that relative dualism
which Jewish monotheism could rigorously support. We shall see it grow
still and assume new forms; but, such as it already is, we shall not fail to
recognize it. It is indeed he, the old Satan, the bugbear of our fathers, in
whom is concentrated all impurity, all ugliness, all falsehood, in a word the
ideal of evil.
II.
The first centuries of Christianity, very far from developing that side of
the gospel by which the new doctrine tended logically to banish the devil
to regions of symbol and personal uselessness, on the contrary only increased
his domain, by multiplying his interventions in human life. He served as a
scape-goat to the horror of the primitive Christians for the institutions of
paganism. Even in the early days, Christians did not very clearly distin
guish the Roman empire from the empire of Satan. This too Jewish point
of view did not last, but the favorite theme of most of the apologists was to
attribute to the craft and pride of the devil, everything which polytheism
presented, either fine or disagreeable, bad or good. The beautiful and the
good which might be found mingled there, were in their eyes nothing else
than small portions of truth artfully mingled by the enemy of the human
race with frightful errors, in order better to retain power over men whom
the absolutely false could not have captivated so long. The Alexandrian
teachers alone showed themselves more reasonable, but they took no great
hold on the mass of the faithful. Then especially the idea spread abroad
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History of the Devil.
61
that Satan was a rival really contemptible, but long powerful, of God, alone
adorable. Having an eager desire for honors and dominion, he had imitated
divine perfection as well as he could and had succeeded only in
making an odious caricature of it, but, such as it was, that caricature had
blinded the nations. Tertullian found, even on this subject, one of those
characteristic words in which his mocking spirit excelled. “Satan,” said
he, “is God’s ape,” and the saying was handed down to posterity. Conse
quently the Graeco-Roman gods were, to Christians as to Jews, demons
who had usurped the divine rank. The licentiousness of pagan morals,
too often consecrated by the ceremonies of traditional religion, procured for
this prejudiced point of view a sort of popular justification, enhanced
besides by the moral superiority which the rising church was generally
able to oppose to the corruptions which surrounded it. Satan was then
more than ever “the prince of this world.”
Yet let us not forget one very important circumstance, that other currents,
outside of the Christian church, contributed to extend everywhere a belief
in evil demons. Polytheism, in its decline, obeyed its internal logic, that
is to say, it became continually more dualistic, its last forms, those for
example which are distinguished by what they have borrowed from Platon
ism and Pythagorism, are entirely permeated with dualism, and consequently
they open a large career to the imagination to create every kind of evil
spirits. At that epoch, asceticism, which consists in slowly killing the body
under pretext of developing the mind, was not alone in the most exalted parts
of the Christian church; it was everywhere where people practiced religious
morals. The dreamB of which fasting is the physiological generator, gave
to the imaginary beings which they evoked all the appearance of reality.
Apollonius of Tyana does not drive off fewer demons than a Christian saint.
As Prof. Roskoff very justly remarks, the doctrine of angels and demons,
offered to polytheism, and to Jewish and Christian monotheism, a sort of
neutral territory, on which they might meet to a certain extent.
The
religious movements known under the name of Gnostic sects, which represent
a mingling of pagan, Jewish and Christian views in varied proportions, have,
as a common feature, a belief in fallen spirits, tyrants of men and rivals of
God. The great successes of Manicheism, that union of Persian dualism and
Christianity, were due to the satisfaction which the popular faith took in
everything which resembled a systematic struggle of the geniuB of evil with
the spirit of good. The Talmud and the Cabala underwent the same influ
ence. We need not then impute to Christianity alone the great place which
Satan at that time took in the affairs of this world; it was a universal
tendency of the epoch, and it would be more correct to say that Christianity
suffered the influence of it, with all contemporary forms of religion.
The Jewish Messiah had become to Christianity the Saviour of guilty
humanity; therefore the radical antagonism of Satan and the Messiah was
reflected in the first teaching of redemption. It was represented, from
the end of the Becond century, in a grand drama, in which Christ and the
devil were the principal actors. The multitude satisfied themselves with
thinking that Christ, having descended into hell, had, in virtue of the right
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of the strongest, taken from Satan the souls that he was holding captive;
but this coarse idea was refined upon. Irenaeus taught that men, since the
fall, were Satan’s by right; that it would have been unjust on the part of
God to take away from him violently what was his; that consequently
Christ, in the character of a man perfect and independent of the devil, had
offered himself to him to purchase the human race, and that the devil had
accepted the bargain. Soon, however, it was perceived that the devil had
made a very foolish calculation, since Christ had not remained finally in his
power. Origen, whose ecclesiastical teachings we need not always take for
literally exact representations of his real views, took that view which
admitted without repugnance that, in the work of redemption, Christ and
Satan had played their parts most artfully, the latter thinking he should
keep in his power a prey which he preferred to all the human race, Christ
knowing well that he would not remain in his hands. This point of view,
which ended in making Satan the deceived party and Jesus the deceiving,
scandalous as it appears to us, nevertheless made its way, and was long
predominant in the church. We readily perceive that such a manner of
looking at redemption was not likely to diminish the prestige of the devil.
Nothing could increase fear of the enemy like the exaggerated descriptions
given of his power and of the dangers run by those exposed to his attacks;
especially when, by a singular contradiction which the old theology could
never escape, the devil, declared vanquished, overthrown, reduced to power
lessness by the victorious Christ, none the less continued to exercise his
infernal power over the great majority of men. The saints alone could
consider themselves protected from his snares, and even they, according to
the legends, which began to be circulated, how much prudence and energy
had they not used to escape them! Everything felt the influence of this
continual prepossession. Baptism had become an exorcism. To become a
Christian, was to declare that one renounced Satan, his pomps and his
works. To be driven from the church for moral unworthiness or for heter
odoxy, was to be “delivered over to Satan.” It was also during this period
that was developed the doctrine of the fall of the lost angels. On the one
hand, it was thought that demons were meant in that mythical verse in Genesis
which relates that the “sons of God” married the daughters of men, whom
they found beautiful; and, in this supposition, lust was considered as their
own original sin and their constant prompting; on the other hand, and
since this did not explain the previous presence of a bad angel in the
terrestrial paradise, the fall of the rebellious spirit was carried back to the
moment of creation. Augustine thought that, as an effect of the fall, their
bodies previously subtile and invisible, became less etherial. This was the
beginning of the belief in visible appearances of the devil. Then came that
other idea that demons, in order to satisfy their lust, take advantage of the
night to beguile young men and women during their sleep. Hence the
succubi and incubi, which played so great a part in the middle ages. St.
Victorinus, according to the legend, was conquered by the artifice of a
demon which had taken the form of a seductive young girl lost in the woods
in the night. The ordinances of the councils, from the fourth century,
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enjoin on bishops to watch closely those of their diocese who are addicted to
the practice of magic arts, invented by the devil; there is even talk about
vicious women who run about the fields in the night in the train of heathen
goddesses, Diana among others. As yet, however, there was seen in these
imaginary meetings nothing but dreams suggested by Satan to those who gave
him a hold on them by their guilty inclinations.
But soon everything becomes real and material. There is no saint who
does not see the devil appear to him at least once under human form; Saint
Martin even met him so disguised as to resemble Christ. Generally, however,
in his character of angel of darkness, he appears as a man eutirely black,
and it is under this color that he escapes from heathen temples and idols
which the zeal of neophytes has overthrown. At length the idea that one
can make a compact with the devil, to obtain for himself what he most desires,
in exchange for his soul, takes its rise in the sixth century, with the legend
of St. Theophilus. The latter, in a moment of wounded pride, gives Satan a
signed abjuration; but, devoured by remorse, he persuaded the Virgin Mary
to get back the fatal writing from the bad angel. This legendary story,
written especially with the design of spreading the worship of Mary, was
destined to have serious consequences. The devil, in fact, saw his prestige
increase much more when the conversion of the invaders of the empire, and
the missions sent to countries which had never made a part of it, had intro
duced into the bosom of the church a mass of people absolutely ignorant and
still full of polytheism. The church and state, united in the time of Con
stantine and still more in that of Charlemagne, did what they could to refine
the gross spirits under their tutorship; yet, to tell the truth, the temporal
and spiritual princes ought themselves to have been less under the influence
of the superstitions they wished to oppose. If some able popes could allow
their policy to include a certain toleration for customs and errors which it
seemed impossible to uproot, the great majority of bishops and missionaries
firmly believed they were fighting the devil and his host in trying to exterpate polytheism; they instilled the same belief into their converts and in
that way prolonged very much the existence of pagan divinities. The good
old spirits of rural nature were especially tenacious of life. The sacred
legends collect many of them, and comparative mythology recognizes a great
number of ancient Celtic and German gods in the patrons venerated by our
ancestors. For quite a long time, and without its being regarded as a renun
ciation of the Catholic faith, in England, France and Germany, offerings
were presented, either from gratitude or fear, to spirits of the fields and
forests ; the women were especially tenacious of these old customs. As,
nevertheless, the church did not cease to designate as demons and devils all
superhuman beings who were not saints or angels, and as the character of
the ancient gods had after all nothing angelic, a division took place. The
kingdom of the saints was enriched from the good part under new names ;
the kingdom of the demons had the rest. The belief in the devil, which, in
the first centuries, was still somewhat elevated, became decidedly coarse and
stupid. It was in the beginning of the middle ages that people began to
regard certain animals, such as the cat, the toad, the rat, the mouse, the
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History of the Devil.
black dog, and the wolf, as serving, in preference to all others, as symbols,
auxiliaries, and even as a momentary form, for the devil and his servants.
It has been recently shown that ordinarily these animals were consecrated
or sacrificed to the divinities whose places the demons had taken. Recollec
tions of human sacrifices in honor of the ancient gods must be at the base of
the idea that Satan and his slaves are partial to human flesh. The wehrwolf, man-wolf, which devours children, has been succe; sively a god, a devil,
and a sorcerer going to the wizard’s meeting under the form of a wolf, so as
not to be recognized. We all know that there has never been a sorceress
without a cat. A pest too frequent among a population destitute of all
acquaintance with cleanliness, viz., vermin, was also at that time put to the
account of the devil and his servants. It was also about the same time that
the corporeal form of the devil became a fixed idea; it was that of the old
fauns and satyrs, a horned forehead, blobber-lipped mouth, hairy skin, tail,
and the cloven foot of the goat or the hoof of a horse.
We might accumulate here the half-burlesque, half-tragic details ; but we
prefer to note the salient points of the development of the belief. At the
point we have reached, we must look at it under a new light. Among the
Jews of the time directly preceding our era, Satan had become the so-called
adversary of the Messiah, — among the first Christians, the direct antago
nist of the Saviour of men; but in the middle ages Christ is in Heaven, very
high and far away; the living, immediate organism which is to realize his
kingdom on the earth, is the church. Consequently, it is henceforth the
devil and the church which have to do with one another. The faith of the
collier consists in believing what the church believes, and when one asks the
collier what the church believes, the collier responds boldly: “What I
believe.” So, if one asked during that period : “ What does the devil do ? ”
one would have to respond : “What the church does not do.” “ And what
is it that the church does not do?” “ That which the devil does.” This
would tell the whole story. The nocturnal meetings of evil spirits, which
the old councils, called to consider them, dismissed as imaginary, have become
something very real. The Germanic idea of fealty, that is to say, the idea
that fidelity to the sovereign is the first of virtues, as the treason of the
vassal is the greatest of crimes, was introduced into the church, and con
tributed not a little to give to everything which approached infidelity to
Christ the colors of blackest depravity. The sorcerer, however, is as faithful
to his master Satan as the good Christian to his celestial sovereign, and just
as every year vassals come to render homage to their lord, so the liege-men
of the devil hasten to pay him a like honor, sometimes on a fixed day, some
times by special convocation. The flights through the air of sorcerers and
witches, with hair flying wildly, hastening to the nocturnal rendezvous, are
a transformation of the Celtic and German myth of the wild hunt or the great
hunter ; but the master who appointed this rendezvous is a sort of god, and
in the great assemblies of the diabolical tribe they honor him especially by
celebrating the opposite of the mass. They adore the spirit of evil by
changing the ceremonies which were employed to glorify the God of good. The
name itself of sabbath (a term applied to their nocturnal assemblies,) came
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from the confusion which arose between the worship of the devil and the
celebration of a non-catholic worship. The church put in absolutely the
same rank the Jew, the excommunicated, the heretic, and the sorcerer. One
circumstance contributed greatly to that coufusion. Most of the sects which
had revolted from the church, that especially which holds a grand and
wonderful place in our national history, called the heresy of the Albigenses,
were penetrated to a high degree with the old Gnostic and Manichean leaven.
Dualism was the principle of their theology. Hence came the idea that their
religious assemblies, rivals of the mass, were nothing other than the mass
said in hell, and that such is the kind of worship that Satan prefers. If now
we recall with what docility the state allowed itself to be persuaded by the
church that its first duty was to exterminate heretics, we shall no longer find
anything surprising in the rigor of the penal laws declared against the
pretended sorcerers. It is important that the absorbing character of the
belief in the devil during the middle ages be well understood; those who
believe in Satan now-a-days would have difficulty in conceiving what a sway
this belief had. It was the fixed idea of everybody, especially from the
thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, a period which may be signalized as
having marked the apogee of that superstition. A fixed idea tends, among
those who are possessed with it, to bring over everything to itself. When, for
example, we follow somewhat closely those of our contemporaries who are
devoted to spiritism, we are astonished at the fertility of their imagination
in interpreting in favor of their belief events most insignificant and them
selves indifferent. A door not well closed which half opens, a fly which
describes arabesques in its flight, the falling of an object badly poised, the
cracking of a piece of furniture during the night, is all that is needed to send
them out of sight into space. Let us generalize such a state of mind by
substituting for the innocent illusion of our spiritists the continual interven
tions of the devil, and we shall have quite a good representation of what was
passing in the middle ages. Among the numberless facts and writings which
we could cite, we will mention the Revelations, quite forgotten now-a-days,
but formerly widely known, of the abbé Richeaume or Richalmus, who flour
ished about the year 1270, in Franconia, and who belonged to the order of
Citeaux. The abbé Richeaume attributed to himself a particular gift of
discernment for perceiving and understanding the satellites of Satan, who,
moreover, according to his account, always torment in preference churchmen
and good Christians. What do not these imps of hell make the poor abbé
endure ! From the distractions he may have during mass to the nausea
which too often troubles his digestion, from the false notes of the officiating
precentor to the fits of coughing which interrupt his discourses, all the
annoyances which happen to him are demoniac works. “For example,”
says he to the novice who gives him his cue, “ when I sit down for spiritual
reading, the devils make a desire to sleep seize me. Then it is my custom
to put my hands out of my sleeves so that they may become cold ; but they
bite me under the clothes like a flea, and attract my hand to the place bitten,
so that it becomes warm, and my reading grows careless again.” They like
to disfigure men. To one they give a wrinkled nose, to another hare-lips.
VOL. i.—no. i.
5
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History of the Devil.
If they perceive that a man likes to close his lips properly, they make his
lower lip hanging. “Stop,” says he to his novice “look at this lip ; for
twenty years a little ilevil has kept himself there, just to make it hang.”
And he goes on in that strain. When the novice asks him if there are many
demons who thus make war on men, abbé Richeaume replies that every one
of us is suriounded by as many demons as a man plunged in the sea has
drops of water around him. Happily the sign of the cross is generally
sufficient to foil their malice, but not always, for they know well the human
heart and know how to reach it through its weaknesses. One day when the
abbé was making his monks pick up stones to build a wall, he heard a young
devil, hidden under the wall, cry out very distinctly: “What distressing
labor!” And he said that only to inspire in the monks a disposition to
complain of the base service imposed on them. To the sign of the cross, it
is often useful to add the effect of holy water and salt. Demons cannot bear
salt. “ When I am at the table and the devil has taken away my appetite,
as soon as I have tasted a little salt, my appetite returns; a little after, it
disappears again, I again take salt, and I am hungry anew.” In the hundred
and thirty chapters of which his Revelations consist, the abbé Richeaume does
nothing but subject thus to his fixed idea the most trivial circumstances of
domestic life, and especially of convent life ; but the popularity which this
book, which appeared after his death, enjoyed, proves that he simply agreed
in opinion with his contemporaries. One might find innumerable parallels
in the literature of the time. The Golden Legend of Jacques de Voraigne,
one of the books most read in the middle ages, will give a sufficient idea
of it.
This continual preoccupation with the devil, had two consequences equally
logical, though of a very opposite character. It had at the same time its comical
and its dark side. By seeing Satan everywhere, people at last became familiar
with him, and by a sort of unconscious protest of mind against imaginary
monsters created by traditional doctrine, they became emboldened to the
point of being quite at ease with his horned majesty. The legends always
showed him so miserably taken in by the sagacity of saints and good priests,
that his reputation for astuteness slowly gave place to a quite contrary fame.
They had even reached the point of believing that it was not impossible to
speculate on the foolishness of the devil. For example, had he not had the
simplicity to furnish to architects in trouble magnificent plans for the con
struction of the cathedrals of Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne ? It is true that
at Aix he had demanded in recompense the soul of the first person who
should enter t he church, and at Cologne that of the architect himself ; but
he had to do with those more cunning than he. At Aix, they drove with
pikes a she-wolf into the church then recently finished ; at Cologne, the
architect, already in possession of the promised plan, in the place of deliver
ing to Satan a conveyance of his soul in due form, draws suddenly from
beneath his gown a bone of the eleven thousand virgins and brandishes it in
the face of the devil, who decamps uttering a thousand imprecations. The
high part which is assigned to him in the religious theatricals of the middle
ages, is well known. Redemption, in the popular mind, still passed for a
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divine trick, piously played at the expense of the enemy of men. It was
then natural to imagine a host of other cases where Satan was taken in his
own snares. What laughs these discomfitures excited among the good people !
By a thousand indications, one would be tempted to believe that he had
become the character, in the mysteries, the most liked, if not the most
agreeable. The others had their part entirely marked out by tradition;
with him, one could anticipate something unexpected. We see him, too,
represent for a long time the comic element of the religious drama. In
France, where the people have always liked to subject the theatre to exact
rules, there was a class of popular pieces called deviltries, coarse and often
obscene masquerades in which at least four devils were to struggle together.
Hence comes, it appears, the expression, “faire le diable d quatre.” In
Germany, too, the devil becomes humorous on the stage. There is an old
Saxon mystery of the passion where Satan repeats, like a mocking echo, the
last words of Judas hanging himself; then, when, according to the sacred
tradition, the entrails of the traitor are burst out, he gathers them in a
basket, and, carrying them away, signs an article appropriate to the
circumstances.
This, however, did not prevent a general distressing fear of the devil. At
the theatre, during the middle ages, one was in a certain sense at church.
There, nothing hindered one from deriding at pleasure the detested being
whose artifices were powerless against the actors of the holy representations ;
but people could not pass their lives listening to mysteries, and the daily
realities were not slow in restoring to him all his prestige. Naturally, the
number of individuals suspected of some kind of intercourse with Satan must
have been enormous. This was the first idea that came into the mind of any
one who did not know how to explain the success of an adversary or the
prosperous issue of an audacious enterprise. Enguerrand de Marigny, the
templars, our poor Joan of Arc, and many other illustrious victims of polit
ical hatred, were convicted of sorcery. Popes themselves, such as John
XXII., Gregory VII., Clement V., incurred the same suspicion. At the same
time, we see appear the idea that the compacts concluded with the devil are
signed with the blood of the sorcerer, in order that it may be firmly cove
nanted that his person, his entire life, belongs henceforth to the infernal
master. At this time, also, an old Italian superstition was revived, the idea
of causing the death of those one hates by mutilating or piercing little
images of wax of the person designated, which had been bewitched. There
were councils purposely to proceed rigorously against sorcery, which was
thought to be spread in every direction. Pope John XXII., himself accused
of sorcery, declares, in a bull of 1317, the bitter grief caused him by the
compacts concluded with the devil by his physicians and courtiers, who draw
other men into the same impious relation. From the thirteenth century, they
proceeded against the crime of sorcery just as against the most henious
offences, and popular ignorance was only too well disposed to furnish food to
the zeal of the inquisitors. Toulouse saw the first sorceress burned. This
was Angela de Labarbte, a noble lady, fifty-six years of age, who took part in
that special character in the grand auto-da-fe in that city, in 1275. At
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Carcassone.from 1320 to 1350, more than four hundred executions for the crime
of sorcery are mentioned as having taken place. Nevertheless those bloody
horrors had even in the fourteenth century a local character; but in 1484
an act of Pope Innocent VIII. extended over all Christendom this terrible
procedure. Then began throughout all Catholic Europe that mournful
pursuit of sorcerers which marks the paroxysm of the belief in the devil,
which concentrates and condenses it for more than three cent uries, and which,
yielding at last under the reprobation of modern conscience, was to carry
away with it the faith of which it was the issue.
III.
In the fifteenth century, a momentary relaxing of orthodox fanaticism
rendered the task of inquisitors quite difficult in what concerned heresy
properly so called. It seems that on the banks of the Rhine, as in France,
people began to weary of the insatiable vampire which threatened everybody
and cured none of the evils of the church, which had employed it as an heroic
remedy. The faith in the church itself as a perfect and infallible institution,
was in peril, and the inquisitors complained to the Holy See of the increas
ing difficulties which the local powers and the local clergy opposed to them;
but those even who questioned the church and inclined to toleration of
religious opinion did not mean to give free course to the wiles of the devil
and his agents. Then appeared the famous bull Summis desiderantes, by
which Innocent VIII. added to the powers of the officers of the inquisition
that of prosecuting the authors of sorcery, and applying to them the rules
which until then had affected only depravatio heretica. Long is the list of
witchcrafts enumerated by the pontificial bull, from tempests and devasta
tion of crops to fates cast upon men and women to prevent them from
perpetuating the human species. Armed with this bull which fulminated
against the refractory the most severe penalties, which was strengthened by
other functions of the same origin and same tendency, the inquisitors Henry
Institoris and Jacob Sprenger, prepared that Hammer of sorceries, — Malleus
maleficarum, — which was a long time for all Europe the classical code of
procedure to be followed against individuals suspected of sorcery. This
book received the pontificial sanction, the approbation of the emperor
Maximilian, and that of the theological faculty of Cologne. The reading of
this dull and wearisome treatise cannot fail to cause a shudder. This pro
longed study of the false held for the true, these perpetual sophisms, the
pedantic simplicity with which the authors recall everything which can give
a shadow of appearance of truth to their bad dreams, the cold cruelty which
dictates their proceedings and their judgments, everything would fill the
modern reader with repulsion, if he had not the duty of indicting at the bar
of history one of the most lamentable aberrations which have falsified the
conscience of humanity. We find an answer to everything in this frightful
conjuring-book. We see there why the devil gives his servants the power to
change themselves reali transformatione et essentialiter to wolves and other
dreadful beasts, why it is a heresy to deny sorcery, how the incubi and
succubi manage to attain their ends, quomodo procreant, why one has never
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seen so many sorcerers as at the present time, why David drove the torment
ing demon from Saul by showing him his harp, which resembled a cross, etc.
If there are more sorceresses than sorcerers, it is because women believe
more in the promises of Satan than men do, it is because the fluidity of their
temperament renders them more fitted to receive revelations, it is in short
that women, being weaker, readily have recourse to supernatural means to
satisfy their vengeance or their sensuality. Recipes of every sort arc
recommended to wise persons to guard themselves from the spells that may
be thrown over them. The sign of the cross, the holy water, the judicious
use of salt, and of the name of the holy Trinity, constitute the principal
exorcisms. The sound of church bells is also regarded as a defence of great
power, and it is therefore well to have them rung during tempestuous storms,
for, by driving away the demons which cannot bear this sacred sound, they
prevent them from continuing their work of perturbation. This supersti
tious custom, which has been perpetuated to our times, clearly denotes a
confounding of the demons of the church and the ancient divinities of the
t hunder and of tempests.
What especially commands attention, is the criminal procedure developed
by the authors, and which beoome law everywhere. They are exactly imi
tated from those which the inquisition had instituted against heretics.
Sorcery, arising from a compact with the devil supposing the abjuration of
the baptismal vow, is a sort of apostacy, a heresy in the first degree.
Denunciations without proof are admitted. . . It is even sufficient that
public rumor call the attention of the judge to the matter. All who present
themselves, even the infamous, even the personal enemies of the sorceress,
are permitted to give evidence. The pleadings must be summary, and as
much as possible relieved from useless formalities. The accused must be
minutely questioned, until there are found in the details of her life some
thing to strengthen the suspicions which press upon her. The judge is not
obliged to name to her the informers against her. She can have one
defender, who must know no more of the matter than she, and who must
limit himself to the defence of the person incriminated, but not of her
criminal acts; otherwise the defender will be in his turn suspected. The
acknowledgment of the guilty person must be obtained by torture, as well
as the declaration of all the circumstances relating to her heinous crime.
Still one may promise her security of life, free not to keep that promise
(so the text says), on condition that confession is complete and prompt.
Torture is repeated every three days, and the judge is to take all suitable
precautions that the effect of it may not be neutralized by some charm
hidden in some secret part of the body of the accused. He must even avoid
looking her in the face, for sorceresses have been seen endowed, by the
devil, with a power such that the judge whose glance they were able to
catch no longer felt the strength to condemn them. When at length she is
well and duly convicted, she is given over to the secular arm, which is to
lead her off to death without farther parley.
It is easy to see from this cursory view that the unfortunate women who
fell into the clutches of this terrible tribunal, had only to abandon hope at
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the door of their prison. Nothing is more afflicting than a careful review
of the proceedings for sorcery. The women are always, as the inquisitors
learnedly explain, in the majority. Hatreds, jealousies, desires for revenge,
above all suspicions inspired by want and ignorance, could have free course
and did not allow the opportunity to escape them. Often, too, unfortunate
women were victims of their own imagination, over-excited by a hysterical
temperament, or by the terrors of eternal torment. Those in our times who
have been able to examine closely the cases of mania religiosa, know with
what readiness women especially believe themselves the objects of divine
reprobation, and fatally given over to the power of the devil. All those
unfortunates, who to-day are treated with extreme gentleness in special
institutions, then were obliged to pass for possessed or sorceresses, and
what is frightful is that many seriously supposed themselves to be so.
Many related that they had really been to the witches’ meeting, that they
had there given themselves up to the most degrading debauches. How many
like confessions aggravated afterwards the position of those who denied with
the firmness of innocence the disgraceful acts of which they were accused!
Torture was there to draw from them what they refused to tell, and thus the
conviction became rooted in the spirit of judges even relatively humane and
equitable, that besides crimes committed by natural means there was a
whole catalogue of heinous offences so much the more dreadful as their
origin was supernatural. How could one show too much rigor to such
criminals ?
In the single year 1485, and in the single district of Worms, eighty-five
witches were committed to the flames. At Geneva, at Basle, at Hamburg,
at Ratisbonne, at Vienna, and in a multitude of other cilies, there were
executions of the same kind. At Hamburg, among others, they burned
alive a physician who had saved a woman in confinement abandoned by the
midwife. In 1523, in Italy, and after a new bull against sorcery issued by
pope Adrian VI. the single diocese of Coma saw more than a hundred
witches burn. In Spain, it was still worse: in 1527, two little girls, from
nine to eleven years old, denounced a number of witches whom they pre
tended to recognize by a sign in the left eye. In England and Scotland,
government took part in the matter; Mary Stuart was particularly hostile
to witches. In France, the parliament of Paris in 1390, had the fortunate
idea of taking away that sort of business from the ecclesiastical tribunal,
and under Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII., there was scarcely any
condemnation under the head of sorcery; but from the time of Francis I.,
and especially of Henry II., the scourge re-appeared. A man of a real
merit in other respects, but literally a madman on the subject of sorcerers,
Jean Bodin, communicated his madness to all classes in the nation. His
contemporary and disciple, Boguet, communicates in a lengthy article the
fact that France is swarming with sorcerers and witches. “They multiply
in the land, said he, like caterpillars in our gardens. I wish they were all
put in one body to have them burned at once and by one single fire.”
Savoy, Flanders, the mountains of the Jura, Lorraine, Bfearn, Provence,
almost all our provinces witnessed frightful hecatombs. In the seventeenth
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century, the demoniac fever abated, but not without partial returns espe
cially among convents of hysterical nuns. Everybody is acquainted with
the frightful stories of the priests Ganfridy and Urbain Grandier. In
Germany, above all in the southern part, the punishment of sorcerers was
still more frequent. There is a certain insignificant principality in which
two hundred and forty-two persons at least were burned from the year 1640
to 1651. Tale to make one shudder! we find in the official accounts of these
tortures, that there were children from one to six years old among the
victims! In 1697, Nicolas Remy boasted having caused nine hundred persons
to be burned in fifteen years. It appears even that it was to the proceedings
against sorcerers that Germany owed the introduction of the torture as an
ordinary judicial means of discovering the truth.
Prof. Roskoff has
reproduced a catalogue of the executions of sorcerers and witches in the
episcopal city of Würzbourg, in Bavaria, until 1629, in all thirty-one execu
tions, without counting some others that the authors of the catalogue have
not regarded as sufficiently important to be mentioned. The number of
victims, at each of these executions, varies from two to seven. Many are
indicated only by a nick-name: ‘‘the big hunch-back,” “the Sweet-heart,”
“the Bridge-keeper,” “the old Pork-Butcheress,” etc. We find there all
professions and all ranks, actors, workmen, jugglers, city and country girls,
rich bourgeois, nobles, students, even magistrates, as well as quite a large
number of priests. Several are simply marked, “a foreigner,” “a foreign
woman.” Here and there the one who prepares the list adds to the name of
the person condemned his age and a short notice. Thus we notice among the
victims of the twentieth execution, “Babelin, the prettiest girl in Würz
bourg,” “a student who knew how to speak every language, who was an
excellent musician vocaliter et instrumentaliter,” and “the director of the alms
house, a very learned man.” We find also in this mournful catalogue the
heart-rending account of children burned as sorcerers ; here a little girl
from nine to ten years with her little sister still younger (their mother was
burned soon after), boys of from ten to twelve years, a young girl of fifteen,
two alms-house children, the little son of a judge. The pen refuses to
recount such monstrous excesses.
Will those who wish to admit
the correctness of the doctrine of the infallibility of the popes, before giving
in their vote, listen, in the presence of God and history to the cries of the
poor innocents cast into the fire by pontifical bulls?
The seventeenth century, nevertheless, saw the proceedings against sorcer
ers and especially their punishment gradually diminish. Louis XIV., in one of
his better moments, mitigated greatly, in 1675, the rigors of that special
legislation. Yet for that he was obliged to endure the unanimous remon
strance of the parliament of Rouen, which thought society would be ruined,
if the sorcerers were only condemned to perpetual solitary confinement.
The fact is that belief in sorcerers was still sufficiently general for single
executions to take place from time to time, even throughout the eighteenth
century. One of the last and most famous was that of the lady-superior of
the cloister of Unterzell, near Würzbourg, Renata Soenger, (1749.) At
Landshut, in Bavaria, in 1756, a young girl of thirteen years was put to
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History of the Devil.
death, having been convicted of having had impure intercourse with the
devil. Seville, in 1781, Glaris, in 1783, saw the last two examples known of
this fatal madness.
IV.
People have sometimes used as a weapon against Christianity, these bloody
horrors, ulteriorly due, they say, to a belief which Christianity alone had
instilled into persons who, without it, would never have entertained such a
belief. This point of view is superficial and not supported by history. The
blame lies primarily with the dualistic point of view, which is much anterior
to Christianity and has outlived it. Pagan antiquity had its necromancers,
its magicians, its old stryges, lamias et verifier, which were not dreaded less
than our witches. We have shown that dualism is inherent in all the relig
ions of nature; that, having attained their complete development, these
religions end, as in Persia, in India, and even in the last evolutions of
Graeco-Roman paganism, by an eminently dualistic conception of the forces
or divinities which direct the course of things ; that the Jewish Satan owes,
not his personal origin but his growth and entire degradation td his contact
with the Persiah Ahriman; that the Christian Satan and his demons have in
turn inherited the worst characteristics and most frightful symbolical formp
of the conquered divinities. In reality, the devil of the middle ages is at
once pagan, Jewish and Christian. He is Christian, because his peculiar
domain is moral evil, the physical ills of which he is the author arising only
in consequence of his passionate desire to corrupt souls, and these
giving themselves up to him only with guilty intent. He is Jewish in
this sense that his power, however great it might be, could not pass the
limits it pleased divine omnipotence to mark out for it. Finally, it is Pagan
by everything which it preserves of ancient polytheistic beliefs. We have a
right to regard the faith in demons, as it came out in the middle ages, as
the retribution of paganism, or, if we please, as the unabsorbed residue of
the old polytheism perpetuating itself under other forms.
That which prolonged the reign of Satan and his demons, was not. alone
the authority of the church, it was above all the state of mind which the
labors pretending to be scientific, of all the period anterior to Bacon and
Descartes, reveal, even to a period approaching ours. There was no real
knowledge of nature: the idea of the inviolability of its laws was yet to
appear. Alchemy, astrology and medicine regularly ministered to magic;
they recognized, as much as did contemporary theology, hidden forces,
talismans, the power of magic words, and impossible transmutations. Even
after the renaissance what a confused mystical medley the physiological
doctrines of Cardan, of Paracelsus, of Van Helmont! The general state of
mind, determined in great part by the church I acknowledge, but by the
church itself under the influence of the ruling ideas, must have been the
true cause of that long series of follies and abominations which constitute
the history of the devil in the middle ages and in modern times. It is an
evidence of this that, in a time and in countries where the church was still
�History of the Devil.
73
very powerful and very intolerant, the belief in the devil visibly drooped,
declined, suffered repeated assault.«, and fell slowly into ridicule, without
any notable persecution having signaled this very serious change in the
ideas of enlightened Europe. The old stories pretended that the most
tumultuous witch-meetings vanished like smoke at sunrise; in truth, the old
Btories did not know how far the future would show them to be right.
The two great facts which, modifying profoundly the general state of
mind, brought about this irremediable decline, were the indirect influence
of the Reformation and the progress of rationalistic science. Some will
perhaps be astonished that I mention the Reformation. The reformers of
the sixteenth century did not at all combat faith in the devil. Luther himself
held to it strongly, and so did most of his friends. Calvin was obliged by a
certain dryness of mind, by his distrust of everything which gave too much
play to the imagination, to remain always very sober in speaking of a subject
which made the best heads delirious ; but he nevertheless shared the common
ideas in regard to Satan and his power, and enounced them more than once.
We should speak also of an indirect influence, which was nevertheless very
strong. That which, among people which adopted the Reformation, gave a
first and very sensible blow to his infernal majesty, was that in virtue of the
principles it proclaimed, they had no longer any fear at all of him. The idea
which had so much power among protestants of the sixteenth century, of the
absolute sovereignty of God, that idea which they push even to the paradox
of predestination, very soon led them no longer to see in Satan anything but
an instrument of the divine will, in his actions only means of which it
pleased God to make use in order to realize his secret plans. In pursuance
of this faith, the Christian had now only to despise the rebellious angel,
wholly powerless against the elect. It is known how Luther received him
when he came to make him a visit at the Wai tbourg. The simplicity of
worship, and the denial of the supernatural powers hitherto delegated to
the clergy, also contributed much to dissipate the delusion in the minds of
the simple. No more exorcisms, neither at baptism, nor in the supposed
cases of demoniacal possession ; no more of those scenic displays which
terrified the imagination, in which the priest, brandishing the brush for
sprinkling holy water, fought with the demon, who replied with frightful
blasphemies. No one henceforth believes in incubi or succubi. If there is
still from time to time talk of persons being possessed, prayer and moral
exhortation are the only remedies practiced, and soon nothing is more rare
than to hear demoniacs spoken of among these peoples. The idea that the
miracles related in the Bible are the only true ones, illogical as it may be,
nevertheless made people accustomed to living without daily hoping or fear
ing them. Now the miracles of the devil are the first to suffer from this
beginning of a decline of the belief in the supernatural. Satan then becomes
again purely what he was in the first century, and even less still, a tempting
spirit, invisible, impalpable, whose suggestions must be repulsed, and from
whom moral regeneration alone delivers, but delivers surely. They cannot
even longer keep for him his old part in the drama of redemption. Every
thing now depends on the relation between the faithful man and his God. In
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History of the. Devil.
a word, without any one thinking yet of denying the existence and the
power of Satan, while even making great use of his name in popular teach
ing and preaching, the Reformation sends him slowly back to an abstract,
ideal sphere, without any very clear relation to real life. We might consider
him only as a convenient personification of the power of moral evil in the
world, without changing at all protestant piety. French Catholicism in its
finest period, that is to say in the seventeenth century, feeling much more than
is generally supposed the influence of the Reformation, presents a quite
similar characteristic. With what sobriety its most illustrious representa
tives, Bossuet, F6n61on, preachers even such as Bourdaloue, treat this part
of catholic doctrine ! Good taste among them took the place of rationalism,
and who is astonished in reading them, that a Louis XIV., who nevertheless '
was not tender when a question of religion was at stake, was able to show
himself skeptical on the subject of sorcery and less superstitious than the
gentlemen of Rouen ?
Even in the times of the greatest ignorance, there were skeptics in regard
to sorcerers and witches. The Lombard law, by a remarkable exception,
had interdicted prosecutions against the masks (thus sorcerers were called
in Italy). A king of Hungary, of theeleventh century, had declared that they
need not be mentioned, for the simple reason that there were none. An
archbishop of Lyons, Agobard, had ranked belief in witches’ meetings among
the absurdities bequeathed by paganism to the ignorant. The Hammer of
Sorceresses must certainly have had in view adversaries who denied sorcery
and even the intervention of the devil in human affairs, when it demonstrated
both by a grand array of scholastic arguments. At the time when condem
nations for the crime of covenanting with the devil were most frequent, there
was a worthy Jesuit by the name of Spee, with whom the feelings of human
ity prevailed against the spirit of his order. Charged with the guidance of
souls in Franconia, be had been obliged to accompany to the stake, in the
space of a few years, more than two hundred alleged sorcerers. One day the
archbishop of Mayence, Philip of Schoenborn, had asked him why his hair
was already becoming grey, although he was scarcely thirty years old.
“ From grief,” he replied, “ because of so many sorcerers that I have been
obliged to prepare for death and of whom not one was guilty.” It was from
him that arose a Cautio criminalis, printed without the author’s name iri 1631,
which, without denying sorcery nor even the legitimacy of the legal penalties
declared against it, adjures the inquisitors and magistrates to multiply
precautions so as not to condemn to death so many innocent. Before him,
Jean Weicar, attached to the person of William of Cleves, had written, to the
same purpose, a work quite learned for the time, the fruit of distant voyages
and numerous observations, in which, while fully admitting the reality of
magic, he denied the so-called sorcery, and violently accused the clergy of
keeping up popular superstitions by making good people believe that the
evils from which they could not deliver them had their origin in sorcerers
sold to the devil. There was courage in using such language in such times.
To take the position of defender of sorcerers, was to expose one’s self to be
accused of sorcery, and it is not rare to find in these sad annals examples of
�History of the Devil.
75
judges and priests victims of their humanity or their equity, that is to say
condemned and burned with those they had attempted to save. The French
physician Gabriel NaudS, undertook, in the support of the same course of
ideas, his Apology of the Men accused of Magic (1669) ; but the causes, of whose
slow influence we have written, had not yet transformed minds so that they
were capable of emancipating themselves from the devil. A radical demoli
tion of the edifice was necessary on the one side, and on the other a religious
justification of that destruction. There as elsewhere, progress could take
place in a powerful manner only on condition of adding to arguments of a
purely rational sort, the sanction of religious feeling. Otherwise general
opinion divides itself into two camps which continually hold each other in
check, and maintain a menacing attitude without accomplishing anything.
That which had come through the church was to take its departure through
the church. The honor of having inflicted a decisive blow on the diabolical
superstition is due to the Holland pastor Balthazar Bakker, who entered
the lists, no longer simply in the name of good sense or humanity, but as a
theologian, and published his famous book entitled The Enchanted World
(1691-1693). Four thousand copies sent forth in two months, the rapid
translation of this huge work into all the languages of Europe, the ardent
controversies which it aroused and which it has alone survived in the
memory of posterity, all these show what an epoch this book made.
Assuredly the demonstrations of the Dutch theologian would not all have
the same value in our eyes. For example, not yet daring to emancipate
himself from Scripture, considered by him as an infallible authority, he
twists and turns the texts to eliminate from them the doctrine of a personal
devil mingling in the thoughts and actions of men. Nevertheless, he calls
attention to many details not remarked before him, which prove that biblical
teaching about the devil is neither fixed, nor consistent, nor in conformity
to the opinions of the middle ages. He submits to merciless criticism all
the arguments commonly used to support the popular prejudice in regard to
facts drawn from experience. His discussion of the case of Urbain Grandier,
and of the Ursulines of London, which was still fresh in every mind, must
have especially struck his readers.
A fact like that, which one could
analyze and discuss with evidences at hand, threw a clear light on a large
number of other facts older and more obscure, to which the partisans of the
devil constantly appealed. For the first time, too, universal history was
brought into requisition to exhibit the incontestable filiation of the polythe
istic and Christian beliefs in demons. The whole spirit of the book is
expressed in these aphorisms from the latter part. “There is no sorcery
except where people believe in it; do not believe in it, and there will be no
more.” “Rid yourselves of all those superannuated and silly fables, but
exercise yourselves in piety.” It was a true prophecy; but it was not given
to the author to see it realized. To his disrespect for Satan, he added the
wrong then very serious in the eyes of Dutch orthodoxy, of being a zealous
Cartesian. He was accordingly removed by a synod, and died a little after;
but they could not remove his book, which made its way quite alone, and
with great effect. Indeed, from that time the cause of the devil may be
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History of the Devil.
considered as lost in scientific theology. The progress of the human mind
in acquaintance with nature and modern philosophy did the rest.
The scientific spirit, such as it has become since Bacon and Descartes, no
longer admits those hasty conclusions which so readily gained the assent of
the centuries when imagination ruled, when the readiness a man exhibited
in expressing an opinion upon the most obscure subjects was in direct pro
portion to his ignorance. The experimental method, which is the only true
one, obtains as much strength for the theses it verifies, as it inspires mistrust
of everything out of its field of examination. Doubtless there are necessary
truths which we cannot make enter the crucible of experience; however,
they atone for that inconvenience by their close connection wtih our nature,
our life, and our conscience. If, for example, one could say that belief in
the devil recommends itself by its high moral utility, that it makes those
better who share it, that it elevates characters by rendering them more
chaste, more courageous, more devoted, there would yet be respectable
motives for trying to save it from the formidable attacks of modern reason;
but quite the contrary is the case. A belief in the devil tends necessarily to
blunt the feeling of individual responsibility. If I do evil, not because I am
bad, but because another has forced me to it by a power superior to my own
will, my culpability is certainly lessened, if not annihilated. We have just
seen the deplorable superstitions, the dangerous follies, the horrible crimes
of which that belief was so long the inspirer. What is evidence against
sorcery, will perhaps be said, is not evidence against a personal genius of
evil from whom men have to defend themselves as from an enemy continually
around them to drive them to evil. Let us nevertheless reflect that sorcery
is not so detached in principle from that belief whose daughter it is. The
devil once admitted, the sorcerer follows quite naturally. If there really
exists a personal being, in possession of superhuman powers, seeking, as is
said, to ruin us morally for his private satisfaction, is it not evident that, in
order better to succeed, he will try to entice weak souls by furnishing them
the means of procuring for themselves what they most desire? Not without
reason did the belief in the devil reach its full development in a belief in
sorcerers; and the latter, having given way before experience, necessarily
drew down in its ruin the belief in the devil himself. If there is truly a
devil, there are sorcerers, and, since there are no sorcerers, it is clear that
there is no devil; this the combined good sense of the last three centuries
authorizes us to conclude, and this conclusion will forever await its
refutation.
The eighteenth century made the mistake of imagining that to destroy
traditional beliefs it was sufficient to throw ridicule on them. When a
belief which has been ridiculed for some time has deep roots in human
consciousness, it easily survives the sarcasms of which it has been the
object, and the time comes when these sarcasms no longer excite a laugh,
because they chill the dearest feelings of religious minds, and the good taste
of the refined; but, as to the devil, the laugh of the eighteenth century has
remained victorious. It is in fact because the devil is ridiculous. That
being whom they pretend is so cunning, so mischievous, so learnedly ego-
�History of the Devil.
tistic, and who strives eternally in the wearisome business of corrupting
souls, ends by being very foolish. Looked at thus close at hand, brought
down from the heights where poetry and mysticism have been able some
times to place him, put face to face with the bare reality, Satan is .just
simply stupid and since people have clearly felt that it has been impossible
to do him the honor of admitting his real existence. We could prolong this
retrospective study of works which continued through all the eighteenth
century, and are still continuing in our days, a contest henceforth useless.
Since the real constitution of the universe has dissipated the illusions
which served as an indispensable accompaniment to the person of the old
Satan, viz.: a closed heaven, subterranean hell, and the earth between;
since people have been obliged to recognize the universal presence and
everywhere active life of God in all things, there is no longer, in truth, any
place for him in the world. There is nothing so distressing and puerile, as
the efforts of some reactionary theologians, in Germany and elsewhere, to
give back a shadow of reality to the old phantom, without falling into the
gross superstitions which decidedly orthodox reaction itself can no longer
digest. In vain one seeks to preserve for him a place, in the least honor
able, in some doctrinal treatises or pious songs. The sane portion of the
clergy and people shrug their shoulders or are annoyed. Satan is still per
mitted to be an expression, a type, a symbol consecrated by religious
language, but that is all. As to giving him any place whatever in the laws,
the customs, in real life, there is no longer any question about it.
Is there, nevertheless, nothing at all to draw from this long-continued
error, which holds so considerable a place in the history of religions, and
even goes back to their origin? Must we avow that on this subject the
human mind has nourished itself for so many centuries with the absolutely
false? That cannot be. There must necessarily have been something in
human nature which pleaded in its favor and maintained for so many genera
tions a faith contrary to experience. I will not say, as do some thinkers,
that it was the ease with which that doctrine of the devil permitted the
problem of the origin of evil to be resolved, for it resolved nothing. It
carried back to heaven the problem that was thought insoluble on earth;
but what was gained thereby ? That which has maintained a belief in the
devil, that which, indeed, constitutes the eternal foundation of it, is rather
the power of evil in us and outside of us. I admire the singular tranquility
of mind with which all our French philosophers look at that question, or
rather forget it, to launch out in eloquent phrases on free will. Let us then
put ourselves face to face with realities. The fact is that the best among us
is a hundred leagues from the ideal which he proposes to himself, that he is
too weak to realize it, and that he acknowledges this when he is sincere.
Another fact still is, that we are every moment determined toward evil by
the social influences which surround us, and that very few have the desired
energy to react victoriously against the corrupt streams which hurry them
away. We need not fall into the excess of theologians who have taught the
total depravity of human nature, even too, marking out for it the way of
regeneration, as if miracle itself were capable of regenerating a nature
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History of the Devil.
totally corrupt. Observation attests that we are selfish, but capable of
loving; naturally sensual, but not less naturally drawn by the splendor of
the true and the good; very imperfect, but capable of improvement. The
first condition of progress is to feel what we need. To live in harmony with
conscience, one must know how to triumph over the assaults which selfish
pleasures of sense, which flesh and blood, the world and its allurements, gives
us into the power of at every moment. That is the diabolical power from
which we should emancipate ourselves. In one sense, we might say that we
are all more or less possessed. Error comes in as soon as we desire to per
sonify this power of evil. When theists say that God is personal, they do
not fail to recognize what there is defective in the idea of personality bor
rowed from our human nature; but as it is impossible to conceive another
mode of existence than personality and impersonality, as God must possess
every perfection, they say, for want of something better, that he is personal
because he is perfect, and that an impersonal perfection is a contradiction.
Evil, on the contrary, which is the opposite of the perfect, is necessarily
impersonal. It is against its pernicious seductions, against its always fatal
enchantments that it is necessary to struggle in order that our true human
personality, our moral personality, may disengage itself, victorious, from
the vile surroundings where it must grow. It is on that condition that it
attains the pure regions of liberty and of impregnable morality, where
nothing which resembles Satan can longer trouble the ascent towards God.
That is all that remains of the doctrine of the devil, but also all that concerns
our moral health, and which we ought never to forget.
Albert Reville.
�Rev. Mr. Abbot at Toledo.
79
REV. MR. ABBOT AT TOLEDO.
Early in the summer we heard that our friend Abbot, whom we deem not
less worthy of love and honor as a Christian apostle, albeit he calls himself
“outside of Christianity,” than any other man among living religious
leaders, was likely to have a break down with his society at Toledo, though
possibly he might be able to succeed with his weekly paper, The Index. It
was also told us that originally he had crept in privily and stolen a society
and a meeting-house which belonged to regular Unitarianism, and which
were in honor mortgaged to the American Unitarian Association on account
of money paid by it in aid of the society. Knowing that the part of this
information reflecting upon Mr. Abbot must have an explanation honorable
to him, we surmised that the other might also change face upon investiga
tion, and resolved to go and see for ourselves. We went at the end of June,
and spent two days in Toledo, with exceeding satisfaction.
The once Unitarian, and now Independent, society to which Mr.
Abbot preaches, was never aided by the American Unitarian Association.
It twice came near it, and would have put its neck under the yoke, but for
a single circumstance, which was the refusal of the society to accept aid on the
conditions proposed by the American Unitarian Association. Twice in its history
this people, before ever they had heard of Mr. Abbot, had declined to accept
aid as a Unitarian society, lest at some future day they might find tlieir inde
pendence hampered by the implicit pledge thus given. This special provi
dence prepared Mr. Abbot’s way in Toledo. It was but one out of many
which plainly enough show that the Lord is with him.
When Mr. Abbot was asked to go to Toledo to preach a few Sundays, he
wrote a letter stating conditions which he thought would not be accepted,
inasmuch as they included a frank avowal of his most offensive heresies.
This letter was read to a number of the society together, and was then
passed from hand to hand, to anybody who wished to see it. The statement
that it was suppressed, and people kept in ignorance of Mr. Abbot’s views,
is wholly baseless. Moreover, Rev. Mr. Camp, the former pastor, meddlesomely and maliciously towards Mr. Abbot, wrote to a member of the
society against him, and this immoral document circulated freely. Mr.
Abbot came July 3, 18G9, and preached several Sundays with more than his
usual frankness and boldness. What ground he took may be seen by turning
to the masterly discourses in the early numbers of The Index. July 11,
his topic was, “What is Christianity?” July 18, “What is Free Relig
ion?” July 25, “Christianity and Free Religion contrasted as to CornerStones”; August 1, “Christianity and Free Religion contrasted as to
Institutions, Terms of Fellowship, Social Ideal, Moral Ideal, and Essential
Spirit”; August 8, “The Practical Work of Free Religion”; and having
made this full and frank disclosure of his renunciation of Christianity, as
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Rev. Mr. Abbot at Toledo.
he deemed and proposed it, for Free Religion, he announced, in view of a
nearly or quite unanimous disposition to give him a call to settle, that such
a step would he of no use unless the society would adopt a preamble and
resolutions offered by him (see No. 7 of The Index), and thereby leave
Unitarian Christianity for Free Religion. His reasons for insisting on this,
Mr. Abbot gave in his discourse of August 15, entitled “ Unitarianism
versus Freedom.” A week later, by a vote of 39 to 18, the preamble and
resolutions were adopted, and “The First Unitarian Society of Toledo,” by
its own free act, became the “First Independent Society of Toledo,” outside
of Unitarian Christianity. That the 18 nays did not represent much hostil
ity to Mr. Abbot is shown by the significant fact that the motion immediately
made to give him a call passed by a vote of 60 to 2. And had there been
from that moment no unscrupulous meddling, Mr. Abbot would have carried
along with him all who joined in this call. It was in consequence of outside
interference that a minority which had joined in the vote to accept Mr.
Abbot's ministry, finally seceded from him. This interference came from the
Unitarian headquarters and from Rev. Mr. Camp, and those who took part
in it have no shadow of ground for their assertion that either Mr. Abbot or
his adherents acted in any but the most open and honorable manner.
We preached to Mr. Abbot’s congregation, saw his Sunday School, con
versed with members of his society, and learned all about what has been and
what is the state of things there, and can gay emphatically that the local
movement has been from the first and still continues to be a remarkable
success. The society had just set out upon a new year, with renewed evi
dences of their hearty devotion to Mr. Abbot. The congregation proved to
be more than double what we had been told it was, and as interesting and
Christian in appearance as any we ever saw. Constant labors of charity, and
benefactions widely and generously bestowed, attest the practical Christian
spirit which, to an unusual extent, pervades it. If any comparison is to be
drawn, we should say that the entire Unitarian body is more likely to be
expunged from contemporary history than Mr. Abbot to come to a break
down in Toledo. At the moment of this writing we learn that the publica
tion of The Index is guaranteed foi- a second year, by the parties in Mr.
Abbot’s society who suggested this enterprise, and who have stood behind it
thus far. The Toledo apostleship is genuine. Good men and women gather
to its support, and the good Lord does not have to go out of his way to seal
it with his blessing. We heartily commend it to all who value truth, of
character and of teaching, and earnestly ask our more liberal contempora
ries to lend their aid to the support of our noble friend. Send him money
outright, and bid him good-speed with his work; for he is the servant of all
of us, and in justice should have our sympathy and help. His attempt to
“stand squarely outside of Christianity” is, in our judgment, a sort of
Messianic mistake, but we no less believe in his mission and urge his support.
Such truth of character we but rarely find; such pure and perfect intellec
tual love of truth only the noblest minds of the race are capable of; and by
“outside of Christianity” he means precisely what the most enlightened
Christians signify by Christianity itself.
He fully accepts the universal
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Our Religious Purpose.
element of Christianity, its religion, and only rejects the special element,
its Christism, and calls this rejecting Christianity, which it is not, if there
is any truth in the radical method of interpretation, the very point of which
is that it uncovers the living truth of any system, plants itself on that, and
from that rejects whatever in the special element is not consistent with the
universal. In our next issue we shall show that Mr. Abbott is purely and
rigorously Christian, in the true religious sense, and all the more so for his
rejection of Jesuism, and might as well announce himself outside the solar
system as outside true Christianity.
It concerns Christian interests mightily to be reconciled with such burn
ing and shining truth as every candid observer must see in Mr. Abbot. In
intellectual interest he stands with the leaders of our generation, and does
not suffer by comparison with such elder masters as Emerson, Spencer, and
Mill. He is now but thirty-two years of age, and six years ago he had
attracted the attention of the most distinguished philosophical inquirers and
teachers in this country and abroad, as a philosophical writer of great
originality and power. Men of nearly or quite twice his years, philosoph
ical thinkers of repute on the other side of the Atlantic, have sent to him, a
mere youth except in commanding intellectual power, for his judgment upon
their merits as candidates for distinguished philosophical positions. The
quality of Mr. Abbot’s intellect is even more remarkable than its singular
force. Such pure interest in truth, such veracity of intelligence, such
sincerity of mind, have belonged only to the masters of thought and the
greatest leaders of reform. And in serene, uncompromising loyalty to the
moral ideal, and rigorous application of principle to the conduct of life and
the practice of every virtue, Mr. Abbot belongs with the most revered and
endeared of this or any other time. Were he to call himself, from specula
tive doubts, an atheist, he would yet be one of the noblest and most useful
among masters of religion, from the fact that his moral ideal is the truest
possible image of Deity. His intense devotion to the most exact conception
he can form of right is the real explanation of his resolute rejection of the
Christian name; an error which is truly glorified by the spirit which
accompanies it.
OUR RELIGIOUS PURPOSE.
The editor of The Examiner begs his critics to state distinctly the full
extent of his religious purpose, which is,—
1. To teach a Christianity of which the creed is contained in the words
‘Our Father who art in Heaven,’ and is unfolded in the doctrines of
God’s
perfect fatherhood
over all souls, the real
brotherhood of all men
on earth and in the world to come, our supreme duty of
filial loyalty, of trust and love, to God, and
love to men
and
inspiration and providence
the source and guarantee, author and authority, to every one of us, of
knowledge, holiness and blessedness forever.
vol. i.—no. i.
6
�82
How We Start.
2. To explain and prove, with sound learning and sound reasoning, the
fact of error mingled with truth, from the very first, in historical Christian
ity, and how surely, in the exercise of Christian faith and reason, to distin
guish between Christian truth and Christian error.
3. To root up the theological heathenism,— total depravity, divine wrath,
damnation, and blood atonement, which choke Christian truth in orthodox
teaching.
4. To expel from true Christian religion every form of Jesuism, or regard
for Jesus as more than a mere man, and all Bibliolatry, or regard for the
Bible as more than a collection of mere human writings.
And this to the end of plainly opening to all human feet the path of direct,
obedient, and happy trust in God; and in the sincere belief that the Judaic
and half-heathen Christianity of the existing sects, is doomed of God to
speedy extinction.
HOW WE START.
In making our experiment with The Examiner, we gratefully and devoutly
acknowledge the repeated striking providences by which we have been helped
and guided thus far. Our earliest definite plans for such a publication date
back to a period previous to the establishment of The Radical. Our imme
diate arrangements to bring out The Examiner began with the first of May
last. A single difficulty has alone remained since the last week of June, the
need of $------ , the sum we thought we must add to our resources before
commencing. As the end of August approached, and we still lacked this, we
fixed a day on which we would make one last effort to perfect our arrange
ments, and on that day the needed help came. The first person we met on
taking the train from our residence to Chicago, a friend to whom we had
some time before spoken of our plans and our need, said to us instantly,
“You may draw on me after Sept. 10th, for------ dollars,” just the sum we
had waited for.
He had previously resolved on this, and was waiting
to meet us. It came just right. We had waited none too long, and we were
able to make our trial with the requisite means. Now we make our appeal
to other friends, who may believe our work a good one, to give us help, not
only in subscriptions, but in outright contributions, every dollar of which
shall be faithfully applied to printing and distributing The Examiner, not a
cent to any other use, either of the Editor or of any one else. Friends of true
Christian Religion! The time is fully ripe; the hour is exceedingly oppor
tune; our plans, long meditated and waited for, are working perfectly; and
with reasonable assistance we can secure the permanence of our enterprise
beyond a doubt. We are willing to fail, if so it pleases the good providence.
We should but fall back to the line of hope and faith and study from which
we make this forward movement, and wait for opportunity to try again.
�Is There No Open Vision?
83
But there need be no such temporary failure, nor will there be, if good men
and good women who want to be Christian in simple and pure love to all men
and perfect trust in God, will fairly do their part towards the great work for
which we establish The Examiner. If ever an enterprise was born in faith,
this is, and if it goes down, faith will see it fall, and patiently expect its
rise, or the rise in some better shape of the grand interest which it represents.
Every subscription to The Examiner will be deposited with our
banker as money belonging to our subscribers, and only one-twelfth taken
by us each month. If we should fail, every subscriber will receive back as
many twelfths of his $4, as he fails to get numbers of our Review.
IS THERE NO OPEN VISION?
All experience and study teach the wise believer to be very cautious about
assuming a special providence or special inspiration. Just as far as Jesus
and Paul attempted to rest in special knowledge of the secrets of heaven,
they went wrong. The grand failure of Jesus to discern truly God’s will,
was in respect of that anticipation which proceeded from his assumption
that Deity had vouchsafed special attention to him. Paul never blundered so
badly as when he most confidently claimed to be speaking by the word of the
Lord. This only is legitimate, to repose absolute faith in the providence and
inspiration of Infinite Mind; to work, always, at once with this faith, and
with as much diligence, vigilance and earnestness as if all depended on us;
to aim at success and to anticipate it, yet with a mind ready to accept fail
ure; and ever to give thanks, as events pass, however they may turn, or
whatever they may overturn, with full assurance that the Lord the Ruler
doeth all things well.
It is thus that we have striven to ‘wait on the Lord,’ and, never suffering
ourselves beforehand to say, of either deed to be done or word to be spoken,
‘in this the Lord is with us beyond peradventure or mistake,’ we have grown
more and more, taking successes and failures together, to feel that, for the
large aim and long course of our life, we can depend on the gracious presence
and heavenly providence of Infinite Mind, as implicitly as ever trusting
child depended on a faithful parent, or wise prophet on the perfect inspira
tion of the alone supreme and blessed God.
We say this with extreme hesitation, but we venture to say it, because we
want the whole class of Christian heathen and infidels, who do not believe
in God here and now, and who insist that all worship shall be with knees
bent and heads bowed before the idol which they have found in the person
of Jesus, to understand distinctly that we believe, as earnestly and implic
itly as if we knew that tongue and pen were moved by the unerring inspira
tion of God, and that we so believe in Gon, perfect providence and perfect
illumination, that we would no more turn from His presence, .even if a
pantheon of undoubted god-men invited us, than we would turn from perfect
light to utter darkness.
�84
The Chicago Advance and The Examiner.
If Samuel, David, and Isaiah, John, Jesus, and Paul, might trust in the
Lord’s direction, so may we, in the full proportion of our diligence, fidelity,
discipline, and instruction. So at least we do trust, and there remains with
us none the least shadow of doubt, that with us, too, God is, and will be, for
the same purposes of manifestation which in all ages lovers of God and
prophets have served, and that we no more need pin our faith to what Jesus
and Paul said, than we need walk at high noon to-day by the memory or the
record of yesterday’s daylight.
We have lived now more than a quarter of a century by this conviction o^
the direct nearness of God to soul and heart and mind in us individually,
and the immediate direction of our life, study, work, and career, by the
most holy divine providence, and for fourteen of these years we have
eagerly, zealously, diligently, and fearlessly studied how to be a true prophet
of pure Christian truth, how most wisely to believe, and most judiciously to
correct belief by thought, and learning, and the blessed rules of holy living,
and we think it right now to say to those who deny living truth in the name
of tradition, that we challenge their idolatry and defy their idol, in the name
of the living God and the authority of divine direction, believing firmly that
‘•The Love of the Lord passeth all things for Illumination,” and that
“Wisdom, in all ages entering into holy souls, maketh them friends of God,
and prophets.”
THE CHICAGO ADVANCE AND THE EXAMINER.
We have always cherished with intense satisfaction the sentiment of
Christian fellowship. The illusion never forsakes us that church relations
mast be at bottom fraternal, even though fallible men administer them less as
brothers than as judges and executioners. The “Church of Christ in Yale
College,” which was our religious home during the years when our greatest
aims for life were maturing, and which at last excommunicated us for
believing in God,* always rises before our imagination and love as one of our
shrines of delightful communion, where we may expect, sometime if not
now, to be made welcome under the immortal covenants of faith, and holi
ness, and love. Memories of bitter injustice, of cruel contempt, of strange
coldness and harshness fade away more easily than not, and we are ready to
go back there as a lover goes home to the most blessed joys.
It was this intense feeling of Christian communion which led us to wish
to make a personal explanation, through the Chicago Advance, to the
denomination under whose influences we were reared, and whose dogmatic
sanctities we knew that we would be regarded as outraging by the publica
tion of The Examiner. To expect candid and kind treatment from the
editor of the Advance, was indeed a stretch of faith even to our disposition
to expect the best everywhere, but we resolved to make the experiment and
sent a communication, which we reproduce below. In this our point was to
give evidence that we had obeyed a Christian motive, and had followed
*As Father, with effective sanctifying and redeeming care of all his human children.
�The Chicago Advance and The Examiner.
85
providential guidance and inspiration, in passing from orthodoxy to radical
Christianity, and it included of course a frank and definite indication of
what we meant by radical Christianity. Had the Advance extracted the
former as a matter of fraternal kindness to us, and excluded the latter as a
statement of dangerous or dreadful error unfit to lay before orthodox
readers, its motives would have been defensible. Instead of this it picked
out and published the most offensive part of the latter, and deliberately told
a befouling and wicked falsehood about the former in the following sentence.
“If a Congregationalist forsakes his faith, we cannot appreciate the ground
upon which he should occupy our crowded columns with a statement of his
progress in religious error; whether he become a Unitarian, a Mormon, a
Free-Religionist, or a Positive Philosopher.” Our readers can judge how
unscrupulous must be the anxiety about orthodoxy which led the Editor of
the Advance to write that sentence with our statement before him, as a
response to our request to be allowed to say to fathers and brethren with
whom we have the most sacred associations, that we had reached our present
faith by strictly obeying, as we believed, the purest motive and highest law
of our life-long Christian faith in God Our Father! As a notice of The
Examiner — 350 words at the head of “Editorial Miscellany”—probably
nothing could have been better, because those of the readers of the Advance
whom we care to reach understand its tricks, and are only excited to look
for a fact which they see has been concealed by a fib. But we want justice
and decency, as a preparation for fraternal communion, and we give notice
to irreligious and unchristian editors of theological newspapers that they
will find it to their interest to tell no lies about us.
The following is the communication referred to above, and refused publi
cation by the Advance:
Editor Advance:
Dear Sir: I send you herewith my proposal to publish The Examiner
as a Monthly Review of Religious and Humane Questions, and of Literature,
and an organ of what I would call Radical Christianity. And I beg leave
to make in your journal a brief explanation, in view of the fact that I was
reared in the Congregationalism which you represent. Some twenty years
ago I was admitted to the Congregational church in St. Charles, 111., by Rev.
G. S. F. Savage. Soon after I became a student in Beloit College for above
two years, and went thence to Yale College, where I was graduated in 1856.
I passed the next year in New York city, teaching and studying theology,
and an attendant upon the ministry of Dr. Win. Adams, of the Madison
Square Presbyterian church. The two following years I was again in New
Haven, studying theology. In all these places I never so much as thought
of going near heretical ministry. I never once saw an heretical book, tract,
or journal, nor did I ever converse with an unorthodox person, until after I
had become as fully settled in unorthodox conclusions as 1 am now. In New
York I did not know of the existence of Drs. Osgood and Bellows, and even
did not hear Henry Ward Beecher. I was wholly and absolutely under
orthodox influences, sincerely and earnestly continuing my confession of
hope in Christ which I had first made when I was but eight years old. In
commencing theological study I set to work in the most earnest manner to
put in working order the orthodox reasons for faith in the Bible as the sole
and absolute rule of truth and duty, and I purposed to prepare myself in
the most thorough manner possible for a strictly Biblical style of preaching,
�86
The Chicago Advance and The Examiner.
invariable support of every point by a text, and illustration drawn as much
as possible from the sacred pages. I even selected a large octavo copy of
the Bible for my life’s use and study, to be marked and made familiar in
every page, so that preaching from it I could readily put my hand upon any
passage, and be always able to drive home the sure nail with the very
hammer of’the Lord. Such, moreover, was the deliberate ardor of my
orthodoxy that I contemplated, first, taking a five years’ course of varied
preparation, in view of the special demands of an unsettled state of the
popular mind about Christian faith and duty, and, second, devoting myself
to preaching an armed and aggressive, a confident and conquering faith,
from place to place, and as nearly as possible without reward. I had
earlier, I may say, meant to go as a missionary to South-west Africa, and
had lost this dream under the overwhelming sense of the importance of
saving the faith in our own land.
My orthodoxy came to grief all at once, in the following way: I had
always had an intensely real faith in God Our Father, as he was addressed
in the prayer Jesus gave to his disc-iples. The desire to hallow that name
■was a passion stronger than my life, and as sober and sustained as it was
strong. Filial loyalty to God, as the Heavenly Providence and Holy Spirit
of our life and our eternal destiny, was the substance and soul of my inward
experience, the principle on which I built all my careful devotion to Christ,
the Bible, and the Christian church. This principle became the undoing of
my whole structure of orthodox dogma about depravity, wrath, atonement,
hell, and the divine authority and offices of Jesus and the Bible. For as
soon as my observation was once arrested by the condition of that great
seething and surging mass of souls which New York city presents, I believed
instantly, and without hesitation or qualification, that the Heavenly Father,
by the resources of Heavenly Providence and Holy Spirit, both could and
would redeem all, and that every thought, no matter if found on the lips of
a Jesus or a Paul, which implied doubt or disbelief of this, must be an error.
It was no more possible for me to challenge this expansion of my faith in
God than it would be for me to prefer the light of a candle to full sunrise,
even though I had to see Jesus and Paul as erring men, who had held and
taught Christian truth purely in many passages, and in some had set forth
error, and that God had meant us to depend on his own providence and
inspiration, and had not given us Jesus as more than a mere human teacher
and providential leader.
In January, 1859, after studying in New Haven Dr. Taylor’s systematic
and masterly exposition of the grounds of orthodoxy, and otherwise inves
tigating the foundations of religious belief, I found myself, as I believed, as
secure of my new’ position as possible, although I did not then know that
any Christian had come to any similar conclusion, and I wrote a little tract
to show where I stood, the concluding sentence of which was, “Christ was
a mere man, and the speculative theology which has been taught in his
name, and which he partially taught himself, must pass away before the
progress of that religion of good will to men and loyalty to God which he
practiced.”
I have found this conclusion confirmed by more than ten years of addi
tional study, and I now purpose to ask thoughtful attention, in the pages of
The Examiner, to the exposition of pure Christianity, as it is taught in the
prayer of Jesus, and in the most significant spiritual passages of the Bible
at large, without admixture of the errors which even Jesus did not wholly
exclude, and which his followers have expanded into a system which is a
veritable anti-Christ. Knowing full well that ardent faith, thorough study,
and earnest looking to providence and inspiration, do not in the least entitle
me to exalt myself, or claim any special authority, I do yet, declare, in the
very name of God Our Father, and of the truth as it was in Christ, that the
popular faith in “Lord Jesus,” “Holy Bible,” total depravity, wrath of God,
devil and hell, atonement, separate communion here, and separate heaven
�Free Religion not Anti-Christian.
87
i
hereafter, is of human and heathen conceit, and not of the true Christian
consciousness. This ground I shall take in The Examiner, and am ready
to defend against all dispute. If the faculty of instruction in the Chicago
Theological Seminary, or any one of them, will take up the discussion, I
will undertake to prove, that they are teaching heathenism in presenting for
Christian truth the doctrine of Jesus as God-Man, Divine Lord, Atoning
Saviour, and Final Judge, with the related doctrines of the special divine
character of the Bible, the total depravity of human nature, the consuming
eternal wrath of God, and the separate destiny of souls, part to heaven and
part to hell.
Hoping that I may be dealt with in a fair and candid spirit, I am
Yours very truly,
Edward C. Towne,
Winnetka, III.
August 28, 1870.
FREE RELIGION NOT ANTI-CHRISTIAN.
It has been assumed by a portion of the public of late that free religion
implies disavowal of Christianity. The Radical and the Index have been taken
to represent the entire breadth of this new interpretation of religion. The
course of the Executive Committee of “ The Free Religious Association,” in
adopting the Index as an organ of communication with the public, has given
color to this assumption. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. The
movement which the application of freedom to religion has produced is not
in general unchristian, or antichristian, or other than avowedly and reso
lutely Christian, both in fact and in name. We consider even Mr. Abbot, in
all but the name and certain non-essential notions, one of the lights of recent
Christianity, as new studies, new insight, and new providential indications
have disclosed to devout and thoughtful minds the pure truth suggested and
revealed in Christ’s word and life. And we strenuously insist that free
Religion is pure religion, as it has occupied the heart of formal Christianity,
and is now emancipated from errors of form, and disclosed in its real spirit
and power.
The history of the movement which is represented nominally by “ The
Free Religious Association,” we are entitled to write if any one is. We
suggested to Rev. Dr. Bartol, after Unitarianism had settled down upon a
narrow Jesuism, the propriety of a conference of radicals to consider the
practicability of an organization broader than the Unitarian. And when,
after two such conferences, Dr. Bartol and several others decided for action
without organization, we proposd to Rev. W. J. Potter and Rev. F. E. Abbot
that we three unite in a pledge to secure an organization, and that we work
together as a committee to form a plan. Under that pledge we together
carried the movement forward until the plan devised by our little caucus was
realized in “The Free Religious Association.” The other organization
which has been so much spoken of, and so widely reported, “ The Radical
Club,” of Boston, first met at our suggestion and upon our individual invita
tion of the persons who organized it. The term “ Free Religious ” wras
originally suggested by Mr. Potter; and the courses of lectures given in
�88
A Criticism of Our Aim.
Boston were also suggested by him after he had been appointed Secretary of
“ The Free Religious Association.” Mr. Abbot has recently taken ground
for free religion “ squarely outside of Christianity,” and Mr. Potter has
appeared to concur with him. We do not regret Mr. Potter’s action; he did
just right to use the Index, even at the cost of seeming to identify Free
Religion with the position of Mr. Abbot; but we want it understood that we
at least make Free Religion identical with true Christianity, and look for its
confessors in every communion, from Catholic, Calvanist, etc., to the latest
forms of heresy.
A CRITICISM OF OUR AIM.
One of our truest radicals, an admirably Christian scholar, thinker, and
man, writes to us of our position as follows : —
“ I do not assent to the fundamental proposition which you intend The
Examiner shall support, that Free Religion is Christianity stripped of
unessential opinion and tradition. I don’t care to keep the Christian name
— would rather have it dropped, and expect it some day to be dropped. Of
course I understand your meaning, that what has given to Christianity its
best vitality and power is its free and universal elements, the great spiritual
realities found under all forms of religion. And to this I assent. But I see
no logic in calling these universal elements by the specific name ‘ Christian.’
Why go to the progressive Jew, or the Hindu, or the Confucian, and say
• The essential, vital truth under your religious belief is to be called Chris
tianity ? ’ I am content to find that it is the same with the essential and
permanent in the Christian religion, and will not insist that he shall call it
4 Christianity,’ more than I would yield to his claim that I should call my
religion ‘Judaism’ or ‘Hinduism.’ Why not take at once the large term
that includes them all — universal Religion ? ”
Our friend very seriously misapprehends our position, which is, that we,
and all others, Jews, Mahometans, Hindus, and whoever has a religion
which at heart is religion, should, by radical reform, strip off what is not
true religion, and make, each for his own people, a true Judaism, or true
Christianity, or true Hinduism, or true Mahometanism. We could easily show
our friend that Jews, Arabs, Persians, Hindus, Siamese Buddhists, and other
representatives of world-religions, as well as Christians, are each freeing their
respective faiths of superstition, and are appealing to ther fellow believers
to use each their traditional religious name as properly meaning the pure
truth freed from the husk of error. We, on radical Christian ground, say
to each of these faiths, hold your ground and keep your name, and let us
have a world fellowship of the different religions of the earth. Our idea,
when we asked our friend to join us in a resolution to secure a new organi
zation for religious ends, and the idea we supposed the Free Religious
Association was to represent, was this unity of religions with liberty and
diversity both of names and of special tenets. We wanted to see all classes
of Christians come together, Catholic, Calvinist, etc., etc., on a platform of
generous human recognition of one another, and with them, if occasion should
�A Criticism of Our Aim.
89
be found, men and women of other names than the Christian. We desired
to see each accept the method of radical reform, each putting his truest
truth in the front, and agreeing to hold together by that, and to hold separately
other things as each felt necessary.
Our Free Religion leaves the Catholic a Catholic, and the Hindu a Hindu,
and the Moslem a Moslem, and the Jew a Jew, and the Christian a Chris
tian, each to wear his providential name, and to have his individual pecul
iarities of creed and worship, until we all come in the unity of the faith unto
a perfect jian. But our friend, if he is logically consistent, as he seems to
mean to be, must ask each of these to drop their providential name and take
that of Free Religionist, or universal Religionist. If, to use Mr. Abbot’s
language, he proposes to “stand squarely outside of Christianity,” he must
also stand squarely outside of the other great religions, or else go squarely
into some one of them. Assuming that he has not found any of these reli
gions “a good place to emigrate to,” and that he sees the logic of his
position, he really helps to set up, as far as his nominal relations are
concerned, a very small new sect, in fact making Free Religion a Boston
and Toledo notion, and doing this none the less although those engaged in it
feel as broad and liberal as all out of doors. Our friend in short squares off
against all the religions of the world, nominally, while we accept our Chris
tian name and place, with all the other world-religions. He and we alike
hold, and work for, the truth of pure free Religion, and sympathize with it
wherever found, but he declines, or would prefer to drop out of, nominal
relation to Christians, while we adhere to that relation, and do it on a prin
ciple which warrants the Jew, the Hindu, the Moslem, and other religionists
of the world in keeping each to his own name and fellowship, as God has
made them to dwell on all the face of the earth.
This principle is really radical and free, it makes the name a name only,
and gives freedom of names and peculiarities. Our friend’s principle is
neither radical nor free, for it does not allow perfect liberty as to names, and
it insists, not merely on the root of pure truth, but on a correct name, thus
creating a kind of Free Religious orthodoxy which is all about a name.
Especially if this is carried to the extreme point made by Mr. Abbot, that
none are truly and honestly Christian who do not take Jesus as Messiah, it
gives Free Religion an attitude not merely of strictness but of bigotry. We
have a perfect right to judge for ourselves how to be honest Christians, and
our friend misses the radical mark exceedingly when he makes the ado he
does about other people’s honesty. It is done with a nobly pure purpose,
but it ought to be left undone nevertheless. We consider it our duty to stay
under the Christian name, and make Christianity mean Free Religion.
We do in this matter as Theodore Parker did in the matter of American
politics. He took his part as an American citizen, and worked to make
“American” mean justice to all men. Mr. Phillips was working for the
same thing, but refused all citizen relations, on the ground that “American”
did not mean justice. He was for breaking up the national fellowship, while
Mr. Parker was for purging it. Our friend and Mr. Abbot take just the
ground about Christianity which Mr. Phillips took about the Constitution
�90
Matthew Arnold’s Idea of Christianity.
and the Union. It turned out that Mr. Parker was the true prophet. The
course of events purged the nation and left it united. Does anybody wish
Mr. Phillips could have had his way, to break the country in two, one part
to be free, and the other to be securely slave with no abolition fellow
citizens to molest or make them afraid ? We are for purging Christianity,
not seceding from it. Even excommunicated we claim and will hold our
place. And it is as sure as fate that Christianity will be purged, as our
nation was purged, and made to mean free Religion. The other religions
also will be purged in like manner. Whether some of the great names will
fall, we neither know nor care. Possibly they may. But if they do not, and
probably they will not, we can still have religion free and pure in all the
great divisions of the race.
MATTHEW ARNOLD’S IDEA OF CHRISTIANITY.
The acute English critic, Matthew Arnold, who certainly deserves to rank
with the most thoughtful men of the present generation, lays down the
following principle of Christian confession :
“ The Christian Church is
founded, not on a correct speculative knowledge of the ideas of Paul, but on
the much surer ground, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart
from iniquity ; and holding this to be so, we might change the current strains
of theology from one end to the other, without on that account setting up
any new church, or bringing in any new religion.”—St. Paul and Protest
antism, p. 10.
It is not meant of course by this that the text quoted originally averred
the sufficiency of a simply moral basis for Christian communion, but that
“ Christian ” now means, above all things, good, and that this emphatic
meaning we are to accept as from the inspiration and providence of God, as
the fundamental sense of the word. A venerable Puritan minister, in the
old town of Medford, near Boston,—Dr. David Osgood, — said fifty years
and more ago, to some persons who began to suspect their pastor of heresy,
“ If your minister is a good man let him alone.” In so saying he antici
pated what must become the view of all enlightened Christian minds.
Goodness is the root of the matter. There is no more significant Christian
word than the injunction to be perfect, and this injunction is no less signif
icant taken by itself, apart from the appeal to the divine character. The
threshold of Christian teaching is the rule of good will, the commandment
to love one another. Therefore it is necessary to begin with this, and to
build upon it. And, if need be, we may come back to this for determining
and regulating Christian communion, and may always insist that this is
sufficient for real fellowship, and that all good men are truly Christian.
This being said, however, we deem it important, because truth and fact so
require, to include in complete Christian confession the faith in God, and loyalty
to God, implied in the terms of the prayer “Our Father.” No more signif
�Mr. Abbot on Following Christ.
91
icant passage could be cited from the original memorials of historical Chris
tianity than this prayer. If Jesus had the smallest conception of his mission,
he must have touched the heart of the matter in teaching his disciples to
pray, and cannot have left out of that prayer the main point of religion.
Happily that prayer exactly represents the ordinary frame of mind in which
profoundly religious persons do actually bend in devotion. As Mr. Emerson
says, speaking of Reason, the Creator, the Spirit of the Universe, “Man in
all ages and countries embodies it as the Father.” And it is perhaps truest
to say that Christianity has no greater claim to recognition than its distinct
and emphatic utterance of the words God Our Father.
MR. ABBOT ON FOLLOWING CHRIST.
“There is one more way, however, to interpret the command, ‘Follow
Me,’ namely, ‘I)o as the spirit of Christ would prompt you to do.' If this
means simply, let the same spirit of obedience to principle, self-sacrifice,
courage, and love, which controlled Jesus, also control us, —well and good.
But then I must say that this is not, in any true sense, ‘following his
example;’ it is following the spirit which made his example, — obeying the
law which he also obeyed.”
This illustrates strikingly a way which Mr. Abbot has of using, and
insisting on, a method of interpretation which is to us neither free nor reli
gious, but strangely secular and strict. The only true sense in religion,
especially when we appreciate that religion must be free, of following either
Jesus or the example of Jesus, is that of adopting the ideal suggested by his
character and life, the spirit disclosed to us in his deeds and words. It is
not even necessary, nor so much as permissible, to exactly adopt his ideal,
and closely conform to his precise spirit, if we find that any part of either
appears incongruous with the general purport of the same, and no longer
possible to be obeyed by a soul truly obedient in general to the identical
heavenly vision which caught and fixed the eye of the young Nazarene.
While Mr. Abbot is insisting that the usual strict orthodox way of interpret
ing Jesus is the true way, great numbers of liberal orthodox believers, in
and out of pulpits, books, and religious papers, are finding freedom and
simple pure religion in looking to Jesus precisely as they look to teachers
and masters other than him ; for suggestion of how best to seek God directly
without either master or mediator other than the Truth manifested to their
own souls, as a true free thinker looks to Socrates, not to servilely copy him,
nor to copy him at all, but to get inspiration for doing likewise, with such
difference as a like effort will now be sure to find necessary. It is a great
pity that Mr. Abbot should look at Christianity through orthodox spectacles,
and insist that what he sees bears no aspect of Free Religion, when in fact
the clear upshot of Christianity is Free Religion, and numberless persons in
every quarter of Christendom see it to be so, and hail the discovery with
infinite delight.
�92
The Old Christian Test and the New.
THE OLD CHRISTIAN TEST AND THE NEW.
“We believe it is admitted by all sects, that in the first age of the church
pure living was the test, the distinguishing mark, of a Christian. It was
only later, after the philosophers had been at work at the faith, that doc
trines or points of belief assumed the importance they have since held. In
the first century, and second century, a man proclaimed his faith in Christ
by his morals, and the principal vices of paganism were of a nature to
make the line between the church and the world very broad and distinct.
Those vices were cruelty and licentiousness.”—The Nation, June 16, p. 379.
The distinguishing mark of a Christian of the first age was that he
believed Jesus to have been the Christ. Other points of belief which emi
nently distinguished him were, that Jesus had risen from the dead and would
speedily appear as Messianic King in all the terrors and glories of super
natural power, that he would bring a material, political, moral and spiritual
regeneration of the earth, that this sudden change of all things would be
destruction and horror to all enemies of the kingdom and deliverance and
glory to all who looked in faith for its appearing, and that in view of these
things it was but prudent and decent to live moral and pious lives, trusting
God in his Christ for the sake of salvation, and loving the brethren who
might be brought together by this trust.
No such thing as pure living for its own sake was anywhere characteristic
of the primitive Christians. A Paul, indeed, felt the power of the moral
ideal, and also adored God as God, in the spirit of simple, pure religion.
But even he did this only out of his occasional highest inspiration, rising far
above the average level of his teaching and his practice, while his disciples
were almost exclusively ruled to such decency of life as they attained, by
those points of belief which we have mentioned, the doctrines of early
Jesuism, which had engaged their ignorant and superstitious assent, and had
wrought in them a measure of piety and brotherly love.
In very many classes, and on a very wide scale, the faith of the first age
was even scandalously separate from pure religion in either heart or life.
It was a mere fanaticism, a detestable superstition, the faith of those who
forgot God and goodness equally in looking for a King of terrors, a Jesus
more Devil than either human or divine, whose mission it would be to
execute indiscriminate vengeance upon the mass of men and receive a few
devotees to everlasting enjoyment. Unhappily, it was possible to cite sup
posed words of Jesus and undoubted sentences of Paul, in support of even
this wretchedly heathen type of Christianity.
It might be said of certain pagan teachers, previous to or contemporary
with primitive Christianity, that they made pure living of chief importance.
But this cannot be said of Paul, nor even Jesu3; not because either of them
failed to see the intrinsic worth of goodness and power of godliness, but for
the reason that both the master and the apostle put the groundless Messi
anic expectation in the foreground.
Happily Paul stands on quite other ground, on great heights of Christian
inspiration and prophecy in fact, in several of the most significant passages
�Some Recent Views of Jesus.
93
of his letters; and Jesus still more, led astray though he was in the pres
ence of that Jewish world which at once promised and demanded a Messiah
rather than a simple teacher of truth, must have been chiefly attracted, in
his better moments of meditation and prayer, by the pure vision only of
God and of good, and he certainly came in the moment of his great trial, the
single purely Christian moment of his outward career, to give up the delu
sion of Messiahship, and rest all faith in the will of God.
The truth was in Jesus and Paul, and can be clearly seen in them, but the
characteristic thing with them was the Jesuism which received so hard a blow
in Gethsemane, and is now at last fairly dying, after a career of vast mis
chief through eighteen centuries. Side by side with the slow progress of
truth in her narrow path, has run the comprehensive error of the Nazarene
carpenter and the Cilician tent-maker, so that only now does it begin to be
true that “Christian” first and chiefly means pure in heart.
A new Christianity, latent in that of the first age, and never lost out of
the pure hearts which have kept undefiled truth under all the forms of
pseudo-Christianity, is so clearly manifested within a few years, that it is
now possible to speak of Christians whose sole distinguishing mark is pure
living. The professors of accredited Christianity do not generally admit
that this new Christianity is veritably Christian, but philosophical observers,
and nearly all emancipated or rational believers, justly claim, and joyfully
proclaim, this sifted and pure truth of Christ, the only Christianity worthy
the name.
Of course such Christianity does not take its name from the person, pre
tension, or characteristic teaching of Jesus, nor from its affinity with what
is called "The Christian Religion,” but from its fulfilment of the providen
tial ideal of the Christianity and the Christ of history, its expression of
what was suggested, and was meant of God, in Jesus, and was destined to
be unfolded out of the tradition propagated in his name. In this it stands
towards the teaching of Jesus as that stood toward Judaism; it is a new
birth, another regeneration, leaving the form of the old to more perfectly
fulfil its pure truth and vital power.
SOME RECENT VIEWS OF JESUS.
M. Edouard Reuss, the accomplished author of “Histoire de la Théologie
Chrétienne au Siècle Apostolique,” said of Renan’s “Vie de Jésus,” that it
had popularized a study hitherto confined to theologians, and made the
question of who and what Jesus was one of the common topics of free
discussion everywhere. He anticipated that all sorts of people would feel
called to give the public the benefit of their impressions and convictions,
and that thus a great movement of new inquiry would bring its powerful
aid to the solution of the evangelic problem. These expectations of a
thoughtful scholar, expressed in 1864, in the preface to the third edition of
�94
Some Recent Views of Jesus.
the “Histoire” mentioned above, have been more than realized. And, as
M. Reuss intimated, every sort of advocate has entered the field.
Last year Mr. Wendell Phillips undertook a kind of vindication of the
Christ of popular tradition, the Messiah of whatever progress eighteen
centuries can show. Rev. F. E. Abbot, who is now editing the Index at
Toledo, as the organ of religion emancipated from Christian associations,
has found himself impelled to disown Christian fellowship, and to rate Jesus
as unworthy the name of master in any sense whatever. Mrs. Julia Ward
Howe not long since lifted up her voice, to rebuke the hardy recusant of
Toledo, and to certify her esthetic and pious approval of the figure presented
to her imagination in connection with the name of Jesus. And about the
same time Mr. D. A. Wasson, a very acute thinker, who is also not a little
gifted as a poet, earnestly attempted to shelter the ideal Jesus from the rude
blows of free religious discussion.
The singular defect of all the pleas just mentioned is their lack of con
formity to the best results of recent sound scholarship. In Mr. Abbot’s
argument against respect of any sort for the authority of Jesus as a relig
ious master, there occur citations of reported words of Jesus which ought
never to be made again, and never will be made again by any both fair and
well-informed critic. Mr. Abbot does not lack fairness, nor is he, for a
writer who has devoted himself chiefly and with the highest success to
philosophical speculation, without a highly creditable acquaintance with the
results of New Testament criticism. But he does lack a portion of the
knowledge which should have preceded his renunciation of Christian connec
tion, a renunciation for which he will certainly find no enduring warrant in
either the method or the tenets of a sound free thinker. There can be no
question, we believe, that the candor and broad sympathy with noble
effort which are conspicuous in Mr. Abbot, will bring him at length
to give the young peasant rabbi of Nazareth a place among the prov
idential masters of the human race. He speaks still of “the wonderful
religious genius,” “the transcendant greatness,” of Jesus, terms which
he may find occasion to drop as he becomes more intimately acquainted
with the real man whom Pilate crucified, and whom inscrutable Provi
dence made the standard-bearer of a great movement of mankind, but a
closer knowledge of the facts of a simple and humble life, and of the
incidents and accidents to which peculiar circumstances gave momen
tous significance, can hardly fail to convince him that, without any
particular greatness of either intellect or character, the child of Joseph and
Mary fairly obtained, and must always hold among men on earth, one of the
greatest providential places of human history. Think what we may of the
powers or the qualities, of the ideas or the purposes of Jesus, it is absurd to
strike out his name everywhere, or to undertake to stand outside a definite
relation to him.
The warm, and somewhat arrogant pleas of Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Howe
can barely command respect with anyone accustomed to study, thoroughly
�Some Recent Views of Jesus.
95
and without passion, all the historical aspects of the question who and what
Jesus was. It was of course extremely easy for either the orator or the
lady to take a high tone, sustained as they were in so doing by all the popu
lar assumptions, and to rehearse the claims of Jesus, the one with fascinating
eloquence, the other with half-angry dignity. But even Mr. Phillips errs
egregiously if he supposes that any amount of confidence and of eloquence
can make an utterance respectable, as thinkers and scholars count respect,
which is made in nearly total ignorance of the facts elicited by the noble
and fruitful labors of recent scholarship. The field is not one for brilliant
generalization, but rather for a special knowledge to be had only upon
thorough study and long meditation. No one could make general observa
tions upon the appearances presented by Christianity now and formerly, to
better popular purpose than Mr. Phillips, but unfortunately the particular
demand of the discussion is for a true account of what took place before any
of these now visible appearances had yet been seen, and for historical truth
which must beyond a doubt offend the popular faith. Mr. Phillips, there
fore, made an ill-advised and no way useful attempt to deliver a judgment
where he had yet to possess himself of information. And like most persons
who think they know beyond a question, because current tradition is on
their side, he is probably prepared to resent the suggestion of his ignorance.
He doubtless has never even heard of the books to which we should refer
him as sources of knowledge. So runs the religious world, but the time of
the end of this is not, we trust, far distant.
The treatment which Mr. Wasson gave to the theme “Jesus and Chris
tianity,” was that of an idealist far too little conscious of the sober facts of
history. It is solely in the exercise of a generous imagination that he
assures us that the Hebrew hope of a Messiah had become refined and
spiritualized before Jesus came upon the scene, approaching the typical
idea of history, and that this hope, thus refined, furnished the ideal elements
by which the mind of Jesus was nourished, until he imagined a divine soci
ety here on earth, made so by the unqualified sway of ethical law, and was
so possessed by this holy imagination as to think himself more than an
individual being, and to feel in his own exalted soul, in his “ world-great
heart,” the tides of infinite and eternal life; while around him were
gathered “popular imaginations large enough” to recognize and accept “a
soul so amazingly magnanimous.” It would give us great pleasure to see
the evidence on which Mr. Wasson pronounces Jesus “an imperial soul,”
and the historical ground for his assumption that the young Nazarene enthu
siast expected “a reign of morals pure and simple,” not the reign of an
individual, nor of a nation. Still more curious are we to see in what light
other than of imagination the simple folk who gathered about Jesus appear
to Mr. Wasson as “large popular imaginations.” Doubtless there was
imagination enough in the circle of those who handed down the report of
Jesus’s life and teaching, but unhappily it wrought more in the way of
invention than of recognition, and obscured, a great deal more than it dis
closed, the truth of history.
�96
The Failure of the Pulpit.
THE FAILURE OF THE PULPIT.
The Independent, discussing “ the wide and ever widening breach between
modern preaching and modern culture,” attempts the following disposition
of the question:
“ A great deal of the dissatisfaction expressed by educated men with the
manner and matter of modern preaching is only one form in which the revolt
of the age against all theology, and indeed against all preaching whatsoever,
whether good or bad, finds vent for itself. It is not the sermon, it is Chris
tianity which is objected to. This is explicitly admitted by the writer in the
Spectator of whom we have spoken [as having “ stated the prevalent indict
ment of cultivated men against makers of sermons.”]
‘ About the sermon,’
he says, ‘ I am about to state honestly what I believe thousands of men feel
secretly. I dislike good sermons just as much as bad. I do not want to be
lectured, even by a great lecturer. I object to the usual basis of the very
best sermon ever delivered in a Christian church.’ It is only fair, then, to
a great and most laborious and devoted profession, to indicate where the
trouble really lies. A great many cultivated people at present do not like to
hear preaching, . . chiefly, we think, because much of the cultivated mind
of this age has become alienated from the old faith, and is throwing itself
forth, this way and that, in an agony of bewilderment, baffled energy and
discontent. . . If every preacher of this age could preach like Paul,
preaching would continue to be an impertinence and a bore to those whose
minds have swung away from that system of belief which constitutes the
basis of all Christian preaching, good or bad ”
The truly Christian mind cannot help objecting decidedly to the assump
tions of the pulpit. The perfect Christian attitude is that of filial conscious
ness of Our Father, and absolute, direct trust in him. The pulpit claims,
not merely a hearing, to speak of God, but authority, to speak for God. It
assumes to lecture the hearer, in the name of unquestionable dogma, when
religion, justly interpreted, knows nothing of such dogma, and deems the
assertion of dogmatic authority an outrage upon spiritual freedom. So
long, therefore, as pseudo-Christianity dictates the tone of the pulpit, and
the sermon assumes the right of the preacher to proclaim dogma, instead
of promote free inquiry and persuade to free faith, so long must the first
assumption of the pulpit be hateful to truly religious minds.
Further than this, the “system of belief” which constitutes the customary
basis of preaching, has justly lost its hold upon the cultivated Christian
mind of the age, to which total depravity, wrath of God, damnation, blood
atonement, godhead of a young Jew, and infallibility of Hebrew and Chris
tian books, with transmission of same by ignorant and prejudiced interpre
ters, are superstitions as arrant as any the world ever saw. Until, therefore,
preachers shall consent to be truly Christian, to believe in God and in man
with some spirit and truth, and to thoroughly discriminate the husk of
Christianity from its truth, and offer truth only to truth-loving souls, the
providence and inspiration of our time will more and more set aside the
pulpit.
�The Need of a Free Divinity School.
97
We suggest to The Independent, which we believe means to find and to
follow the truth, a study of Christian Conceit and Christian Superstition,
as causes of the failure of the pulpit. The public ministry of religion is
certain to be welcome to the cultivated classes, and to all other classes, when
it shall be made even tolerably worthy of respect. We also beg to assure
our contemporary that the cultivated mind of this age, which is indeed
‘alienated from the old faith,’ is not in the least unhappy in its new situaation. We have had the opportunities of a pronounced heretic, during ten
or twelve years, to observe the real truth of this matter; we have besides
gathered evidence out of recent literature in all directions ; and we know
that nothing could be more ridiculous than the statement that new belief is
in an agony of bewilderment. Orthodox writers should reflect that they
learn of the exceptions only, and are not in a position to know what new
believers usually may feel.
THE NEED OF A FREE DIVINITY SCHOOL.
One of the first and greatest needs of religious and human progress in
America is a well endowed and appointed Free Religious Divinity School.
We have canvassed the matter pretty thoroughly, during the past few years,
and fully believe that this Free School of Truth must be, and that it will be.
The great cause of spiritual emancipation has many liberal friends, who do
not lack means to carry into effect any wise purpose which they may form.
To secure.this, it only needs to make evident the nature of the opportunity
now open, to wealth and faith and learning and zeal, to organize thinking
and believing people everywhere into free societies, under free teachers and
pastors; and to show the necessity to this end, and the practicability, of a
well endowed ami appointed Free Religious Divinity School. We will not
at this time argue the matter. Our present purpose is only to propound it,
and we propound it in fervent hope and full faith. Right here perhaps on
this shore of Lake Michigan, from which we write, not remote from the great
city of the West, yet among scenes of pure nature eminently suitable, we
may yet see a great Free School of Divinity, such as the world has not yet
had. The sum of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars ought to be
immediately devoted to this grand purpose, and this generation ought not to
pass away without increasing this endowment to One Million Dollars, to
adequately provide for complete, free instruction in religion, in all its
branches, and adequate aid of every sort to students seeking the sacred
ministry of divine truth. In the whole of Christendom there is hardly one
respectable theological school. The greatly dishonest purpose to conceal, to
evade, and everyway to maintain the creed in vogue by means which equally
lack veracity and courage, ought to render them in general morally disrepu
table. There are few in which inadvertent falsification is not the art of arts.
And to support it is the dark spirit whose foul words are “devil,” “hell,”
“damnation,” ever ready to kill off, by ban if not by burning, any teacher
VOL. I.—no. I.
7
�98
Dr. Me Cosh in Boston.
or student who is led, in the sincerest and strictest development of his deepest
Christian faith, to believe better of God than the current creeds allow. And
these creeds are still a refuge of lies about man and about God, theological
old wives’ fables begotten of the darkness of heathenism, and totally unfit to
convey the grace and truth of Christianity. True Christian Religion has
waited long enough; let there be one housetop from which to proclaim the
pure truth which Jesus whispered in the ear of Judea more than eighteen
hundred years ago.
In venturing to bring to public notice a bare proposition, we yield to a
sense of the extreme urgency of an interest which has no representative yet
among religious organizations, or none prepared to appreciate the situation,
and to take action promptly and with energy. We do not hesitate because
of the possibility, or even probability, that no immediate answer will come.
We more than half believe in the prophetic office, and think it in this matter
at least our solemn duty to say to our generation of scattered believers in
the future of free religion, A Million of Money wanted for a Free
Religious Divinity School.
DR. McCOSH IN BOSTON.
The N. K Tribune thinks Free Religion will probably find a defender,
against a late tremendous assault of Dr. McCosh, in “that deep thinker,
uncommon scholar, and courageous woman, Mrs. Howe.” It is difficult to
understand what the Tribune means by deep thought, uncommon scholarship,
and courage in religion, when it finds these in the estimable woman named,
three of whose striking characteristics are conservative timidity about
departure from tradition as it has come to her, the dogmatism of very
insufficient study, and opinion not obtained by profound meditation nor
expressed usually with the spirit of real thought. The Tribune seems not
aware that Mrs. Howe is more an exponent of traditional Christianity than
of Free Religion, and that at least fifty persons might be named in New
England more likely than she to undertake an effective defence of Free
Religion, even if she chanced to be drawn into the controversy on that side.
As for Dr. McCosh, a rude schoolman who knows no better than to assault
sunlight with paving-stones, and whose utmost achievement is to darken with
dust air which will clear itself as soon as his back is turned, we hold him, on
his own ground, greatly inferior to such ripe scholars and sound thinkers as
Rev. Samuel Johnson or Rev. W. J. Potter, though doubtless in tremendous
bluster he can do more in six lectures than they in six thousand. A certain
massive and portentous ignorance, a hopeless failure of perception, charac
terize Dr. McCosh. Had he lived in America even, still more had he passed
some years in Boston, and suffered himself to open his eyes occasionally, it
is possible that he would know a little something about the nature and ground
of Free Religion. As it is, his voice is the roar of a blind son of Anak,
noticeable only as so much noise. He has no more intelligence of the spirit
�Vicious Piety.—Secularism as Religion.
99
uality, pure fervor of soul, and richness of faith which are found in the Free
Religious leaders, than a cannon has of the glory of sunlight under which
nature renews her life. It is highly probable that whatsoever things are
pure, whatsover things are of good report, will continue to be thought on,
and to be most inspiringly discoursed of, among Free Religious believers in
Boston, in spite of the lectures of Dr. McCosh. Grace and truth do not
perish out of the hearts of men and women because of deafening noise in a
Methodist meeting-house, any more than violets and roses fade and die
because of a coluinbiad fired off at Charlestown navy yard.
VICIOUS PIETY.
“ The vices of our time — that is, of a commercial and scientific age — are
fraud, chicane, falsehood, and over-eagerness in pusuit of material enjoy
ment, and scepticism as to the existence of anything higher or better.
Great numbers of the knaves of our time are in the church, ami even active
in it, ami call themselves ‘Christians’ as a help in their business.”—The
Nation, June 16, p. 379.
It would be more exact to say of the pious knaves of our time,
that they profess strict orthodox faith in “the blood of Jesus,” and
confess a hope of redemption through “the atonement alone,” without
merit of good works. And more than this, knavery finds a chance in the
mind of many tempted confessors of this doctrine, to whom it seems quite
easy to be rascals in trade and redeemed sinners through Christ. It is but
one trick and lie at a time, and the fount of absolution is close by, always
open to faith, and the more open the greater the sinner’s demerit. Life
becomes a plunge into the smut of mammon by day, and a bath of absolution
at night. Many practical men bear witness that a man who puts forward an
“evangelical” profession, among men of the world, either as mere profes
sion or for persuasion, is commonly either too weak to be trusted amid
temptations, or is already tricky, or mean, or knavish.
SECULARISM AS RELIGION.
Secularism is vastly powerful [in England] among those of the working
classes who do make the attempt to think on the most serious questions of
life. It would appear that Secularist societies have spread a net-work of
complete organization over the land,.have an effective system of tract distri
bution, and command eloquent and persuasive lecturers, who know the
working classes well, and gain the more ready access to them on the ground
of this knowledge.”—The Sunday Magazine.
This is called “infidelity” and a “gigantic evil,” by the editor whose
statement, we quote. For our part we deem “those of the working classes
who make the attempt to think on the most serious questions of life ” more
faithful to their light than any of the Christian sects. Furthermore, they
are truer to the Christian foundation than these sects. They begin right,
�100
Dr. McLeod on Buddhism.
with the religion of duty. They come nearer doing the things taught in the
Sermon on the Mount than any man does who goes apart from mankind to
seek his own salvation. But even if they did not, they are honest men and
women, who think seriously, believe sincerely, and labor earnestly, and that,
too, with the heaviest troubles of life pressing particularly upon them, and we
deem it only decent to bid them good-speed, and think them well started on
the right way, especially as there is a God, who made these men and women,
and quite likely is looking after them at least as well as we could, and possi
bly has lent them his inspiration and providence even for getting up a
religion whose sole deity and heaven are the doing of duty in common daily
life. It seems to us more important that such practical religion should
flourish than that the Pharisaism of sects should survive. We do not deem
Secularism a perfect form of religion, but we do think it better than any
form of popular Christianity. It is to us among the cheering evidences that
God Almighty has a little the start of his Grace of Canterbury, and his
Holiness of Rome, and the various potentates of dogma and custom, that
Secularism lies like a rock under the troubled sea of English life, a “gigan
tic ” adherence of the common people to the doctrine that it pays to do
right even if death is, as the poor old Bible so often implies, a final rest.
DR. MACLEOD ON BUDDHISM.
Rev. Norman Macleod, D. D., a distinguished Scotch divine whose
Christianity has been for some time growing less and less dogmatic, and
more and more humane, speaks as follows of Buddhism, in connection with
his account of a visit to a Buddhist temple in Ceylon :
“ It was interesting to see, even once, a temple with its living worshippers
representing a religion which, though now extinct in India, yet still com
mands the faith and reverence of hundreds of millions in Ceylon, Thibet,
Burmah, and China. I cannot think, from the laws of the human mind, that
their Aeari-belief is that they are to be so absorbed into the divine essence,
or Nirvana, as practically to destroy all individual existence. . A religion
which denied the immortality of a living God, or of living men, could not
possibly live from age to age in the heart-convictions of a large portion of
the human race, so opposed is such a negation to the instincts and cravings
of human nature. Either human nature has no such moral instincts, or
Buddhists have no such religion.’’
When the “New Logic,” as we have been accustomed to name it, shall be
written, it will fully justify Dr. Macleod’s'assumption that Buddhism, what
ever it may say, does not, and cannot, mean anything either foolish or bad,
in its great doctrine of the final relation of all being to the divine essence.
We make the quotation here, however, to call attention to Dr. Macleod’s way
of looking at the matter. He speaks of these Buddhists as of human brothers,
and interprets by sympathy and faith, instead of doubt and hatred. Instead
of grasping the usual orthodox side-arm, the tomahawk, with an evident
savage desire to hew in pieces before the Lord his pagan fellows, he extends
�Sakya-Muni and Atheism.—Dr. Stebbins's Demand.
101
a Christian right hand of fellowship. There is, in'the kindness with which
he speaks, no Pharisaism as of one who wishes the Buddhists well yet
expects them to be damned nevertheless, but a generous charity, and com
prehension, which hopetli all things and believeth all things. This is
Christian; the other method is anti-Christian, and none the less so because
commonly employed by those who claim exclusive knowledge of Christian
truth.
SAKYA-MUNI AND ATHEISM.
“ The atheism of Sakya-Muni has been asserted by eminent scholars, whose
judgment I am not entitled to controvert, though quite unable to accept it.”—
D. A. Wasson. “The testimony of the most competents cholars certainly
seems to us decisive in this case, as we have no knowledge of the original
sources of information. But perhaps the fact does not harmonize with Mr.
Wasson’s theories, and this may be the reason for discarding it. . . If
Mr. Wasson has any better reasons (than “ I want to” and “ because ”) for
setting aside the verdict of scholars in a question of scholarship, we fail to
see them.”—F. E. Abbot in reply to Mr. Wasson.
Mr. Abbot’s failure herein we are sorry for. The overwhelming presump
tion, established by all thorough study of religions, is, that the human mind
has ever sought, and never unsuccessfully, to find God. Therefore it is
perfectly legitimate to suspect of insufficiency the study which reports SakyaMuni an atheist, and to decline to accept it, even while modestly confessing
not knowledge enough of the studies in question to otherwise prove SakyaMuni a theist. Mr. Abbot entirely forgets the dignity of the discussion, as
well as fails conspicuously to appreciate a significant point, when he accuses
Mr. Wasson of holding a profound conviction with no better reasons than “ I
want to” and “because,” which he (Mr. A.) quotes from a small boy of his
acquaintance.
DR. STEBBINS’S DEMAND.
Rev. R. P. Stebbins, D. D., is energetically arguing for a conservative
policy among Unitarians, on the ground that this is in harmony with the
antecedents of the Unitarian body. He lamentably forgets, as conservative
Christians of every school do, that regeneration, birth out of the old into the
new, is the supreme law of genuine Christianity. There never has been,
and never can be,—certainly was not in Jesus and Paul, and probably is not
in Stebbins and Hepworth,— any form for religion except a human form.
This human form is inevitably more or less imperfect, and also more or less
stamped with peculiarities of time, place, and people, which make it good
for that time, place and people, but not so good for another time and place,
and other people. Hence the necessity of constant change, with effort at
least for improvement. Dr. Stebbins has had occasion enough to know this.
He some years since became disgusted with the failure of Unitarian parishes
to appreciate the sullen roar of his heavy guns, and their decided preference
�102
The Athauasian Creed.
of light rifled cannon, which the old columbiad says take polish because
they are made of brass. As Secretary of the American Unitarian Associ
ation, after leaving his last parish, Dr. Stebbins succeeded in nothing so
well as in stirring up a general determination to get rid, at all costs, of his
portentious and dismal imitation of orthodoxy, and to put in his place a
man who, while no less conservative in doctrine perhaps, had the sense to
see that the young and agile intelligences of the new generation cannot be
expected to repeat the heavy gait and severe mien of elder Puritanism. A
new time must have new methods and new men. We advise grandpa
Stebbins to quit roaring and storming about it.
THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
The Contemporary Review (Strahan & Co., London and New York) is in
some respects the most interesting and valuable publication of the kind
accessible to English-speaking readers. It represents the liberal element in
the Church of England, than which no section of existing Christian com
munion is more worthy of respect, whether for Christian studies or Christian
graces. Dissenting of course from its continued recognition of Jesuism as
essential to Christianity, we yet would be glad to see so admirable an organ
of truly Christian inquiry in the hands of every clergyman in the land. We
know of nothing among religious reviews equally attractive and instructive
to general readers with this representative of the broader scholarship and
more genial piety of the English national church. The publishers would
render a great service to religion in America if they would put an American
edition into our market, at a moderate price.
The August issue of the Contemporary contains an article by Dean Stanley
on “ The Athanasian Creed,” some points of which we wish to lay before
our readers. We premise that this famous creed is peculiar for the dogmatic
harshness with which it sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, and the rigor
with which it declares the sure damnation to eternal fire of all who hesitate
to fully accept that fiction of theological speculation. It, as a binding creed,
is substantially held still by all orthodox belief, as it must be so long as Jesus
is made a God-Man and Lord and Saviour, and so long as ‘ He that believeth
not shall be damned ’ (Mark xvi. 16), is read as a text of Christian truth.
Originally, to use the language of “ The English Cyclopaedia,” this creed “was
received by the free conviction of the churches that it contained a correct
exposition of Christian doctrine;” the very way in which the authority of
the Bible, and the divine truth of all orthodox dogmas, were originally set
up among Christians. By the same general authority of the Christian
church, this creed was ascribed to Athanasius, the great theologian of the
fourth century, precisely as the fourth gospel was ascribed to the apostle
John. Nobody ever pretended to really prove the ability of primitive
�The Aihanasinn Creed.
103
Christians to detect godhead in Jesus and divinity in gospels and epistles ;
that ability has been loosely assumed ; and how much the assumption is
worth we can judge from Dean Stanley’s remarks on “ The Creed of St.
Athanasius.” He says,—
“ Its first reception and actual use in Christendom is one of the most
remarkable instances of those literary mistakes (not in the first instance a
deliberate forgery, in the vulgar sense of the word) which have exercised so
great an influence over the history of the Church. It is to be classed in this
respect with the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, which formed the basis
of the popular notions of the Celestial Hierarchy ; with the false Decretals of
the early Popes, or early Emperors, which formed the basis of the Pontifical
power. Under the shadow of a great name it crept, like those other docu
ments, into general acceptance ; and then, when that shadow was exorcised
by the spell of critical inquiry, still retained the place which it had won
under false pretences. Through the Middle Ages it was always quoted as
his work. At the time of the Reformation, the name of the champion of
Christian orthodoxy still dazzled the vision of the Reformers. In the Augs
burg Confession, and in the Thirty-nine Articles, in the Belgic and in the
Bohemian Confessions, in the ‘ Ecclesiastical Polity ’ of Hooker, it is unhes
itatingly received as the ‘Creed of St. Athanasius.’ No one at that time
entertained any doubt of its authorship. The very year of its composition
was fixed; the very hole in the Abbey of S. Maximin, near the Black Gate
at Treves, was pointed out as the spot where Athanasius had written it in
the concealment of his western exile. Yet it is now known with absolute
certainty not only that Athanasius never did write it, but never could have
written it. The language in which it was composed was probably unknown
to him. We shall see, as we proceed, that the terminology which it employs
was condemned by him. It contains at least one doctrine which he would
have repudiated. But . . the treatise of the unknown author who composed
this, in some respects, anti-Athanasian Creed, has been embalmed for poster
ity by its early ascription to the Father of orthodoxy. . . By the magic
of his name this confession, of unknown and ambiguous character, found its
way into the Western Church, and has been kept alive and retained a charmed
existence after its real character had been discovered. . . The history of
the reception of the Creed of St. Athanasius is like the parallel history of
the reception of the Pope's Infallibility — ‘ gangrened with imposture ; ’ not
willful imposture it may be, not conscious fraud, but still leaving it so desti
tute of historical foundation as to render doubly imperative the duty of
testing its claims to authority by its own intrinsic merits.”
These last strong words are fully justified by the facts. And not only are
they applicable where Dean Stanley applies them, but over the whole field of
ecclesiastical and theological support of accredited Christianity. That
support is gangrened with imposture, not willful it may be, not conscious and
deliberate fraud, but still leaving it so destitute of honest foundation in any
truth ever taught as to render absolutely imperative the duty of testing all
claims of Christianity to authority by the intrinsic merits of its teaching, as
reason and faith can take cognizance of these.
�104
Duty Without Heaven.
AN EVANGELICAL INSTANCE.
In the article from which we have quoted above, Dean Stanley says that
“it was expected, almost wished (by certain orthodox leaders in England),
that a frightful, sudden death, such as that which befel Arius in the streets
of Constantinople [who was believed by one party to have been killed by
God in answer to orthodox prayers], would be inflicted on an eminent scholar
who had come to take his part in making better understood the Holy Scrip
tures, and in kneeling with his brethren around the table of their common
Lord. . . Sentiments like these . . . are the natural fruits of the ancient
damnatory spirit of the age whence those clauses originated. The meaning
of the clauses is now reduced, by ‘considerable intellectual caution’ to
something much more like the spirit of the Gospel. But, to anyone who
accepts them in their full sense, or who is influenced by their intention, it is
only natural that the persons against whom they are believed to be directed
should be viewed with unspeakable horror. A man, of whom we are unhes
itatingly able to say that, ‘he shall, without doubt, perish everlastingly,’
must be the most miserable of human beings—to be avoided, not only in
sacred, but in common intercourse, as something too awful to be approached
or spoken of.”
DUTY WITHOUT HEAVEN.
“The doing of duty without any hope of a future is a daring but a dreary
faith,” says the editor of The Sunday Magazine, in commenting on the Secu
larist confession of faith. Let each speak for himself. We can testify that
there is an inexpressible, heavenly blessedness in giving up all hope of
reward, future as well as present, to do present duty, and that the gloomier
the outlook from the post of duty has seemed, the more would the irrepres
sible sense of heaven in the heart assert itself. We have frequently found
in men and women this perfectly serene, joyous satisfaction in mere doing
duty. It accords with all our study of the human mind, that the best
attainment of man leaves him where he can find perfect delight in duty,
wholly apart from a future, while our observation of human experience has
repeatedly shown us that doing of duty can be profoundly joyous even where
disbelief of a future exists. Those who have never tried a religion which
forbids eagerness about one’s own redemption, and commands the cultivation
of spiritual courage to share all hope with all souls, ought to remember that
their cowardice in the battle of life cannot be a measure of the courage of
soldiers of humanity, who are perfectly willing to do their duty here and
take the result.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Examiner: a monthly review of religious and humane questions, and of literature. Vol. 1, November,1870, no. 1
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [Winnetka, IL.]
Collation: 104 p. ; 25 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Contents: Crazy Chicago; or the back stairs to fortune -- Charles Dickens and his Christian Critics -- The Women and the trial --Dr. J.F. Clarke against theism --The Unitarian situation -- History of the devil, his rise, greatness and downfall / Albert Reville --Rev. Mr. Abbot at Toledos. 'The woman and the trial' concerns Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Beecher-Tilton trial. Reville's article was possibly the reason why Conway kept this item - a review of Gustave Roskoff's 'History of the Devil' translated from 'Revus des deux mondes'; his own 'Demonology and devil lore' would be published in 1879.
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[s.n.]
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1870
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Religion
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Examiner: a monthly review of religious and humane questions, and of literature. Vol. 1, November,1870, no. 1), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Conway Tracts
Devil
Religion
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222
TALKS ABOUT LIFE.
JMar^B
TALKS ABOUT LIFE.
BY ROBERT COLLYER.
II.
REFERRING BACK.
WANT in this paper to tell what
one of my children used to call
“a truly story.”
It came to me one day when I went
on a pilgrimage to a huge old factory
in the valley of the Washburne, in
Yorkshire, in the summer of 1865. I
wandered about the place in a kind
of dream. The handful of people
left there then were at work among
the wheels and spindles, watching me
between whiles—for strangers seldom
come to that remote place, and I was
clearly a stranger; and then my dress
was not what they were used to/ espe
cially my American “wide-awake.”
They were as strange to me as I was
to them. There was not a face that I
knew — not one. And yet this was
where I was once as well known to
everybody as the child is to its own
mother, and where I knew everybody
as I knew my own kinsfolk. For it
was here that I began my life and
lived it for a space that now seems a
life-time all to itself. And that brings
me to my dream.
I saw, in one of the great dusty rooms
of the factory, a little fellow about
eight years old, but big enough to
pass for ten, working away from six
o’clock in the morning till eight at
night, —tired sometimes almost to
death, and then again not tired at
all, — rushing out when work was
over, and, if it was winter, home
to some treasure of a book. There
were “Robinson Crusoe,” and Bun
yan’s “Pilgrim,” and Goldsmith’s
Histories of England and of Rome,
the first volume of Sandford and Mer
ton, and one or two more that had
something to do with theology,—but
I
it must have been meat for strong
men, for not one of the brood of
children that read the stories, and
the Goldsmith that was just as good
as stories, would ever touch thes$
others after one or two trials.
One of these books that used to lead
all boys captive in those good old days,
this boy I saw in my dream would hug
up close to his bowl of porridge, and
eat and read; and then he would read
after he had done eating, while ever
the careful housemother would allow a
candle or a coal. But if it was sum
mer, the books would be neglected,
and the rush would be out into the
fields and lanes,—hunting in the early
summer for bird’s-nests that the tender
and holy home canon would never
permit to be robbed, and it was always
obeyed; or in the later summer, see
ing whether the sloes were turning
ever so little from green to black, or
whether the crabs — of the wood, not
the water—were vulnerable to a boy’s
sharp and resolute teeth, and when
the hazel-nuts would be out of that
milky state at which it would be of
any use to pluck them, and what was
the prospect for hips and haws.
The men who profess to know just
how we are made, as a watchmaker
knows a watch, tell us that once in
seven years we get a brand-new body
— that the old things pass away in
that time, and all things become new.
I wonder sometimes whether it is not
so with our life. Is not that new, as
well as the frame ? There I was that
day — a gray-haired minister from a
city that had been born and had come
to its great place since that small lad
began to work in the old mill, ag| I
�1870.]
TALKS ABOUT LIFE.
saw him at the end of a vista of four
jESlWiirty years.
I watched him with a most pathetic interest. “Dear little chap,” I
said, “ you had a hard time; but then
it was a good time, too,—wasn’t it,
now? How good bread-and-butter
did taste, to be sure, when half a
pound of butter a week had to be divided among eight of us, and the
white wheaten bread saved for SunKay ! Did ever a flower in this world
beside smell as good as the primrose,
or prima donna sing like the sky
lark and throstle? Money cannot
buy such a Christmas pudding, or
tears or prayers such a Christmas tide,
as the Mother made and the Lord
gave when you and the world were
young! Seven years you stuck to the
old mill — and then you were only
fifteen ; and then, just as they were
(frowning the Queen, you know you
had to give it up, and to give the home
up with it, to go out and never return
to stay. And so I lost you out of that
bad but blessed old life in and out of
the factory, and have never set eyes
on you until to-day,—you dear little
other me, that was dead and is alive
again, and was lost and is found! ”
That was how I came to think of
my story, and that I might tell it as
a word of encouragement to many
that may need such a word—about
that way of life which I have travelled
many miles, since I set out, not know
ing whither I went, to the pulpit and
pastorate of Unity Church.
But I cannot tell the story I want
to tell, if I let myself drift away
just here from that boy in the mill on
the Washburne, and say no more
about him. I like him well enough,
after all these years, to stay beside
him a little longer; and, besides that,
he had a good deal to do with the mak
ing of as much of a man as is now at
the other end of this pen.
I notice in Bunyan’s “Pilgrim,”
that all the characters that great
dreamer creates are so far hard
ened in the mould before he lets us
223
see them, that we feel all the time it
is a foregone conclusion. Obstinate,
Pliable, Ignorance, and the rest on
that side, are bound to come to grief;
while Christian, Hopeful, and Faith
ful, are sure to reach the Shining City,
no matter what may befall. Some
thing like this is true of our common
life. Before we begin to live to much
purpose either way, the things are
gathered and laid up that are to make
or mar us. We are not aware of it,
any more than the young birds, as
they flutter out of the nest to do for
themselves, are aware how they will
be sure to find out when to go north
or south, and how to build and line
their own nests, and where and what
to seek for their callow brood. But it
is all there. Nature has taken care
of that; and Nature and Providence
do together for the fledgling child
what Nature alone does for the bird.
I have heard that the nuns who teach
in convent schools say, “ Let us have
the Protestant child until it is seven
years old, and then we have no fear
for the future; it is sure to come at
last into the Church.” I imagine
that as a rule this is true; and usually
when Protestant parents pay for the
education of their children in those
schools, they pay for an item that is
not in the bill—their conversion to
Romanism. It has been noticed, too,
that when German children come here
from the Fatherland, and eagerly turn
to the English tongue, giving up their
native speech, it is no matter how
long they live in that habit, if the old
man who has not spoken a word of
German since he was a child loses
himself in his last moments, he then
goes back to that other self—the fellow
of the one I saw in the old mill—and
talks German again. So the poor old
knight, whose life as a man had been
one great gluttonous sin, forgot for a
moment on his death-bed his own
awful remorse and the blasting of his
hopes by the breath of the King, and
babbled of green fields where he had
wandered, no doubt, as an unfallen
�224
TALKS AB OUS' LIFE^
child, to gather kingcups and daisies,
and chase the rabbit to his burrow.
That grand and hearty Englishman,
Sydney Smith, used to laugh at ances
tral pride, and to say that the Smith
crest, with which all their letters were
sealed, was the Smith thumb. I can
not laugh with that lord of laughter
there. I would be glad to know that
I came of a great line, if it had been
God’s will.
About a year ago there was a para
graph in the papers, of a murder in
San Francisco, that I read, and read
again, with a wonderful interest.
Colonel Fairfax, so the papers said,
had been stabbed in the streets of .
that city, by some wretch, for a fancied
injury. The murdered man had
strength enough left to draw his re
volver and cover his • assassin, who
then begged abjectly for mercy; when
the dying victim said, quietly: “You
have killed me, and I can kill you;
but I spare you, villain and coward as
you are, for the sake of your wife and
little children.”
If I were not myself, I would love
to be the Fairfax that should succeed
that noble fellow, — not alone for that
splendid piece of chivhlry of which
there was never more need in this land
than there is now, the grace I mean
of forbearance unto death in the face
of the worst injury one man can in
flict on another; — not for that alone,
but because that man was the last of
a mighty line whose name was the
pride of all the boys of my compan
ionship, and whose great mansion
once nestled on the southern and
sunny side of the high land that gave1
us only its northern shoulder. We
were proud of that Fairfax line. It
had disappeared from the country
many a year before I was born; but
the tradition was strong still of the
great Sir Thomas, who fought with
Cromwell for the people against the
King. And we preserved one tradi
tion of him that has never appeared
in print; — how his arm was so long
that when he stood stretched to his
[March,
full height the palm of the hand
rested on the cap of the knee; andjn
some skirmish, also unrecordga^vh^n
our hero was met alone in one of our
narrow lanes by eight or ten of the
enemy, and it was one down and an
other come on, Sir Thomas, by favor
of his long arm and stout heart, cut
down about half the number, and thej
rest galloped away. That Fairfax was
a great figure in our juvenile Valhalla®
He was one of a line of noble men,
with a few exceptions, that had housed
itself there at Denton for many hunt
dreds of years. It saw good reason
finally for settling in Virginia, gave a
great friend to Washington, but not to
the infant Republic; and so came
down to that man murdered the other
day on the Pacific coast.
Pride in an ancestry like that, it
must be good to feel. I think thafe
man remembered he was a Fair®x*
and must not stain his name with
murder for murder, and that had
something to do with his noble fora
bearance. He must die like a Fair!
fax. Such persons bring with them
into the world a vast advantage over
the common run of us. Their organ
ism is like the organ of a great maker
— something unique for its sweetness^
or strength; and their soul, like a greal
organist, makes a music that is all his
own. I think we would all, please
God, belong to a line like that. It is
something still in our life, like the,
separate line of David, by which
should be born in the fulness of tifflfl
the greatest of all the figures in humdn
history.
But when that cannot be, what we
may all be glad and proud of is a line!
that is good as far as it goes. That is
the way I feel about that little man
who was to worry out of that factory I
somehow into a pulpit. The line!
began with the father and motherJ
There was a grandfather who fought
under Nelson and went overboard one
black night in a storm ; he was on the
father’s side. And then on the mother’s
side there was another sailor who went
�i87°-1
TALKS ABOUT LIFE.
down the sea in a ship that never came
up again. Then there were two
widows who fought the wolf while
they were able, and died presently of
the fight. Then, as the century was
Homing in, Yorkshire, with its great
mills, began to be to the South of En
gland what the West has been to the
Bast here in our day—the land of
promise to all who wanted to better
themselves. So a bright orphan lad
in London and a lass in Norwich
beard of it, and were caught by that
impulse to get out of the land of their
kindred which caught their son many
a year after and swept him over the
Atlantic; and I have no doubt, from
what I have heard them say, they
were after that quite of the mind of
the old ballad:
“York, York, for my monie;
Of all the places I ever did see
This is the best for good companie
Except the City of London.”
So what the boy saw when he began
to notice was a woman, tall and deep"chested, with shining flaxen hair and
laughing blue eyes, a damask rose
bloom on her cheek — as is the way
with the women of her nation; — a
laugh that was music, too, and a contagion of laughter you could not escape was at the heart of it; — a step
like a deer for lightness, and an activ
ity that could carry its possessor twenty
miles a day over the rough northern
hills, and land her safe home in the
[evening, no more tired than one
of our fashionable ladies in Chicago
Would be in going from cellar to garret
in their own house. Woman’s rights,
as a natural truth, must have come to
me by that mother. I believe, as I sit
and think of her wonderful genius for
doing whatever she took in hand, that
if she had been told to do it by her
sense of duty, and then the way had
opened, she would have led an army
like the old queens, or governed a
kingdom. What she did govern was
a houseful of great, growing, hungry,
outbreaking bairns,—keeping us all
well in hand, smiting all hinderance
225
out of our way, keeping us fed and
clad bravely, and paying for school,
as long as we could be spared to go,
out of the eighteen shillings a week
the quiet manful father made at his
anvil. The kindest heart that ever
beat in a man’s breast, I think,was his.
It stopped beating in a moment, one
hot July day; and before any hand
could touch him he was in “the rest
that remains.”
But in those brave old days, while
the first fifteen years were passing that
do so much for us all, there we were,
altogether, in one of the sweetest cot
tage homes that ever nestled under
green leaves in a green valley. There
was a plum tree and a rose tree and
wealth of ivy and a bit of greensward
outside; and inside, one room on the
floor and two above; a floor of flags
scoured white so that you might eat
your dinner on it and no harm be
done except to the floor; walls white
washed to look like driven snow, with
pictures of great Bible figures hung
where there was room, and in their
own places kept so bright as to be so
many dusky mirrors; the great ma
hogany chest of drawers and highcased clock; polished elm chairs, and
corner cupboard for the china that was
only got out at high festivals; a bright
open sea-coal fire always alight, winter
and summer; with all sorts of common
things for common use stowed snug
and tight in their own corners, like the
goods and chattels of Ed’ard Cuttie,
mariner. That was the home in the
day of small things; matched then
and still by ten thousand cottages in.
the good old shire, but never surpassed
there or anywhere, when you count
what was done and what there was
to do on.
This must be about all The West
Monthly will print in this num
ber, with wealth of better things at her
command; so I must stop now, and
leave the reader inside that cottage.
If I have a feeling that I have got to.
go on and make a clean breast of it,
ern
�226
LEGEND OF THE CASTLE OF NUREMBERG,
in some such way as Hugh Miller has
done in “ My Schools and Schoolmas
ters,” I shall have to linger about the
cottage I know not how long; for feel
ing, as I have said, how much is done
by the time the boyhood is over and
the youth begins — if such a distinction
can be made — I can see now how
[March,
many things must have been inti
mately at work beside that sweet, good
home, and what was there. Manners
and customs, traditions, stories, reli
gion, superstition, scene, and incident,
all had their place in the lad’s life, and
must have their place in the man’s
story — if it is ever told.
LEGEND OF THE CASTLE OF NUREMBERG.
{From the German. )
BY MRS. E. E. EVANS.
MONGST the many legends and suffered terribly from the ravages of
historical traditions attached to wolves, until, in desperation, the in
the old castle of Nuremberg, is a habitants assembled in force and
curious story of an event which took drove them out of their haunts, kill-,
place about the middle of the thir ing meantime as many as possible.
teenth century. The castle was at Those that escaped, to the number of
that time governed by Count Frederic several hundred, retreated to the moun
III. of Hohenzollern, who lived there tains, and from thence made frequent
in princely state with his wife, the descents upon the scattered farms in
Countess Elizabeth, and their six the valleys, so that scarcely a day
children. It was a happy family. The elapsed without some person having
wedded pair lovecj each other tenderly, been destroyed.
The most horrible event of this
and took pride in the strength and
bravery of their sons and the modest kind occurred three days before Mich
beauty of their daughters. Their re aelmas* In the forests of St. Sebald
tainers were faithful, the citizens of ’ and St. Lawrence (so named from the
the already famous city of Nuremberg two cathedrals of Nuremberg) lived a
held them in honor, the land was no class of peasants who made it their
longer disturbed by war, and through sole business to raise bees and collect
the vigilance and courage of the honey, which was in great demand,
Nurembergers the once dreaded inva as foreign sugars had not yet begun
sions of banded robbers had been to be imported. To such an extent was
the pursuit carried, that the great forest
brought to an end.
Thus peaceful and prosperous was tract was spoken of in the legal in
the existence of this noble family in struments of that period as “ the impe
the year 1264. At that period, John, rial bee-garden,” and the bee-farmers
the elder son, was eighteen and his were allowed to pay their government
brother Sigmund sixteen years old,. taxes in honey. For some reason, the
They were skilled in every knightly magistrate having charge of such
accomplishment, and had already won matters issued an order for the tax to
distinction by their exertions in cer be paid three days before Michaelmas,
tain fierce encounters with the rob instead of on the day itself, when it
would really become due; and in
bers.
In the autumn of that year the vil obedience to the command, a certain
lages in the vicinity of Nuremberg bee-farmer, living on the northern
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Talks about life
Creator
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Collyer, Robert
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [California]
Collation: 222-226 p. ; 24 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publication information from KVK.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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1870
Identifier
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G5737
Subject
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Unitarianism
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Talks about life), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts