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SAINTS OR SINNERS:
WHICH ?
BY
CHARLES WATTS,
Author of “ History of Freethought,” “Secularism: Constructive and
Destructive,” “The Philosophy of Unbelieff etc., etc.
New York:
“TRUTHSEEKER” OFFICE, 33, CLINTON PLACE.
Ten Cents.
��SAINTS OR SINNERS:
WHICH ?
and sinners are not two selected from the
SAINTS every-day lifetowebecome in contact. world, com
numerous classes
met with in the
with
which in
They
prise the entire population of the globe. This is the one
broad and essential division which includes all mankind.
There are black races and white ones; but, then, there are
also the intermediate red, olive, and dusky. There are tall
men and short ones, heavy men and light ones; but not to
the exclusion of those of middle height or weight, which
stand somewhere between the two. Even the terms “ vir
tuous” and “vicious” will not serve for an exhaustive
distinction, for there are probably none so virtuous as to
have no vices, and none so vicious as to be destitute of all
virtue; while a great number are either so indifferent to
both sides that they can hardly be said to belong to one
class or the other, or to have the good and evil so balanced
in their character that neither adjective will describe them
accurately. In all other matters without exception gradual
shadings may be detected, by which one class merges into
the other, to say nothing of the fact that they will be fre
quently found overlapping each other. In reference to
Saints and Sinners, however, we have a well-marked and
perfectly distinct line, which nothing can erase—a gulf
which cannot be spanned, a chasm with no bridge possible.
The two classes are distinct in species, in genera, and even
in order, to use a simile from Natural History. They are
separated the one from the other by a line which cannot be
wiped out, and no interchange of qualities between them is
possible. The human race, according to orthodox theology,
is just divided into these two classes, and no further division
on those lines is for one moment to be thought of. Some
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
Saints may come very near being Sinners, and a few Sinners
may, by.a large stock of natural goodness, a strong will bent
in the direction of virtue, and very favourable surroundings,
approach remarkably near the line which marks them off
from the Saints ; but neither can quite get rid of that which
indicates them as distinct beings. There are no gradations,
it is said, between Heaven and Hell, and so there are none
between those supposed to be destined hereafter to occupy
places in these regions. If it be asked, Is such a division
logically possible, judging from what is known of human
character ? the answer is, The distinction is not based on
character nor on any human quality whatever. So far as all
ordinary classification goes, it is purely arbitrary • its ground
work is, however, professedly supernatural. In the New
Testament the whole race is symbolised as being composed
only of sheep and goats, and in all the creeds of orthodox
Churches the one distinction drawn is between believers
and unbelievers, the converted and the unconverted—in
other words, Saints and Sinners. Of course, it is considered
possible for a Sinner to become a Saint, or for a Saint to
lapse into a Sinner • but no admixture of the qualities of
the two can under any circumstances occur. The instant a
man ceases to be a Saint he is a Sinner out and out, and
not the smallest vestige of his saintliness remains; while, on
the other hand, the Sinner, however depraved, may, by a
kind of spiritual transformation, be changed in the twinkling
of an eye into a Saint; but then he is no longer a Sinner,
even in the most infinitesimal degree. The separating
agent is the alleged supernatural, and as such defies logic
and all human mental analysis. Thus it is useless to urge
the question, Is any division of mankind into two classes
possible ? because the only reply to be received is that it is
accomplished by the grace of God, and with God all things
are said to be possible; and there the controversy must end.
The real question to be considered, therefore, is, What are
the characteristics of each of these classes, and wherein do
they differ ? Of course, I belong to the Sinners, and it may
be said, therefore, that I am incompetent to discuss the
Saints.. But, then, it may be replied, in the first place, that
the Saints are often found discussing the Sinners, and this
would, upon such a theory, be equally unfair; in the second,
that, as no person can be both, such discussion must be
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
5
altogether futile from this point of view; and, thirdly, that
we have ample material before us from the Saints themselves
upon which to form an opinion. It will be my endeavour,
therefore, to do ample justice to both Saints and Sinners,
dealing with their respective characters and value as deli
neated in history and known by observation. Here we
shall find no lack of material from which to judge of the
part they have played, and are still playing, in the ranks of
every-day life. It is hardly likely that the members of these
two classes will agree in the estimate they form of each
other. Nor can they well work together upon any lines
where their peculiar qualities will be likely to exercise any
sort of influence. They have to keep, therefore, largely
apart. The Marquis of Salisbury once, in the House of
Lords, describing Church parties, provoked a good deal of
laughter by an Irishism, called a bull. He said : “ A con
gregation may be divided among themselves into two
parties; yet, if there were any means of separating them,
they would both go on happily together—I mean,” he added,
“ apart.” Well, the Saints and Sinners are separated ; but
we can go on very happily together—I mean apart.
Saints and Sinners : what are we to say of them ? The
Saints are holy, the Sinners unholy; the Saints are righteous,
the Sinners unrighteous; the Saints celestial, the Sinners
infernal; the Saints are the children of God, the Sinners
the offspring of—well, “ the Evil One,” as the Revised Ver
sion has it. The Saints are to sit on clouds and sing psalms
through all eternity; the Sinners to gnash their teeth in
endless woe for ever and ever, and, as Lorenzo Dow says,
for five or six everlastings on the top of that. The Saints
are regarded as the “ goody-goody ” people, not on account
of their own intrinsic worth, but in consequence of their
professed allegiance to a special faith ; the Sinners are those
denounced by the Church as unregenerated members of
society, because they prefer fidelity to conviction rather than
to creeds and dogmas born of a cruel and mind-degenerating
theology. The Saints are those who, thinking they lack the
power of self-improvement, rely upon an external “Saviour”
for their moral elevation ; the Sinners are those who depend
upon the potency of an enlightened and cultivated hu
manity for the inspiration to ethical advancement, feeling
assured—
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
“ That within yourselves deliverance must be sought:
Each man his prison makes.”
In discussing Saints we come at once upon a sub-division
made by themselves. There are Catholic Saints and Protes
tant Saints. It is by no means certain that one of those
classes would admit, except in a very limited degree, the
saintship of the other. But each will contend of itself that
it comprises Saints par excellence. Of course the Catholic
Saints differ widely from the Protestant Saints upon most
points ; but upon one thing they are agreed—namely, that to
be a Saint it is necessary to devote one’s attention especially
to matters which relate to the Church rather than to the world,
to the supposed future life in preference to the present, to
the effort to please God rather than to the desire to ennoble
man, and, finally, to the sanctification of the soul rather
than to the purification of the body. The method of doing
this is not the same in the two cases, but the end is identical.
The faith of the Saint in each case is admirably set forth by
Lowell in “ The Biglow Papers —
“ I du believe in special ways
O’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;
The bread comes back in many days,
An’ buttered, tu, fer sartin;—
I mean in preyin’ till one busts
On wut the party chooses,
An’ in convartin’ public trusts
To very privit uses.
*
*
*
*
“ I du believe in prayer an’ praise
To him thet hez the grantin’
O’ jobs,—in every thin’ thet pays,
But most of all in Cantin’ ;
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o’ sin to rest,—
I don't believe in princerple,
But, O, I du in interest.
*
*
%
*
“ In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally,
Fer it’s a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally ;
This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
In pasturs sweet heth led me,
An’ this ’ll keep the people green
To feed ez they hev fed me.”
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
7
The number of Roman Catholic Saints is so great as
to be perfectly bewildering; and it is quite impossible to
remember the names of half of them. The principle upon
which men are canonised—and, of course, afterwards
worshipped—is very difficult to discover; but usually it is,
I suppose, some kind of service rendered to the Church—
very often service of an exceedingly questionable character,
judged of from any human standpoint. The members of
the Church who are elevated into Saints, upon very much
the same principle as the Pagan apotheosis of heroes into
gods, are much less numerous to-day than in the past, for
reasons which it is difficult to understand, unless the Church
is admitted to be degenerating in spiritual power or zeal or
holiness, or whatever else may be looked upon as necessary
to constitute a Saint. During the first three centuries of the
Christian Church nearly every bishop became a Saint; but
in the last three hundred years only one has been so honoured,
and he by no means a brilliant example—viz., Pius V., who,
according to Lord Acton, was the instigator of a contem
plated murder of the English monarch. Ireland, that
favoured soil for the Roman Catholic superstition, in which
Romanism, with the rank luxuriance of a noxious weed
poisoning the very atmosphere of one of the most beautiful
countries on the earth, in three centuries added eight hun
dred and fifty Saints to the calendar, while, according to
Father Burke, it has not elevated one since Lawrence O’Toole,
who lived seven hundred years ago. It is unnecessary here
to enter upon the character of these Saints. History recordsthe fact that, for the most part, they were men guilty of the
worst of crimes, and destitute of those grand virtues which
exalt and ennoble human character. They were haters of
freedom and the greatest enemies of progress that the world
has ever seen. The Church which they serve so faithfully,
and to which they owe their apotheosis, has crushed out all
liberty among peoples by the heavy tread of its iron hoofs,,
wherever it has been able to hold up its head and send forth
its pestilential breath to poison the springs of moral, political,
and intellectual life. With these Saints perjury is often a duty
when it can serve the purpose of the Church, truth dangerous
to the people, murder in the cause of religion a virtue, perse
cution to death commendable, lying desirable, uncleanli
ness profitable, and every vile abomination on earth sicken
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
ing to contemplate defensible on theological grounds. The
perfection which saintship implies is frequently a perfection
of intellectual subjection and moral degradation, resulting
often in the most terrible form of criminality and all the
foulness which even bad men of the world would shudder
at with horror. The most eminent doctors of the Church
may be quoted as not only tolerating every conceivable
crime, but even instigating and enjoying it—and, indeed,
threatening eternal perdition to those who were not prepared
to perform acts at which pure humanity would stand aghast.
The history of saintship is written in blood and engraven
with fire. To such a history the following words of the
poet are exceedingly applicable :—
“ It doth avail not that I speak to thee ;
Ye cannot change, for ye are old and grey.
But you have chosen your lot; your fame shall be
A book of blood, whence, in a milder day,
Men shall learn truth when you are wrapped in clay.”
Recently the Dublin Review (vol. xx., p. 192), a high-class
Roman Catholic authority, thus delivered itself on the ques
tion of education :—“ We are very far from meaning that
ignorance is the Catholic youth’s best preservative against
intellectual danger; but it is a very powerful one neverthe
less, and those who deny this are but inventing a theory in
the very teeth of manifest facts. A Catholic destitute of
intellectual tastes, whether in a higher or a lower rank, may,
probably enough, be tempted to idleness, frivolity, gambling,
sensuality; but in none but the very rarest cases will he be
tempted to that which, in the Catholic view, is an immeasur
ably greater calamity than any of these, or all put together
—viz., deliberate doubt of the truth of his religion.” Is it
to be wondered at that, with such teaching, the greatest
ignorance and the grossest superstition prevail among these
people ? To be a Saint evidently is to be an uneducated
dolt, an intellectual pigmy, with a dwarfed intelligence and
crippled mental powers; for here is the honest concession
of what we have long contended for, that education is cal
culated to destroy the belief in popular religions and to
make men lose their faith in the teaching of the Church,
and in the creeds of the various theologies that abound in
our midst, to the intellectual hurt of the people. One dis
tinction, consequently, between Saints and Sinners lies here,
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
' 9
that the former prefer and defend ignorance and pose as the
champions of mental darkness, while the latter are the
advocates of culture, freedom, and intellectual light. Is it any
marvel that the days when the Saints were supreme in their
power over the masses were known as “ the dark ages”? Such
Saints present a striking contrast to, and cut a sorry figure
in the presence of, the Sinners of every-day life. Lord
Beaconsfield, once speaking on the subject of Darwinism—
which clearly he did not thoroughly understand—contrasted
the theory of the descent of man from monkeys with the
hypothesis of finding his parentage in angels, and added,
“ I am on the side of the angels.” So we say, We are on
the side of the Sinners, and long may they live to rebuke
the pretensions and correct the many errors and vices of the
Saints, who have been men, as Milton puts it—
“ That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge.”
Protestant Saints differ very considerably from those of
the Catholic persuasion—so much so, in fact, that there are
very few points of resemblance between them ; one there is,
and that a most conspicuous one—namely, their assumption
of superiority over other people. The Protestant Saint is not
■canonised after death by his Church ; he canonises himself
during life. His infallible authority he finds not in popes,
cardinals, and priestly conclaves, but between the covers of
a book and in theological creeds; and the source of his
inspiration is not a visible Church, but what is termed the
direct operation of the spirit of God upon his own mind.
Hence he judges individually his own claims of saintship
and decides for himself whether he is a Saint or not, indepen
dently of any external authority. This, to say the least of it,
produces a good deal of confusion, because the claims of
one are not unfrequently denied by another. With some
the whole question resolves itself into election from all
eternity, according to the purpose of God, quite apart from
any merits or demerits of the person so chosen. Persons
sharing this view consider that the Almighty, for some reason
of his own, which to human beings appears perfectly inscrut
able, selected from before the foundation of the world
certain persons to be his favourites in this world, and the
inheritors of everlasting joy in the next, quite regardless of
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
their character or their acts, while he damned others to
perpetual misery, from which there is no way for them to
escape, simply because he so willed it. Mr. Spurgeon, re
ferring to this horrible doctrine—in which he is a firm
believer—tells an anecdote in one of his published sermons,
with great gusto, of an old woman, who said : “ If the Lord
had not loved me before I was born, he would never have
loved me at all; for I am sure I have done nothing since to
cause him to do so." It would not be gallant to deny that
this very pious woman formed an accurate opinion of her
own character, if a wrong one of the purposes and decrees
of her God. Unfortunately, there are some people who go
through life without doing much to deserve the love of any
one; but, too often, such persons are the victims of orthodox
delusions, and not the recipients of Nature’s ever-inspiring
affection. As a rule, they allow the usefulness of their
careers to be marred by the dreadful idea that—
“ Nothing is worth a thought beneath
But how we may escape the death
That never, never dies."
Thus the value of existence is sacrificed, and the tenderness
of humanity is blunted by the worthlessness and harsh teach
ings of theology.
This election and reprobation theory is terribly repugnant
to all human notions of goodness, and even justice. No
doubt there is a great truth underlying the doctrine of pre
destination, although it is, of course, presented in a very
false and an excessively repugnant form. It recognises the
doctrine of determinism, with which most modern philo
sophic thinkers agree. The part of it which consigns millions
of men to everlasting torture for no other reason than that
God so willed it, and that it was his divine pleasure that it
should be so, is horrible beyond description. But the great
apostle of this dogma, Jonathan Edwards, has given to the
world an exceedingly valuable work on “ The Freedom of
the Will,” which no Arminian has yet fairly answered. We
take other grounds on this question than the great Calvinistic
writer; but the conclusion at which we arrive is the same.
The will is, like all things else, an effect as well as a cause.
It certainly counts for something, indeed for much, in human
actions; but then it has itself sprung from, and is con
ditioned by, organisation, environment, and other causes
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
11
which it is powerless to control. Man’s motives do not arise
from his volition; on the contrary, they govern the will.
Manis free,of course, in a sense—-that is, he is free to act in
accordance with his desires; but these desires act indepen
dently of volition. And this is all the freedom that is
possible, and it is all that any rational person should demand.
No man wants freedom to do that which he has no inclina
tion to do, or to act contrary to his desires. His freedom
lies in his capacity to obey his impulses; but these impulses
the will has no power to create. The will is not an originat
ing cause, but itself an effect, the result of a complication
of circumstances, such as external surroundings, the con
dition of the brain, temperament, age, sex, and heredity.
To say that the will is free in the sense that Arminians hold
it to be, is to state that which is paradoxical. For, if a
person has the power to call up a desire by the will, it is
certain that some prior desire induced him to do so. What,
therefore, caused that desire ? Suppose one individual says
he wills to do a thing, and he does it: he must have had an
inclination, or he would not have thus willed and acted.
Some inclination must, therefore, precede the will, and,
clearly, the will cannot be the cause of that which precedes
itself in point of time, and to which, in fact, it owes its
existence.
But the serious difficulty which arises in reference to this
election doctrine is the fact already mentioned, that each
person is left to decide for himself as to his being a Saint
or a Sinner, and also whether he is one of the favoured ones
or not—that is, whether he belongs to the sheep or the goats.
The consequence is, that many who are elect Saints, accord
ing to their own estimation, are such characters as to lead
inevitably to the conclusion that, if God chose them before
they were born, he either did not know what sort of people
they were likely to turn out to be, or else he displayed a very
questionable taste in their election. Other good Saints deny
the whole theory of predestination, and maintain that man’s
spiritual position is the result of his own choice in accord
ance with the freedom of the will, and that, therefore,
whether he be a Saint or a Sinner is a matter of his own
individual decision, and, hence, if he remain alienated from
God and receive damnation after death, it is entirely his
own fault. But how does this idea harmonise with the
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
notion of God’s foreknowledge ? According to this doc
trine, God knows before a child is born whether it will be
saved or lost, and that knowledge renders its state certain.
If, for instance, when I was born God foreknew that I should
live and die a Sinner and be doomed to eternal perdition
after my death, then I cannot escape ; for to urge that I
can is to say that God knew and did not know at the same
time. Coleridge calls the distinction between decreeing and
permitting “ a quibble,” “ and one which is quite absurd
when applied to an omniscience and omnipotence perpetually
creative.” And Coleridge was right; for to suppose that the
“ Great Father of all ” would either doom or permit any of
his children to be doomed before they were born to ever
lasting misery, while he had the power to arrange otherwise,
is to rob him of the attribute of goodness and to charge
him with a crime that most human parents would scorn to
be guilty of. This, however, does not affect the difficulty
under consideration, which is that, according to both the
theory of predestination and that of the freedom of the
will, the individual man himself decides whether he is a
Saint or not. The evidence of saintship is internal, and
hence no one else is in a position to form an opinion with
regard to it. No Church can sit in judgment on such a
person, because he claims that the evidence—and that of
an irresistible character—lies within his own breast. The
Saints of this class are of various grades, and are very often
found disputing the claims of each other. Thus the
Mormons declare that they possess such evidence in their
own behalf, and that it is of such a nature that it cannot
be mistaken—indeed, they claim that they alone possess it,
and hence they are Saints par excellence—Latter-Day
Saints that is, the only Saints in these latter days. But
the rest of the Christian world declare this sect to be hereti
cal in the extreme, and that those who belong to it are wild
fanatics, self-deluded madmen, and, in many instances, rank
impostors. The internal evidence which, in their own case,
they deem conclusive is denied to others to be of the least
value. The Shakers are Saints by the same kind of evidence,
and it leads them to look upon all relationship of the sexes
as of the Devil, and marriage to be a snare and a curse.
The Mormons, from the same standpoint, maintain that by
polygamy alone can man attain to anything like a state of
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
13
happiness here and blessedness in the hereafter; while the
Oneida Creek community, founded by Father Noyes, also
composed of Saints the evidence of whose sainthood is
within, proclaims one of the fruits of the spirit to be pro
miscuousness in sexual matters. By some the evidence of
saintship consists in immersion, by others in keeping a
seventh-day Sabbath in opposition to the first day, and by
others in some still more trivial form or rite.
All this, to a Sinner, is a little confusing, and we become
somewhat puzzled to know what are the essential qualities
of a Saint without which he would relapse into a Sinner.
A good story is told of an old woman who said that, if you
took away her “ total depravity, you took away her religion.”
This, perhaps, is true of many besides the old woman; so
we will leave them their total depravity, and consider it one
of the essential characteristics of a Saint.
Now, we have been pretty well governed by Saints of one
kind and the other for a good many centuries, and what is
the outcome of it all ? The world is not what we would
expect it to be, considering the great pretensions of these
holy ones, and the almost perfection of character which they
claim, and the superiority to Sinners which they arrogate
to themselves. Crime abounds, immorality is found on
every hand, vice overflows the land like mighty floods that
have burst their dams and are sweeping all before them;
the old modesties and rectitudes of life frequently disappear
in these days; the sacredness of obligations is lightly
esteemed, often quite disregarded; there is an apotheosis of
sensuous—not to say sensual—pleasure, which is destructive
of the noblest part of man ; falsehood and evasion are
almost universal, hypocrisy and cunning are fashionable,
drunkenness is common, and vulgar swearing is not in
frequent ; there is ostentatious display on the part of the
rich, and grinding poverty on the part of the poor, and
chaos everywhere. An able modern Christian writer (Dr.
Halcombe), after having spoken strongly of the condition
of society as regards parents, thus proceeds to deal with
children :—“ From such parents, what children ? Often
times unwelcome visitors, hated and persecuted before birth,
neglected afterwards through ignorance, or laziness, or selfish
ness ; left as much as possible to servants or subordinates,
what can we expect ? See what little savages—what early
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
development of evil and vicious propensities, what cruelty
to insects and small animals, what meanness and perfidy to
each other, what bickerings, fightings, envyings, vanity, pride,
greediness, often uncorrected, unreproved; sometimes even
encouraged by parents ! Injudiciously petted, injudiciously
beaten, maltrained, maltreated, they become prodigies of
deceit and dissimulation ; unwatched, uninstructed, driven
too early to school or to low associates to be got out of the
way, they fall into revolting habits that poison the very
springs of life. What follows ? Disobedience, head-strong
passions, outrageous tempers, disrespect for parents, quarrels
and hatred of each other, false views of life, base motives,
low ambitions, concealments, hypocrisies, selfishness and
utter worldliness, and so on to manhood and womanhood,
to make husbands and wives like their parents and to beget
progeny like themselves. And for all this, after eighteen
centuries of instruction, the Christian Church is responsible.”
This is strong Christian testimony as to the nature of a
Church founded, regulated, and controlled by Saints. What
picture of the domain of Sinners can be correctly drawn
which shall surpass the above confession in all the weak
nesses and vices of a debased and degraded humanity?
Evidently saintship is no guarantee for virtue and no protec
tion against the evils that too frequently blight the happiness
and nobility of man. Of these Saints we may say with
Ophelia:—
“ Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven ;
While, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.”
But the classification into Catholic Saints and Protestant
Saints is, after all, a broad division into two great parties,
and each of these comprises within itself quite a number
of varieties. There is the melancholy Saint, who rolls up
the whites of his eyes, pulls an exceedingly long and solemn
lace, eschews smiles, hates levity, denounces a good hearty
faugh as a sound issuing from the bottomless pit, fit only to
be indulged in by madmen or fiends. His countenance
looks as sour as a crab-apple, his nose points up to heaven,
he is knock-kneed and intred, has a big abdomen and small
legs, and never looks you in the face while speaking to you.
His favourite text, which he never tires of quoting, is, “ Man
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
15
is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards ” (a very curious
simile, by the way; for sparks do not always fly upwards,
and, if they did, the relationship between them doing so
and trouble is not easy to discover); and when he sings it
is, in the most hollow and sepulchral tone, the cheerful words
of John Wesley :—
“No room for mirth or trifling here,
For worldly hope or worldly fear,
If life so soon be gone.”
Just fancy, when one hears those words drawled out as a
Methodist of the old school alone can give them forth, what
an impression it must make upon the Sinner as to the happy
influence of saintly profession ! The fact is that, so far as
the pious singer is concerned, life might as well not have
been at all, and that the sooner it “ is gone ” the better
will it be for his comfort. In this merry, laughing world he
is clearly out of place, and could well be spared from the
busy haunts of men. The prattle of little children and
their frolicsome romps are, to him, the inductions of original
sin ; and the bleatings of lambs and their gambols while at
play only show the necessity for the butcher to bring about
that condition in which the addition of mint sauce will be
agreeable to the epicure. This kind of Saint abhors a joke,
calls a pun a miserable perversion of the meaning of words,
hyperbole lying, metaphor absurd, and fiction the quint
essence of falsehood. He says he belongs to the “ little
flock,” which is a blessing for which we cannot feel too
grateful; for a big flock composed of such as he would
make life intolerable to everybody outside their fold. He
has no abiding city here, which is a mercy; and he seeks
a home in the skies, although he never seems anxious to
reach it, but stays in this world as long as possible, a trouble
to himself and a nuisance to all with whom he comes in
■contact. He delights to picture a heaven beyond the skies ;
but “distance lends enchantment to the view.” He is serious
while other men laugh, and solemn while they are joyous.
He is akin to those ancestors of ours pictured by Charles
Lamb, who lived before candles came into general use, and
who, when a joke was cracked in the dark, had to feel
around for the smile. In his case, however, there would be
no smile to feel for, inasmuch as the Saint exclaims : “ Woe
�16
SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
unto you who laugh;” “Blessed are they that mourn;”
“ Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your
joy into heaviness.” One writer says that laziness begets
laughter; but in this Saint’s case it produces the very opposite
effect. He is lazy and grim at the same time, robbing life
of its beauty and rapture, and ignoring the possible brilliancy
of Time to the gloomy anticipations of Eternity. In the
language of Byron, he lives and acts—
“ In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.”
Then there is the zealous Saint, who bores friends and
enemies alike about the salvation of his immortal soul. This
man is generally fat, greasy, and extremely homely; his nose
is as red as a signal light on a railway, and his eyes resemble
two gimlet holes bored in a huge turnip. He is, as a rule,
quite innocent of grammar in his speech, of good behaviour
in his manners, and seems to keep hell-fire constantly before
his eyes. He drawls in his speech, and addresses you in a
soft familiar tone as “ dear friend,” while his rude and ob
trusive conduct would suggest that he was one of your most
objectionable enemies. He professes to be more interested
in the state of your soul than of all else on earth, and tells
you that, unless you pass through a change akin to some
theological legerdemain process, you will assuredly be
damned. He rejoices in proclaiming, “ I tell ye nay ; but,
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” He pesters
the life out of those who are unfortunate enough to be his
victims, with his cant jargon, with the bundle of leaflets that
he carries in his hands for distribution, and with his warnings
to flee from the “ wrath to come,” till one almost thinks that
damnation after all would be a relief to escape him. He
informs you that this world “ is a vale of tears,” and that all
sublunary things will speedily pass away, which certainly
would be “ a consummation devoutly to be wished ” if he
were included in the departure. It is very difficult to escape
from this Saint. He buttonholes you in the street, on the
railway or street car, and at your ordinary occupation. He
has made up his mind to convert you, and he leaves no
stone unturned whereby he can accomplish his purpose.
He tells you that he prays for you night and day, and you may
consider yourself lucky if he do not go down on his knees
and prey upon your patience right there. He is simply a
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
17
theological bore, who sacrifices reason to passion, good taste
to fanaticism, and common sense to orthodox stupidity.
Then there is the oily Saint, whose words are smooth and
soft, and who is very unctuous in his manners, the extreme
of affability. He tells you that his soul is full of love for
all mankind, that the very worst of them have his sympathy,
and that the cardinal virtue is charity. This Saint is lean
and threadbare, and will probably end his interview by
asking for the loan of five dollars or a gift to some mission
ary cause, never omitting to add that “ God loveth a cheerful
giver,” and “ He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto
the Lord.” And, above all, he is particularly anxious to
remind you of the words of “ our blessed Master,” “ Lend,
hoping for nothing again.” This Saint is much more likely
to take persons off their guard than any of the others, for
he overflows with honeyed words and suave manners. This
is the man that all should be especially aware off; his arts
are duplicity and deception, and he lives in the very slime
of hypocrisy, the very goodness of his nature being counter
acted by the evil influence of pious extravagance and ortho
dox cant. There are other Saints, such as the noisy Saint,
the upstart Saint of the noisy Pecksnifiian descent, the Saint
of dudist manners, the holy Saint who boasts that he has
not sinned for forty years, and the female Saint, who is, of
course, the most dangerous type of all, in consequence of
the persistent fascination of her sex and her natural influ
ence over the majority of men. Then there is a genus who
describe themselves as half Saint and half Sinner—“Plymouth
Brethren ” they are termed in England. They hold that,
while the lower part of their human nature may sin, the
higher portion remains quite holy, and thus the Saint and
Sinner are combined in one person. It is not necessary to
discuss these people, because to recognise them will be to
spoil the classification of mankind into Saints and Sinners.
There is one interesting question, however, which may occur
to some minds in connection with these half-and-half people,
which is, What will happen to the upper side of their natures
if the devil gets the lower side ? That, perhaps, is a mystery
which no Agnostic should attempt to solve. Enough has
here been said to indicate the nature of the various kinds of
Saints that abound in our midst; probably there is a place
for them in the economy of nature; but in the domestic
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
■circle and in spheres of public usefulness, private purity,
moral culture, intellectual advancement, national freedom,
and individual liberty, they have failed to do that which
would entitle them to the sympathies of a free and enlight
ened generation. Their natures have been, and are, so
contradictory, their conduct so inconsistent, their actions so
detrimental to the well-being of society, that one is justified
in saying, when thinking of most of them : “ I have thought
some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made
them well—they imitated humanity so abominably.”
Coming to the consideration of Sinners, it may be asked,
What is a Sinner ? In the regular service of the Church of
England, which the devotees of that form of religion go
through every Sunday, generally twice, each person confesses
that he has “left undone the things which he ought to have
done and done the things which he ought not to have done.”
This continual acknowledgment of misdoing is not very
complimentary to the faith which is supposed to influence
the conduct of the wrong-doers. By the way, what a pecu
liar predicament such worshippers w’ould be placed in sup
posing that, in some one week, they had, by an extraordinary
■effort, or by having been placed in very favourable circum
stances, or by both combined, done what they ought to do,
and not done what they ought not to do, then the following
Sunday the repetition of these words would really be lying,
and, what is worse from their point of view, lying to their
•God—that is, if the confession be addressed to him, rather
than intended for the ears of the rest of the congregation.
In such a case what is to be done ? The words are there,
and must be repeated. Is it not, therefore, necessary for
the people to do wrong on the week-day in order that they
may speak the truth on the Sunday? They then add,
“ There is no health in us,” and go on to pray, “ Have
mercy upon us miserable sinners ”—or t! offenders,” which
means the same thing. The word “ health ” here has refer
ence, no doubt, to “ spiritual ” health, for the entire congre
gation could scarcely be said to be suffering from some
physical disease. Indeed, it is well enough known that
“ health” and “ holiness ” are really identical in their signi
fication, having the same derivation, as originally they had
the same meaning. Health is harmony; disease is discord,
whether of body or mind. “ Without artificial medicament
�SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
19
of philosophy,” says Carlyle, “ or tight-lacing of creeds
(always very questionable), the healthy soul discerns what
is good and adheres to it and retains it, discerns what is
bad and spontaneously casts it off. An instinct from Nature
herself, like that which guides the wild animals of the forest
to their food, shows him what he shall do and what he shall
abstain from. The false and the fantastic will not adhere
to him; cant and all diseased incrustations are impossible.”
The man, therefore, who really feels that there is no health
in him confesses himself to be out of harmony with law, an
abnormal product in the universe, a morbid accretion on
the fair face of Nature, a diseased and withered branch on
the tree of life. Such a confession may be fitly indulged in
for once when the discovery is made; but to be always
doing it is the height of religious folly. For, if there is an
intention to put matters right, why is it not done ? if no
such intention, then why not cease canting about it ? Well
may such persons call themselves “miserable sinners,” for
miserable they can hardly help being while they remain at
variance with law and order, and are everlastingly lamenting
that they are so, and yet make no attempt to amend matters.
If we take these people at their own estimate, they are
offended, which shows that the confession so glibly made
week after week is insincere, to say the least of it—in fact,
it is what they themselves would call in others rank hypo
crisy. A story is told of John Wesley to the effect that an
old woman went to the great preacher and said : “ Oh, Mr.
Wesley, I am a dreadful sinner.” Wesley replied : “Yes,
Maam.” She repeated : “ I am an awful sinner.” Wesley
nodded assent. “You have no idea,” she continued, “ how
bad I am: I have been a terrible sinner.” “Yes,” said
Wesley, “ I can easily understand that you are very bad.”
At which the old woman glared up and said : “ Bad, Mr.
Wesley? What do you mean? I am not bad : I’ll have
you to know that I am as good as you.” Now, if you take
these people at their word, and describe them in the same
terms as they apply to themselves, it will soon be seen how
insincere their confession has been.
But what is a Sinner ? A violation of the moral law one
understands; an infringement of the laws of the land is
clear enough. But neither of these is meant when sin is
spoken of by religious persons. It means something dif-
�20
SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
ferent from both. True, it may include these; but it is
not necessarily connected with either. It is, in a theological
sense, an offence against God, and may or may not involve
any wrong to man. Or, if there should be a wrong to a
fellow being, it is not that which constitutes the most heinous
part of the sin. Sin, we are told, is the violation of law.
Well, but what law ? Not necessarily the moral law, but
some Divine law, which is supposed to be higher than any
that can spring from human authority. The questions here
suggest themselves, What is this alleged Divine law, and
can it be known to man ? If it can be known, why has not
an intelligent application of it been given to the world ?
On the other hand, if we are ignorant of its nature,
how can it be acted upon ? Theology teaches that the
human race became Sinners in consequence of the sin of
Adam and Eve. But admitting, pro tem., the theory in
Genesis to be true, was any sin committed by those primitive
progenitors ? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says : “ Sin must
be a state originant in the will of the actor, entirely indepen
dent of circumstances extrinsic to that will.” The Bible,
however, records three circumstances over which Adam and
Eve could have had no control—namely, the fruit which
was “pleasant to the eyes,” the desire to partake of the fruit,
and the serpent which tempted the woman to eat that which
was “good for food.” Is an act upon the part of a person
sinful if he or she is compelled to perform it ? Besides, this
act in the Garden of Eden was intended by God either to
be performed or not. If he intended it, there could be no
sin ; while, if he did not intend it, he being omnipotent, man
could not do it in spite of him. It is no answer to say,
“ God permitted it.” A God all good could not sin, and to
give man permission to sin would be admitting that a finite
being could do more than an infinite being, and also that
which he (the infinite being) was incapable of accomplishing.
Religious opinions have everywhere in the past influenced
men’s minds on the questions of morality and what should
form the basis of ethical codes. No one will deny the fact
that the conceptions formed of God will depend largely upon
the characteristics of the people among whom the concep
tions are formed. The gods of savages sirhply reflect the
feelings and ideas of the race where the god belief obtains.
They are cruel, brutal, revengeful, and licentious, according
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
21
to the characters of the worshippers; and the methods re
sorted to for appeasing them will be just those by which the
worshipper would like himself to be approached, and which
would afford him some sort of gratification. In Greece
graceful harmony, beauty, and the highest development of
art were personified in its mythology. As character and
culture became elevated, the conception of God becomes
more lofty. The different views of God which obtain have
modified the conception formed of offences against God—in
other words, sin.
The moral law has often been moulded by the religious
conception. In ancient Egypt so great a crime was it con
sidered to kill an ibis that whoever did so was put to death.
The Spartans were encouraged to steal, it being thought quite
moral to do so. Falsehood and deceit were deemed praise
worthy among the members of the early Christian Church.
In fact, lying was regarded as a virtue if it were indulged in
for pious purposes ; and St. Paul evidently justified such
acts. Even to-day lying is deemed to be no sin among some
people—the Chinese, for instance. Hundreds of other cases
of a similar kind might be given; but these will suffice to
show that the conception of sin among one people is the
reverse of what we meet with in another.
It will now be apparent that, in the conventional sense in
which the word “ sin ” is employed, it may be completely
dissevered from vice or immorality. Two sets of duties are
recognised by religious persons : one relating to God and
the other to man. The neglect of the first class is sin, the
omission of the other vice. As before stated, the latter are
largely influenced by the former ; but still it is the violation
of the law arising out of the former that constitutes sin, and
the sinner is he who is guilty of such violation. We have,
therefore, a class of acts which are right or wrong, indepen
dent altogether of any sort of relationship that they may
sustain, apart from theology, to mankind, and these acts
will be deemed sinful or holy in proportion as they fulfil
certain religious conditions. For example, a man planting a
few flowers in his garden on Sunday would be held in
Canada and Scotland to be guilty of a grave offence against
God, although .he had not in any way injured his fellow man,
or in the smallest degree violated any moral law, except such
as was supposed to be involved in the religious code.
�22
SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
The disseverance of the moral and religious duties is
not so marked to-day as in the past, simply because religion,
as a distinct thing, is less recognised. The intelligent
preacher of the present time—at least among the Protestants
and outside the ultra-orthodox party—devotes himself to
expounding moral duties and enforcing such acts of conduct
as, whatever their relationship may be to a future world,
have very much to do with the life here. But in the past’
and even now among Roman Catholics and the extreme
orthodox party, the religious duties greatly exceed the moral
ones, and hence sin is more common than immorality, and
the Sinner, consequently, much more conspicuous than the
vicious man.
By these facts we are able to judge whether Saints or
Sinners make the more useful members of Society, and,
judged of from a human standpoint, which are the better
adapted to the world in which we live. Whether the Saints
are more eligible for heaven is another matter. If they
are, should they not make the best of their way thither ?
Many of them on this earth are clearly out of place. The
Sinner—that is, the man whose sin is only of the theological
kind—may not be fit for heaven ; that region he knows not
of; but on earth there is plenty of room for him and ample
need for his presence. When, in the fulness of his heart
and the wide sympathy of his nature, he throws the golden
beams of blessedness into a sorrowing and distressed home,
sacrificing little comforts himself in order to help his fellows,
making the countenances of the sick, the poor, and the
suffering light up with a smile of sunshine, where before
darkness and gloom had reigned supreme, is he not fulfilling
the highest destiny of man, Sinner though he be ? Religion,
by her most ardent disciples, is portrayed in dark and gloomy
colours, as if we had no right to enjoy the beauty and
tenderness of the lower world—as if the deepest and purest
affections of the heart were unhallowed and unholy ; whereas
one feels that the noblest and best endeavour should be to
delight in the soft mellow light of love in which float all
things good and fair. To do this is reserved for the Sinner,
irrespective of any saintly influence. Religion may have a
place in the world; but it must not usurp, the throne of
man’s affections, the holiest part of his nature. We will
not bow suppliantly to any altar if it is to rob those we love
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
2S
of our heart’s warmest devotion, to taint the loveliness of
moral greatness and dim the blaze of unsanctified genius.
Our love for parent, wife, and children, and, after them, all
the human race, must be paramount in our breasts, though
we be counted Sinners ten times over. Man is man, and
not a religious machine. Too often the Saint lowers ’him
self and then scoffs at and derides those who dare to be
themselves. Let him scoff on. With our feet on the earth,
and our eyes on the stars, we proclaim mankind sublimer
than all else in beauty and magnificence. The world has
ever yearned for a full realisation of love to man and woman.
The great heart of Humanity has sent forth its longings and
aspirations, and these have often returned desolate and dis
appointed. Priests, temples, and altars have stood in the
way of the world’s improvement. Again and again has the
music of Nature’s better being burst forth. Saints have
whined over the decadence of the race, and the song of
beauty has been hushed in the wailing of those who should
have been first and foremost in the great work of human
amelioration. -But the manifestations will return and burn
brighter each time—more brightly than the flame of the
altars of Zoroaster or the sacrificial fires of the Jewish priest
hood.
Orthodoxy designates all men Sinners who have not been
“born again,” and condemns them as the enemies to the
nobility of mankind. And yet, looking through the long
roll of the world’s greatest men, the giants of intellect,
Nature’s nobles, the world’s reformers, genius bright as the
sun, and disinterestedness of character glowing like the stars
are to be found among the Sinners of the earth. Turn over
the pages of history, and what characters shall we find
standing conspicuously forth among the loftiest of Hu
manity’s children, towering like mighty columns above the
rest? Why, those denounced by the Church as Sinners.
By whom was the mighty civilisation of Greece, the strength
and power of Rome, and the grandeur of yet earlier peoples,
from whom even Greece and Rome had much to learn—
by whom was all this accomplished ? Why, by those desig
nated Sinners. The lofty intellect of Plato, throwing in
some instances modern greatness into the shade, the grand
moral sublimity of Socrates, the profound thought of Aris
totle, the fiery eloquence of Demosthenes, and the subdued
�24
SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
oratory of Pericles, the world’s greatest thinkers, at whose
feet the scholars of to-day are content to sit ; poets, sages,
philosophers, whose writings transcend all that the world
had seen before or witnessed since, were all Sinners accord
ing to the dictum of orthodoxy. That marvellous strength
of will which made Rome the mistress of the world, which
enabled that great empire to spread itself over the civilised
globe,^holding in its hands the destiny of peoples and the
fate of nations, whose sons shed an eternal lustre on their
age and achieved an immortality of reputation lasting as long
as humanity itself—all these heroic acts and glorious deeds
are associated with Sinners, not Saints of the Church. Even
in more modern lands we discover the names of illustrious
Sinners adorning the pages of history. Some unbelievers
or doubters of Christian dogmas, some indifferent to all
theology, others advanced thinkers of the Deistical, Uni
tarian, and Agnostic type ; but all Sinners from the orthodox
standpoint. From Roger Bacon to Spencer in philosophy,
from Priestley to Tyndall in science, and from Lucretius
to Walt Whitman in poetry—these, with others of their type,
have been denounced as Sinners ; yet, but for the transcen
dent achievements of such men, we should in all probability
have now been groping in mental darkness and the worst
kind of moral confusion, surrounded by a state of things so
truly described by Pope when he says of Superstition :—
“ She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,
To Powers unseen, and mightier far away ;
She, from the rending earth and burning skies,
Saw gods descend and fiends infernal rise ;
Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest abodes ;
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods :
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust,
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide,
And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride.”
Printed by Watts &• Co., 17, Johnson's Court, London, E.C.
�
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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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Saints or sinners : which?
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Watts, Charles [1836-1906]
Description
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Place of publication: New York
Collation: 24 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Watts & Co., 17, Johnson's Court, London, E.C.
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"Truthseeker" Office
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[n.d.]
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RA1584
N674
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Text
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NSS
Saints