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NATIONÀf SECULAR society
UlU
flf
BEING HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF
THE PERILS & PERSECUTIONS
OF
DISCOVERERS AND TEACHERS OF ALL AGES
AND NATIONS.
BY
CHARLES COCKBILL CATTELL.
Compiler of “ A String of Pearls."
“ Freedom has been hunted through the world, and is ever open to
insult and injury. It is crushed by conquest, frowned from courts,
expelled from colleges, scorned out of society, flogged in schools, and
anathematised in churches. Mind is her last asylum ; and, if freedom
quail there, what becomes of the hope of the world or the worth of
human nature?”—W. J. Fox.
LONDON :
CHARLES
WATTS,
84,
FLEET
1878.
STREET,
E.C.
�INTRODUCTION.
The Conservative element in human nature no doubt has
it uses, if we could but patiently distil them out. There
has always been sufficient of this element to raise obstacles
to progress. Opposition to new truths has always been the
custom in every country. Whenever one man throws new
light on any subject, a hundred others do their best to ex
tinguish it. The discoverer or teacher of new things has
always been treated as the enemy of the old. The perils
and persecutions endured by men whose ideas were in
advance of their time constitute a page in the history of
the world discreditable to our common humanity. It would
appear to indicate a sign of insanity in any man if he
attempted to extinguish the sun—but hundreds of men
have united to strangle the truth in its infancy—which is,
indeed, the light of the world. An old writer once described
the world as a madhouse, and the allegation seems deserved
when we read of the treatment received by the teachers
and discoverers of past ages. The persecution practised
in past times was not confined to any particular sect or class
of men. Opposition to any new discovery or new doctrine
is legitimate and useful; but the prison, the faggot, and
other engines of torture, cruelty, and death have been the
means employed to prevent the spread of principles anta
gonistic to those prevailing at the time. The memory of
those who perished in their struggle against ignorance,
bigotry, and intolerance should be cherished by all who
inherit the blessings of the new truths and extended liberty
bequeathed them. To show how slowly the world learns
the principle of freedom, so necessary to the happiness and
progress of mankind, we may mention the historical fact,
pointed out by Buckle, that it was not till the end of the
16th century that a man could write anything antagonistic
to his contemporaries without placing himself in bodily peril.
Civil and religious freedom has been won at great cost; and
to value the priceless treasure, and extend its operation
over the wide world, is the privilege and the duty of the
�iii.
present generation. The friends of freedom are no longer
hunted through the world like wild beasts, or put to death
as the enemies of mankind ; but the policy of wise men is
to increase their number, so as to prevent the possibility of
any scientific discovery, or any political or social improve
ment being rejected as blasphemous, treasonable, or absurd.
Even in England these epithets have been employed in the
hearing of men now living. There is still opportunity for
all who can speak, write, or work to establish on a sure
foundation the principles of justice and freedom among
mankind. The story of the perils and persecutions of dis
coverers and teachers extends through scores of generations
for two thousand years. It begins with the dawn of know
ledge, and extends through the life of man, losing its fierce
ness only in the present generation. Let us hope that the
spi
persecution will expire with this age, and that the
future character of humanity will not be defiled and dis
graced by the accursed thing. It is strange that persecu
tion, which nearly always fails to arrest the progress of any
doctrine, or to exterminate opposition, should have been
persisted in by persons of irreproachable character. Many
persons to-day maintain that they should never have
thought of persecuting those from whom they differed.
But, as the late John Stuart Mill points out, they forget
that some of the persecutors were as good as them
selves. It is somewhat remarkable that the emperors and
others who took the most prominent part in the persecutions
of past times were men of high moral character, and re
markable for their sincerity. This was so in Rome and in
Spain. Still the folly and wickedness of persecution remain
—the crime against humanity is none the less—the cruelty
is not lessened by the assertion that the perpetrators be
lieved they were doing the will of God. It is as absurd to
oppose opinions by force as to attempt to storm a castle by
logic. The wildest superstitions have flourished in some
cases because of the persecution of their adherents. The
elder Disraeli refers to a few of the victims of their bigoted,
fanatical, or ignorant contemporaries in the following graphic
sentences, which will explain to the reader the object and
nature of this work :—
“ Before the times of Galileo and of Harvey, the world be
lieved in the diurnal immovability of the earth and the stagna
tion of the blood ; and for denying these the one was persecuted
and the other ridiculed. The intelligence and virtue of Socrates
�IV.
were punished with death. Anaxagoras, when he attempted to
propagate a just notion of a Supreme Being, was dragged to
prison. Aristotle, after a long series of persecutions, swallowed
poison. The great geometricians and chemists, as Gerbert,
Roger Bacon, and others, were abhorred as magicians. Virgilius, Bishop of Salzburg, having asserted that there existed
antipodes, the Archbishop of Mentz declared him a heretic, and
consigned him to the flames ; and the Abbot Trithemius, who
was.fond of improving stenography, or the art of secret writing,
having published some curious works on that subject, they were
condemned as works full of diabolical mysteries. Galileo was
condemned, at Rome, publicly to disavow his sentiments re
garding the motion of the earth, the truth of which must have
been abundantly manifest. He was imprisoned by the Inquisi
tion, and visited by Milton, who tells us he was then poor and
old. Cornelius Agrippa, a native of Cologne, and distinguished
by turns as a soldier, philosopher, physician, chemist, lawyer
and writer, was believed to be a magician, and to be accom
panied by a familiar spirit, in the shape of a black dog ; and he
was so violently persecuted that he was obliged to fly from place
to place. The people beheld him as an object of horror, and
not unfrequently, when he walked, he found the streets empty
at his approach. This ingenious man died in an hospital.
When Urban Grandier, another victim of the age, was led to
the stake, a large fly settled on his head. A monk, who had
heard that Beelzebub signifies in the Hebrew the God of Flies,
reported that he saw this spirit come to take possession of him’.
Even the learned themselves, who had not applied to natural
philosophy, seem to have acted with the same feelings as the
most ignorant; for when Albertus Magnus—an eminent philo
sopher of the thirteenth century—constructed an automaton, or
curious piece of mechanism, which sent forth distinct vocal
sounds, Thomas Aquinas, a celebrated theologian, imagined it
to be the work of the Devil, and struck it with his staff, which,
to the mortification of the great Albert, annihilated the labour
of thirty years. Descartes was horribly persecuted in Holland
when he first published his opinions. Voetius, a person of in
fluence, accused him of Atheism, and had even projected in his
mind to have this philosopher burnt at Utrecht, in an extra
ordinary fire, which, kindled on an eminence, might be observed
by the seven provinces. This persecution of science and genius
lasted till the close of the seventeenth century.”
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
PART
I.
AEsopus.
^Esopus (commonly called AEsop) was born in the sixth
century b.c., where it is unknown, but it is supposed a
Phrygia, in Asia, and perished at Delphi about 560 b.c.
He is generally considered the father of fable writing,
although it appears to have been in existence before, and
the authenticity of some of those published in his name is
doubtful. He passed the greater and first part of his life
in slavery. While a slave in Athens, he acquired some
knowledge of Greek and of moral philosophy. He after
wards became the slave of Iadmon, of Samos, who gave
AEsop his liberty. Croesus, King of Lydia, hearing of
AEsop’s wisdom, invited him to his court, where he lived
several years.
AEsop was sent to Delphi by the king, to present a large
sum of gold as a sacrifice to Apollo, and also to distribute
a sum of silver to each citizen. Finding the citizens ignorant
and lazy, he reproached them, and sent the silver back to
the king, describing the Delphians as unworthy of liberality
This so enraged the Delphians that they brought a false
accusation of sacrilege against AEsop, and hurled him from
the top of the rock Hyamphia, and thus he perished.
When they were going to throw him off the rock, he
related to them the fable of “ The Eagle and the Beetle,”
with the view of showing that divine justice would not let
their act go unpunished. Soon after this event the land
became barren, and pestilence followed, and their oracle
informed them that their misery was caused by the unjust
death of AEsop. His death was much regretted by the
Athenians, who erected a statue to his memory.
The object of fable is to convey some useful truth in
an allegorical form. It is supposed that ?Esop chose the
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
fable form of writing because of his position in life, it
being an inoffensive method of conveying unpleasant truths,
and had more weight than his own person could give.
On passing through Athens, and finding the people dis
satisfied with the usurpation of Pisistratus, he related his
fable of “The Frogs Petitioning Jupiter for a King/’ “The
Fox and the Swallow ” he related to the Samians when they
accused their ministers of plundering the commonwealth,
intending to caution them against appointing a new set
more poor and greedy than those in office.
Solon.
Solon was born at Salamis 637 b.c., and died at Cyprus
in his eightieth year.
His father was a descendant of Codrus, the last. King of
Athens, and his high birth and extensive acquirements
enabled him to obtain the highest office of the State. He
distinguished himself as orator, soldier, poet, and. legislator.
His writings, orations, and acts were intended to inspire the
Athenians with a love of justice and liberty. So far as we
can judge, his own exclamation truthfully describes himself
when he says : “ Oh, my beloved country ! I have served
thee both in word and deed to the utmost of my power.
I have neglected nothing to maintain thy liberty and laws,
but I now stand alone in opposition to the tyrant, therefore
I depart, I leave thee for ever.”
Pisistratus, by flattering the Athenians, made them think
himself more attached to their interest than Solon was.
Solon told them the truth, whether agreeable or otherwise.
He offered to prevent Pisistratus usurping the Government,
but he was treated as a madman.
Previous to this event, the Athenians had offered Solon
¿he supreme power, andeven his most intimate friend blamed
him for not accepting it. But he steadfastly refused to accept
the title of Tyrant—he held it better that his countrymen
should be governed by a certain number of magistrates
than by one absolute ruler. In his letter to Pisistratus he
says : “ I am willing to acknowledge you the best among
tyrants; but I cannot think of returning to Athens after
having’established a free government and refused the
sovereignty.”
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
3
After this he travelled to Sardis, where many of the
most popular Greeks went to reside. Croesus, King of
Lydia, having heard of Solon’s wisdom, invited him to
his court; but Solon replied that he had resolved to live
only in a free State, and that life was to be enjoyed in
tranquillity only where all were on equal footing. He, how
ever, visited Croesus, and astonished the king by his
remarks.
Solon held the opinion that, whenever princes were ap
proached, it ought to be with good council on the lips,
nor ought they to hear anything but the truth. Solon was
fond of social entertainments, but even in these he would
have nothing but the truth spoken. When Thespis had
finished acting one of his own compositions, Solon asked him
if he was not ashamed of telling so many falsities to the
world. Thespis replied : “Not at all; I mean only to
amuse by them, not to injure.” Solon answered, striking
the floor forcibly with his stick: “But if you admit false
hood into your entertainment, and treat it as a jest, we
shall soon find it creeping into public business and our most
serious actions.”
The lover of justice and liberty cannot read the history
of Athens without a feeling of sorrow that Solon, the great,
good, brave, and wise, should have been compelled to exile
himself from it by the folly and ingratitude of his fellow
citizens. Like a noble Roman farmer and a brave English
farmer, Solon refused to become the permanent and un
limited monarch, and for his obstinacy his friends were
inclined to think him a fool or a madman.
Solon was the author of the excellent maxim—“ Observe
moderation in all things.-” He seemed disposed to a system
of equality, by which the poor understood that all were to
be on equal footing, and the rich that it meant distribution
according to the birth and dignity of individuals. Solon
abrogated all the laws of his cruel predecessor, Draco,
under whose government all offences were punished with
death, and hence arose the saying that “ his laws were
written in blood.”
Solon divided the people into three classes, according to
their property at the time, giving all, except artisans, a part
in the management of affairs. The principal magistrate
was to be always elected from the first-class of citizens.
He who remained neutral in tumult was to be considered
infamous.
�4
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
He prohibited speaking ill of the dead. He who dis
sipated his fortune was deprived of all privileges, as were
those who refused to support their parents, Foreigners he
admitted who sought some profession, as also those who
were banished from their own country. The children of
those who fell in defending their country were kept at the
public cost. Theft and adultery he punished with death,
and he who caused the loss of another’s eye was to lose
both his own.
All his laws were engraved on tablets. The council
bound themselves to keep them, and make others do like
wise, and the first who failed was to present to the temple
of Apollo a statue of gold the weight of himself?
Solon maintained that we have no better guide of conduct
than reason, and that we ought to neither say nor do any
thing without consulting it; that a man’s probity is more
to be regarded than his oath; that friendships ought to
be carefully formed, and could not be broken off without
danger; that the safest and quickest way of repelling in
jury was to forget it; that no man ought to command
until he had learnt to obey : that falsehood ought to be *
abhorred, parents reverenced, and no intercourse held with
the wicked.
Pythagoras.
Pythagoras was born about 586 b.c., and died about
506 B.C.
He was a native of Samos, and is said to have derived
his name from the fact that his oracles were as true as those
of the Pythian Apollo. In his youth he is stated to have
made three silver cups, which he presented to the priests of
Egypt, from whom, after much difficulty, he obtained many
years’ instruction. He afterwards returned to his native
place to establish a school. This not proving successful,
he visited Delos, offered cakes to Apollo, and received
certain moral doctrines, which he afterwards delivered as
divine precepts at Samos. This he did with an air of
sacred authority. He was a man of dignified appearance,
and preserved his countenance from emotion of grief, joy,
and anger. He wore a long robe, and, by his abstemious
habits, &c., he made himself appear superior to humanity,
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
5
and his doctrines as the oracles of heaven, from which
place he pretended to receive them. He had also a secret
cave, in which he lived a whole year; and when he emerged
from it, looking pale, meagre, and frightful, he informed the
people he had visited the infernal regions. While on . this
visit he is said to have observed the soul of Hesiod chained
to a column, grievously tormented; and the soul of Homer
was suspended from a tree, surrounded by serpents, for the
falsehoods he had told and attributed to' the gods. He
also observed that the souls of husbands who had treated
their wives with harshness and severity were horribly tor
mented.
During his seclusion in the cave his mother reported to
him all that had occurred on the earth, the . relation of
which by himself caused the people to consider him a
■divinity. He also gained credit with the .populace by
working what were esteemed wonderful miracles.
After pursuing his plan of instruction at Samos with con
siderable success, he incurred the displeasure of Polycrates.
Being unable to bear the oppression of Polycrates, he exiled
himself from his country, travelled into Italy, and founded
a school at Crotona. While in this city he taught with
great success. Many persons visited him from various
■countries. He is said to have had from six hundred to two
thousand disciples, who submitted to the strict discipline
and abstinence he prescribed. They held, in common
with their master, that among friends all aré equal, and all
things ought to be common. They accordingly established
a small republic, or fraternity, in which about six hundred
lived, together with their wives and families. Their time
was divided, and appropriated to education, amusement,
and civil and domestic affairs, under admirable regulations.
Before any one could enter their “ common auditory ” he
had to be examined by Pythagoras., and to pass through a
severe course of abstinence, exercise, and silence. Those
who distinguished themselves in this fraternity were sent
out as missionaries. He recommended his disciples a whole
some practice of interrogation, proposing to themselves
■such questions as—Where have you been ? In what have
you been employed ? What have you done well or ill ?
He is noticed as the first who refused the title of sage.
His words had an importance equal to the oracles of
Delphos, and he is said to have framed laws for various
•countries.
�6
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
It is generally believed that no written laws or doctrines
exist of his own except those attributed to his disciples.
What are known as “ The Golden Verses ” are considered
a summary of his doctrines. He taught music, and the
invention of the monechard is attributed to him. He
imagined that the planets produced sound by striking the
ether through which they passed in the celestial spheres;
and, as they were all adjusted with perfect regularity, they
necessarily produced harmonious sounds by their revolu
tions. It was he who first discovered the morning and
evening star to be the same. He seems to have possessed
some general notions of astronomy. He describes the
revolutions of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Mercury, and
Venus. The earth he considered a globe, admitting of
antipodes inhabited by persons whose feet were opposite to
ours. The moon and other planets he believed to be
habitable. He seems, however, to have considered the
sun, moon, and stars as gods, because pervaded by a subtle
ether.
He taught that the winds were caused by the rarification
of the air; the thunder was occasioned by the collision of
the clouds ; earthquakes by air pent up in caverns; and
that the overflowing of the Nile was caused by the melting
of the snow of Ethiopia, which formed torrents that dis
charged themselves in the sources of the Nile. The origin
of animals he attributed to heat and moisture. He held
that the rainbow was caused by the reflection of the solar
rays from a cloud opposite the sun; the moon to be an
opaque body, habitable, and with mountains, rivers, and
valleys like the earth ; and the sun to be a body of red-hot
iron. The last declaration called down the anathemas of
the priests, who considered it nothing less than Atheism.
Indeed, he believed the universe to be animated and in
telligent, and that from its soul or principle of life emanated
the souls of men and all other animals ; that the elements
were subject to succession of changes, but that nothing in
the universe could be totally lost. He was fond of mathe
matics and goemetry. He first demonstrated that the
interior angles of every triangle are together equal to two
right angles ; that in sectangular triangles the square of the
side which subtends the right angle is equal to the two.
squares of the sides which contain the right angle. It is
said he was so transported by the discovery of the latter
theorem that he sacrificed a hundred oxen to the gods, to>
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
whom he believed himself indebted for the discovery. Arch
bishop Fenelon says that (Pythagoras being a strict vege
tarian), if we credit this story, we must assume the oxen to
have been made of flour and honey. Pythagoras only
offered loaves, cakes, etc., believing that the gods turned
away in horror from bleeding victims, and to make offeiings
of such was the surest way to draw down the indignation
of the gods. He forbade oaths and appeals to the gods,
holding that a man’s integrity ought to be. such that his
bare assertion would be received without hesitation.
According to Aristotle, moral philosophy, or precepts for
the guidance of human conduct, were first taught by Pytha
goras. He divides virtue into public and private-private
virtue implies education, fortitude, sobriety, prudence,
silence, abstinence from animal food. . When the passions
are kept in subjection by reason, there is virtue.
Children should be tamed to subjection, so that they
may be able to submit to reason; let them be conducted in
the best course, and habit will make it most pleasant. Do
whatever you judge to be right, irrespective of what the
vulgar may think; if you despise their praise, despise their
blame. That which is good is to be preferred before that
which is agreeable. Sobriety is the strength of the soul;
drunkenness is temporary frenzy. Animal pleasures are
only to be enjoyed in accordance with nature. Wisdom
and virtue are our best defence. It is better for men to
respect you than to fear you, for the former produces admi
ration, and the latter hatred. The proof of good education
is being able to endure the want of it in others. To avoid
contention between friends, shun all possible occasions of
strife, suppress resentment, and exercise mutual forbearance.
Friendship is never to be interrupted ; a friend ought never
to be forsaken in adversity, nor for infirmity of nature;
and, if depraved, we should endeavour by acts and words
to reclaim him. True friendship is an immortal union.
Pythagoras divided man’s life into four parts. Man is a
child till 20, a youth till 40, a man at 60, and an old man
at 80. After this, he is no longer to be reckoned among
the living.
Pythagoras compared life to a fair, where some go for
one reason, and some for another. So in life some are the
slaves of ambition, some of glory, and others are contented
with the investigation of truth.
He taught that, next to gods and demons, the highest
�8
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
reverence is due to heroes, legislators, and parents. God
is the universal mind, giving life, motion, and intelligence,
diffused through all things.
Man is a microcosm j his soul is the self-moving prin
ciple j the rational portion is seated in the brain, and the
sensitive in the heart. The sensitive perishes, but the
rational, being a part of the supreme and incorruptible, is
also immortal, The rational soul, being released from the
body, assumes the ethereal form, passes into the dead
regions, and afterwards returns to become the inhabitant of
sorne^ body—human or otherwise. When sufficiently puri
fied it enters the regions of the gods, and becomes asso
ciated with . the eternal source from which it originally
proceeded.
Pythagoras gave special discourses to the public, to
different classes—as husbands, wives, parents, children, etc.
Had he confined himself to teaching philosophy in the
ordinary way, he would not have been interfered with; but
when he urged the people to obtain their rights from
their tyrannical governors, a powerful opposition was raised
against him, his establishment was set on fire, and many of
his disciples perished in the flames. Others were compelled
to fly for their lives; and Pythagoras himself, being sur
rounded everywhere by enemies, took refuge in the temple
of the Muses, where, it is said, he died of hunger.
His disciples afterwards erected a statue to his memory,
converted his house into a temple, and appealed to him as
a divinity.
Ovid thus describes the doctrines of Pythagoras :—
“ What, then, is death but ancient matter, drest
In some new figure, and a varied vest ?
Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies ;
And here and there th’ unbodied spirit flies,
By time, or force, or sickness dispossess’d,
And lodges where it lights, in man or beast,
Or hunts -without, till ready limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind ;
From tenement to tenement is tost,
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost;
And as the softened wax new seals receives,
This face assumes, and that impression leaves ;
Now called by one, now by another, name,
The form is only changed, the wax is still the same.
So death, thus call’d, can but the form deface,
Th’ immortal soul flies out in empty space,
To seek her fortune in some other place.”
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
9
Aristides.
Aristides was born in Alopece, flourished in the fifth
century b.c., and died at Pontus 467 b.c.
According to Plutarch, Aristides was the son of Lysimachus, of the tribe of Antiochis. In his youth he is
described as having been' steady, inflexibly just, incapable
of using falsehood, flattery, or deceit, even at play. He
served his country as a duty, without expecting reward or
profit. The people considered that the following words
of JEschylus accurately described Aristides :— t
“To be, and not to seem, is this man’s maxim ;
His mind reposes on its proper wisdom—
He wants no other praise.”
He executed justice impartially, as a judge ought to—not
only to his friends, but to his enemies also. Plato believed
that Aristides was the only man among the illustrious of
Athens who was worthy of real esteem. Aristides evinced
on several occasions extreme magnanimity of character
when placed in a position where he might have punished
those who had injured him; but he never indulged in
revenge. He neither envied the prosperity of his enemies
nor rejoiced at their misfortunes. With regard to himself
and his country, he would only that justice be done, and
for that he lived and fought. The Athenians were attached
to him on this account, and gave him the divine title of the
Just, which, says Plutarch, kings and tyrants were never
fond of. Their ambition invariably moves in another
direction ; they esteem it the greatest honour to be named
takers of cities, “ thunderbolts or conquerors,” always pre
ferring the fame of power to that of virtue. “ They foolishly
neglect virtue, the only divine quality in their power; not
considering that it is justice alone which makes the life of
those flourish most in prosperity and high stations, heavenly
and divine; while injustice rendersit grovelling and brutal.”
When invested with great authority Aristides did not
abuse it. While others filled Athens with magnificent
buildings, wealth, and luxuries of life, his object was to
increase its virtues. An answer given by the direction of
Aristides to the Lacedaemonians shows this. The Athe
nians said that “ they could easily forgive their enemies for
thinking that everything was to be purchased with silver
and gold, because they had no idea of anything more
�IO
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
excellent.” Aristides bade the Spartan ambassadors tell
them that “ the people of Athens would not take all the
gold, either above or under ground, for the liberties of
Greece.”
Greatly was Aristides loved and honoured for his gran
deur of character. Through his exposure of the conduct
of some men of his time he was condemned; but by the
exertion of some virtuous citizens he was again elected
chief treasurer.
In the year 483 b.c. he was banished by the method
called “ ostracism.” It would have been difficult to find a
man less deserving of such treatment, for he is described
by Herodotus as the “justest and best man in Athens.”
In revising the constitution, he advised that men should be
elected to office without regard to birth or wealth. Plutarch
says that when this noble man died his tomb had to be
erected by the State, as he did not leave sufficient in his
house to pay for his burial. After his death it is said that
the Athenians voted land and money to his son and
daughter as a mark of respect to the memory of their
father.
Anaxagoras.
Anaxagoras was born at Clazomene, Ionia, 500 B.c., and
died at Lampsacus 428 b.c.
The most ancient school of Grecian philosophy was in
stituted by Thales, of Ionia. He taught that the first sub
stance which produced all things was water. He considered
God the most ancient Being; that all things are full of him,
and that he animates the universe as the soul does the body
of man. The principle of motion he held to be mind or
soul.
To Anaxagoras is' ascribed the motto, “ Know
thyself■” but it appears to have been the motto of his pre
decessor, Thales.
The sciences commenced by Thales were cultivated by
Anaximander, his disciple. He, however, taught that the
first principle or origin of things was Infinity, and he was
the first who committed the principles of science to writing.
The disciple of Anaximander was Anaximenes, who taught
that the origin of all things was air; that the form of the
earth, sun, and moon was that of a circular plate; that the
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II
stars were fixed in the heavens as nails in a crystalline
plane, and that the earth was a tablet supported by air. The
disciple of Anaximenes was Anaxagoras, the subject of the
present sketch.
When young he left his country, and visited Athens to
study eloquence and poetry. He particularly admired
Homer as the best preceptor in both writing and morals.
Hearing of the fame of the Milesian school, he left Athens,
and became the disciple of Anaximenes. Whilst engaged
in the pursuit of knowledge, his property at home was
wasting; and, when he discovered it, he remarked “ that to
his ruin he owed his prosperity.” Some years after he
returned to Athens, to teach philosophy; and among his
pupils were Euripides, Pericles, Socrates, and Themistocles.
Anaxagoras was the first of the Greeks who believed mind
to exist apart from matter. The Deity he described as pure
intelligence, capable of forming and giving motion to the
material mass of matter. Anaxagoras separated the active
living principle, which he concluded must have existed from
all eternity. He supposed that various bodies were gene
rated from particles of the same nature.
The world
originated from a confused mass of different kind of par
ticles. His system is described in the following lines of
Lucretius :—
“ With Anaxagoras, great nature’s law
Is similarity ; and every compound form
Consists in parts of minute, each like the whole ;
And bone is made of bone, and flesh of flesh ;
And blood, and fire, and earth, and massy gold,
Are in their smallest portions still the same.”
He assumed the particles or basis of nature to be without
life or motion, and from that inferred the existence of an
infinite and eternal mind, having motion and life in itself,
communicating these properties to matter, and, by uniting
the various particles of matter, produced the various forms
that exist in nature. God, in his philosophy, is the author
of life and motion. Instead of assuming, like his pre
decessors, the necessary motion of matter, he assumed
that pure mind, free from all material concretions, governs
the universe.
Anaxagoras describes the creation thus : “ In the begin
ning all things were mingled together, and remained in one
confused mass until superior intelligence separated and dis
posed them as we now see them.” He did not believe that
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
this intelligence called matter out of nothing, but only that
it arranged matter. It was this doctrine that caused him to
be distinguished by the epithet “mind.”, He acknowledged
no other divinity than intelligence, and held in perfect
contempt the gods of the people. This caused Lucian to
say that he was destroyed by Jupiter with a thunderbolt.
The chief good he placed in contemplation, and said he
came into the world to contemplate the sun, moon, and
other objects in nature.
The fame of Anaxagoras caused him to be cruelly per
secuted. He w’as imprisoned and condemned to death ;
but, by the influence of Pericles, his sentence was altered
to banishment. The causes of his persecution have been
variously stated. Some attributed it to his teachings regard
ing the sun, which he considered merely an inanimate and
fiery body, unworthy of worship. He boldly contradicted
the vulgar superstition of the people, and ridiculed the
priests for pretending that an unfortunate event would occur,
because of a ram having only one horn. He opened the
head of the ram, and showed them that the cause of the
phenomenon was purely natural, the head being so con
structed as to make the growth of a second horn a natural
impossibility. This being considered “ Atheism,” he was
banished from Athens to Lampsacus. When he was in
formed of his sentence, he said : “ Nature will one day
pronounce the same sentence on them.” While in exile, in
answer to a question of a friend, he said : “ It is not I who
have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost
me.” When Pericles paid him a visit, he was wrapped up
in his cloak preparing to die ; and Pericles having neglected
him, he exclaimed : “O Pericles, those who need a lamp
should always give it oil.” When dying he was asked if he
wished his body taken to his native city, to which he an
swered : “ It is unnecessary; the way to the other world is
everywhere alike open.” On being asked how he should
like respect paid to his memory, he answered : “ By granting
a holiday every year on the day of his death to all the
schools of Lampsacus,” which custom was observed for
many centuries.
The inhabitants erected a tomb to his memory, on which
was inscribed—“ This tomb great Anaxagoras confines,
whose mind explored the paths of heavenly truth.” Two
altars were also erected—one dedicated to mind, and the
other to truth.
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13
Cicero.
Cicero was born at Arpinum January 3rd, 106 b.c., and
killed December 7th, 43 b.c.
According to Plutarch, his mother was delivered of him
without pain, and a spectre appeared to his nurse, which
foretold that the child she had the happiness to attend
would one day prove a great benefit to the whole common
wealth. These things, says Plutarch, might have passed
for idle dreams had he not soon demonstrated the truth of
the prediction.
Cicero was the son of a Roman knight, and in his youth
he studied under various eminent masters, greatly distin
guishing himself in literary contests with his companions.
After careful and laborious study, Cicero, at the age of
twenty-six, appeared as a pleader at the Roman bar.
He wrote several valuable works, among which are the
following :—“ De Oratore,” containing precepts of the art
he practised; De Legibus, “ On Laws,” in which he con
tends that—the universe being one immense commonwealth
of gods and men, who participate in the same essence, and
form one community—reason dictates that the law of
nature and nations should govern men according to the
rule of right which the Deity has impressed on every
virtuous mind. Cicero also wrote many philosophical
works, among which were—“ On the Universe,” “ On the
Gods,” and “ On Moral Offices.”
Upon receiving the news of the total defeat of Antony
before Mutina, Cicero delivered his fourteenth and last
philosophical oration. Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius
agreed to give up the enemies of each party, and on
Antony’s list the name of Cicero was registered. Cicero,
being informed of his danger, fled to Caieta for safety.
Here, in the middle of the night, the soldiers of murderous
intent discovered him : an alarm was given, and his friends,
in the hope of saving him, removed him towards the sea.
But the messengers of death pursued him, and, overtaking
him in a wood, approached his litter. Cicero, perceiving
a stoppage (laying aside the copy of Euripides’s “ Medea ”
he was reading), put out his head to inquire the cause, and
immediately the soldiers struck off his head and hands.
His mangled remains were carried to Antony, who had
them fixed up on the rostrum from which Cicero had so
often denounced him.
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
Archimedes.
Archimedes was born in Sicily 287 b.c., and killed at
Syracuse 212 b.c.
For the purpose of raising water out of the canals of
Egypt, Archimedes is said to have invented a machine
which bears the name of his screw. The mounts and
bridges of the Nile are attributed to his inventive genius.
He is described as the first to determine the exact space
bounded by a curve line. He also states the proportion
between the circumference and diameter of a circle, and
gives the ratio as between 3’1428 and 3’1408. He greatly
admired his discovery of the lever, and once said : “ Give
me a spot to stand on, and I will move the earth.”
Syracuse, after the death of Hiero, became the prey of
contending factions; the city was seized by Marcellus and
Appius, and Archimedes’s mechanical skill was applied to
its defence. At length the Romans gained the city, and
plundered it on all sides. On seeing it approach to ruin, it
is said that Marcellus wept. He also requested that Archi
medes and his house might be saved; but this was dis
regarded by the furious plunderers.. While they were plun
dering from house to house, Archimedes, unmoved by their
violence, continued to contemplate a mathematical diagram.
When a soldier burst into the room Archimedes refused to
attend him till he had finished his demonstration. The
soldier, with utter recklessness of the value of that great
life, killed the philosopher on the spot. Thus perished one
of the greatest philosophers of the world.
Socrates.
Socrates was born at Alopece, near Athens, 469 b.c., and
put to death 399 b.c.
His parents were of humble position in life, his father
being a sculptor, and his mother a midwife. Socrates
studied philosophy under Anaxagoras and Archelaus, elo
quence he learnt from Prodicus, poetry from Evenus,
geometry from Theodoras, and music from Damo. The
name of Aspasia is also mentioned as a lady of intellectual
accomplishments, to whom Socrates owed some of his edu
cation.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
15
Socrates is said to have had two wives, one of whom,
named Xantippe, Gellius describes as “an accursed, forward
woman, always chiding by day and night.” Her ill-humour
has made her life immortal. According to Socrates him
self, he married her to exercise his patience. When Alcibiades expressed surprise that he could live in the same
house with so perverse and quarrelsome a companion,
Socrates answered, “ That being daily inured to her illhumour at home, he was better prepared to encounter annoy
ance and injury abroad.” In a dialogue with his son
Lamprocles, he admits that Xantippe had domestic virtues ;
and, when Socrates was in prison, she visited him with her
child, and manifested her sympathy with him in his sufferings.
Lucian remarks that Socrates was the only philosopher
who obtained renown in military movements. In the struggle
between Athens and Lacedaemon, he exhibited his valour
and endurance. When he saw Alcibiades falling wounded,
he advanced to defend him, and saved him. The prize of
valour due to himself on that occasion he gave to Alcibiades.
In a severe Thracian winter Socrates wore his usual cloth
ing, while others were clothed in furs. He volunteered in
a military expedition against the Boeotians, on which occa
sion, observing Xenophon lying wounded, he took him upon
his shoulders, and carried him beyond reach of the enemy.
In another instance, the Athenians being totally defeated,
Socrates was the last to quit the field, and assumed an aspect
so determined, that those who were in pursuit of the fugi
tives had not the courage to attack him.
Believing that morals could be better understood by acts
than by words, he not only taught, but practised with the
utmost fidelity, his views of truth and justice ; and it was
this that made him a man of influence and noble character,
and so much superior to his predecessors, who contented
themselves with the admiration of virtue, and the investiga
tion of first causes and of the mysterious agencies by which
they supposed themselves surrounded.
Fenelon, speaking of Socrates, calls him “ the most
virtuous and enlightened of the ancients
and Cicero and
our Lord Shaftesbury both speak of him as “ the founder of
moral philosophy.” Socrates adopted the character of a
moral philosopher, and took every opportunity of teaching
his fellow-citizens wherever he met them. In the morning
he visited places for walking and public meetings ; at noon
he appeared in the bazaar or exchange ; the remainder of
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
the day he spent in those parts of the city most frequented.
He sometimes addressed an audience in the Lyceum from
the chair, whilst the audience were seated around him.
He not only taught young men of rank and fortune, but
sought disciples among artisans and labourers. His common
method of teaching was by a series of questions, and to
lead the persons he wished to instruct to deduce the truths
he desired them to believe as necessary consequences of
his own concessions. In his model questioning and con
vincing he did not display arrogance or superiority, for his
constant profession was that “he knew nothing.”
Our philosopher left no written account of his doctrines ;
but “The Memorabilia,” by Xenophon, is considered a
reliable exposition of his views on many subjects.
According to Plato and Xenophon, Socrates inferred,
from the mind and eye of man, that there existed a supreme
God of intelligent omniscience; and that God, amidst suc
cessive changes, preserved the course of nature unimpaired,
to whose laws all beings were subject. The soul of man he
believed to be allied by its nature with the Supreme, and
that it would exist after death with the gods.
He considered the reverence of a good man the best
offering he could make to the gods, and when he prayed to
them he asked for “ such things as they considered good
and useful.” He would no sooner think of praying foi*
riches and honours than of petitioning for an opportunity
to rush into battle. The effect of his teaching, which proved
beneficial to his country, was attended by disaster to Socrates
himself. The boldness he displayed as Senator, and his
manly opposition to political and every other corruption,
made him a marked man. The insults offered to the
popular superstitions by two of his former professed disciples
were carefully and constantly kept before the eyes of the
Athenians, who were extremely jealous of their superstitious
ceremonies.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
PART II.
L ’A n
n a:
us
Seneca.
L’Annalus Seneca was born 6 a.c. in Spain, and was taken
to Rome in his infancy. His father taught him eloquence,
and he studied philosophy under the Stoics. He was him
self, however, inclined more to the doctrine of Pythagoras ;
but the remonstrances of his father, and the threat of
Tiberius against the Jews, who abstained from certain
meats, caused him to abandon the system of Pythagoras.
He wrote several works, which are distinguished for the
pure morality and virtue they advocate. Indeed, St.
Jerome placed him among the early Christian writers—
so greatly esteemed were his writings in the early ages.
Being (falsely, it is believed) accused of an intrigue with
Julia Livilla, the daughter of Germanicus, caused him to
leave Rome; and he was banished to Corsica by Claudius,
where he remained in exile about eight years. After the
disgrace and death of his accuser, Messalina, he was re
called from exile by the influence of Agrippina, who had
become the wife of Claudius. Seneca became the educator
of her son Nero, who afterwards became emperor. Nero,
however, at length, forsaking the precepts of his master,
threw off every restraint of morality, which rendered the
life of Seneca insecure. Seneca, accordingly, desired per
mission to retire to solitude, which was refused by Nero;
but Seneca kept at home on the plea of bad health. At
the conspiracy of Piso, Seneca’s name was mentioned by
Natalis, without any charge that could criminate him; but
Nero took advantage of the opportunity to issue an order
for Seneca to destroy himself. When the messenger arrived
from this murderer of his own mother, and some of his best
friends, Seneca was seated at the table with his wife Paulina.
He received the message with calmness and firmness
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
becoming a philosopher, and remarked that such a message
he might long have expected from such a man. A vein in
his arm was opened ; but it bled so slowly that he was
induced to apply to his friend Annseus for a dose of poison,
which, however, his limbs being chilled, did not affect him.
He afterwards caused himself to be placed in a hot bath.
This proving ineffectual, and the soldiers becoming clamor
ous, he was carried into a stove, and suffocated by steam.
His body was afterwards burnt without pomp or funeral
ceremony. On the centurion refusing him to make his
will, Seneca called on his friends to take a pattern by his
life. He reasoned against their tears and wailings, asking
if they had not learnt better to withstand the violence of
tyranny. He embraced his wife, and urged her to bear his
death by contemplating his life of virtue. Paulina would
not be consoled, but insisted on dying with her husband ;
she called for the aid of a minister of death, who opened
both their veins at the same time; but hers was bound up,
and the bleeding was stayed. She retained with reverence
and esteem the memory of her husband, but died a few
years after him.
Origenes,
commonly called
Origen.
Origen was born 185 a.c. at Alexandria, and died at
Tyre 254.
This Father of the early Christian Church was the son
of Leonidas, who suffered as a martyr in the reign of
Severus; and it is said that, had not his mother prevented
it, the zeal of Origen would have led him to share his
father’s fate. To support his widowed mother and his
orphan brothers, he became a grammatical tutor. He
then was appointed Professor of Sacred Literature at
Alexandria, and commenced preaching and _ practising
extraordinary mortifications and asceticism, which gained
him many disciples.
.
He then began his “ Hexapla,” which first gave the idea
of Polyglot Bibles. Having taken the order of priesthood,
Demetrius of Alexandria was displeased. The Bishop pre
tended to have discovered errors in the writings of Origen,
and prohibited his preaching, and banished him. When
the Christians were persecuted by Maximin, Origen sought
refuge in Athens, and corrected the erroneous belief of the
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3
Bishop of Bostra relative to the pre-existence of Christ.
He also assisted in the correction of the Arabians, who
held the heresy—now popular—that the soul dies with the
body, and will rise again at the Resurrection.
Origen himself, however, does not appear to have entirely
escaped the charge of heresy. One of his most formidable
heresies was his belief in the finite duration of future punish
ment, and the ultimate salvation of the devils themselves.
These heresies, it is said, brought great scandal on the
Church. He applied the allegorical method to the Scrip
tures, as the Platonists did to mythology.
In the Decian persecution (250) Origen suffered imprison
ment and torture, and some say martyrdom; but it is more
generally believed that he died a natural death in 254.
Arius.
Arius, a native of Cyrenaica, Africa, was born in the
third century, and died 336.
He was a Presbyter of the Church of Alexandria, and
was distinguished for personal beauty, ascetic habits, exten
sive learning, and eloquence. He is known chiefly as the
founder of the sect of Arians.
Arius maintained, in contradiction to Alexander, that
Christ did not exist from all eternity, but that he was
created out of nothing before the universie by the will of the
Father, and could only be called God by his participation
in extraordinary powers. He held the doctrine of three
persons in the Deity to be erroneous.
In 321 Alexander cited Arius before a synod of one
hundred bishops, and declared his opinions heretical, and
excommunicated from the Church, and expelled from the
city Arius and all his followers.
In 325 Constantine assembled 318 bishops at the
Council of Nice, to settle the important question raised by
Arius. Here it was decided that Christ was consubstantial
with God, and the Nicene Creed was signed and established
as the orthodox belief. At the same time the doctrine of
Arius was condemned, and himself banished to the province
of Illyricum. An edict followed this, in which his followers
were stigmatised as Porphyrians, his writings were ordered
to be burnt, and capital punishment was declared against
all who would not deliver up his writings.
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
Several attempts were made to restore him to the Church,
but this was opposed by Athanasius. Constantine and
others appointed a day for his solemn reception into the
Church, but on the preceding Sunday Arius died. Gibbon
says that those who desire to know the real cause of Arius’s
death “ must make their option between poison and miracle.”
Whatever may be thought of his views, he was a man of
integrity, a firm believer and advocate of what he deemed
the truth.
Peter Abelard.
Peter Abelard was born at Palais 1079, and died in the
Priory of St. Marcellus 1142.
No work on biography can be said to be complete that
does not give some account of Abelard, and his beautiful
and singular, beloved Heloisa.
Abelard was of noble family, and his father intended him
to become a soldier; but his love for learning was so great
that the intention was not carried out. Abelard was first
the pupil of Roscelinus, the founder of Nominalists, and
afterwards entered the University of Paris. At Paris he
soon excited the jealousy, and became the superior, of his
master, and set up a teacher on his own account. Under a
second master he soon excited a similar feeling of jealousy.
As a teacher of theology and philosophy at Paris, he was
visited by scholars from all parts of France, and from Spain,
Germany, Italy, and England. At the height of his repu
tation for science, he determined to practise somewhat in
the “ art of love.” Accordingly, in embuing the mind of
Heloisa with his philosophy, he at the same time inspired
it with affection for himself.
Notwithstanding the authority of the Church respecting
celibacy, the result of Abelard’s affection for Heloisa was
the birth of a son, to whom they gave the name of Astrolabius. Previous to this event they were unmarried, seem
ingly because Abelard’s oath would not permit it, and
Heloisa’s views were opposed to it, as she believed that
the bonds of love were stronger without the additional
security offered by the Church. They were afterwards pri
vately married; and the old gentleman insisting on publicity
being given to the affair, produced the most melancholy
results. As Abelard resisted this request of his father, the
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3
“ old brute” hired a number of ruffians to break into the
chamber of Abelard and deprive him of his manhood.
Abelard and Heloisa then separated ; but the affection of
the latter terminated only with her life, for after his death
she daily offered up a prayer to heaven over the grave of
her departed husband.
Besides being unfortunate in his love, Abelard became
again the object of envy among his contemporaries. They
endeavoured to damage him by exciting the ecclesiastical
authorities against his views on “the unity of God,” some
thing like Arianism. After an unfair inquiry, this book
was condemned to be burnt with his own hands; he was
also caused to read a recantation, and to be imprisoned.
A second persecution against him was caused by his hete
rodox assertion that the founder of St. Denys of France
was not Dionysius of Athens. For this outrageous offence
he was denounced as “an enemy of his order and his
country.” So violent was the aspect of affairs that, to
preserve his person from destruction, he was compelled to
escape in the night to a convent in Champagne. But'
there jealousy overtook him again, and he had to seek
another asylum. He then fell into the hands of the holy
and polite St. Bernard. He accused Abelard of heresy, of
ensnaring souls, and called him an “ infernal dragon,” more
dangerous than Arius, Pelagius, and Nestorius, and the
“ precursor of Antichrist.”
It appears that the vengeance of the saint was aroused
by Abelard’s attempt to explain the Trinity by syllogisms.
For this grave and immoral offence the Pope, without hear
ing any defence, on the motion of St. Bernard, condemned
Abelard to eternal silence.
The brave old Abelard, who never gave way, set off for
Rome to remonstrate against this terrible sentence. On
his way to Rome he called to see his friend, Peter, the
Abbot of Cluni, who prevailed upon him to stay there.
Being unable to resist the powerful opposition that was
made to him, he produced a sort of declaration of faith,
which gained him two years of private life, at the end of
which he expired.
Some writers have, spoken lightly of Abelard; but one
who excited so much jealousy, persecution, and admiration
must have been more than an ordinary man.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
Arnaldo
de
Brescia.
Arnaldo de Brescia was born early in the twelfth century,
at Brescia, in Lombardy, and died at Rome 1155.
He visited France, where he became a pupil of Peter
Abelard. Upon his return to Lombardy he put on thehabit of a monk, and began to preach several “ new and
uncommon ” doctrines ; particularly that the Pope ought
not to enjoy any temporal estate; that those ecclesiastics
who had any estates of their own, or held any lands, were
entirely cut off from the least hope of salvation; that the
clergy ought to subsist upon the alms and voluntary con
tributions of Christians; and that all other revenues belonged
to princes and States, who ought to dispose of them among
the laity as they thought proper. In 1139 these opinions,
as might have been expected, were decided to be “ here
tical” and “damnable” by a council of a thousand prelates.
Arnaldo, fearing the decision of this august body of
divines, fled to Switzerland. On the accession of Adrian
IV., Arnaldo returned to his native country, but found
Adrian no more disposed to tolerate him and his sect than
his predecessors. Adrian took advantage of some popular
tumult, and compelled the heretical Arnaldists to leave the
city.
Arnaldo desired the re-establishment of the Roman Re
public ; he was an honest leader of the people, a man of
irreproachable morals. Adrian IV. applied to Fredrick I.
to have him placed in the hands of the Prefect of Rome,
had him strangled at Rome, his body burnt, and the
ashes thrown into the river Tiber, in. 1155.
Roger Bacon.
Roger Bacon was born near Ilchester, in Somersetshire,
about 1214, and died at Oxford about 1292.
Bacon belonged to the Franciscan Order, and theology,
having set itself in opposition to philosophy, he was grossly
insulted and persecuted by his own fraternity. His micro
scope, with which he penetrated the secrets of nature, gained
him the opprobrious title of “ magician,” and his brethren
prohibited his lectures and writings.
In the sciences he was a great student, and made several
discoveries. Dr. Friend describes him as the first who in
troduced chemistry into Europe. He discovered, or made
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7
known, that awful instrument of destruction called gun
powder ; and he appears to have had some knowledge of
the telescope and of spectacles. He also gives a philoso
phical explanation of the rainbow being an appearance, and
not a real thing. He was proficient in languages, and
remarks that those by whom he was surrounded were miser
ably deficient. Their ignorance may be taken for granted,
since they pointed to Bacon as “a subject of horror,” “a
magician,” “ a necromancer,” with a view to get him de
stroyed. Bacon was accused of working by “ supernatural
means,” and of being “ leagued with the Devil.” In close
confinement, nearly perishing of hunger, he was kept several
years, until released by his friend Clement IV.
At the request of Clement he wrote his celebrated “Opus
Majus,” which, however, remained in manuscript 500 years.
Some passages in this work show that Bacon’s sentiments
were far in advance of his age, and are still before those of
many who pretend to knowledge in the present age. He
mentions four “ stumbling-blocks” in the way of knowledge,
and that in his time there were prevalent “ a thousand false
hoods for one truth.” This being the state of things, he
says : “ We must not stick to what we hear and read, but
must examine most strictly the opinion of our ancestors,
that tve may add what is lacking, and correct what is erro
neous. We must, with all our strength, prefer reason to
custom, and the opinions of the wise and good to those of
the vulgar.” We must not hold by that which has been
“common,” “ usual,” “ laid down,” etc. Though all the
world be guided by such a rule, “ let us hear freely opinions
contrary to established usage.”
On the death of Clement, Bacon’s superior officer, Jerome
of Ascoli, to show his authority and superlative cruelty,
obtained an order from Nicholas III. to interdict his works,
and to consign Bacon himself once more to the dungeon,
where he remained ten years, subsisting on bread and water.
The charge of heresy put forth against him by the theolo
gians, and confirmed by Rome, was the produce of ignorance
and bigotry.
When Jerome himself became Pope, it is said that Bacon’s
appeal for liberty was met by increased vigour and closer
confinement. During all these years of suffering and starva
tion he was deprived of the means of investigating and
experimenting, and bore all this courageously for the sake
of knowledge, truth, and humanity.
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Bacon was in his sixty-fourth year when he was sum
moned to Paris for trial, and although he made many
efforts to gain his liberty, they all proved ineffectual. Some
say he died in prison, but it is generally believed that he was
released by the intercession of some powerful nobles.
Alighieri Dante.
Dante was born at Florence, May Sth, 1265 a.c., and
died of grief at Ravenna, in September, 1321 a.c.
He studied at Florence, and also, it is said, at Bologna
and Padua. Disraeli, in his “ Literary Character,” tells a
story of him from Poggius, “that Dante indulged his medita
tions more strongly than any man he knew; for when deeply
busy in reading he seemed to live only in his ideas. Once
the poet went to view a public procession ; having entered a
bookseller’s shop, and taken up a book, he sank into a
reverie ; on his return he declared that he had neither seen
nor heard a single occurrence in the public exhibition which
had passed unobserved before him 1”
In 1291 he married Gemma Donati, a lady of noble
family, but of violent and ungovernable temper. Boccaccio,
however, in alluding to Dante’s banishment, relates that
Gemma took great care to provide for the children. Dante,
the earliest poet of modern time worthy of being classed
with Greek and Roman authors, is known chiefly as the
author of a most extraordinary poem, which is a description
of his vision (in which the writer is conducted through hell,
purgatory, and paradise), and called by his countrymen,
“ Divina Commedia.” In the dedication of the “ Inferno,”
he tells us that the whole poem is to be considered as an
allegory of man, in his capacity of meriting reward or punish
ment. Dante is described as the first who introduced angels
and devils into poetry.
He was a great lover of civil liberty, and a determined
enemy of ecclesiastical corruption. In his Hell he repre
sents Nicholas III. with his head fixed downwards, and his
heels burning in flames of fire. In his Purgatory he ascribes
the wretched state of the Christian world to the union of
the temporal and spiritual power in the Pope, and repre
sents Adrian being purified from the sin of avarice; St.
Peter is severely condemning his successors for covetousness,
and all the host of heaven are also full of indignation at
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9
them. Dante, however, seems to have been a Roman
Catholic in superstition, although a sincere hater of abuse
in Church, for he consistently places (in his poem) the
heretics in Hell, and the believers in Paradise. His poli
tical views are expressed in his work concerning Monarchy.
God is one. The universe is an idea of God’s, and is,
therefore, one. God is the source of all; all, therefore,
partakes of his nature. Man is the most excellent product
of creation. As such, he must tend continually to a state
of perfectness, and strive by holiness and knowledge to
attain a likeness to, if not a union with, God. Individual
man is too short-lived to accomplish this; but man has an
historic and collective being, as well as an individual life.
Humanity, aggregate man, is long-lived and indefinitely
progressive. Humanity, like God, is one. Harmony, and
as a consequence association, are the condition of co-working
unity. Unity must be embodied and represented. To give
embodiment to human unity, there must be an outer form
government and an inner spirit-law. A people, aggregated
together into an organic whole, by a general agreement
under the same laws and government, constitutes a nation.
Law and government, however, must have means of enforce
ment, and hence arises the need of an imperial or other
head; not as a superior to, but as an agent of, the law; as
the agent of the people, the chief administrator of the law,
and the representative to other nationalities of the will of
the aggregated and incorporated citizens of the State over
which he bears rule. Dante’s “ Monarchy ” was burnt after
his death, at Bologna, by order of the Papal legate.
In 1300 Dante was the chief of the Priors, who were the
supreme authority in the State, which office placed him
amidst civil strife. While on a visit to Rome as ambassador
to the Pope on behalf of his fellow citizens, his enemies in
1302 contrived to have him fined 8,000 florins, and con
demned to two years’ banishment. In a second sentence
he was condemned to be burnt alive.
Dante was a bold man, and joined the side of the Emperor
versus the priests and the Pope. The party he espoused
(the Bianchi) being vanquished by its antagonists (the Neri),
his property was confiscated, and he was banished from his
native land, which he dearly loved. He severely felt his
banishment, but never returned to Florence to reside.
Dante’s courage, inspired by conscious innocence, would
not permit his return, except on honourable terms, and thus
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
he died an exile in a foreign land. He was crushed by the
ruins of the faction he embraced ; and while his bones were
crumbling into dust, the Pope excommunicated him, and
desired that his remains might be scattered to the winds,
that none should know his eternal resting-place.
The Florentines discovered their loss after Dante’s death,
and desired to have the relics of this great man whom they
robbed and banished in his lifetime. Among other appli
cants to Leo X. for the dust of Dante, was one from a great
man, in the following words : “ I, Michael Angelo, sculptor,
address the same prayer to your holiness, offering to make
for the divine poet a monument which shall be worthy of
him.” All the supplications were of no avail; but Angelo
has recorded his admiration of the “ divine poet ” in the
following sonnet:—
“ON DANTE.
“ How shall we speak of him ? for our weak eyes
Are quite unfit to bear his dazzlings rays.
’Tis easier far to blame his enemies,
Than for our tongue to speak his slightest praise.
For us did he explore the realm of woe ;
At his approach high heaven did soon expand
Its lofty portals, though his fatherland
Refused to ope her gates. Yet thou shalt know,
Ungrateful country! e’en in thine own despite,
That thou hast quickened best thy Dante’s fame.
Virtue opprest dost then shine out most bright ;
And brighter shall his glory therefore be
For suffering so, of all, unguiltily.
Hence in the world there lives no nobler name.”
The Florentines raised a monument to his memory, which
was opened to the public in 1830.
John Huss.
Huss was born at Hussinatz, in Bohemia, about 1370,
and died at Constance, 1414.
He was the son of poor parents. After receiving some
education in the University of Prague, he was ordained a
priest in 1400. He was the first opponent of transubstantiation, and defender of Wycliffe, whose tenets he adopted and
boldly advocated from the pulpit. He preached against
Pope, purgatory, and indulgence. The Archbishop of
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11
Prague accordingly denounced his views as “heretical.”
Huss, being confessor to Sophia, the Queen of Bohemia,
obtained the support of the king; but the heads of the
university proclaimed that whoever taught Wycliffe’s views
should be expelled.
The German students then repaired to Leipzig, to a
university provided by the Elector of Saxony.
Huss, then becoming Rector of the University of Prague,
taught his heretical views, and had the works of Wycliffe
translated into Bohemian. No sooner had they appeared
than the Archbishop had them burnt, and excommunicated
ail who professed to believe in them. Huss being dismissed
from his sacred office, the people assembled to hear him in
houses and fields. The people thus taught became dispu
tants and partisans, and ultimately caused their leader to be
summoned by Pope John XXIII. “ to appear and answer ”
at Bologna certain charges made against him ; but, as he did
not appear, he was excommunicated.
He then retired to his native village. After the death
of the Archbishop, Huss again appeared at Prague, and
opposed a Papal bull. He then received another “ invita
tion” from the Pope, but refused to notice it. In 1414
the Council of Constance called on him to appear before
them. Huss having received a “safe conduct ” from Sigis
mund, he went; but immediately on his arrival was arrested,
and condemned as a heretic. As Huss refused to retract
his heresies, the Council handed him over to the magistrate,
who, by an order from the emperor, had him burnt alive.
It has been urged that the Council merely “ handed him
over to the secular arm,” which meant death, or what ?
When in the flames he displayed such admirable fortitude
that even his enemies were moved to reverence him.
Thus died the great reformer and martyr, John Huss, a
man of irreproachable life, full of courage and sincerity.
The cruel death of this great man is an everlasting stain on
the memory of Sigismund and the Council of Constance.
Geoffrey Chaucer.
Geoffrey Chaucer was born at London 1328, and died
there October 25th, 1400.
He was educated at Cambridge and Oxford, and lived a
considerable period at the Court of Edward III. Two
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
large works he wrote while at college, and many after he
left it. Among the latter we need only mention his name
in connection with the charming Canterbury Tales. Several
writers give an account of Chaucer’s sufferings consequent
upon his espousing the tenets of Wycliffe, and his writing to
expose the ignorance and vices of the clergy. They state
that he was compelled, to escape from his enemies, to fly
to Hainault, and thence to Zealand; and that, on his
return, in a state bordering on starvation, he was imprisoned
in the Tower, until released by his making some disclosures
to the Government. This story, however probable, is con
tradicted by Sir H. Nicholas, who says that Chaucer, during
his recorded exile, regularly received his. pension from Go
vernment. It seems certain that he did suffer adversity
and persecution through his attachmeut to the causes of
John of Gaunt and Wycliffe, whatever truth there may or
may not be in the story of his imprisonment and exile.
Sir John Oldcastle (Lord Cobham).
Sir John Oldcastle was born in the reign of Edward III.,
and died in 141 7.
He obtained the title of Lord Cobham by marrying a
daughter of Lord Cobham. He distinguished himself in
the French military movements of Henry IV. and V., and
is described as displaying great talents for the cabinet and
the field. He was witty in conversation, and possessed of
great learning. In the early ages of the Reformation from
the Church of the Pope he drew up a number of articles
against the vices of the priests and the spiritual power of
the Pope. Flaving examined the writings of Wycliffe, he
became a convert, transcribed his works, and maintained a
number of men to preach the doctrines contained therein.
The Archbishop of Canterbury summoned him ; but he
did not appear, and was consequently excommunicated,
and sent to the Tower, whence he escaped into Wales. To
secure his person, the priests got up a report of a pretended
conspiracy against him. After having offered 1,000 marks
for his head, they succeeded in capturing him in four years,
and, without any attempt to justify their proceedings, hung
him in chains on the gallows at St. Giles, London; and,
placing a fire underneath him, they roasted him alive in
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B
December, 1417. Thus perished “ Cobham the Good,” the
first author and first sufferer among the nobility in the cause
of freedom in religion.
Nicolaus Copernicus.
Nicolaus Copernicus was born at Thorn, in Prussia, in
January or February, 1472, and died May 23rd, 1543.
He was educated at the University of Cracow, and after
wards went to Italy to receive instruction. He passed
several years at Rome, where, in some official capacity,
he gained a considerable reputation by giving public in
struction. It was there also that he made his first astro
nomical observations. On his return to Prussia, a few
years after, his uncle gave him a Canonry in the Church
of Frauenburg. After this he appears to have occupied
his time usefully in three ways—by devoting himself to
his clerical duties, administering medical advice to the
poor (being an M.D.), and by pursuing his astronomical re
searches.
He was eminent as an astronomer, and adopted and im
proved the Pythagorean, Ptolemaic, and other systems,
which made the earth the centre, and partially indicated
some of the motions of the heavenly bodies and the earth.
He puts forth his views, wishing them to be considered
as hypotheses only, as were those of the ancients, into which
he had carefully and greatly investigated, especially regard
ing the motions of our own globe. He placed the sun
in the centre of the universe, and all the other bodies “fixed
in crystal spheres,” performing circular motions around it,
or a compound of uniform and circular motions. Coper
nicus is ever, and chiefly, to be remembered for his theory
of the variation of the seasons, which he attributes to the
continual parallelism of the earth’s axis, the procession of
the equinoxes, and the station of the planets. His system
met with great hostility, and its author was satirised on the
stage of Elburg. In consequence of the “ apprehensions ”
that prevailed regarding the “ novelty ” of his opinion, he
was compelled to keep his work in manuscript till about
1541. A remarkable preface to his work says that no one
should expect anything certain from astronomy, since that
science can afford nothing of the kind. Reference is also
made to the approval of a cardinal and a bishop, and it
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represents the work as not maintaining the motion of the
earth. These and other strangely-invented precautionary
steps were taken to avoid the opprobrium of the ignorant
and bigoted, and probably the Inquisition. This work, how
ever, did great service in the way of overturning the autho
rity of Greek and Hebrew Scriptures in matters of science.
. Copernicus, after many years’ delay, just lived to publish
his work; but no sooner had a copy been sent to him than
he was seized with a violent effusion of blood, which put
an end to his life. His friend, alluding to the melancholy
event, says that the book arrived, a complete copy, on May
23rd, i543> and that Copernicus saw it and touched it, but
did no more, for he died a few hours after.
Copernicus, although mistaken in some things, and con
siderably behind his successor Galileo, not possessing his
remarkable talents for experimenting, was a great and
original thinker, indulging in freedom of thought to a re
markable extent, in spite of the authorities by which he
was surrounded in the age in which he lived. He was
a great mathematician, and a sincere lover and seeker of
truth regarding all things in the heavens and the earth.
Sir Thomas More.
Sir Thomas More was born in Milk Street, London,
1480, and died July 6th 1535.
Thomas was sent by his father Sir John to be educated
in St. Anthony’s school, and afterwards to the Archbishop
of Canterbury. He also studied at Oxford, where he wrote
his first poems, and formed an acquaintance with Erasmus.
After leaving Oxford he distinguished himself in legal
studies, and obtained considerable practice. In the reign
of Henry VII. he was considered one of the most eloquent
and important men, and his services were sought in all
important legal transactions that occurred in the courts of
law.
Being made a Member of Parliament, More opposed a
grant of money to the king, which so enraged his majesty
that, had not death removed Henry, More must have quitted
his country.
On the accession of Henry VIII. More became once
more an important man. The king was so attached to
him that he would spend a day together with him at his
�15
house. In 1521 he made Sir Thomas More Treasurer of
the Exchequer; and, the second year after, Speaker of the
House. In this capacity he offended Wolsey, but still re
tained the friendship of the king, who in 1529 made him
Chancellor.
At the termination of his Chancellorship, in 1532, More
was surrounded by enemies, and the friendship of Henry
was soon numbered with things of the past. Henry desired
to form “an alliance” with Anne Boleyn, to do which
he required the assistance of Sir Thomas. More, being a
sincere and devoted member of • the Church of the Pope,
could not sanction an act that was denounced by so great
nn authority. This rendered it necessary that Henry and
his old favourite should no longer be united ; consequently
More retired from office. Sir Thomas was soon after set
down as an accomplice with Elizabeth Barton; but from
fthis he escaped.
In 1533 a law was passed making it “treason” to write,
q^ublish, or say anything to the “prejudice” of Henry’s
[marriage with his new wife; and every person was called
tUpori oath to sanction and defend this law.
In 1534 More was summoned before the commissioners
: to take the oath, but he refused, and was, consequently,
, committed to the Tower, where he remained thirteen
months. During his confinement all attempts to alter his
decision, and to get him to acknowledge the supremacy of
“ the Defender of the Faith,” were entirely fruitless. He
>. was accordingly tried for high treason, and condemned to
be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and his head to be stuck
. on a pole on London Bridge. He was beheaded July 6th,
,1535.
An old writer says : “ Sir Thomas having occupied so
, eminent an office, and formerly being so very intimate with
.the king, his gracious majesty ordered him to be ‘merely
beheaded
Judging from the sentiments contained in his letters, Sir
Thomas must have been an amiable and a faithful friend,
a loving husband, an affectionate father, and in other
respects an estimable and benevolent man. There can be
, no doubt that his sincere regard for integrity and truth
ultimately caused his death, and such enabled him to meet
it with cheerfulness and without fear. The characteristics
of his mind are shown, supposing he expressed his own real
opinions, in his “Utopia,” which is a description of a
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
�16
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
model commonwealth, where private property shall not
exist to occasion the labourer to suffer or deprave the
minds of those who live on his labours.
Erasmus, who was a visitor of Sir Thomas, describes his
house as “ like the academy of Plato,” where all was order,
industry, and cheerfulness.
Ulricus Zuinglius.
Ulricus Zuinglius was born January ist, 1484, at the
village of Wildhaus, and died October, 1531.
This celebrated Swiss reformer, whose name is sometimes
written Ulrich Zwingli, was the son of a respectable peasant,
who rose to the office of chief-magistrate of his district.
Young Zuinglius, being of a studious disposition, was sent
to the Universities of Basle and Vienna, and received the
degree of M.A. After becoming qualified, by much reading
and study, he was elected minister at the chief town of the
Canton Glaris. Through gaining considerable knowledge
of the New Testament and of Church history, he early in
life began to preach the most enlightened doctrines of the
Reformed Religion. Even in his age, when the slightest
attempt at preaching common sense was considered revolu
tionary, he taught in his sermons doctrines that reflect
credit on his head and heart. He proclaimed his convic
tion that “ virtuous heathens ” and “ good men ” of all
kinds, who acted in accordance with the dictates of know
ledge and conscience, would receive the reward of final
happiness. In this and other matters he was far before his
time, and his enlightened view's are even now several cen
turies in advance of the English priests and clergy.
In the first volume that he published, “ Observations on
Lent,” he expressed his liberal views about the necessity of
“ fasting and keeping ” particular days of the week and
year. These views were, of course, “ dangerous to society,”
and especially so to the Church, and accordingly the Bishop
of Constance instructed the clergy “ not to permit its ordi
nances to be infringed.”
In 1523 he was called up before the ecclesiastical and
civil powers “to give an account of his heretical views.”
The result of this examination was beneficial to the people,
for it led to the abolition of many superstitious and injurious
practices in the Church.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
17
His views began to take root in other countries besides
that in which he preached, and produced great alarm
amongst the clergy, which finally broke out into fierce and
open hostilities. His “ dangerous doctrines ” had been
the cause of churches being cleared of images and pictures,
the mass being abolished, the suppression of the mendi
cant orders, and the establishment of a system of public
instruction. The hostile feelings created by these innova
tions were repressed by the Treaty of Coppel, in 1529, but
were soon after rekindled. Zuinglius, being appointed to
accompany an expedition against the Catholics, for the pur
pose of exciting the men, met with a fatal wound in an
engagement in which his own party was defeated. Some
Catholic soldiers finding him still alive on the field, one
of them cruelly killed him ; and, by the order of a military
tribunal, his body was burnt, and his ashes were scattered
to the winds.
Thus perished, on the battle-field of liberty in religion, the
amiable, philosophical, humane, and courageous Zuinglius,
in his forty-fourth year, 1531.
It is a source of unmixed pleasure to reflect on the life
and works of this great man, who delivered himself from the
superstitions of his age, and created a mental and moral
reformation, the effects of which still live among his brave
and distinguished countrymen.
Rene Descartes.
René Descartes was born at La Haye, in Touraine, 31st
March, 1596, and died nth February, 1650, at Stockholm.
He was a son of a noble family, and received his educa
tion from the Jesuits of La-Flêche. While there he formed
an acquaintance with a monk, wfliose studies are supposed
to have influenced him in the prosecution of mathematics
and metaphysics.
Having joined the army in his twentieth year, he was
present at the Battle of Prague. Like others, he fulfilled
his duty as a soldier, but did not neglect his philosophical
studies.
An interesting story is told of his perceiving a group of
people reading a placard in Breda, where he was then
studying, on which was written a geometrical problem given
out as a challenge. As a soldier he created some surprise
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by asking a professor, who happened to be standing by at
the time, to translate it for him. Descartes, having pro
cured the necessary information, told the professor (who
was Principal of the College of Dort) that he would send
him a solution of the problem early in the morning ! After
retiring from the army he visited nearly the whole of
Europe. Thinking he would be better able the prosecute
his studies of philosophy in Holland, he removed from
France thither.
In 1633 he published “ A Treatise of the World,” and in
1636 “ A Treatise of Mechanics.” Some writers consider
that he advanced the science of geometry as much as did
Sir Isaac Newton after him. In his early life, it is said, he
formed the intention of endeavouring to “ unlearn ” all
that had been taught him at college, with the view of in
vestigating the fundamental principles of human knowledge.
The influence of Descartes’s labours was great in his life
time, and is generally believed to have had very consider
able effect even to the present generation.
He was the victim of horrible persecution, and the Church
rose up to do battle against his “heretical” philosophy.
Like many before and after him, he was accused of Atheism.
It was proposed to burn him on an eminence in Utrecht,
in an extraordinary fire that might be seen by the inhabitants
of the seven provinces. In the midst of his dangers and
the hostility of bigots, Christiana of Sweden offered him a
resting-place.
Giordano Bruno.
Giordano Bruno was born at Nola, in the kingdom of
Naples, about the middle of the sixteenth century.
He belonged to the Dominican order; but, having ex
pressed some doubts about some of the Romish dogmas,
he had to run away from his convent. He spent two years
at Geneva, but there incurred the condemnation of the
Protestants, owing to his scepticism of their doctrines. He
then went to Paris, where he attacked the doctrines of the
Aristotelians. Having made enemies both in the Univer
sity and the Church, he visited England in 1583, where
he gained the friendship of Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he
dedicated his work against Rome. During the two years
he was in England he visited Oxford, and held discussions
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
19
with the learned men of the University. He also visited
Germany, where he was invited to become a follower of
Luther, an invitation which he declined. He afterwards
returned to Italy. Being arrested at Venice, he was trans
ferred to the arms of his opponents in Rome in 1598, where
he was kept in the prison of “the holy office” for two years.
The Inquisitors spent their time in vain attempts to make
him recant his heretical opinions. Finding his conversion
by argument too much for them, they passed sentence upon
him as “a confirmed heretic;” and eight days after (February
17th, 1600) he was burnt alive.
Tennemann, in his “ History of Philosophy,” describes1
Bruno as “ the most interesting thinker ” of his age, and
as being endowed with “ a comprehensive and penetrating
intellect.” He was a great classical scholar, and to this
Tennemann attributes his teaching Pantheism—that is, the
system “ of the Eleatæ and Plotinus purified.” God, in
his system, is the substance of all things and the cause. He
is described as holding the idea that the absolute is con
scious, and that what takes place in the universe is intended
to take place. God influences every atom of the universe,
as well as the whole of it. He makes the universe a living
being, and the eternity of its existence a necessity, it being
infinite and imperishable. It fashions and forms itself in
a thousand ways, without any limit. His system has been
described as Atheism, but everything opposed to theo
logians and the Church received that name in all ages.
The explanation of the difference is that he affirms only
one eternal existence, which leaves no room for other exist
ences affirmed by the clericals.
Anne Askew.
Anne Askew was born at Kelsey, Lincolnshire, about 1521,
and died at London 1546.
Anne was the daughter of Sir William Askew, and was
married to a wealthy member of the Roman Church. In
Ballard’s “ British Ladies ” she is described as one of the
early martyrs to the Reformed views of religion. By read
ing the Scriptures, and comparing them with the new doc
trines, she became a convert. This change in her religious
views so enraged her husband, who was not only a Catholic,
but a violent and bigoted one, that he turned her out of the
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THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
house. She then went to London, where she was befriended
by Queen Katherine and others.
In 1545, being accused by her husband and some priests,
she was arrested and imprisoned on the charge of heresy.
She was repeatedly examined by the Bishop of London and
others, on which occasions she displayed considerable ability.
In answer to a question put by the Lord Mayor, Whether
the priests cannot make the body of Christ ?” she boldly
replied, “ I have read that God made man, but that man
can make God I never yet read.”
Although allowed bail, she was soon brought up again,
and imprisoned in Newgate and the Tower. Bishop Bonner
tried in vain to persuade her to belie her conscience. M ith.
the view of ascertaining what ladies favoured her heresies,
she was cruelly put to the rack, and, on her refusing to
answer the Chancellor Wriothesley and Master Rich, it is
said they applied their own hands to strain the rack, and
with such violence, that every limb in the body of the inno
cent victim was dislocated.
f Such was the courage of this unfortunate woman that
she sat on the ground reasoning with her cruel persecutors
for two hours after this horrible punishment. Pardon was
afterwards offered if she would recant; but she refused all
such offers, and she was finally destroyed by fire. With
admirable courage and fidelity she went to the stake July
ifith, 1546, on which day, with four others, she was burnt
alive in Smithfield.
Jacobus Arminius.
Jacobus Arminius was born at Oudewater, Holland, 1560,
and died 1609.
By the assistance of a priest who was favourable to the
Reformed Religion, he became a student at Utrecht, and
afterwards at Leyden. Having greatly distinguished him
self at Leyden, the merchants of Amsterdam sent him to
Geneva to study under Theodore Beza. Having adopted
the philosophy of Peter Ramus, he commenced teaching
it. This being considered a great “ innovation,” he was
compelled to quit Geneva. He afterwards renounced his
Calvinistic views, and maintained that the merits of Christ
extended to the whole human family, This again exposed
him to great dangers, but the authorities of Amsterdam
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
21
protected him. He was several times troubled by his
-orthodox friends, and was summoned to the Hague to give
•an account of his doctrines.
These vexatious and violent proceedings brought on a
disease that terminated his life October 19th, 1609. His
motto was, “A good conscience is Paradise.”
Arminius, the leader of the Arminians or Remonstrants,
was a friend of universal toleration, and maintained, as a
fundamental principle, that men are responsible to God
alone for their religion. Arminius appears to have desired
the union of all Christians who were not idolators or per
secutors.
Although violently assailed by his bigoted neighbours,
he was a man of integrity; he was also candid, amiable,
and sincere. After his death his views were accepted by
the chief minds of Holland; among others was the cele
brated Grotius. This sect was afterwards condemned by
the Synod of Dort, and disgracefully persecuted under
Prince Maurice.
Arminians still form a distinct sect in Holland, and
similar views are now popular in other countries.
Thomas Cranmer.
Thomas Cranmer was born at Aslacton, Nottinghamshire,
July 2nd, 1489, and died at Oxford March 21st, 1556.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the son of respectable
parents, was educated at a village school, and at Jesus
College, Cambridge. At college he distinguished himself
in the study of Hebrew, Greek, and theology, and after
wards, through his travels, in French, German, and Italian.
At the age of twenty-three he committed the crime of
matrimony, which cost him his fellowship. To particularise
all the events of Cranmer’s life would occupy too much
space. He was the prime mover in the establishment of
a new Church in England, which has been honoured by
the State ever since. His discreditable acts in connection
with Henry VIII. have been sufficiently exposed by the
■critics and enemies of the new religious order of priesthood.
He sanctioned immorality, illegality, and cruelty ; but the
general intention of his nature was moderation, and sincerity
of purpose appears in the majority of his actions. On the
accession of Mary, Cranmer’s influence ceased, and a com
�22
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
mission was given to the bishops to imprison Protestant
ministers on the charges of treason, heresy, and matrimony.
Cranmer was committed to the Tower on the charges of
“treason against the Queen” and “disquieting the State.”
The year after this he was removed to Oxford Prison, and
appeared at the famous discussion on the “Lord’s Supper.”
At the conclusion of the discussion Cranmer was declared.
“ an obstinate heretic in reply to this he said : “ From
this your judgment and sentence I appeal to the just judg
ment of the Almighty.” He was then removed to prison ;
and it was decided that the charge of treason should be
withdrawn, and that he should suffer for heresy, not by theaxe, but by fire. In an hour of weakness he recanted his
opinions, but afterwards he publicly declared he had pub
lished writings (referring to his recantation) contrary to thetruth that he believed in his heart. In consequence of this
confession of his untruthful recantation through fear of
death, after enduring imprisonment and insult, he was led
to the stake and burnt alive. While in the flames he held
out the hand with which he had signed the recantation,
and till his utterance was stifled exclaimed, “ This unworthy
hand!”
Tycho Brahe.
Tycho Brahe was born at Knudsthorp, Denmark, De
cember 14th, 1546, and died at Prague October 24th, 1601.
Otto Brahe, the father of Tycho, descended from a noble
Swedish family; but at the birth of his son was in such
“straitened circumstances” that he proposed educating him
for the military profession. Otto’s brother requesting that
Tycho should become his adopted child, the military pro
posal was abandoned.
While studying at Copenhagen, in 1560, Tycho’s atten
tion was first directed to astronomy by a total eclipse of
the sun, which was expected on August 21st of that year,
eclipses being in those days looked on as supernatural
events which affected the destinies of individuals and
nations.
About his thirtieth year, a most fortunate epoch in his
history, the King of Denmark erected a splendid observa
tory for him on the Island of Hven, at the cost of ^£2 0,000.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
23
This celebrated residence and observatory of Tycho received
the name of Uraniberg, or the City of the Heavens, on which
Tycho expended nearly a ton of gold. As he kept an open
and hospitable house, he was visited by many distinguished
persons. Among others, there was our own King James,
who, it is said, conducted himself in an exemplary manner,
and manifested his gratitude to the astronomer by present
ing him with a magnificent donation, and also a license to
publish his works in England. The life of Brahe has been
described as one of unmitigated pleasure till the year 1591,
when the dark clouds of jealousy and ill-will perceptibly
rose over him. His studies were calumniated by coun
cillors, and his pension was grudged by the Treasury.
The feelings of hostility and envy of the courts and
nobles who unwillingly tolerated his studies and pension
were considerably fermented by certain physicians, who
became extremely envious of his successful and gratuitous
practice of “ the healing art.” Invalids, whose diseases
resisted their medicinal skill, yielded to Tycho’s treatment.
They, having poisoned the mind of the court and the people
by describing his studies as useless, &c., at length succeeded
in depriving him of his canonry, estate, and pension. Being
unable to keep up the establishment himself, and fearing the
consequences of the adverse feeling created against him, he
removed some of his instruments to Copenhagen. After
this two persons, entirely ignorant of astronomy, were
appointed to inquire into the value of his discoveries and
observations, and, as might have been expected, they
declared “ that his studies were not only useless, but
noxious.”
On the strength of their learned report, Tycho’s observa
tions and experiments were prohibited in the King’s name,
and an attack was made on his person, and his servants
were injured in the affray. Tycho afterwards became an
exile from “ the City of the Heavens,” in which he had
spent so many harmless and useful years. The island'was
taken from the noble, and transferred to the nobility. The
only traits that remained of the philosopher have been de
scribed in one sentence : 11 There is in the island a field
where Uraniberg was.”
Tycho made a large quadrant, which enabled him to
make many excellent observations while on a visit to
Augsburg. In 1572 he discovered a new star in the con
stellation of Cassiopea, which is one of the most interesting
�24
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
phenomena in astronomy; it appeared to him larger than
Jupiter, and rivalled Venus in her greatest brilliance. In
1598 he published a work on Astronomiae Mechanica, and
dedicated it to the Emperor Rudolph, and at the same time
he sent him a copy of his MS. catalogue of a thousand fixed
stars.
As a practical astronomer, Tycho is said to have surpassed
all observers. Knight says : “ He showed himself a sound
mathematician in his method for determining refraction, in
his deduction of the variation and annual equation of the
moon, and in many other ways.” He made a great glass
globe with internal wheel-work, by which he imitated the
diurnal motions of the heavens, the rising and setting of the
sun, and the phases of the moon.
He was, indeed, the inventor of a new, but erroneous,
system of the world, and, though it did not succeed, had
many followers. It should be also named that, unlike a
philosopher ought to be, he was very superstitious with
regard to presages, very positive, and impatient of contra
diction.
One not uncommon occurrence in the life of scientific
men happened to Tycho—viz., piracy. One. Paul Witichins, a mathematician of Germany, once visited Tycho,
and played the pirate with him, who explained freely his
invention and method to him. Paul afterwards proceeded
to put forth what he had learned from Tycho, and de
scribed it as his own.
- Tycho’s system places the earth stationary in the centre
of the universe, while the sun and all the other heavenly
bodies revolve around the earth. Sir David Brewster, from
whom I have learned many of the foregoing particulars, says :
“ His theory was consistent with Scripture, and conformable
to the senses, and found many supporters, notwithstanding
the physical absurdity of making the whole universe revolve
round the smallest planet.”
John Kepler.
John Kepler was born at
cember 21 st, 1571, and died
1630.
His education was hindered
and the diseases of his body.
Weil, in Wurtemberg, De
at Ratisbon in November,
by the quarrels of his family
The quarrels with his mother
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
25
caused his father to emigrate, offended all her relations, and
threw the whole of their domestic affairs into inextricable
disorder.
In spite of adverse circumstances, John became a good
mathematician, and gained the degrees of B.A. and M.A.
He seems to have met with many disappointments in his
speculations, for Sir D. Brewster says he spent a whole
summer in fruitless speculations, and praying constantly to
his Maker for success. His friend, Tycho Brahe, gave him
some advice, which is of general application (especially if
the student keep in view the correct definition of the term
-“causes”), “to lay a solid foundation for his views by
actual observation, and then strive to reach the causes of
things.”
Kepler’s marriage was attended by trouble and vexation.
His income was very small, and, his wife’s being smaller
than he expected, he was led into pecuniary difficulties,
and, added to these, disputes with her relations. These
evils were aggravated by religious persecutions of Protes
tants by Catholics, which compelled him to leave his
country. He was afterwards, on his return, excommuni
cated by the Catholics for refusing their opinion of Jesus
Christ. To support his family at this time he was obliged
to make almanacks. While in this state of poverty he
refused the Mathematical Chair at Bologna, rather than live
in a country where his freedom of speech and manners
might expose him to suspicion.
Regarding the eye as similar to the camera obscura,
Kepler discovered that an image of an external object was
painted in an inverted position on the retina by the union
of the pencils of rays. He also explained the cause of long
and short-sighted vision, and the power of accommodating
the eye to different distances, and discovered a method of
calculating eclipses. It is to Kepler we owe the methods
of tracing the progress of rays through transparent bodies
with convex and concave surfaces. He invented the astro
nomical telescope, which consists of two convex lenses. The
three great astronomical truths known as Kepler’s laws are :
The elliptic form of the orbits ; the equable description of
areas ; that the squares of the periodic times are propor
tional to the cubes of the mean distances from the sun.
In 1609 he published his “ New Astronomy,” containing
his great work, “ On the Motion of Mars,” which has been
described as the connecting link between Copernicus and
�2Ô
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
Newton. In this remarkable book Kepler discusses the
theory of gravity then held, and advances his own. He
describes two bodies as having the power of attracting each
other over a space in proportion to the mass of each (sup
posing them to be placed in space, and uninfluenced by the
attraction of any third body).
His epitome of the Copernican system was prohibited by
the Inquisition immediately after its publication in 1618;
and his Kalender was publicly burnt by order of the States
of Styria.
Kepler escaped the flames of the faggot, but was often
enveloped in the flames of domestic discord, and was often
found merging into a state of bankruptcy, or linked in the
chains of adversity.
Sir Henry Wootton, when English Ambassador at Venice,
found him, as he generally was to be found, “ oppressed
with pecuniary difficulties.” He invited him to England,
but Kepler would not leave his Continental home. In all
his difficulties and poverty he used to declare he would
rather be author of his books than owner of the Duchy of
Saxony.
In 1630 he made his last attempt to obtain his due from
the Imperial treasury; but the attempt was fruitless, and
the journey brought on a fever that terminated his life early
in November. Delambre has expressed his opinion of
Kepler in the following words :—“ Ardent, restless, burning
to distinguish himself by his discoveries, he attempted every
thing. All his attempts had not the same success ; that
was impossible. Those which failed seemed fanciful;
those which have been more fortunate appear sublime.”
No labour was too great for him ; he would continue his
calculations on one subject for four years ■ and in all his
pursuits he displayed “ that obstinate perseverance, that
must triumph over all difficulties but those which are insur
mountable.”
Sir Walter Raleigh.
Walter Raleigh was born at a farm called Hayes, in
Devonshire, in 1552, and died in London, October 29th,
1618.
Raleigh was the son of a gentleman of ancient family,
the spelling of whose name has considerably varied. The
common method adopted by King James, Hooke, and
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
27
others, is as the above ; while Cayley, Sir R. Naunton, and.
Lord Bacon write it Rawleigh. Some old deeds have it
Rale, and Ralega, and Sir Walter himself used to write it
Ralegh. After the usual school education, he was sent to
Oriel College, where “ he was worthily esteemed a proficient
in oratory and philosophy.” Sir R. Naunton, speaking of
his position in early life, says : “ He was well descended,
and of good alliance, but poor in his beginnings.” Lord
Oxford -called him “a Jack of an upstart.” The same
lord, referring to Raleigh’s promotion and Essex’s execu
tion, remarked that “when Jacks start up, heads go down.”
At college he was successful in learning “ far beyond his
age,” but his active disposition and martial ardour soon
put an end to his aspirations for learning. In 1569, in
company with other noblemen, who in his time went to
study in the schools of Mars the art of warfare, he went to
France for the purpose of preparing himself to assist the
Protestants (or Huguenots), who were at that time greatly
oppressed. How he escaped the dreadful massacre on St.
Bartholomew’s Day is not known.
The generality of noblemen who visited France are said
to have “ ruined their fortunes, constitutions, and morals.”
Not so Sir Walter, who returned, at the end of five years,
“ the best bred and most accomplished man in England.”
In 1578 he went out with an expedition to North America,
but returned the following year, and soon after offered his
services to suppress an attempted rebellion in Ireland. In
1584 he again visited America, and discovered a place which
was called, in honour of the Virgin Queen, Virginia. The
grand issues of this expedition were the importation of the
potato into England—which was afterwards successfully
cultivated on his estate in Ireland—and the importation of
tobacco.
A well-known story is told, in an old number of the
Gentleman’s Magazine, of his first introduction of the nar
cotic weed. Sir Walter, having seated himself in a chair to
take a “ quiet pipe ” after dinner, was unceremoniously
disturbed by the alarm of “ Fire ! fire ! the master’s afire >”
and, before he could extricate himself from his perilous posi
tion, the horrified servant precipitated a pailful of water in
the face of his respected employer.
Several stories are told of his connection with the court.
One day, walking with the Queen Elizabeth, she came to a
spot of mire that obstructed her course; whereupon Sir
�28
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
Walter threw down his cloak for her majesty to walk on !
The sacrifice of this one cloak is said to have gained him
many a good suit. He seems from this time to have become
a favourite, and, some say, with justice, since “ whatever he
received with one hand, he bestowed it in acts glorious to
the nation with the other.” When the famous Armada
appeared in the Channel, Sir Walter was one who volun
teered to assist in defeating the enemy.
On his return from Portugal he visited his estate in Ireland,
on which occasion Spenser, with whom he was acquainted,
celebrated him as the “ Shepherd of the Ocean,” and
acknowledged that Sir Walter first introduced him to the
queen. Spenser also described to him the plan and design
of the “ Fairie Queene.”
With the view of getting Raleigh into disgrace with his
royal mistress, Parsens, a Jesuit, published a document
charging him with “ Atheism.”
Soon after this Sir Walter got into disgrace by an amour
with the daughter of Sir N. Throckmorton ; and although
he married the young lady, the queen shut him up in the
Tower two months, and banished him from court. He
soon, however, displayed extravagant signs of grief, and
was liberated. While a prisoner he planned his design for
discovering the Empire of Guiana. He visited it, and took
possession, and afterwards wrote a description of his “ Dis
coveries.” This book of imaginary rather than real dis
coveries Hume describes as “ full of the grossest and most
palpable lies.”
Being once more in favour at court, he gave up his
discoveries, and devoted his time to the House of Commons;
there he opposed all Bills that were contrived to oppress
the middle and lower classes. He advocated principles
that were far before his time, such as claiming the right of
every man to employ his labour or capital how and where
he chose—also the necessity of removing all restrictions on
the trade in corn.
.
These, of course, are some of the best traits of his
character; others might be mentioned to his discredit, as in
some things he resembled his brethren. The queen, how
ever, is said to have paid due respect to every man s merit,
and to none more than Raleigh’s.
The death of Elizabeth was the fall of Raleigh. Till
then he had served his country gloriously, and lived in it
happily.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
*
29
On the accession of James I. a conspiracy was discovered,
in which Lord Cobham (with whom Raleigh was intimate)
was concerned. Raleigh, against whom his former friend
Cecil had completely poisoned the king’s mind, was examined
before a council, and in 1603 was committed on the charge
of treason.
His only accuser was Cobham, a man of disreputable
character, who afterwards retracted all that he had said
against him. Three were executed for this plot, and Sir
Walter was reprieved. His wife, at her own solicitation,
was permitted to become his fellow prisoner. On his trial
his eloquence “ in half a day changed the mind of all the
company from* extremest hate to greatest pity.” Being
committed, it is said that he attempted suicide. He
remained a prisoner about thirteen years, during which
period his ever-active mind created his great work, “ The
History of the World,” which, Hume says, “ is the best
model of our ancient style.”
Prince Henry greatly admired Sir Walter, and cheered
and consoled him in prison, declaring that “ no king but
his father would keep such a bird in a cage.”
In 1615, some of his enemies being dead, Raleigh
obtained his liberty through calling attention to his project
for opening a gold mine in Guiana. This expedition was
betrayed to the Spaniards, and defeated. A conflict ensued
between the two nations’ explorers ; and, Sir Walter’s son
having lost his life at the town of St. Thomas, an English
captain set fire to the town. Complaints reaching King
James from the Spanish Court, Sir Walter, on his return,
was arrested at Plymouth, and committed to the Tower.
James wanted to marry his son into the Spanish Court, and
to succeed in this he sacrificed Raleigh to the Spanish
alliance. The jury being unable to condemn him in the
absence of evidence, James sent a privy seal on October
Sth, 1618, ordering him to be beheaded on the ground of
his former conviction, although sixteen years after that
event, thirteen of which he had been in prison, and from
which he had been released by the king’s own permission.
Dr. Campbell, referring to this abominable act of James,
says : “ This judgment did not only murder Sir Walter, but
subverted the constitution, and ought not to be looked on
only as an act of the basest prostitution, but as the most
flagrant violation of justice that was ever committed.” Sir
R. Naunton, Secretary of State to James, says: “Sir
�30
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
Walter’s trial was a disgrace to the judicature of the country.”
James’s own published justification of his conduct specifies
that the offence for which Raleigh was beheaded was that
of “ sacking the town of St. Thomas, and attempting to
escape when he arrived in England,” and not his former
treason. Thus we find that, according to. the king’s own
acts and words, he murders Raleigh for his acts of present
hostility to Spaniards on the grounds of his past amity
towards them. This abomination was perpetrated by a
man who was the chief magistrate of England, the law of
which contains the singular maxim, that, “ the king can do
no wrong.” Of course he cannot so long as the people are
sufficiently vicious to excuse him from obedience to all
human laws.
On October 29th, 1618, Sir Walter was taken to the
scaffold, where his manner was calm, dignified, and manly.
He addressed the people, telling them that he feared death
less than ever, and, as to the manner of it, he preferred it
to dying in a burning fever. He desired to see the axe,
and feel the edge of it, in doing which he remarked : “ This
is a sharp medicine, but a sure remedy for all evils.” Being
asked which way he would lay on the block, he replied :
“ So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head
lies and, giving the signal, he received the blow with the
utmost composure.
Thus died the tall, handsome, and bold Sir Walter, a
man of high forehead, long face, remarkable aspect, and
“ damnably proudone who distinguished himself as
commander, navigator, discoverer, and statesman; a profi
cient in mechanics, and an author of no mean pretensions.
Although deficient in many respects, he was affectionate,
and beloved by those beneath him. “Take him all in
all,” he was one of the most remarkable men of his time.
Nicholas Ridley.
Nicholas Ridley was born at Tynedale, Northumberland,
early in the sixteenth century, and died at Oxford, October
16th, 1555.
He was educated at Newcastle, Pembroke College,
Oxford, and in France. His knowledge and capacity to
preach gained him the attention of Cranmer; and his early
sermons against holy water, images^ transubstantiation, and
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
31
other matters affecting the Church, made him a distinguished
member of the New Church. He was greatly offended with
Mary for having refused him permission to preach before
her. After this, however, we find him interceding for Mary’s
right to be allowed her own religion. In one of his sermons
before Edward VI. he “ moved the young king’s mind to
works of charity,” to provide houses for the poor—whether
poor by sickness, poverty, or idleness. Having espoused
the cause of Lady Jane Grey, immediately Mary acceded
to the throne she placed Ridley in prison. He was com
mitted to the Tower in 1553, and removed to Oxford in
1554, where he was allowed to attend a Convocation in
company with two other prisoners, Cranmer and Latimer.
After some pretended free discussion of the “ real pre
sence ” doctrine, amidst disorder and insult, the three
reformers were declared to be defeated in argument, and
to be “ obstinate heretics.” Unable to convince Ridley by.
argument, or to compel him to recant, his persecutors
led him to the stake, hung gunpowder around his neck, and
burnt him alive. As the fuel was slow in rising into a
flame sufficient to explode the powder, the extremities of
his body were gradually burnt from under him before he
■expired. Burnet describes Ridley as the most learned and
eloquent of the early advocates of the new religion. At the
same time as Ridley the honest, moral, simple, and zealous
Latimer perished in the flames.
William Tyndale.
William Tyndale was born on the borders of Wales before
1500, and died 1536.
Of his parents nothing is known. He received a good
education, and entered Magdalen College, Oxford. Here
he embraced the tenets of Luther. Being a man of good
moral character, and diligent in his studies, he was appointed
Canon of Christ Church; but his principles soon became
known, and he was immediately dismissed. He then ob
tained a degree at Cambridge, and became tutor to Sir John
Welch. Again his heretical-religious views caused him to
be reprimanded and dismissed. Failing to obtain assist
ance from the great people who promise and seldom per
form, he took refuge in the house of a London Aiderman.
Tyndale was a great reformer, and served his cause very
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
greatly by preparing, while with the Aiderman, his cele
brated translation of the New Testament. But a. prophet
being never received in his own country, and being unable
to bear the ill-usage of the English clergy, Tyndale pro
ceeded to Saxony. Here he was introduced to Luther
and others. Thence he went to Antwerp, where, by the
assistance of John Fry and a friar, he completed and pub
lished his work in 1526. The fifteen hundred copies
printed were most of them sent to England, where they
created terrible alarm among the clergy. Bishops Wareham
and Tunstall, buying all the copies up “ to burn them,
enabled Tyndale to print another edition, which had a wider
circulation.
He then took up his residence at Antwerp with an English
merchant, but there was no abiding peace for Tyndale.
Animated by the extraordinary spirit of the time, Henry
VIII. and his council engaged an inhuman individual, bear
ing the name of Phillips, to betray poor Tyndale to the
Procurator of the Emperor. They succeeded in capturing
him, and in 1536, by the decree of the Emperor, Tyndale
was tried, and condemned to be strangled and burnt. He
was led to the stake, and quietly submitted himself to be
strangled ; afterwards he was burnt. His last words were,.
“ Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” Thus ended the
life of one of England’s sons, a man of irreproachable
manners and character, whose crime was. the endeavour to.
induce the Christians who condemned him to peruse. that
divine book which they claimed to be the word of Almighty
God, and the foundation of the only true religion.
Patrick Hamilton.
Patrick Hamilton was born about the year 1504.
.
Buchanan states that he was the son of Sir Patrick
Hamilton, of Kingcavil, and his grandfather is said to have
married the sister of James III. According to the prevail
ing custom among the nobility, young Hamilton was intended
for the Church, and obtained an abbacy m his childhood.
He seemed, however, destined to act a nobler part than
that prescribed by his parents. In Hamilton s youth what
were called heretical books were being circulated in Scot
land, which presented Christianity in its earlier and purer
form. Consequently, he formed views of religious truth of
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
33
very different character from those which prevailed in the
Church at his time. He was of a bold and questioning
.spirit, and freely spoke of the corruptions of the Church,
and of the intolerant and grossly corrupt character of the
■clergy, beneath whose rapacity and oppression the people
lived. He exposed their oppressive exactions and their
scandalous lives, which excited the mind of the people
against them, and drew down the suspicion of the clergy on
himself. The long slumber of security in which the clergy
had lived was now suddenly disturbed by the spread of the
Lutheran heresy, which made it prudent for Patrick to leave
his country. He therefore visited Wittenburg, at which
•place he was kindly entertained by Luther. After imbibing
the new doctrines from the lips of Francis Lambert, of
Avignon, his faith became thoroughly fixed.
Full of the fervour and zeal of youth, Hamilton at once
resolved to return to Scotland, to proclaim the new truths
to his oppressed and benighted countrymen. Although his
instructor portrayed to him the dangers and perils of this
attempt, he at once began openly to preach the doctrines
he had learnt in Germany and from his Bible. But he soon
had the honour of sealing his doctrines with his blood, for
the clergy thought at once to put down the new “ filthy
heresy,” and to strike universal terror into the minds of the
people by sacrificing so illustrious a victim. With a view
to get Hamilton destroyed, Archbishop Beaton challenged
him to a pretended free conference. Thus in the power of
Beaton, a pretext was soon found for throwing him into
prison. On his trial he defended his opinion with modesty
.and firmness, but his persecutors were determined to put
an end to his life. In 1528, and in his, twenty-fourth year,
with courage worthy of his cause, he perished in the flames.
The last words of this noble man were : “ How long, O
Lord, shall darkness cover this land ? How long wilt thou
suffer this oppression of men ?” Hamilton’s family was
suspected of heresy, and his brother Sir James, and his
•sister Catherine, were both denounced as heretics. Cathe
rine, however, was prevailed on to recant, and she escaped.
�34
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
Daniel De Foe.
Daniel De Foe was born in the parish of St. Giles’s,
London, in 1661, and died there April 24th, 1731Daniel’s father, James Foe, was a butcher by trade, and
his religious profession was Dissenter; and, accordingly, ie
placed his son in a Dissenting academy. Daniel seems to
have been successful at school, for in after life he chalensed one of his adversaries to translate any Latin, French,,
or Italian work. He says he was trained for the ministry,
but he never appeared in that capacity. His first appear
ance as an author was in a pamphlet against High Churcli
views. This, it is said, contained some reflections on cer
tain ecclesiastics, who “ obliged him to explain himself, and
which he did clearly.” “The Shortest Way with the Dis
senters ” gave great offence, and a reward was offered lor
De Foe’s apprehension. The House of Commons decided
that the book was “ scandalous,” and ordered it to be burnt
bv the common hangman. The following proclamation
appeared against him
“ Whereas, Daniel De Foe, alias
De Fooe, is charged with writing a scandalous and sedi
tious pamphlet, entitled ‘The Shortest Way wit 1
e
Dissenters.’ He is a middle-sized, spare man, about forty,,
of brown complexion, and dark brown hair, but wears a
wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large
mole near his mouth.” Here followed a statement of his
business, and an offer of ^5° reward t0 *n7 one who
would “ hand him over.” He was soon caught and. impri
soned, fined and pilloried ! While in Newgate prison,_ m
order to set at defiance their abominable usage of him,
he composed a “ Hymn to the Pillory and for more than
twelve months he was busily engaged minting and con
cocting schemes for the future. By this imprisonment, he
says, he lost about ^3,50°, and his wife was reduced to a
state of starvation. By the advice of Harley (Secretary to
Queen Anne) De Foe was set at liberty, and he then
removed to Bury St. Edmunds. Six or seven years after
he published another pamphlet, “What if the Queen should
Die ?” which got him into prison again. He was fined £°oo>
or, in default of payment, to be sent to Newgate, and, of
course, to Newgate he went; he was, however, soon re
leased. His enemies, on the death of the Queen, sur
rounded him on every side : he drew up a defence, and
quitted the field of politics. He then commenced the re
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
35
ligious writing, and published his “ Religious Courtship.”
Soon after followed his immortal “ Robinson Crusoe.” This
story, at the time of its publication, as by many a reader
since, was believed to be “a true account.”
Of course it will not be expected that even a list of his
writings should appear in these pages, since, as Walter Scott
said, Daniel “wrote on all occasions and on all subjects’
—and it may be added that “ he wrote well.” ■ He was a
man of great industry, courage, and firmness—-who served
his country in the best manner he could, according to his
conscience and abilities. In politics he was a Whig; in
religion he was not only a Protestant, but a Dissenter, and
one of the first order.
Hugo Grotius.
Hugo Grotius wras born at Delft, in Holland, April ioth,
1583, and died at Rostock, August 28th, 1645.
He was the son of intelligent and respectable parents,
who were descended from one of the first families in
Holland. Every facility was given him to promote the in
clination for study which he manifested early in life. He
was instructed by Joseph Scaliger and Francis Junius. At
Leyden, in his fourteenth year, he gained considerable notice
by his knowledge of science and law. Having published a
work on the freedom of the seas, in which he claimed the
right of the Dutch as well as the Portuguese to trade in
the Indies, and to fish in the North Seas as did the English,
he came to London, and negotiated with James I. relative
to the Greenland fisheries. James treated him with respect,
but the English clergy were unable to appreciate any one
holding liberal opinions on religion. On his return to
Holland he found that country divided by two parties,
Arminians and Calvinists—the latter being the more
numerous, and supported by Maurice, Prince of Orange.
The liberal political and religious sentiments of Grotius
naturally led him to defend the Arminian cause. Maurice
had him and two compatriots arrested in August, 1618.
The Synod of Dort having decided in favour of Calvinism,
one of his friends was immediately put to death. In 1619
a very irregular trial of Grotius took place, which ended in
�36
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
his being convicted of treason, and sentenced to imprison
ment for life. His estate was confiscated, and he was con
fined in the castle of Loevestein. During the two years he
remained in prison, Grotius wrote his work “ On the Truth
of Christianity.” Grotius was voluntarily accompanied to
prison by his wife, and to her tact and courage he owed his
escape. Being accustomed to receive books in a chest
from a friend, the officers, for some time, duly examined
the vehicle. Finding no objectionable matter therein, they
discontinued their search. This circumstance suggested
the idea of emigration to Madame Grotius, who, having
informed the governor’s wife that she intended sending a
large load of books away, to prevent her husband injuring
his sight, persuaded Grotius to allow himself to be confined
in the chest. At the appointed time Giotius entered-the
chest, and was conveyed therein down a ladder by two
soldiers. One of them, thinking the chest extremely heavy,
remarked in jest : “There must be an Aiminian in it.
Madame replied : 11 There are Arminian books in it.
The
man, not feeling exactly satisfied, told the governor s lady
of the circumstances ; but the lady, having been previously
informed of the cause of the increase in weight, allowed it
¡to pass unexamined. Madame Grotius, having learnt the
safe arrival of the chest, confessed the whole affair. After
being confined more closely for a short time, she was
released, and had the pleasure of rejoining her husband a
few months afterwards.
Grotius first sought an asylum in France, and was favour
ably received by Louis XIII., who granted him a pension
which was paid with extreme irregularity. The Protes an
clergy, however, refused him communion, having embraced
the same view as the Synod that condemned him.
e
also suffered annoyance from well-intentioned people o . ie
opposite party, who were extremely anxious that he mig
embrace the Catholic faith. While resident m France, , he
wrote and published a work called “De Jure Belli et Pacis,
which very greatly added to his reputation. Hearing, o e
death of Maurice, Grotius ventured once more to visit Hol
land ; but his enemies were so powerful, and his friends so
timid, that he was compelled to seek a place of refuge a
Hamburg. He then became Swedish ambassador at Pans,
which office he performed to the advantage of Sweden, and
to his own credit, for about ten years.
.
In 1644 he returned to Sweden; but, being disappointed,
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
37
and suffering from the climate, he resolved to visit Lubeck.
On the way he met with a violent storm, which caused him
to go on shore near Dantzic, and travel thence by waggon.
Travelling in an open waggon, and the continuation of bad
weather, increased his illness so rapidly that, when he arrived
at Rostock, he could travel no farther. .He died there
August 28th, 1645, and his body was carried to Delft, and
interred in the family vault. Thus ended the stormy life
of an exile and a wanderer, of a great man and an intel
ligent Christian; to whose memory, in 1781, a monument
was erected by his countrymen on the spot from which he
was excluded during life.
Rev. Samuel Johnson.
The Rev. Samuel Johnson was born either in Stafford
shire or Warwickshire, 1649, and died in London, 1703.
He was educated at St. Paul’s School, London, afterwards
at Trinity College, Cambridge. Corringham not agreeing with
his health, he removed to London, and took part in the
opposition to the despotic measures of Charles II. This
was the commencement of his career and zeal in the cause
of civil liberty, of which he afterwards proved so distin
guished an advocate. While Lord Russell was engaged in
excluding the Duke of York, Johnson published a tract
called “Julian the Apostate,” a refutation of the “passive
obedience ” advocated by Hickes. This tract got him into
trouble. He was prosecuted and fined, and, being unable
to pay, he was imprisoned. During his confinement, with
the assistance of friends, he published some papers against
Catholicism.
In 1686 his perils were increased by his publishing “A
Humble and Hearty Address to the Protestants in the
Army.” For this offence he was kept in close custody,
tried again, and condemned to stand in the pillory, be fined
500 marks, and be whipped from Tyburn to Newgate. He
was deprived of “ orders,” and the sentence was executed
with great and disgraceful severity. James II. was asked
to remit the whipping, but said that, as Johnson had the spirit
of'a martyr, he must suffer as one. He went through the
terrible and degrading infliction with a brave and courageous
spirit, and afterwards continued to use his pen in defence
�3°
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
of the noble cause he had espoused until the Revolution ;
after that he wrote two pieces justifying the same.
During the time of William, he censured the acts of the
Government, contended for annual Parliaments, opposed
the institution of a standing army, and declaimed against
the wars that render such an institution a national necessity.
He was a bold, brave, and determined defender of the truth,
and was well entitled to the name of martyr, by which his
enemies were accustomed, in derision, to call him. In 1697
he was attacked by a decline, which terminated his life m
1703.
Isaac Orobio.
Isaac Orobio was born in Spain, and died at Amster
dam, 1687.
.
This learned Jew was educated in the Catholic faith of
his parents, and became Teacher of Mathematics in the
university of Salamanca. Afterwards, being a medical
practitioner at Seville, he formed a strong resolution to
accept the faith of his ancestors. This led to his being
accused before the Inquisition of Infidelity and Judaism.
He received all the cruel attention that that institution
usually bestowed on its victims. After remaining three
years in a dark dungeon, and being repeatedly tortured,_ he
showed no signs of repentance, and, there being no particle
of evidence against him, he was liberated. He speedily
disappeared from Spain, and visited France whence he
removed to Amsterdam, where he was allowed to act ac
cording to his conscience. He there had controversies
with Spinoza, and others, on the truth of Christianity; but
no alteration in his religious views was produced thereby.
He practised as a physician with great reputation, and died
in 1687.
Thomas Emlyn.
Thomas Emlyn was born at Stamford, Lincolnshire, _
1663, and died at London, July 3°th> I743After studying at Cambridge and London, he became
chaplain in the family of Sir William Franklin in Ireland.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
39
In 1688 he was minister of a congregation at Lowestoft,
.and. thence removed to Dublin, where he was assistant
to the Rev. J. Boyse. While at Dublin he was suspected
■of Arianism, and was subjected to a disgraceful prosecution.
An inquisitorial examination was commenced by his dis
senting brethren, the result of which was his dismissal from
office. On his return from London to Dublin, finding him
self exposed to public odium and misrepresentation, he
published “ A Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account
of Jesus Christ.” No sooner did this work appear than
he was arrested on a charge of blasphemy. He was tried
and convicted before the Chief Justice of the Queen’s
Bench for holding views inconsistent with the doctrine of
the Trinity. He was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment
and a fine of a thousand pounds. Being unable to pay
this exorbitant fine, he, by the assistance of some humane
persons, was set at liberty after undergoing about two
years’ imprisonment. He was a man of very excellent
•character and amiable disposition, and his only crime was
that of differing from his neighbours on the doctrine of the
'Trinity.
Jerome Savonarola.
Jerome Savonarola was born at Ferrara 1452, and hanged
Alay 23rd, 1498.
This famous Italian monk took the habit of St. Dominic
in his fourteenth year, and was afterwards prior of a convent
..at Florence. Being a man of considerable talents, and
having a great love of liberty, he used those talents to ex
tend the liberties of his fellow creatures. He was very warm
in his oratorical declamation against the authority of the
Medici family in the State. He spoke with the authority of
a prophet, and with the zeal of a man in earnest; hence he
-was denounced as an enthusiast and an impostor. During
the life of Lorenzo, who respected Jerome’s virtues, he was
protected from danger, and at the approaching death of
Lorenzo he received visits from Jerome. Afterwards
Jerome took a leading part in the Republic, aiding those
citizens who desired a democracy. He professed to be
inspired from heaven, and maintained that Christ would
Teign over the Florentines, and that every citizen would
�40
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
partake, as he ought, in the government of his country.
His influence was greatly increasing, when his denunciations
against Rome brought upon him the sentence of excommu
nication. He was afterwards tried and condemned for
sedition and blasphemy. He bravely defended himself,,
but was ultimately tortured into a confession of guilt, and.
sentenced to be strangled and burnt.
He preached eloquently against the corruption of. thecourt of Rome, particularly against the personal conduct of
Alexander II. He wrote a great number of works having
for their object the increase of morality among the people.
One of his books was entitled “ Triumphus Crucis.”
Being unable to stop the mouth of Jerome in any other
way, the Pope had recourse to the usual method. for theanswering of unpleasant arguments—condemned him to be
hanged and burnt. This sentence was put. into execution.
May 23rd, 1498, in the forty-sixth year of his age.
John Bunyan.
John Bunyan was born at Elston, near Bedford, 1628,.
and died in London 1688.
He was the son of a tinker, and followed the trade of his
parent, who appears to have been an honest and industrious
working man, and who gave our author the best instruction
to be obtained—namely, how to read and write. During
the Civil War he served in the Parliamentary army.
The earliest change in John’s religious career is reported
to have been caused by the accusation of an old woman,
who told him that “ he was the ungodliest fellow for swear
ing that ever she heard in all her life.” From this time hebecame very superstitious, and looked upon events that
happened as judgments upon him for his wickedness. It
is not so clear that he was so vicious as he thought himself.
Early in life he married a pious young woman, and alsoformed the habit of reading what are called religious books.
He soon became an attendant at a Baptist chapel, in which
he was subsequently immersed, and appointed preacher,.
His preaching, however, got him into trouble, since hewas not of the orthodox order. He offended the doctorsand priests, and was indicted for preaching at Elston in
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
41
1657, but escaped without punishment. Shortly after—in
1660—he was again brought up, and convicted of holding
“ unlawful meetings, to the great disturbance and distraction
of good citizens.” He might have escaped even this time
had he only consented to preach no more “ to the distrac
tion of his fellows.” But John believed he had a “call,”'
so would not desist. He accordingly became a prisoner,,
for conscience sake, in Bedford Gaol, where he remained
till 1672, when he was released by James II.
Among the stories told of him, one is that, during his
imprisonment, he made a journey to London to preach, for
giving him permission to do which the gaoler received
severe censure. Another is that a good Quaker once visited
him in the hope of converting him. “ Friend John, I am
come to thee with a message from the Lord ; and, having
searched half the prisons in England for thee, I am glad to
find thee at last.” The Quaker having thus delivered him
self, Bunyan replied : “ If the Lord had sent you, you need
not have taken such pains to find me out, for the Lord
knows I have been in Bedford Gaol for these twelve years
past 1”
While confined in Bedford Gaol his mind and pen wereactive in writing portions of a work that has the admiration
of nearly all nations, which, doubtless, every Protestant in
England has read, and which Lord Macaulay has described
as one of the purest Saxon books. “ In the latter half of
the seventeenth century,” he says, “ there were two creative
minds in England; one produced 1 Paradise Lost,’ and the
other ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress.’ ” Next to the Protestant Bible
“ Pilgrim’s Progress ” was the first human production that
came into my hands in youth, and I still hold it to be a true
miracle of genius, in which all things that are not are made
to appear as though they were.
He lived—and preached with great success after his im
prisonment—till 1688, when, on returning from Reading
(which he had visited for the purpose of reconciling a father
to his son), he caught a severe cold, which terminated his-,
earthly career, August 31st. A monument has recently been»
erected to his memory at Bedford.
�-42
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
George Fox.
George Fox was born at Drayton, Leicestershire, July,
1624, and died January 13th, 1691.
He was the son of a poor weaver, who placed him ap
prentice to the shoe-making. He soon, however, quitted
his master’s service, and commenced a sort of hermit life.
His friends persuaded him to return home, but he soon left
them again. Reflecting on the degenerate state of mankind,
he resolved to attempt the reformation of the people. Being
in possession of the belief that he was specially called
upon by the Lord to commence this great work, he deter
mined to begin to preach. His wife also shared in his
spiritual illumination, and accordingly joined him in the
great enterprise, and assisted him in preaching. With
nothing but his Bible to guide him (having had no educa
tion, nor any collegiate certificate), he commenced teaching
the people “ to receive the inward teachings of the Spirit,
and make that the rule of their lives. Not by Scripture,
but by the Holy Spirit, are men to be guided. He said
that, when the Lord first called him to preach, he was not
;to “ pull off his hat,” nor bid any “ good morning or good
evening,” nor to make any distinction between “high and
low, rich and poor,” etc. This conduct of his, he says,
“ made the professions and sects to rage.” His disciples
imitated him in his frugal habits, plainness of dress, and
reservation of manner in conversation.
He spent forty years of his life in travelling, preaching,
and imprisonment. He suffered greatly from the tyranny
of the Civil Power, and the intolerance of a people who
would not, or could not, appreciate his labours.
Of course every one knows that George Fox was the
originator of the Society of Friends, called Quakers, d he
■term Quaker was first given to him at Derby by Justice
Bennett, before whom Fox was brought for trial. Fox says.
“ He called us Quakers, because I bid him tremble at the
word of the Lord.” Perhaps a better social reformation
was never effected than that by Fox, the influence of whose
labours lives among us even unto this day. One is
times tempted to exclaim, “Oh, that all men were ‘Friends.
In 1655 Fox was a prisoner in Scarborough Castle, which
edifice is now in ruins. The officers described him a»
“ stiff as a tree, and pure as a bell. ’ One of the rooms in
'which he was confined was on the sea-side, which, he says,
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
43
il lying much open, the wind drove in the rain so forcibly
that the water came over my bed and ran about the room,
so that I was obliged to skim it up with a platter.” His
diet was very spare; a threepenny loaf lasted him three
weeks, and his drink was mostly water, into which worm
wood had been infused. The pleasant and fashionable
watering place would hardly have the charm for Fox which
it affords more modern visitors, who, if they ever reflect,
must wonder at the stupidity and bigotry that in times gone
by could imprison a man so good and innocent as the model
of simplicity, George Fox.
Martin Luther.
Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, Saxony, in Novem
ber, 1484, and died there February, 1546.
His father, Hans Luther, was a miner. From school he
was removed to the University of Erfurt, to study the law,
but Martin preferred literature and music. While at the
■university one of his fellow students was killed by lightning,
which had so great an effect on Martin that he resolved at
•once to become a monk, and he accordingly entered the
convent of Erfurt. After overcoming some religious doubts,
adopting the Augustine doctrines, and gaining the consent
of his father, he was ordained, and subsequently made Pro
fessor of Philosophy in the University of Wittemberg.
In 1510 he was sent to Italy ; and, finding a great dis
parity between the profession and practice of his brethren,
he informed the monks of Milan that they ought to fast on
Fridays, for offering which advice he narrowly escaped
with his life. On his way he was amazed at the sensuality,
hypocrisy, and treachery that presented themselves ; and
■even at Rome itself the blasphemous jests and unbelief of
the priests bewildered the mind that had fondly dreamed
of Pontifical purity in the citadel of Christendom. He
returned home, and achieved a high reputation as a divine
and preacher, and in 1512 was made Doctor of Divinity.
Some five years after this event the devout and moral
Luther was greatly shocked at a bull issued by Leo X. for
the sale of indulgences in Saxony, by which, according to
�44
THE MARTYRS OK PROGRESS.
the Monk Tetzel, the ignorant and credulous were released*
from all manner of sin ! Luther having expressed hisdisgust at this procedure, Tetzel threatened all who denied,
the efficacy of his quack indulgences with spiritual a.nd
temporal punishment. Luther, astounded at the gross im
pudence of Tetzel, entered into fierce opposition, denying
that the Pope had power to absolve men from the penalties
of Divine justice, either here or hereafter, and exhibited
the avarice and licentiousness of those who deal in indul
gences, and the fearful consequences of their issue among
the poor deluded people. The debate on indulgencesultimately extended to “free will,” “justification by faith,”
&c. Tetzel and his brethren burnt one of Luther’s books,
and afterwards Leo himself called on the author to “appear
and answer at Rome.” Luther was then examined by a
cardinal, who, instead of arguing with him, called upon
him to retract—asking how he, a monk, could expect to
confront the Pope. Luther answered that neither the
Legate, the Pope, nor St. Peter himself could pretend. to
infallibility. The cardinal, being unable to confute himr
endeavoured to get him expelled from his country; but
this did not succeed, for Frederick the Elector was Luthersfriend, and a greater authority than Rome itself.
Luther was afterwards engaged in controversy with Eckius,
who maintained that the Church was a divine monarchy
with “ a head ” of divine appointment. This Luther ad
mitted, but contended that “ that head ” was Jesus Christ.
Luther published his work on “Christian Liberty,” in which
he attacked the prevailing doctrine of the Church. This
led to Leo X. assembling his cardinals, who, having ex
amined Luther’s writings, and pronounced them “heretical,
condemned and ordered them to be publicly burnt. Luthei
himself was summoned to “ confess and retract.
Instead,
of confessing, he publicly withdrew from the Church, and
burnt on a pile of wood outside the walls of Wittemberg
the Pope’s bull, decrees, and canons, in the presence of a
vast multitude of people. Leo then urged the Emperor
Charles V. to make an example of Luther as an unrepenting
heretic ; but, by the influence of Frederick, Luther, instead,
of being punished, was summoned to appear at a Diet of
the empire, which assembled at Worms in i521* On some
one trying to dissuade Luther from appearing before such
an august assembly of Electors, bishops, and lords, he said
he would go, though there were as many devils in Worms-
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
45
as there were tiles on the roofs of the houses 1 Before
this remarkable assembly he boldly owned all his writings,
and contended for the main truth of all he had written.
He admitted as a man he was, like other men (popes,
•cardinals, and councilmen included), liable to err, and would
consent to burn such portions of his writings as could be
proved erroneous by the testimony of the Scriptures.
Charles V. expressed the common opinion of the Diet in
saying that he could no longer listen to Luther, and that
he should dismiss him and treat him as a heretic. Luther
was ordered to leave Worms with security for twenty-one days.
He accordingly quitted the place; but, on entering a forest
on his way, he was suddenly stopped by a number of armed
men in masks, who carried him off to the Castle of Wartenberg. This little plot, however, was set on foot by his friend
Frederick, and it was reported that the enemies of Luther
had carried him off, no one knew whither. After this event,
the Diet of Worms ordered the reformer to be detained in
prison at the Emperor’s pleasure, and imprisonment and
confiscation were threatened against all who offered him aid.
This impudent threat was easier made than executed, for
Frederick and other Electors were friendly to Luther; and,
moreover, the people, disgusted with Church abuses, were
preparing to side with him. While in confinement at Wartenberg he wrote several treatises, which created a great
sensation in Saxony. The monks began to abolish mass
and demolish images. Hundreds of them quitted the con
vents to enter “the holy estate.” Carlostadt, one of his
disciples, proposed to put all the books out of Wittemberg,
except the Bible, and made an effort to fulfil the sentence
pronounced on Adam by working in the fields, while the
intellectual Melancthon was found busily engaged in a
baker’s shop. This sort of thing was disapproved of by
Luther, and Carlostadt was banished by Frederick as “ a
seditious person, inculcating the doctrine of natural equality.”
Here set in a new source of grief to the great reformer. He
had no sympathy with the Anabaptists, who were for warring
against all property and law. So great was Luther’s dismay
at these proceedings, that he thought the end of the world
was surely approaching. In 1524, believing “ marriage in
its purity is a state of simplicity and peace,” Luther prac
tically renounced the oath of celibacy by marrying Catherina
de Bora, a young nun, who had the year before quitted the
convent.
�46
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
In 1529 the Catholics made an attempt to enforce the
edict of Worms against Luther, but the reformed Electors
opposed it. They then issued a decree against those who
denied the “ real body and blood,” which, however, in
cluded the followers of Luther, who did not deny the
doctrine. It was this that called forth the formal “ Protes
tation ” of the reformed princes and the deputies of
fourteen cities, thus bringing into existence the world-wide
name of “ Protestants.”
One of the greatest works of Luther’s lite was undoubtedly
his German edition of the Bible, through which the Chris
tian and Jewish writings became very popular m Germany.
Although opposed to the Roman Church, Luther was un
doubtedly a sincere believer in Revelation, claiming, of
course, like other Christians, his own right to interpret the
same. But, as a citizen, he was the friend of the poor and
the oppressed, of education for the working classes,_ and a
determined enemy to the encroachments of ecclesiastical
and imperial power, which kept the people in ignorance and
misery.
_
,
„
In 1546 he visited Eisleben, where he restored peace to the
family of Mansfield, and made some regulations for the eccle
siastical government of the State. While there he was taken
ill: and, becoming gradually worse, Dr. Jonas, an old friend,
being present, said : “ Revered father, do you die with a
firm conviction of the faith you have taught? . lo wiici
Luther distinctly replied, “ Yes,” and immediately after
breathed his last. The great and grand revolution inaugu
rated by Luther doubtless laid the foundation for. that
freedom of thought and liberty_ of conscience we so justly
admire and revere in modern times. From his teachings
is deducible the doctrine which proclaims the inalienable
rioht of all men and women to exercise their reason before
accepting or rejecting the doctrines of the Jewish or Chris
tian Churches.
George Buchanan.
George Buchanan was born at Killearn, Stirling, Feb
ruary, 1506, and died at Edinburgh September, 1582.
This man of great learning, and the best Latin scholar
of his time, was a son of poor parents. By the aid of his
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
4Z
uncle, he was sent to Paris University, at which he remained
only two years, in consequence of his uncle’s death. He
returned to Paris, where he obtained the degrees of B.A.
and M.A., and also a professorship in the College of St.
Barbe.. He visited Rome with a nobleman in 1532 • and,
returning to Scotland five years afterwards, he became tutor
to James Stewart, son of James V. At this time, while
on visits to his friend Lord Cassilis, he wrote three poems
satirising the. clergy, which called down their vengeance,
and caused him to be imprisoned as a heretic. It is said
that Cardinal Beaton offered a sum of money to the king
(who had asked Buchanan to write the poems) to order the
immediate execution of him.
He escaped to England ; but, finding himself in danger,
went to Bordeaux, where he wrote some Latin poems, which
occasioned him new troubles from the clergy. Having re
moved from there to Paris, he accompanied his friend Govea,
to the University of Coimbra, in Portugal. But even here
his heresies followed him. The Inquisition condemned
him as a heretic, and shut him up in a monastery. During his
confinement he wrote his “Version of the Psalms.” When
released, he again, visited England, but its political crisis
would not permit his remaining there, and he went to France,
where he remained several years. In 1560 he turned his
wandering steps. homewards to Scotland, and there filled
several high and influential offices with credit and advantage
to himself.
b
At the time his “History of Scotland ” was in the press,
he was called away by death. A few days before, when
some friends visited him, they found him teaching the
nglish language to the servant boy who waited on him.
1 he greater part of this great man’s life was spent in poverty
persecution, and exile; and, although in later years he was
well-to-do, his benevolence was so great that he left in
sufficient inon.ey to meet the expenses of his funeral, and
had to be buried at the public cost.
James Naylor.
James Naylor was born in Yorkshire 1616, and died in
Huntingdonshire 1669.
�,48
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
In early life he was a soldier ; but becoming a ponve^ ta
George Fox, he commenced preaching, and is said to have
greatly distinguished himself as divine and writer. He was
of anexcitable temperament; he believed himself ^spired
from heaven. Having a strong belief in his own and other
people’s divine gifts, he travelled with his friends to Bristol,
FntcFwhich place he made a grand entrance. On reaching
the outside of the town, several women spread their garments
in the way for his horse to walk on ! On either side of his
'horse others walked, singing, “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord Go
This exhibition was considered an imitation of Jesus
Christ entering Jerusalem, and the enlightened British
magistrates had Naylor taken before the House of Commons.
Parhament, as wise as the ancients, at once tried
con
demned Naylor as “ a grand impostor and seducei of the
people.” By way of correcting his erroneous opinions, he
Pas ordered to be set on the pillory in the Palace Yard,
and be whipped from thence to Westminster; to haiea
paper fastened. to him describing each of his crimes
tongue bored with a hot iron, and the letter.
.
>■
on his forehead, signifying blasphemer. He
.sent to Bristol, through which place he was taken with
Ice backwards on horseback. On the following market
day he was publicly whipped. He was then 1 emoved
Bridewell prison to work at hard labour, “ restrained fro
the society of all people,” and from the use of pen, ink and
paper. The whole of this wise, humane, and pious sentence
was strictly carried out, and he was then discharged from
prison by the House of “ collective wisdom m 1659. An
old historian informs us that Naylor’s mrld correction.produced good results, for he says it brought h m to his
-senses, and with them to an exemplary degree of humility.
Benedict Spinoza.
Benedict Spinoza was bom at Amsterdam November
«p tA-22 and died at Hague 1677.
.
He was the son of a Portuguese Jew, who is said to have
fought peace in Holland when persecuted elsewhere. Ear y
in life SpTnoza manifested a great love of knowledge and
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
49
truth. He began to doubt the authenticity of the Talmud;
•and, being a devout and thoughtful man, he soon neglected
the ceremonial forms in which his brethren delighted. He
endeavoured to discover the foundation of the Jewish reli
gion, instead of imitating his idle brethren, who reverence,
as profound mysteries, things which they might have dis
covered to be merely absurdities.
Spinoza’s freedom of inquiry brought on him suspicion
and excommunication. One rabbi, full of Jewish zeal,
stabbed him as he came from a play one evening. The
synagogue solemnly dismissed him, his friends closed their
doors against him, and, under the shelter of some charitable
Christian’s house, he was concealed from danger. Finding
himself without a home or any resources, he commenced
as a polisher of glasses for microscopes, etc., and in his
leisure moments continued his philosophical inquiries, which
had already brought him much persecution. He studied
and acquired a knowledge of several languages. A goodnatured Atheist taught him Latin. On the accusation of
impiety, he retired to Rhensburg, and afterwards to near
the Hague, where he continued to support himself by the
work of his own hands. Here he published his treatise on
Cartesian Philosophy. In 1670 he published his “ Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus.” This publication was officially con
demned, and was attacked by nearly all the divines of every
persuasion. Before this “abominable tract” appeared he was
offered a chair in\ the University of Heidelberg, with full
liberty to philosophise. But there was one condition with
which the brave and independent Spinoza could not, and
would not, comply—namely, that he would not dis
turb the prevailing religion. When Louis XIV. offered
him a pension, he declined to accept it, saying that “ he
had no intention of dedicating anything to that monarch.”
The system of Spinoza, or rather those parts of it that
caused his persecution, have some resemblance to the
systems of the early Greeks, who maintained that God was
the soul of the world, etc. He differs, however, from their
doctrines as to the universe being an emanation of the
Divinity, the result of intelligence and design. According
to Spinoza, there is but one substance, the universe, which
he calls God. This substance is infinitely diversified, and
contains within itself the necessary causes of all the modifi
cations of the same, to which we give the name finite. This
substance is not one individual, but the foundation of all
�50
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
individual beings ; it exists of necessity, never has begun
to be, and can only be thought of by itself. Finite objects,
or the mutable limitations of the infinite, are the only objects
that can be said to be limited to time that have a beginning.
His great object was to deduce mathematically the laws of
moral life, founded on this conception of Deity, in order to
establish a system of ethics.
Whatever may be thought of Spinoza’s system, there can
not be two opinions about his character as a man. Although
despised by his relations, repudiated by the rabbis,-cursed
by the Church, and condemned by the State, he was cou
rageous and sincere, and his private life was unexception
able. At the early age of forty-five his life was terminated
by a decline, and he died in full assurance of the truth of
his principles. To avoid the dissemination of untruthful
death-bed stories, he instructed his hostess (as any good
man has a right to do) not to allow any minister to approach
his room during his last hours.
Anthony Lawrence Lavoisier.
Anthony Lawrence Lavoisier was born at Paris August
13th, 1743, and died May 8th, 1794.
This celebrated chemist acquired considerable knowledge
of science early in life, and he first distinguished himself
by obtaining a prize from the Academy of Sciences for the
best method of lighting the streets. He became a member
of the Academy, and greatly distinguished himself by his
chemical experiments, on which he spent a considerable
portion of his fortune. The discovery of oxygen gas by
Priestley led Lavoisier to make interesting experiments on
the composition of water and air. When the new system
of weights and measures was introduced he improved it by
his experiments on the expansion of metals. He also
devoted part of his estate to experimental farming. Nearly
the whole of his large fortune was devoted to the promo
tion of arts and sciences. He employed the most skilful
artists in making instruments, and he held meetings twice
a week at his house for the purpose of discussing, the
theories and discoveries of scientific men. Those inte
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
5i
rested in such studies, both in France and other countries
visited him, and found nothing neglected that coulcl
augment the fund of philosophical information.
It appears strange that so great and good a man as
Lavoisier was not protected from the tyranny and troubles
of his time. He seemed, however, to anticipate the loss ot
his property, and considered how he should best suppor
himself. But he little thought that the sentence of. death
awaited him when the Revolutionary Tribunal of Pans con
demned him, with other farmers-general. They charged
him with being a conspirator, and with adulterating tobacco
with water and ingredients prejudicial to the health of the
citizens. On this extraordinary pretext the illustrious
Lavoisier was beheaded by the guillotine on May 8th, 1794Finding his fate inevitable, he asked for a few days grace,
to afford him an opportunity to make an interesting and
important experiment; but this was refused, him. Heiett
behind an intelligent and accomplished widow, who had
participated with him in his chemical researches, and who
had engraved with her own hand the plates to illustrate his
publications.
Deodatus Dolomieu.
Deodatus Dolomieu was born at Grenoble June 24th,
17co, and died November 26th, 1801.
Early in life he became a member of a religious order at
Malta : but owing to a quarrel, and to a duel that followed,
he was tried and sentenced to death. After being impri
soned, and receiving a pardon, he went to ^.rf-nce, and
joined the army. Forming an acquaintance with Rochefoucault, he became a student of natural history quitted
the army, and was made a member of the Academy of
Sciences. He afterwards visited and examined zLtna,
Vesuvius, and the Apennines. On his return he took part,
on the popular side, in the Revolution. He then accom
panied Bonaparte to Egypt, and on his arrival , home was
made prisoner. At Messina he was confined in a small
dungeon, into which the light and air were admitted through
one small aperture, which was carefully closed every evening.
In order to obtain the slightest amount of air, he was com
�52
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
pelled to constantly fan himself with the dirty old rags
which formed his only clothing. While in this dreadful
hole he formed the plan of a work on “ Mineral Species.”
A fragment of this he wrote, with a piece of bone that he
sharpened against his prison wall, on the margins of books ;
the . smoke from his lamp, mixed with water, serving him
for ink. After long suffering in captivity, he was liberated
by the interposition of Sir Joseph Banks. On visiting his
sister he was attacked by disease, contracted during his
loathsome imprisonment, and which terminated his life
in 1801.
Andre Marie
de
Chenier.
André Marie de Chenier was born at ConstantinopleOctober 22nd, 1763.
When about ten years of age he was taken to France by
his father (who was a French consul), and sent to the Col
lege Naverre, at Paris. He greatly distinguished himself
while at college, especially in Greek and ancient literature.
Close application to study having injured his health, he
travelled to Switzerland and England. Three years after
he returned to Paris, where his attention was devoted
chiefly to poetry. He is described as a man of universal
mind, and some of his earliest efforts as being extremely
beautiful
Unfortunately, Chenier, in his thirtieth year, was over
taken by the terrors of the French Revolution. He
appears to have been alike the enemy of anarchy and of
despotism, and consequently pursued the intervening course
between the king and the people. Having offered to
defend the king on his trial, Chénier rendered himself
obnoxious to the Jacobins, and was compelled to hide
himself. He was soon after arrested ; but, had his father
not been so anxious to save him, he might have escaped
from the prison into which he was thrown. During his
imprisonment, and after his conviction, he is said to have
composed some really admirable poetry. In 1794 he was
taken before the Revolutionary Tribunal and condemned,
and on July 26th he suffered death by the guillotine.
The poetry of Chénier is said to have been the source of
inspiration to many modern writers ; amongst others, the
exiles Lamertine and the author of “ Napoleon the Little.”'
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
53
Joseph Priestley.
,
Joseph Priestley was born at Birstal, near Leeds, 1736,
and died in America 1801.
He was the son of a cloth-dresser, and,, his mother dying
when he was very young, an aunt sent, him to a grammar
school, where he was taught some Latin and Greek. He
is said to have acquired some, knowledge of modern Euro
pean languages without the aid of a teacher. His studies
in theology led him to embrace heterodox views, and, being
appointed minister of a small congregation, it soon became
smaller when his opinions were discovered. He then turned
schoolmaster, during which time, he arrived at the cone usion that the Atonement was neither scriptural nor reason-
abOn visiting London Priestley met with Dr. Franklin and
Dr Price He was elected a member of the Royal Society,
and was made Doctor of Laws by the Edinburgh University.
These honours appear to have been conferred upon him for
his writings on scientific subjects. In 1774 he discovered
oxygen gas, which he called dephlogisticated air, by concen
trating the sun’s rays on red precipitate of mercury. His
statue erected at Birmingham represents him in the act oi
making this discovery. He was proposed, at a good salary,
to accompany Captain Cook; but his religious principles
were not orthodox enough for the Board of Longitude. He
travelled with the Earl of Shelbourne on the Continent. At
Paris the philosophers told him that he was the only person
of any understanding they had met with who believed in
Christianity.
.
'. .
.
Priestley wrote his views on the sentient principle . m
man, which he declared to be material, immortality, being
conferred by God at the resurrection. This gave him the
titles of “ unbeliever ” and “ Atheist,” the common descriptives applied to thinking and rational men by the orthodox.
In 1785 his work on Christianity had the distinguished
honour of being burnt by the common hangman in the
City of Dort. His reply to Burke on the French Revolu
tion gave great offence to the lower orders of Birmingham,
as they did not approve of that event. A dinner m 1791
to celebrate the anniversary of taking the Bastille, at which
he was not present, occasioned an outburst of violence au.d
fanaticism. The Church-and-King party destroyed public
buildings, including the hotel where the dinner was held,
�54
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
and attempted to set fire to the Doctor’s house, his apparatus,
his library, and his manuscripts.
Finding England an ungrateful and persecuting country,
he went to America in 1794. Here his intentions and
character appear to have been misunderstood, and his dis
appointment is said to have been very great. He was
suspected of being a spy, and it was reported that more
persons feared his opinions than desired to hear them. At
the time of the riot in Birmingham he was minister of the
Unitarian Chapel in New Meeting Street, which has since
been sold to the Roman Catholic Church on the occasion
of the congregation erecting a church in Broad Street.
A few years after his departure to America Dr. Priestley
lost his wife and a son. The bigotry and persecution
manifested towards Dr. Priestley in Birmingham are now
looked upon as a disgrace to the town, and as one of the
blackest spots on the darkest page of its history. The men
of the past generation were violent, and sought his des
truction ; the men of to-day revere his memory, and erect
a beautiful statue in the very centre of the town from which
he fled for his life.
A great change has taken place in the opinion of the
people of England during the past fifty years ; and no
better index as to which way their tendencies point do we
need than a statue at Manchester to Oliver Cromwell, and
one at Birmingham to Joseph Priestley.
Galileo Galilei.
Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa,Tuscany, February, 1564,
and died at Arcetri, January, 1642.
His ancestors filled high offices in Florence. His father
was a philosopher in his way, and a writer on the theory
and practice of music. Galileo was educated under con
siderable disadvantages, owing to the straitened circum
stances of his father. He acquired the elements of litera
ture, music, drawing, and painting, and was particularly
charmed with mathematics. All the attempts to check his
desire for knowledge, and to direct his attention to profes
sional objects, proved fruitless.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
55
Galileo’s habit of observing was formed very early. In
about his twentieth year we find him observing a simple
circumstance that led to the discovery of the best means we
yet possess of measuring time. Disraeli, speaking of the
habit of continuity of attention, says : “ It was one evening
in the Cathedral of Pisa that Galileo observed the vibra
tion of a brass lustre pendant from the vaulted roof, which
had been left swinging by one of the vergers. The habitual
meditation of genius, combined with an ordinary accident,
produced a new idea of science, and hence was conceived
the invention of measuring time by thé medium of a pen
dulum.”
Thus the motion of a body in space, which had doubt
less been observed centuries before, seen by the philosophic
eye of the Florentine youth, suddenly became the source
of a desirable and valuable invention.
To refute one of the axioms of the Aristotelians that
the velocity of bodies was proportionate to their weights
he made an experiment by letting two bodies of unequal
weight fall from the Tower of Pisa. When they saw the
two bodies fall nearly at the same instant, they ascribed it
to some unknown cause, as they preferred the authority.of
their master to that of nature. Thus the experiment, in
stead of making him disciples, made him open and secret
enemies. He then removed to the University of Padua,
where he held a professorship many years. It was here he
and Repley formed a lasting friendship. Here an accusa
tion was brought against him by his enemies that he was
living in an unmarried state with Marina Gamba. The
Senate replied that, if he had a family to support, he had
more need of an increase of salary. Thus orthodoxy winked
and malice lost the day. His popularity without had so
increased that a thousand persons attended his lectures, and
frequently had to adjourn into the open air. Having heard
of a spectacle being invented by which distant objects were
made to appear nearer the observer, he made experiments
till he succeeded in making a telescope, which magnified
three times, and afterwards thirty times. This instrument
excited extraordinary interest, and almost phrensy. Galileo
saw through his “ eye-glass ” the moon, as though distant
the diameter of the earth. He also saw the planets and
fixed stars with incredible delight. This eye-glass was the
first step to astronomical discoveries.
Having perfected his telescope, he saw, as the celebrated
�56
THE MARTYRS OE PROGRESS.
French astronomer Biot said, “ what no mortal before that
moment had seen—the surface of the moon, like another
earth, ridged by high mountains, and furrowed by deep
valleys ; Venus, as well as it, presenting phases demonstra
tive of a spherical form ; Jupiter surrounded by four satel
lites ; the Milky Way, the Nebulae; finally, the whole
heaven sown over with an infinite multitude of stars, too
small to be discerned by the naked eye.”
While studying Archimedes, the Syracusan, he wrote an
essay on the Hydrostatic Balance, describing that instru
ment, and the method by which its inventor detected the
fraud committed by the jeweller in the composition of
Hiro’s crown. This gained him the acquaintance of Guido
Ubaldi, which was one cause of his success in after life.
In relation to the new star of 1604, he proved that the
common hypothesis of its being a meteor was erroneous.
In 1607 he discovered a method of arming load-stones
which enabled them to carry twice as much weight as
before. In 1610 he discovered Jupiter’s satellites, and
afterwards the crescent of Venus, the ring of Saturn, and
the spots on the sun.
The opponents of Galileo regarded his statements about
the £’mountains and valleys” of the moon as impiety. The
moon, according to his opponents, was perfectly spherical
and absolutely smooth, and to cover it with mountains, and
to scoop out of it valleys, was to deface the spherical forms
imprinted by God himself. The professor of philosophy at
Padua sternly resisted Galileo’s request to look through the
telescope, and judge for himself. Sizzi, an astronomer of
Florence, said that, as there were only seven apertures in
the head, only seven metals, and only seven days in the
week, so there could be only seven planets. Horky said
that he had examined the heavens through Galileo’s own
glass, and no satellite existed round Jupiter, and that he
would never concede his four planets to that Italian of
Padua, even if he should die for it.
Owing to the attempts that were made to deprive Galileo
of the honour of some of his discoveries, he afterwards de
clared them under the veil of an enigma. Some difference
of opinion arising respecting the shape of bodies and their
dispositions to sink in water, Galileo published a work on
Hydrostatics, which met with violent opposition. The
announcement of his discoveries in the earth shared a
similar fate to that of his observations in the heavens. The
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
57
Jesuits, who had for some time hated Galileo, reported his
discoveries as being hostile to religion, and had hirn open y
denounced from the pulpit of a friar named Caccini.
Galileo replied to these attacks by explaining his belief
that the Scriptures were to teach men salvation, but that
our minds were given us for the purpose of investigating
phenomena.
The enemies of Galileo, being unable to refute his rea
soning, called on the civil power to crush so dangerous. an
innovation. They accordingly appealed to the Inquisition.
While at Rome in 1615, surrounded by the splendour of
the citadel of Christendom and the metropolis of the world,
he was called before the Inquisition to answer for heretical
opinions he had taught respecting the motion of the earth
and the stability of the sun. On February 20th, 1615, the
Inquisition assembled, and decreed that Galileo should be
enjoined by Cardinal Bellarmine to renounce the obnoxious
doctrines, and to pledge himself not to teach, defend, 01
publish them in future. In the event of his refusing, he
was to be thrown into prison. .
_
.
.
Galileo for a time silenced his enemies, having obtained
some protection and kindness in the persons of Paul V. and
Urban VIII., and in Ferdinand IP’s personal esteem and
friendship. After overcoming various difficulties, in 1632
he obtained leave to publish his views, and dedicated them
to Ferdinand II. His work was entitled, “ Dialogue on
the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems,” the form of dia
logue, as he thought, being the best for enabling him to
evade his promise to the Inquisition, that he would not
again teach the Copernican doctrines. His expectation of
evading the wrath of the Inquisition was frustrated, for in
1632 he was again summoned to appear at Rome, where he
arrived on February 14th, 1633. This journey to Rome in
his seventieth year was a great trial to him, but the infir
mities of his body and the miseries of the road were urged
in vain against the cruelty of demanding his personal at
tendance. After some months’ residence with the Tuscan
ambassador, Nicolini, who (his name be praised 1) offered
to maintain our philosopher at his own expense, Galileo
was summoned to appear before the Inquisition in the
convent of Minerva.
The following passages convey an idea of the sentence
pronounced against Galileo by decree of the Pope and
cardinals of the supreme and universal Inquisition :—
�58
THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
“ i st. The proposition that the sun is the centre of the
world, immoveable from its place, is absurd, philosophically
false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary
to Holy Scripture.
“ 2nd. The proposition that the earth is not the centre
of the world, nor immoveable, but that it moves, and also
with a diurnal motion, is absurd, philosophically false, and
theologically considered at least erroneous in faith.
“ We decree that the book of the ‘ Dialogues ’ of Galileo
be prohibited by edict; we condemn you to the prison of
this office during our pleasure ; we order you for the next
three weeks to recite once a week the seven penitential
psalms, &c.”
Mark the humiliating words of the greatest philosopher
of that age, borne down by infirmities of body and mind :
11 With sincere heart and faith I abjure, curse, and detest
the said errors and heresies; I swear that I will never in
future say or assert anything, verbally or in writing, which
may give rise to a similar suspicion against me.
“ I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above in my own
hand.”
On June 22nd, clothed in a penitential dress, he appeared
before the Inquisition to receive their judgment and elabo
rate sentence. After the customary invocation of their
Saviour and Holy Virgin, he was called on, with “ a sincere
heart and faith unfeigned, to abjure and curse his heresies,”
and every other heresy against the Church. His “Dialogues”
were prohibited, and he was condemned to imprisonment
during the pleasure of the Inquisition, and for the first three
years, once a week, to recite the seven penitential psalms !
Clothed in sackcloth, the venerable sage fell on his knees
before the wiseacre cardinals, and, laying his hands on the
holy evangelists, he invoked the aid of God Almighty,
abjuring, detesting, and avowing never again to. teach of
the earth’s motion and sun’s stability. He then signed the
precious document containing the charge, and was con
veyed to prison.
After enduring the awful formality of one of the most
detestable ceremonies of ignorance and superstition, we can
easily credit the anecdote so often repeated of him. It is
said that, when Galileo rose from his knees, he stamped on
the floor, and said to one of lais friends, “ E pur se muove!’
(“ It does move for all that J.
�THE MARTYRS OF PROGRESS.
59
After years of intense suffering, and the strictest seclusion
till he lost his eyes, which had observed in the universe
more than all the eyes of past generations, he was attacked
by fever, which terminated his life January 8th, 1642, in
his seventy-eighth year. He died a prisoner of the Inquisi
tion, and, accordingly, was not allowed to make a will, and
the Pope refused to allow a monument to be erected to
perpetuate his memory, and his remains were not permitted
burial in consecrated ground.
�I
�
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The martyrs of progress : being historical sketches of the perils & persecutions of discoverers and teachers of all ages and nations
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Cattell, Charles Cockbill
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Place of publication: London
Collation: iv, 59 p. ; 18 cm.
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Charles Watts
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1878
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Reformers
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PROFESSOR TYNDALL
8 2ZT75 •
bi l\0
ON
FREETHINKERS AND FREETHOUGHT.
Bisho^agaifLlastitute.
MORALITY OF FREETHOUGHT.
It may comfort some to know that there are amongst us many whom
the gladiators of the pulpit would call Atheists and Materialists, whose
lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of morality, would
contrast more than favourably with the lives of those who seek to stamp
them with this offensive brand. When I say “offensive” I refer simply to
the intention of those who use such terms, and not because Atheism or
Materialism, when compared with many of the notions ventilated in the
columns of religious newspapers, has any particular offensiveness to me.
If I wished to find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engage
ments, whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any
kind is subjectively unknown ; if I wanted a loving father, a faithful hus
band, an honourable neighbour, and a just citizen, I would seek him among
the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have known some of the mostf
pronounced amongst them, not only in life, but in death—seen them
approaching with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a “hang
man’s whip,” with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their
duties, and as faithful in the discharge of them, as if their eternal future
depended upon their latest deeds.—Fortnightly Review, November, 1877.
SCIENCE AND THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
The Book of Genesis has no voice in scientific questions. To the grasp
of geology, which it resisted for a time, it at length yielded, like potter’s
clay ; its authority as a system of cosmogony being discredited on all hands
by the abandonment of the obvious meaning of its writers. It is a poem
not a scientific treatise. In the former aspect it is for ever beautiful; in the
latter aspect it has been, and it will continue to be, purely obstructive and
hurtful. To knowledge its value has been negative, leading, in rougher ages
than ours, to physical, and in our “ free ” age to moral, violence.—-Belfast \
Address, 1874; Preface..
ABSURDITY OF BIBLE MIRACLES.
Transferring our thoughts from this little sand-grain of an earth to the
immeasurable heavens, where countless worlds, with freights of life, probaty-'
revolve unseen, the very suns which warm them being barely visible across
the abysmal space ; reflecting that, beyond these sparks of solar fire, suns
innumerable may burn, whose light can never stir the optic nerve at all ;
and bringing these reflections face to face with the idea of the Builder and
Sustainer of all showing himself in a burning bush, exhibiting his hinder
parts, or behaving in other familiar ways ascribed to him in the Jewish
Scriptures, the incongruity must appear.—Fragments of Science, p. 407.
BIBLE CHRONOLOGY.
Bishop Butler accepted with unwavering trust the chronology of the
Old Testament, describing it as “ confirmed by the natural and civil history
of the world, collected from common historians, from the state of the eart
and from the late invention of arts and sciences.” These words mark pic
�FROFESSOR TYNDALL ON FREETHINKERS AND FREETHOUGHT.
|
gress, and they must seem somewhat hoary to the Bishop’s successors of
to-day. It is hardly necessary to inform you that since his time the domain
of the naturalist has been immensely extended—the whole science of geology,
with its astounding revelations regarding the life of the ancient earth, having
been created. The rigidity of old conceptions has been relaxed, the public
mind being rendered gradually tolerant of the idea that not for six thousand,
nor for sixty thousand, nor for six thousand thousand, but for aeons embracing
untold millions of years, this earth has been the theatre of life and death.
The riddle of the rocks has been read by the geologist and the palaeontolo
gist, from sub-cambrian depths to the deposits thickening over the sea
bottoms of to-day. And upon the leaves of that stone book are, as you
know, stamped the characters, plainer and surer than those formed by the
,ink of history, which carry the mind back into abysses of time, compared
with which the periods which satisfied Bishop Butler cease to have a visual
angle.—Belfast Address.
MATTER AND MIND.
Let us reverently, but honestly, look the question in the face. Divorced
from matter, where is life ? Whatever our faith may say, our knowledge
' .ows them to be indissolubly joined. Every meal we eat, and every cup
we drink, illustrates the mysterious control of mind by matter.—Belfast
' ddress.
IMPORTANCE OF THE MATERIAL.
On our dealings with matter depends our weal or woe, physical and
moral. The state of mind which rebels against the recognition of the claims
of Materialism is not unknown to me. I can remember a time when I re
garded my body as a weed, so much more highly did I prize the conscious
strength and pleasure derived from moral and religious feeling—which, I
may add, was mine without the intervention of dogma. The error was not
an ignoble one ; but this did not save it from the penalty attached to error.
Saner knowledge taught me that the body is no weed, and that, if it were
treated as such, it would infallibly avenge itself. Am I personally lowered
l r tv's change of front? Not so. Give me their health, and there is no
k izitual experience of those earlier years, no resolve of duty, or work of
mercy, or act of self-renouncement, no solemnity of thought, no joy in the life
and aspects of nature, that would not still be mine ; and this without the
least reference or regard to any ptirely personal reward or punishment
looming in the future.—Apology for Belfast Address.
FUTILITY OF PRAYER.
Once upon a time we prayed against the ravages of small-pox—with
what effect ? You may answer (and rightly answer) that you do not know.
But you will, at all events, admit that the prayer, as a preventive or remedial
agent, proved no match for vaccination. Would the suppliant voice of a
whole nation have atoned for the bad engineering, or caused a suspension
, '• the laws of hydraulic pressure, in the case of the Bradford reservoir ? I
tmnk not. The great majority of sane persons at the present day believe
in the necessary character of natural laws, and it is only when the antece
dents ot a calamity are vague or disguised that they think of resorting to
n ■’yer to avert it.—Letter to the Pall Mall Gazette, October nth, 1865.
.♦ W hed for the British Secular Union by Charles Watts, 84, Fleet
Street, London.—Sixbence per hundred.
�_ . Smntfjihg:in UJrinft
FEAR OF HELL.
A person who should labour for the happiness of mankind lest he should
be tormented eternally in hell would, with reference to that motive, possess
as little claim to the epithet of virtuous as he who should torture, imprison,
and burn them alive—a more usual and natural consequence of such prin
ciples for the sake of the enjoyment of heaven.—Shelley.
HUMANITY V. THEOLOGY.
The purpose of my writing is to make men zz^ZZ/rapologians, instead of
Mwlogians ; man-lovers, instead of God-lovers ; students of this world,
instead of candidates of the next; self-reliant citizens of the earth, instead
of subservient and wily ministers of a celestial and terrestrial Monarchy.
My object is, therefore, anything but negative, destructive ; it is positive :
I deny in order to affirm. I deny the illusions of theology and religion in
order that I may affirm the substantial being of man.—Feuerbach.
EVIL OF PUBLIC PATRONAGE OF CREEDS.
Suppose Government were to offer large rewards to all who believed in
witches, or in the personality and marvellous feats of Hercules or Jack the
Giant-Killer, and to threaten proportionate punishment to all disbelievers.
No one would question that these offers and threats, if they were at all
effective, would contribute to produce a general perversion of intellect, and
that thay would mislead men’s judgments in numerous other cases besides
that one to which they immediately applied. Error, when once implanted,
uniformly and inevitably propagates its species. Precisely the same, in all
cases, is the effect of erecting belief into an act of merit, and rendering un
belief punishable. You either produce no result at all, or you bribe and
suborn a man into believing what he would not otherwise have believed
—that is, what appears to him inadequately authenticated.—feremv Ben
tham.
y
CHRISTIANITY AND MIRACLES.
Upon the whole, we may conclude that the Christian religion not only
was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed
by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to con
vince us of its veracity ; and whoever is moved by faith to assent to it is
conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the
principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe
what is most contrary to custom and experience.—
SUPPRESSION OF PAGAN WRITINGS.
heathen taxed the Jews even with idolatry ; the Jews joined with
the heathen to render Christianity odious ; but the Church, who beat them
at their own weapons during these contests, has had this further triumph
over them, as well as over the several sects that have arisen within her own
pale : the works of those who have written against her have been destroyed
and whatever she advanced to justify herself and to defame her adversaries
ts preserved in her annals and the writings of her doctors.—Lord Bolins;broke.
*
IMMORALITY OF UNREASONABLE FAITH.
If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood, or persuaded
of afterwards, keeps down or pushes away any doubts which arise about it
in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men
that call m question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions
which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it; the life of that man is
one long sin against mankind.—Professor Clifford.
�SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
THE RIGHT FAITH.
The right faith of man is not intended to give him repose, but to enable
him to do his work. It is not that he should look away from the place he
lives in now, and cheer himself with thoughts of the place he is to live in
next, but that he should look stoutly into the world, in faith that, if he does
his work thoroughly here, some good to others or himself—with which
however, he is not at present concerned—will come of it hereafter. And
this kind of brave, if not very hopeful or cheerful, faith, I perceive to be
always rewarded by clear, practical success and splendid intellectual power ;
while the faith which dwells on the future fades away into rosy mist and
emptiness of musical air.—John Ruskin.
THOMAS PAINE’S CREED.
All the world is my country, and to do good my religion.—Thomas
Paine.
DIFFERENCES AMONG BELIEVERS.
I find Armenian Christians who say that it is a sin to eat a hare ’
Greeks who affirm that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son ;
Nestorians who deny that Mary is the mother of God ; Latins who boast
that in the extreme West the Christians of Europe think quite contrary to
those of Asia and Africa. I know that ten or twelve sects in Europe anathe
matise each other ; the Mussulmen disdain the Christians, whom they
nevertheless tolerate; the Jews hold in equal execration the Christians
and the Mussulmen; the Fire-worshippers despise them all ; the rem
nant of the Sabeans will not eat with either of the other sects ; and the
Brahmin cannot suffer either Sabeans, or Fire-worshippers, or Christians
or Mussulmen, or Jews.' I have a hundred times wished that Jesus Christ’
in coming to be incarnated in Judea, had united all the sects under his laws’
I have asked myself why, being God, he did not use the rights of his divinity ;
why, in coming to deliver us from sin, he has left us in sin ; why, in coming
to enlighten all men, he has left almost all men in darkness. I know I am
nothing ; I know that from the depth of my nothingness I have no right to
interrogate the Being of Beings ; but I may, like Job, raise a voice of re
spectful sorrow from the bosom of my misery.— Voltaire.
WHY DO JEWS DISBELIEVE IN CHRIST?
But, all the Jews in Jerusalem were apparently converted on seeing the
miracles of Jesus Christ? Not at all. Far from believing in him, they
crucified him. It must be admitted that the Jews were the strangest of men :
everywhere we see peoples led away by a'single false miracle, and Jesus
Christ could not influence the Jews with a multitude of true ones ! The
miracle to be accounted for is the incredulity of the Jews, not the Resurrec
tion.—Diderot.
CHRISTIAN MORALITY NOT ORIGINAL.
To assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths previously
unknown argues, on the part of the assertor, either gross ignorance, or else
wilful fraud.—Buckle.
MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF THEOLOGY.
Self-delusion, if not wicked, insidious design, is at the root of all efforts t°
establish morality, right, on theology. Where we are in earnest about the
right we need no incitement from above. We need no Christian rule o^
political right; we need only one which is rational, just, human. The right,
the true, the good, has always its ground of sacredness in itself, in its qualityWhere man is in earnest about ethics they have in themselves the validity
of a divine power.—Feuerbach.
Published for the British Secular Union, by Charles WatTS, 84,
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�SBIjat <reat Outers
about Hjc ISifcle.
x<ldV DkMVv
jjighopsgateJiJstitutc.
The fourth and last possible theory is that this mass of religious
Scripture contains merely the best efforts which we hitherto know to
have been made by any of the race of men towards the discovery of
some relations with the spiritual world; that they are no more trust
worthy than as expressions of the enthusiastic visions or beliefs of
earnest men oppressed by the world’s darkness; and have no more atethoritative claim on our faith than the religious speculations and histories
of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Indians; but are, in common
with all these, to be reverently studied as containing the best wisdom
which the human intellect, earnestly seeking for help from God, has
hitherto been able to gather between birth and death. This has been
for the last half century the theory of the leading scholars and thinkers
ot Europe.—John Ruskin. Letter to a Friend in the Manchester
Examiner, March 16th, 1867.
The history of Christ is contained in records which exhibit contra
dictions that cannot be reconciled, imperfections that would greatly de
tract from even admitted human compositions, and erroneous principles
of morality that would hardly have found a place in the most in
complete systems of the philosophers of Greece and Rome.—Rev. Dr.
Giles.
It is difficult to assign a shorter date for the last glaciation of Europe
than a quarter of million of years, and human existence antedates
that.. But not only is it this grand fact that confronts us, we have to
admit also a primitive animalised state, and a slow, a gradual, develop
ment. But this forlorn, this savage, condition of humanity is in strong
contrast to the paradisiacal happiness of the Garden of Eden, and, what
is far more serious, it is inconsistent with the theory of the Fall.—Pro
fessor Draper.
The search after the Philosopher’s Stone, or after Perpetual Motion,
was a less pitiful imbecility than this modern notion, that fallible man
can,, by selecting his own Bible or his own Church, or by demonstrating
the infallibility of the system in which he was educated, get rid of his
natural fallibility. It obviously cleaves to him like his own personality,
and infects.every decision at which he arrives. Those, therefore, use
words of wild boasting who, with superior pity, look down on another as
without chart and without compass on the deep,” because he does not
admit the infallibility of the Bible.—Prof. F. W. Newman.
1 he time has comewhen the minds of men no longer put as a
matter of course the Bible miracles in a class by themselves. Now, from
the moment this time.commences, from the moment that the compara
tive history of all miracles is a conception entertained, and a studv
admitted, the conclusion is certain, the reign of the Bible miracles is
doomed.—Matthew Arnold.
The author, of Supernatural Religion, who has evidently a turn for
inquiries of this kind, has pursued the thing much further. He seems
to have looked out and brought together, to the best of his powers,
�WHAT GREAT WRITERS SAY ABOUT THE BIBLE.
every extant passage in which, between the year 70 and the year 170 of
our era, a writer might be supposed to be quoting one of our Four
Gospels. And it turns out that there is constantly the some sort of
variation from our Gospels, a variation inexplicable in men quoting from
a real Canon, and quite unlike what is found in men quoting from our
Four Gospels later. It may be said that the Old Testament, too, is
often quoted loosely. True; but it is also quoted exactly; and long
passages of it are thus quoted. It would be nothing that our Canonical
Gospels were often quoted loosely, if long passages from, them, or if
passages, say, of even two or three verses, were sometimes quoted
exactly. But from writers before Irenseus [a.d. 170] not one such
passage of our Canonical Gospels can be produced so quoted. And
the author of Supernatural Religion, by bringing all the alleged
quotations forward, has proved it....... This, which it is the main object
of his book to show: that there is no evidence of the establishment of
our Four Gospels as a Gospel-Canon, or even of their existence as they
now finally stand at all, before the last quarter of the second century—•
nay, that the great weight of evidence is against it—he has shown, and
in the most minute and exhaustive detail.—Matthew Arnold.
There are many more vital points of contact between the New Testa
ment and the Talmud than divines seem yet fully to realise ; for such
terms as Redemption, Baptism, Grace, Faith, Salvation, Regeneration,
Son of Man, Son of God, Kingdom of Heaven, were not, as we are
apt to think, invented by Christianity, but were household words of
Talmudic Judaism....... The fundamental mysteries of the new Faith
are matters totally apart, but the ethics in both are in their broad out
lines identical. The grand dictum, “ Do unto others as thou wouldst
be done by,” is quoted by Hillel, the president, at whose death Jesus
was ten years of age, not as anything new, but as an old and well-known
dictum, “that compriseth the whole law.”—Emanuel Deutch, Quarterly
Review, October, 1867.
These Gospels, so important to the Church, have not come to us in
one undisputed form. We have no authorised copy of them in their
original language, so that we may know in what precise words they were
originally written. The authorities from which we derive their sacred
text are various ancient copies, written by hand on parchment. Of the
Gospels there are more than five hundred of these manuscripts of
various ages, from the fourth century after Christ to the fifteenth, when
printing superseded manual writing for publication of books. Of these
five hundred and more, no two are in all points alike : probably in no
two of the more ancient can even a few consecutive verses be found in
which all the words agree.—Dean Alford, “ How to Study the Dew
Testaments
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t
�Bishopsgate Institute.
SOME
EXTRACTS
EROM
THOMAS
CARLYLE.
OUR KNOWLEDGE RELATIVE.
To the minnow every cranny and pebble, and quality and accident, of
its little native Creek may have become familiar: but does the minnow
understand the Ocean-tides and periodic currents, the Trade-winds, and
Monsoons, and Moon’s Eclipses, by all which the condition of its little
creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (zzzzmiraculously enough),
be quite over-set and reversed ? Such a minnow is Man ; his creek
this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable All.—-Sartor Resartus.
\
OUR SPHERE.
Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual,
wherein thou even now standest—here or nowhere is thy ideal: work it
out therefrom ; and, working, believe, live, be free.—Sartor Resartus.
J
WORK IS WORSHIP.
Properly speaking, all true work is religion; and whatsoever religion
is not work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, the Antinomians,
Spinning Dervishes, or where it will. Admirable was that of the old
monks—“ Laborare est orare” (Work is worship).—Past and Present.
CANT OF OUR TIME.
Inanity well tailored and upholstered, mild-spoken Ambiguity, de
corous Hypocrisy, which is astonished you should think it hypocritical,
taking their room and drawing their wages : from zenith to nadir you
have Cant, Cant—a universe of incredibilities which are not even
credited, which each man at best only tries to persuade himself that he
credits.—Latter-Day Pamphlets.
TESTING OUR GODS.
A poor man, in our day, has many gods foisted on him; and big
voices bid him “ Worship or be--------- ” in a menacing and confusing
manner., What shall he do ? By far the greater part of said gods,
current in, the public, whether canonised by Pope or Populus, are mere
.dumb apises and beatified prize-oxen—nay, some of them, who have
articulate faculty, are devils instead of gods. A poor man that would
save his soul alive is reduced to the sad necessity of sharply trying his
gods, whether they are divine or not, which is a terrible pass for man
kind, and lays an awful problem upon each man.—Latter-Day
Pamphlets.
INSPIRATION.
Is there no 11 inspiration,” then, but an ancient Jewish, Greekish,
Roman one, with big revenues, loud liturgies, and red stockings ?—
Latter-Day Pamphlets.
ORTHODOX COWARDICE.
“Be careful how you believe truth,” cries the good man everywhere.
“ Composure and a whole skin are very valuable. Truth—who knows ?
�SOME EXTRACTS FROM THOMAS CARLYLE.
many things are not true; most things are uncertainties—very pros
perous things are even open falsities that have been agreed upon.
There is little certain truth going. If it isn’t orthodox truth, it will play
the very devil with you !”—Latter-Day Pamphlets.
1 '
TRUTH RELIGIOUS.
Simple souls still clamour occasionally for what they call “anew
religion.
My friends, you will not get this new religion of yours • I
peiceive you already have it, have always had it! All that is true is
your religion
is it not ?—Latter-Day Pamphlets.
THE GREAT CHRISTIAN TREE DEAD ?
, 5he.e7ent at Betjilehem was of the Year One; but all years since
that eighteen hundred of them now—have been contributing new
growth . to it, and see, . there it stands—the Church ! Touching the
earth with one small point; springingout of one small seed-grain - risina
out therefrom, ever higher, ever broader—high as the heaven itself
broad till it overshadow the whole visible heaven and earth—and no
star can be seen but through it....... The world-tree of the nations for so
long ! Alas ! if its roots are now dead, and it have lost hold of the
firm earth, or clear belief of mankind—what, great as it is, can by
possibility become of it ? Shaken to and fro in the storms of inevit
able Fate, it must sway hither and thither; nod ever farther from
the perpendicular; nod at last too far; and, sweeping the eternal
heavens clear of its old brown foliage and multitudinous rooks’ nests,
come to the ground with much confused crashing, and disclose thè
diurnal and nocturnal Upper Lights again ! The dead world-tree will
have declared itself dead.—Latter-Day Pamphlets.
THE CLERGY OF TO-DAY.
Legions of them, in their black or other gowns, I still meet in everv
country; masquerading in. strange costume of body, and still stranger
of soul; mumming, primming, grimacing—poor devils ; shamming, and
endeavouring not to sham : that is the sad fact. Brave men many of
them, after their sort, and m a position which we may admit to be won
derful and dreadful! On the outside of their heads some singular
headgear, tulip mitre, felt coalscuttle, purple hat; and in the inside—I
must, say, such a Theory of God Almighty’s universe as I, for my
share, am right thankful to have. no concern with at all. I think, on
the whole, as broken-winged, self-strangled, monstrous a mass of in
coherent incredibilities as ever dwelt in the human brain before.—
Latter-Day Pamphlets.
FREEDOM.
Understand that well—it is the deep commandment, dimmer or
clearer, of our whole being to be free. Freedom is the one purport,
wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man’s struggles, toilings, and suffer
ings in this earth.—French Revolution.
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�SECULARISM : ITS TRUTH AND WORTH.
Operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and
lower teeth.” All for each and each for all is the rule of social health—a
grand reciprocity of duties and rights. Beyond each social unit is the do
mestic circle, beyond that the State, and beyond that humanity, including
all. The individual, besides seeking his own welfare, must participate in
the general life of society ; and, in return, society must do its utmost to im
prove the condition of the individual, and afford free scope for the fruitful
exercise of his activities. The grand object of Secularism is, then, the pro
motion of our individual and of the general well-being, which it declares to
_e at once our highest wisdom and duty.
For the achievement of this object Secularism relies on human effort
ased upon knowledge and experience. In this world, at least, salvation
meth not by prayer, nor by faith in the unseen, but by practical work under
guidance of wisdom and the inspiration of love. Secularism believes
; science is man’s only providence. Ignorant of Nature’s laws, we are
<en to pieces and ground to dust ; knowing them, we build up an empire
nduring civilisation within her borders.
n morality Secularism is utilitarian. Conduct which conduces to the
’ ral well-being in this world is right ; conduct which has the opposite
ency is wrong. Whatever may be theoretically urged against this stanL it is certain that no other is universally respected in practice. Juris'¡/hce is not required to adapt itself to revelation, and he would be thought
ange legislator who should insist on judging a Parliamentary Bill by it”
nity or disagreement with Scripture.
mlogians assert that men will not do right, and refrain from wrong, un,>ey have the hope of heaven and the fear of hell before them. But
a great mistake, and a libel upon humanity. Great writers like
an. in, Spencer, and Tylor, have conclusively shown that morality is a
uman growth, not a divine gift. Man has advanced from barbarism to
•ivilisation by natural steps, and the agencies which have caused progress
m the past assure its continuance in the future. Besides our loveof self, we
all have more or less sympathy with others, and that sympathy may be
cultivated quite as well as any of our physical or intellectual powers. A man
loves his wife, his children, his parents, his kindred, his friends, without re
ference to his posthumous hopes and fears ; and the continued cultivation
of his moral nature will ultimately lead him to regard all his fellow men and
women as brothers and sisters of one great family.
Secularism is often called “ irreligious,” which indeed it is if religion
and theology are the same. But if religion means devotion to an ideal, and
not mere belief in creeds and dogmas, then Secularism is religious in the
fullest sense of the word. Love, Reverence, and Service are the three great
sentiments which all religions have claimed to satisfy. Secularism amply
provides for their exercise and satisfaction. It bids us love our fellow
men, instead of dissipating our affection on imaginary beings; it de
mands our reverence for the noble heroes and martyrs of truth in all ages
and lands, whose struggles and sufferings have lightened our burdens and
smoothed our path ; and it enjoins service, not to omnipotence, which cannot
need it, but to humanity, which does. The legacy of good we inherited from
our forefathers cost them labour and anguish ; let us, as wise stewards, trans
mit it to posterity improved by our use.
A
I
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�'gt© Institlit®'
SECULARISM;
X
i
\
ITS TRUTH AND WORTH.
Secularism is too frequently thought to be a denial of the existence of God
aad of a future life. This opinion, however, is quite erroneous. Secu
larism neither affirms nor denies these metaphysical beliefs, nor does it concern itself with them unless they are employed to obstruct its path and
hinder its progress. There is no Secular Society existing which requires
its members to believe or disbelieve in God and Immortality. The province
of Secularism lies outside natural theology ; it includes all the moral, intel
lectual, and material agencies of improvement, which are available to all
men in every land, whether they accept or reject belief in supernatui
powers.
But while Secularism does not affirm or deny the existence of God, it fir.
itself opposed to many ideas of his relationship to man current in popu.
theology. It does not, for instance, admit that he inspired the various writf»
of the Bible ; its denies the myths of Genesis which contradict sciencfc ; :
rejects the story of the Fall, which is untrue in fact and vicious in principlit repudiates all the miracles of the Old and New Testaments as unsup;, ortc
by evidence, and repugnant to reason and natural law ; it declines to believi
that Jesus was God, or that his words carry any greater authority than natu
rally attaches to them; it recognises no objective efficacy in prayer. Be
lieving that these statements and conceptions are false and hurtful, Secularism
is obliged to oppose them when, as is too frequently the case, they stand in
the way of human happiness and improvement. Such opposition, how
ever, is not a denial of God’s existence. Upon that subject every Secularist
is free to hold what opinion he pleases. Having no certain knowledge of
Deity, Secularism does not impose upon its adherents any profession of
belief concerning him. It merely stipulates that speculation as to the
origin of the universe shall not interfere with the cultivation of that sm;
province of it in which our lot is cast.
t
Similarly with the doctrine of a future life. Secularism does not den} '■
affirm its truth ; it neither forbids nor recommends the hope of reunion > 5
dear ones loved and lost. But, in the absence of any knowledge of a Im
beyond the grave, it censures the moulding of our present life by considera
tions of futurity, which at the best are suppositious; and it maintains that
veracity, honour, and heroism, all the virtues that ennoble life and the graces
that adorn it, are possible without belief in its prolongation through
eternity.
Holding that this life is the only one of which we have certain knowledge,
Secularism maintains that its concerns claim our primary attention. The
teachers of theology are engaged in making men fit candidates for heaven ;
Secularism would make them fit citizens of earth. If one tithe of the means,
the time, the energy, the ability, the enthusiasm, which have been devoted to
preparing men for the future, had been applied to their improvement and
elevation in the present, most of the evils that afflict the world would now be
unknown ; poverty would be extirpated, ignorance removed, reason triun
phant, morality universal, and a fair prospect of happiness the certain heri
tage of all. The Secular rule of concentrating attention on the present life
is not a mere theory; it is fraught with practical consequences of the highp
moment.
*■
The greatest moralists of all ages have asserted the solidarity of ourr J
Beneath all differences of nationality, race, or creed, throbs the same hun
heart. In the words of the great Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius,, the
wisest and purest spirit that ever sat on a throne, (( We are made for co-.
�A FEW WORDS TO A CHRISTIAN.
world’s inhabitants, except Noah’s family, at one fell swoop, for being what
he himself had made them. He loves supple villains like Jacob, and hates
magnanimous men like Esau. He declares David, a murderer and an
adulterer, to be a man after his own heart. He commands his chosen people
to commit atrocities which make us shudder ; such as, in some cities they
make war against, to slay all the males, and keep the females for themselves ;
and, in other cities, to slay all—men, women, and children—and leave alive
nothing that breatheth. Men who believe in a God blaspheme his name in
ascribing to him such atrocities as these.
You, as a Christian, believe that Jesus was born without a father. A
similar story is told of Buddha, and hundreds of millions of people believe
it. Why do you not believe it also ? You rely on the testimony of the four
Evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Doubtless you will be
surprised to hear that there is no evidence that they wrote the Gospels
bearing their names, and very strong evidence that they did not. Every
scholar admits that our Four Gospels were not in existence until more than
a hundred years after the death of Jesus. Nobody knows when, where, or
by whom they were written. They existed side by side with dozens of other
Gospels, all of which were thought to be inspired. Thè authority of the
Church made them canonical, and the rest apocryphal. Our Gospels are
^merely the voice of tradition a century after Jesus’s death. And what is
tradition? News passed from mouth to mouth. Surely stronger evidence
us required to warrant our believing that a virgin brought forth a son, and a
child was born without a father.
Tradition, too, is the only evidence of the Resurrection. The first Gospel
says that at the Crucifixion darkness covered the land for three hours, the
veil of the temple was rent, the earth opened, and dead saints arose from their
graves, and went into the city. Profane history does not mention these
startling wonders. Is not this strange? The Jews, amongst whom these
miracles are said to have happened, remained as sceptical about Jesus as
before. Is not this stranger still?
What need was there for the Son of God to come on earth simply to
teach what is preserved in the Four Gospels? They contain nothing new.
As Buckle says in his “ History of Civilisation,” “ To assert that Christianity
communicated to man moral truths previously unknown argues, on the part
of the assertor, either gross ignorance, or else wilful fraud.”
Christianity holds out the hope of heaven and the fear of hell as motives
?o virtue. These motives are purely selfish. We should do right for right’s
k ake.. He who refrains from wrong through fear of hell is no more
* irtuous than the burglar who refrains from breaking into a house through
fear of the policeman. The doctrine of eternal punishment is an awful
blasphemy. A parent who held his child’s little finger in the flame of a
candle for a minute would be hooted and put in prison. Yet the Christian
religion says that God, the universal father, will plunge our whole bodies in
fire for ever and ever. A being who could do that would not be a God, but
a Devil.
Your creed says also that only those who have faith can go to heaven.
But faith is no virtue. Belief does not depend on the will. Men are good
or bad because of their actions, not their opinions. A heaven not catholic
enough to receive all honest men is not worth going to.
Christian reader, men of science and philosophy are outside your Church,
instead of inside, and many of them actively oppose its teachings. The
more we know of the great Book of Nature the less we believe in the Chris
tian Bible. Is not this a fatal sign ? Ponder these things. Seriously
examine your creed. If, having done so, you find it true, you will believe it
more earnestly and vitally ; if you find it false, discard it, for nothing is
orofitable to any man but truth.
Published for the British Secular Union by Charles Watts,
¿’y, Fleet Street, London.—Price Sixpence per hundred.
�Jg8K0 laLSíitUtCa,
A FEW WORDS TO A CHRISTIAN.
Whv are you a Christian ? Probably you were never asked this question
before, and scarcely know what answer to give. Nevertheless, you ought to
an answer. There is intellectual as well as moral honesty, and a man
v a^e give as good an account of his opinions as of his property.
”then, are you a Christian ? If you reflect, you will most likely be com
pelled to answer that you can give no other reason except that you were
born in a Christian country, educated by Christian teachers, and always
surrounded by Christian influences. This, however, while a very good ex
planation of how you became a Christian, is no satisfactory reason why you
are one. The Turk has as good a reason for being a Mohammedan. You
should be able to make a better reply than this when asked to “give a reason
for the faith that is in you.”
A great number of intelligent people cannot accept Christianity ; many
eminent philosophers have publicly expressed disbelief in it; and some men
of great intellectual power, who were brought up as Christians, after examin- ’
ing their creed have found it repugnant to reason and morality, and been
obliged to discard it, not with joy, but with more or less pain. These men 1
are by the priests palled “ Infidels but they are no more unfaithful (for
that is what the word “ Infidel” means) than the most pious believers. They
are faithful to truth, which is the noblest rectitude. You will, therefore, not¿refuse to hear why they think the Christian religion untrue, and un6&>forf
your acceptance as for theirs.
You, as a Christian, believe the Bible to be God’s word. But Sceptics
who have studied it cannot so regard it, although they know it contains
many beautiful and true things. Why? you will ask. There are manyó
reasons.
“
The Bible contradicts Science. It gives an account of creation which
scientific men smile at. It says that light existed, and evening and morn
ing, three days before the creation of the sun, without which those pheno
mena could not occur. It says that fish and fowl were created on the same
day, or in the same epoch • but geology shows us that marine animals existed
countless ages before fowl. It gives an account of man’s origin which no
living biologist believes. It says that the human race is less than 6,000
years old, while Science proves it to be far more ancient. It says that the
whole earth was deluged about 4,500 years ago, while geology flatly denies
that any such devastation as an universal-flood has visited the earth since
man’s appearance on it. We must disbelieve either Science or the Bible ;
we cannot believe both.
The Bible outrages reason. It is full of marvellous stories, which no
sane man would ever believe if he had not been taught in his childhood to
regard the book which contains them as God’s word. Dead people come to
life again ; iron floats in water ; an ass speaks ; the walls of a city are blown
down by trumpeters ; the sea opens to let people pass through ; men are
thrown into fire without being burnt, and into the den of hungry lions with
out being eaten ; and, last, though not least,' a whale, whose gullet is not
large enough for the passage of a fish bigger than a herring, swallows a
man, keeps him alive in its belly for three days, and finally vomits him up
safe and sound on dry land. Such marvels do not happen now ; but all
other ancient literature, as well as the Bible, is full of them. If the Bible
miracles really happened, why not all the others also ? What reason is there
lor believing some and disbelieving others? Besides, it seems an insult to
Deity to imagine for a moment that he could condescend to such puerilities.
It degrades God to the level of a showman, working wonders for a gaping
crowd.
The Bible outrages our moral sense. It depicts a savage, cruel, and
vengeful God. The God of the Bible curses the whole human race for the
offence of their first parents, which is as right and reasonable as hanging a
man because his grandfather committed a murder. He drowns all "the
�
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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 Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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[Six leaflets]
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Tyndall, John [1820-1893]
Carlyle, Thomas
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 6 loose leaves ; 21 cm.
Notes: Contents: A few words to a Christian -- Professor Tyndall on freethinkers and freethought -- Secularism: its truth and worth -- Some extracts from Thomas Carlyle -- Something to think about -- What great writers say about the Bible. All six leaves bear stamp: Bishopsgate Institute. Published for the British Secular Union. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Charles Watts
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[n.d.]
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N110
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Free thought
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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 ([Six leaflets]), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Bible
Free Thought
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ft aJX-Rl
fJA'XO
IN SEARCH
' Ji
OF
A RELIGION,
AND NOTES BY THE AV AY.
BY
CHARLES C. CATTELL.
Author of “ The Martyrs of Progress,” Etc.
“ Fie that will know the truth of things must leave the common
ancl beaten track, which none but weak and servile minds are satis
fied to trudge along continually........... Truth, whether in or out of
fashion, is the measure of knowledge, and the business of the
understanding ; whatsoever is besides that, however authorised by
consent, or recommended by rarity, is nothing but ignorance, or
something worse.”—John Locke, sect, xxiv., Partiality.
LONDON :
CHARLES' WATTS, 84, FLEET STREET, E.C.
gQ,
Saul y-
�IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
SECTION I.
THE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF RELIGION.
It may be a weakness, but it is a confirmed habit .of
mine, to seek the aid of a superior understanding to my
own, with a view of raising my own to the same level.
The use of authorities and great names, when honestly
applied in an independent spirit, is to confirm the view
taken by the writer who applies them. The authority
that admits of no appeal is useless to an independent
thinker, and is by me dispensed with. I purposely
avoid all writers that presume to settle disputed points
for others, and intentionally ignore the Church that sets
itself up as the arbiter of the destinies of the whole
human race. However convenient such a Church may
be to weak or lazy people, it is so clearly an imposition
on the credulity of mankind, and so obvious an insult to
the reason of man, that its pretensions and claims must
be alike discarded in all inquiries entered upon by a
rational human being.
Religion, as a profession, is a paying concern, and
hence it is natural that professors should claim, even as
a matter of self-interest, the particular religion they ad
vocate as being the best. But it is well known that there
is great difference between buying anything and selling
it. • When men in general become sufficiently acquainted
with themjarious markets in the religious world, there will
be greater difficulty in obtaining customers. At the
present time the religions of various nations have not
appeared in Europe, except in the form of samples or
extracts; and the prevailing custom of the priests is to
persuade all would-be religionists that free trade in reli
gion is not necessary, that they have the best possible
article in the world, and that all others that might be
imported are impostures, or spurious editions oi the
�IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
3
original genuine article. Although their assertions are
utterly unfounded, they gain currency and credence.
Of course, the preachers of the great religions of the
world are either believers in what they teach, or main
tain the doctrines because they are paid to do so. Be
sides these two—the real believers and the professors—
there is another class of men, who follow the custom of
their fathers and the habit of the nation in which they
live. It generally happens that in an age of ignorance
there is uniformity of belief, and in an age of inquiry a
diversity of opinion. The past two hundred years of
European history appear conclusive on these points.
Forbes, in his “ Oriental Memoirs,” states that at one
time probably the Hindoo religion spread over the
whole earth. He finds signs of it in every Northern
country, in systems of worship, in various sciences, in
the names of the stars, in the holidays and games, and
in the laws, coins, monuments, and languages. There
is certainly a similarity between all superstitions, and
the religions of the Greeks, Hindoos, Romans, and
Christians have a family likeness of a very striking cha
racter. It must be admitted, however, that, owing to
modifications by climate, race, laws, scientific discoveries,
and the development of poetry, art, and literature, the
various religions of the world would appear, to the un
practised observer, as having each, in their turn, some
claim to an independent origin and purpose. Some
minds have no idea of perspective ; it is always a full
moon they see. What appears before them has no his
tory ; to them it is now as it was in the beginning : as to
what it was in the beginning they are not concerned to
inquire. Our cousin, the Yankee, did inquire, and he
found that there was nothing new and nothing true, and
that it did not matter 1 When a genial soul gets tired of
the conflicting evidences and contradictory views, he
turns—good, easy man !—and consoles himself with
“ Ah well ! it will be all the same a hundred years
hence.”
There are, however, persons who cannot stifle their
desire to know ; they earnestly strive after the true and
the best; they search for treasures under the sincere
belief that there are some hidden. Very few are inclined
to investigate the claims of the religions of various na
tions ; they find sufficient variety in their own country.
�4
IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
There are two paths in England both of which have
travellers; the one is occupied by inquirers after the
right road to heaven among the many announced ; the
other is occupied by inquirers as to whether there is any
road to heaven at all, or anybody who knows anything
of heaven itself. Philosophically considered, the latter
path is the best; the method implies that everything
must be proved, that nothing will be taken for granted,
and that demonstration alone will satisfy the inquirer.
This is the sure and certain hope that every inquirer
has a right to look for, and the demand is in conformity
with reason and common sense,
The most numerous class of inquirers, however, assume
that there is one true religion, if they could but find it;
and, owing to the vast .variety presented, the inquiry is
very perplexing, and sometimes consumes the best part
of a lifetime. The philosophical explanation is that the
difficulty arises from the fact that the inquiry is con
cerned with subjects about which nothing is known. The
restless nature of the inquiring mind needs long training
before it can take John Locke’s advice, and sit down in
quiet ignorance of all transcendent subjects. A remark
able book published some years ago by Mr. Herbert
Spencer puts this matter still stronger, for he declares
that the power which the universe manifests to us is
utterly inscrutable. He holds this to be the widest and
most certain of all truths, the result of the most careful
research, and a conclusion arrived at by the most rigor
ous logical process. Notwithstanding the conclusions
and declarations of philosophers, the inquirer finds in
every country distinct societies of men, ever ready to
set his mind at rest, and to present him with a true reli
gion, verified by scholarship, history, and personal expe
rience. Not only are they sure—each of them—that
theirs is the true religion, but they are equally certain
of the falsity and dangerous character of every other
religion in the world. The inquirer who accepts the
assertion of each, that theirs alone is true, and every
other false, is placed in a logical dilemma, for, if he
takes the word of each, the only possible deduction is
that the whole are false. The only way out of the diffi
culty is to reject the whole, or to select one, and read
only such books and arguments as are written in its
favour. So long as you read only one side of a contro-
�IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
5'
versy, the chances are in favour of your being free from
difficulty and doubt. There is this drawback : for all
you know to the contrary, the religion you select may
be the wrong one.
Lord Bacon would not describe you as “ a believer,”
but only as one of those persons who “believe that they
believe.” Leighton says that men who know nothing
have no doubts; but he maintains, as Coleridge does,
that the road to belief is through doubt; “ never be afraid
to doubt; he never truly believed who was not made
first sensible of unbelief.” Dr. Herbert Croft says that
it is not in any man’s power to make himself believe
anything further than his reason shows him, “ much less
Divine things.” But the clerical party maintain that
“ Divine things ” are not to be approached by the only
faculty man has for distinguishing truth from error:
these Divine things are said to be “above reason.” If
that be so, the uselessness of endowing man with reason
is obvious ; but how the clerical party became acquainted
with “ things above reason ” is not so obvious, unless we
concede, what they sometimes claim, that they are a
superior order of beings, endowed with supernatural
powers, by which they see invisible things, and perceive
things which do not exist. It is quite natural that those
whose profession it is to guide men should warn us that
reason is an unsafe pilot through the raging sea of con
flicting opinions; that through this dark and dreary vale
of tears reason is a blind, fallacious guide; but our ex
perience is that only those decry reason and despise
wit who find these agents powerful enemies of their
pretensions, and the purpose they wish to effect. They
may urge that the exercise of the rational faculties may
breed dissension in the Church, lead us away from the
beliefs of childhood, and possibly from the religion richly
endowed and protected by the State If so, the religion
of the babe and the State must get on as well as it can
without us.
The consequence of exercising reason in matters of
faith is that it leads to inquiry, and thus to knowledge,
which always proves destructive of superstition, which is
opposed to all criticism, and especially criticism of itself
It has always anathematised those who attempted to
examine it. The orthodox of every age fear free thinking
and free inquiry, and denounce them as the worst of
�6
IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
crimes. The murderer can have the consolation of the
priest •, but the doubter in religion is cast into outer
darkness among those who weep and wailj and gnash
their teeth. Some men may reason wrongly, others not
at all •, but it has always been the practice of the friends
of superstition to persecute men who do reason. Lord
Bacon says : “ It was a notable observation of a wise
father that those who held and persuaded pressure of con
sciences were commonly interested for their own ends.”
Margaret of the Netherlands advised a much wiser and
more reasonable policy. She said: “Whois this Luther?
........ ..He is an illiterate monk............. Is he so? I am
glad to hear it, Then do you, gentlemen, who are not
illiterate, but are both learned and numerous—do you, I
charge you, write against this illiterate monk? That is
all you have to do. The business is easy, for the world
will surely pay more regard to a great many scholars and
great men, as you are, than to one poor illiterate monk.”
No better advice could have been given, for, as J. S.
Mill remarks in his work on “ Liberty,” “ there is always
hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.”
SECTION II.
RELIGION AND FREE INQUIRY.
It is in vain that Pope, Church, and King proscribe the
free exercise of thought in matters theological. Reason
will assert itself in spite of all attempts to curb it. There
is no power on earth which can prevent the encroach
ments of reason. It is the guide of man unfettered, as
well as the power to break the fetters imposed upon him
by priestcraft and despotism, which can no more stem
the tide of rational inquiry than the king and his cour
tiers could prevent the advance of the sea. They must
clear oqt of the way, or be trampled under foot by the
�IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
7
onward march of freedom. The progress of Freethought,
speech, writing, and action is of more importance to
mankind than any Constitution, Chmch, or other insti
tution in the world.
In the seventeenth century a futile and foolish law was
passed in France condemning to death any person who
taught doctrines antagonistic to those of Aristotle. In the
thirteenth century, in the same country, a law ordered
all his works to be burnt. In various countries in
Furope, at one time, not only authors were excommu
nicated, but also even grasshoppers and other insects.
In fact, absurdities of this kind, showing the folly of our
ancestors, are innumerable. All these foolish enactments
were intended for the good of the persons punished, and
for the protection of truth. The heretic was looked upon
as an enemy in the field of faith, as the grasshopper
was in the field of grain ; hence both were excommuni
cated. To-day the men who attempted to surround the
free inquirer with pains and penalties appear on a level
with the men of Northamptonshire, who tried to keep
the cuckoo out of the orchard by a high hedge; but,
although equally foolish, the results of their folly have
been vastly different. Neither succeeded, but the attempts
to keep the cuckoo out of the fold of the- faithful were
attended by famine, privation, and murder. Yet the
persecutors seemed unconscious that they were commit
ting crimes of the deepest dye against truth and huma
nity. That these enemies to the progress of truth, and
the inflictors of torture and mental agony upon their
fellow creatures, were persons of irreproachable cha
racters, and of pure intentions, has been amply attested
by the historical evidence adduced by both Buckle and
Mill.
Intolerance seems natural to the theological mind; it
appears a duty to put down, by some means, all opposi
tion, especially that which tends to show the futility and
immorality of the principle upon which intolerance is
founded. Mr. Mill shows clearly that the interference
with, and coercion of, those who exercise their power to
think, is illegitimate; that the best government has no
more right to interfere than the worst. The following
appears to me self-evident; and Mr. Mill, in my opinion,
sums up and disposes of the whole case in this sentence :
“ If all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion, and
�8
IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
only one person of a contrary opinion, mankind would
be no more justified in silencing that one person than
he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing
mankind.”
Progress in science, and improvements of all kinds,
are only possible in the presence of intellectual freedom.
Freedom of opinion is a necessity of progress in human
affairs, and one of the conditions of personal happiness.
“’Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ;
And we are weeds without it.”
Is it not clear, then, and as obvious as the sun at
noon, that any religion that proscribes inquiry (the desire
to know) as a crime, is antagonistic to the nature of
man; out of harmony with his highest faculties; an
obstacle to the progress of the human race?
That which is in unison with the intellectual require
ments of man, and tends to promote bis happiness, is
alone venerable, and all else will be swept away. In the
words of Sir J. Macintosh, “ it is time that men should
learn to tolerate nothing ancient that reason does not
respect, and to shrink from no novelty to which reason
may conduct.”
SECTION III.
RELIGION AND MORALITY.
I think it was Lord Chesterfield who remarked that,
after being informed as to the religion of a man, you
still inquired as to his morals, but, if you knew his morals
first, the question as to his religion would not arise. Sir
J. Macintosh refers to the common saying, that morality
depends on religion, and says that, t( in the sense in
�IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
9
which morality denotes sentiment, it is more exactly true
to say that religion depends on morality, and springs from
it.” Is it not obvious that any religion that is not based
on morality must be either a frivolous or a mischievous
system? Emerson, in his “ Conduct of Life,” says : “ I
look upon the simple and childish virtue of veracity and
honesty as the root of all that is sublime in character.
..... ....This reality is the foundation of friendship, reli
gion, poetry, and art?’ It was a common complaint at
one time that teachers of religion only enforced what
was termed “ mere morality.” This was urged against
the late Dr. Chalmers. In one of his references to this
question, Emerson makes the following quaint remark :
“ Mere morality ! as though one should say, Poor God,
with no one to help him !” In another place he remarks
that what is called religion is either childish and insig
nificant, or unmanly and effeminating. 11 The fatal trait
is the divorce between religion and morality.” The con
sequence of this centuries ago is pointed out by Milman,
in his “History of Christianity” (vol. iii., p. 528), in
these remarkable words ; “ No sooner had Christianity
divorced morality as its inseparable companion through
life, than it formed an unlawful connection with any
dominant passion. The union of Christian faith with
ambition, avarice, cruelty, fraud, and even license,
appeared in strong contrast with its primitive harmony
of doctrine and inward disposition.” Thus, he says,
Rome, Christian in faith and worship, became worse
than in the better times of heathenism with regard to
“ beneficence, gentleness, purity, social virtue, humanity,
and peace.” This was the reign of faith, when hell was
the most important institution, and the heretic the chief
criminal.
Lord Bacon places the simple virtues first as distin
guishing the ablest men that ever lived. “ Clear and
round dealing is the honour of man’s nature; truth is
the sovereign good of human nature.”
Sir W. Jones describes the greatest man as the best,
and the best as he that has deserved most of his fellow
creatures.
Tillotson taught that truth and sincerity, in words and
actions, would alone last and hold out to the end.
Laplace held truth and justice to be the immutable
laws of social order.
�TO
IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
Lord Bacon (on “ Goodness ”) takes goodness “ in
the sense which the Grecians call philanthropia ; and thé
word humanity, as it is used, is a little too light to ex
press it. This of all virtues is the greatest.”
The absence of morality or truth in society is thus
painted by Dr. Chalmers: “ The world of trade'would
henceforth break up into a state of anarchy, or rather
be paralysed into stillness. The mutual confidences be
tween man and man alone render commerce practicable.
If truth were to disappear, it would vitiate incurably every
social and domestic relationship—all the charities and
comforts would take their departure from the world.
The observation of honesty and truth is of such vital
importance that without it society would cease to keep
together.” He concludes : “ On the single transition
from vice to virtue among men does there not hinge
the alternative between a pandemonium and a para
dise?”
David Urquhart, in his “ Familiar Words,” says that re
ligion, in its Latin sense, means the binding of a man by
his faith to perform what are now called political duties.
To the Roman religion did not mean worship, but
binding faith-—of a man to do justice to the State as a
member of the community. Politics in Greek, and reli
gion in Latin, he describes as equivalent to wisdom and
justice ; politics being a knowledge of right, and reli
gion the obligation toperform it. He says there was no
religion to be worn as a vesture, nor politics as a mask.
He repudiates any religion but justice, or that does not
teach man to do his duty to his fellow man. He says :
“ It is he only who does what is just who is a Christian,
whether in his individual capacity, or as a member of a
community.”
Dr. Thomas Brown (“ Philosophy of Mind ”) says :
“We must, if we value our happiness, be careful in
determining what it is that we denominate religion, that
we may not extend its supposed duties to usages incon
sistent with our tranquillity........... When religion is truly
free from all superstition, the delights it affords are the
noblest of which our nature is capable.” In his estima
tion the qualities indicated by it are what “ constitute
whatever we love and venerate in the noblest of our
race.” He says : “ It would not be easy to estimate the
amount of positive misery which must result from the
�IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
II
mere contemplation of a tyrant in the heavens, and of a
creation subject to his cruelty and caprice.”
G. H. Lewes objects to Comte because he makes re
ligion simply and purely what has hitherto been desig
nated morals. Being founded on knowledge, and limited
to the relation of men to one another as social beings,
there is no room for the play of agencies foreign to
nature and the nature of man.
Sir W. Drummond held that “ to give one hour of
comfort to the frail victim of adversity, and to cheer
with one transient gleam of joy the evening of life, ought
surely to be among the pleasures, as they are among the
duties, of humanity.”
The moralist says, in the words of the pious Words
worth, I am—
L“ Well pleased to recognise,
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart and soul,
Of all my moral being.”
The Edinburgh Review once wrote : 11 If there be a
religion of nature, and we believe there is, we conclude
there can be no religion but truth, and no heresy but
falsehood.”
It seems somewhat singular that Dr. Thomas Brown
should take exception to Paley, who defines virtue as
“ doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of
God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.” The
latter Dr. Brown maintains to be the most important of
the whole, it being all that constitutes moral obligation.
He regards it as the most degrading of all forms of
selfishness. It is rendered more offensive by the Deity
being presented to the mind “to be courted with a
mockery of affection,” He regards the sensualist as
more worthy than the selfish of another life. He says
the difference in Paley’s case is “ in the scale of selfish
gain ; it is a greater quantity of physical enjoyment which
k' has in view.” It is a singular fact that many great
writers, in attacking each other’s views, strike at the root
of the religion they profess, and seem to be unconscious
of it. Everybody might be supposed to know that the
hope of heaven and the fear of hell are the motive
powers of Christianity. Yet Dr. Brown lashes Paley in
�12
IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
no unmeasured terms for maintaining the fundamental
principles of the Christian faith. His logical mind, not
being influenced at the time by the fear of God or the
Devil, could discern that the system is below the highest
form of Pagan morality—in fact, he prefers the- sensualist
in his brutal stupidity to the devout Christian who,
through fear of hell, and for the sake of everlasting
happiness, conducts himself according to the will of
God.
It is a notable fact that the words “ pure religion” occur
only once in the Christian records, and, strange to say,
it is defined without any reference to a belief in God or
a future state; but is strictly confined to moral action
between man and man. Why the word religion is in
troduced at all, and Under what circumstances, I am
unable to explain; but its meaning is expressed as
follows : “ To visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
This is described by James as “pure religion and un
defiled.” Would it be too severe on all existing religions
to say that they are not the genuine article, and that
mankind are the victims of adulterated religions ?
SECTION IV.
RELIGION AND THE ORDER OF NATURE.
The basis of popular religion is God, and its interpreters
to man are the Bible and the Church. The God has
been described by Dr. Southwood Smith as “stern and
sullen, retiring in awful gloom from his creatures ; not
to be approached but with groans, not to be appeased
but by blood.” There appears in the world an extra
ordinary agent, the Son of God, assisted by angels, to
carry out the decrees of God, and also a Devil to prevent
them being carried out. By those agents the course of
�IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
13
nature is altered and fashioned to obtain their particular
ends. Common sense is set at defiance, and the rational
faculties are bewildered by stories of marvels and miracles.
In the early days the Christian lived in a kind of super
natural world; his dreams came direct from heaven ;
every emotion of his heart was a Divine inspiration, and
every incident in his life was a miracle. God interfered
in season and out of season, and the operations of nature
were nothing but a succession of little miracles, inter
mixed with an occasional big one.
These absurd and contradictory fictions are now chiefly
found in Catholic countries j but in a modified form
they.appear among “ our dear Dissenting brethren,” the
Revivalists, and also among the followers of the late
Mr. Joseph Smith. Fashionable people in the Church
only read St. James’s Epistle; they do not believe in it.
The pious George Combe says : “ Science has banished
the belief in the exercise by the Deity, in our day, of
special acts of supernatural power as a means of in
fluencing human affairs.” Again, he says : “ Disguise
the fact as we will, the order of nature—in other words,
God’s secular providence—is a power which in this world
shapes our destinies for weal or woe.” He says that this
position cannot be met with cries of “ Infidelity,” and
appeals to bigotry and passion, as in days gone by ; for
even Calvinists themselves proceed now on the basis of
natural science when they are sick, when wet seasons
come, and when they send a ship to sea. The orthodox
may decry science, but they enjoy its benefits. They
may call the lightning-conductor “ the heretical stake,”
but they affix one even to the spire of “ the house of
God,” which they might be expected to believe would
be protected by him—
“ Whose power o’er moving worlds presides,
Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides.”
George Combe says he knows of no sect or church, nor
any body of religious instructors, who have recognised
“ the order of nature ” as the basis for practical precepts,
or as the road to secular virtue and prosperity. Not
one Christian nation—not one example is known since
the promulgation of Christianity. Science attempts it,
but the preachers pronounce that “godless.”
Archbishop Whately was a man of considerable mental
�14
IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
power. He could see that the assertion, that God sent
pestilence and famine in consequence of Romanism in
Ireland, could be used by the Catholic as an argument
against the permission of Protestantism to pollute the
sacred soil of St. Patrick. He believed in all the cases
mentioned in the Bible; but the declarations of the
“ uninspired ” men in question he denounced as “ irra
tional, uncharitable, and un-Christian.” Whately wrote
a book on logic, and might be expected to understand
that by assuming the existence of one source of power
we are compelled to trace all causes of good and evil to
that one source, which he believed to exercise supreme
influence over both Catholics and Protestants. While
the assertion of one source of power destroys the possible
existence of one source absolutely good, the alternative
is the banishment, as Combe calls it, of all interference
by the only source of power either on the side of Ca
tholics or Protestants, or against either of them. Of
course, a rational conclusion of this kind, however
logical it may be, is not the conclusion that either sect
is capable of arriving at.
There is a general conception of the order of nature
in the theological mind that it is under special personal
guidance. If water assumes a globular shape in falling,
as in the case of rain, or a tear from the human eye, it
is because some unseen and omnipotent personal power
is behind, shaping the rain and the tears. In the ad
vanced school of theological thought the movements of
nature are conceived as under law. But what are termed
“ the laws of nature ” are assumed to be under the great
law-giver and law-maker. Hence there are three sepa
rate existences—the law-maker, the law, and nature, the
ruled. AU that is really known may be described as
nature and the modes or “ methods of nature
the
latter words convey all that is meant by “ the laws of
nature.” Nature and how she acts are too simple for
the theological mind. It must have nature governed by
laws—that is, when water runs down the hill, it does so
by order of a Divine Act of Parliament, enforced by the
King of Kings, instead of by his own hand, as formerly.
These ideas are what I call fictions of the imagination,
and the only purpose they can serve, that I see, is to mag
nify the importance of the office held by persons paid
to maintain them.
�■ IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
15
Those who admit the existence of an invariable law
of what they call “ physical nature ” still claim an excep
tion for what they call the human soul and her affections.
It is somewhat remarkable that Dr. Priestley and Dr.
Guthrie, both preachers of the Gospel, acknowledged
the existence of mental and moral laws as well as phy
sical laws. One objection to the admission of the intel
lect or the soul to the government of an invariable order
of nature is that the soul would become necessarily the
subject of change—that is, it would live and die. This
would prevent it becoming an inhabitant of a heaven
built on pride, or a hell built on spite. There is the
same objection to the idea that the brain thinks. The
brain, being the subject of life and death, would be
necessarily limited in its operations to this life and this
globe ; in other words, the man who thinks is one and
not two beings, and is thus mortal—that is, ceases to
exist as a thinking being at death’.
The theologians whose minds are overcome by the
facts of science take refuge in miracle. They say : “ We
quite admit that man, as at present constituted, must
fall in with the invariable order of things : he must die,
but he will rise again.” Of course, this is mere assertion,
without a single fact in nature to support it. The illus
trations given by theologians from nature, including the
one found in the New Testament itself, are too inappro
priate to deserve notice. They put a grain of wheat in
the ground, and from it get a number of grains in an ear
of wheat; but by putting a man in the ground do they
secure the production of a bunch of men, or even a
single one ? The expectancy is built on miracle, and
finds no support or illustration in nature, so lar as I
■know. Of course, those who believe in the miracle of
creation out of nothing may believe in the miracle of
re-creation out of the remains of man ; but such beliefs
have no claim on the scientific mind, or on the atten
tion of the rational inquirer. An assertion made for the
purpose of giving negative support to this theory is that
all the faculties of man are not in harmony with this
present existence ; while the fact is that the more we
know of man and nature, the more clearly we see the
adaptation of all his faculties to this globe and this life
that our orbit is all our task, and sufficient to interest
and occupy millions of generations of men. The writers
�■I
j
i6
in search of a religion.
who claim the authority of miracles as a proof of the
truth of any doctrine admit that the early Apostles would
not have been believed, or even listened to, if they had
not urged that miracles had been worked. Baden
Powell, M.A., F.R.S., says : “Thus, if miracles were, in
the estimation of a former age, among the chief slipports
of Christianity, they are at present among the main diffi
culties, and are hindrances to its acceptance.”.
The inductive philosopher accepts the invariable order
of phenomena, and can only believe that which can be
demonstrated to be in harmony therewith. Testimony
cannot square the circle, or discover perpetual motion ;
it avails nothing against reason. It is alleged that the
assertion of miracles was a necessity in the beginning
in order to obtain adherents to Christianity, because of
the incredulity of the age in which the system was first
introduced. My reading is that it was an age of cre
dulity, or the miracles would not have obtained credence.
The disposition to accept anything marvellous, at the
time referred to, appears to have been very general
among all classes of men. The sceptical disposition in
matters religious was not generally manifested for 1,600
years after the promulgation of Christianity. The few
who were bold enough to Question anything were met
with the orthodox demand to give up either their liberty
or their life. After generations of experience, the Chris
tians not only persecuted their avowed enemies, but
they also imprisoned and burnt one another.. The idea
of liberty of conscience never entered their heads; it
was no part of their faith. The absurdity of the argu
ment for miracles, or an interference with the order of
nature, based on their necessity for the. conversion of .
unbelievers, is obvious, since now unbelievers multiply
and miracles diminish, heresy increases and the miracu
lous decreases. That when miracles abound believers
abound is quite true; but by the introduction of Sceptics
the miracles get a poor time, of it—they lose their importance ; and, as believers in an invariable order of
nature continue to increase., the probabilties are strongly
in favour of the total extinction of miracles.
Printed and Published by Charles Watts, 84, Fleet Street, London.
�
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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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In search of a religion, and notes by the way
Creator
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Cattell, Charles Cockbill
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Stamp on front cover: The Freethought Radical Literature Depot,80, Piccadilly, Hanley. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Charles Watts
Date
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[n.d.]
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N120
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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 (In search of a religion, and notes by the way), 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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NSS
Religion
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Text
cBishopsgate laMtitutai
JOHN STUART MILL
ON
RELIGION
AND
FREETHOUGHT.
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more
justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be
justified in silencing mankind.—On Liberty.
All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.—On Liberty.
Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising
intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold,
vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something
which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral ?.......No one
can be a great thinker who does not recognise that, as a thinker, it is his first
duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.—On Liberty.
\
All Christians believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and
those who are ill-used by the w’orld ; that it is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
heaven ; that they should judge not, lest they be judged ; that they should
swear not at all; that they should love their neighbour as themselves ; that,
if one take their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that they should\
take no thought for the morrow ; that, if they "would be perfect, they should
sell all that they have, and give it to the poor. They are not insincere when
they say that they believe all these things. They do believe them, as people
believe what they have always heard lauded, and never discussed. But, in
the sense of that living belief which regulates conduct, they believe these
doctrines just up to the point to which it is usual to act upon them............
Whenever conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr. A. and B. to direct
them how far to go in obeying Christ.—On Liberty.
It [Christian Morality] holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of
hell as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life : in this
falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to
human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man’s
feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except so far as a
self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them. It is essen
tially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all autho
rities found established............ What little recognition the idea of obligation
to the public obtains in modern morality is derived from Greek and Roman
sources ; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnani
mity, high-mindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honour, is derived
from the purely human, not the religious, part of our education, and never
could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, pro
fessedly recognised, is that of obedience.—On Liberty.
(
It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the
most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the
noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of
men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian
faith.—On Liberty,
�J. s. MILL ON RELIGION AND FREETHOUGHT.
I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has
not thrown off religious belief, but never had it : I grew up in a negative
state with regard to it.—Autobiography.
He [James Mill, his father] looked upon it [Religion] as the greatest
enemy of mankind: first by settingup fictitious excellencies—-belief in creeds,
devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of human
kind—and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtues :
but, above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it
consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phases
of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful. I
have a hundred times heard him say that all ages and nations have repre
sented their gods as wicked, in a constantly-increasing progression, that
mankind have gone on adding trait after trait till they reached the most
perfect conception of 'wickedness which the human mind can devise, and
have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it. This ne plus
ultra of wickedness he considered to be embodied in what is commonly
presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity.—yizz/^zT^ra/Zy'.
Not even on the most distorted and contracted theory of good which
ever was framed by religious or philosophical fanaticism can the govern
ment of Nature be made to resemble the work of a being at once good and
omnipotent.—Essays on Religion.
Belief, then, in the supernatural, great as are the services which it rendered in the early stages of human development, cannot be considered to
be any longer required, either for enabling us to know what is right and
wrong in social morality, or for supplying us with motives to do right and to
abstain from wrong.—Essays on Religion.
That because life is short we should care for nothing beyond it is not d
legitimate conclusion ; and the supposition that human beings in general are
not capable of feeling deep, and even the deepest, interest in things which
they will never live to see, is a view of human nature as false as it is abject.
Let it be remembered that, if individual life is short, the life of the human
species is not short ; its indefinite duration is practically equivalent to
endlessness ; and, being combined with indefinite capability of improvement,
it offers the imagination and sympathies a large enough object to satisfy any
reasonable demand for grandeur of aspiration. If such an object appears
small to a mind accustomed to dream of infinite and eternal beatitudes, it
will expand into far other dimensions when those baseless fancies shall have
receded into the past.—Essays on Religion.
It seems to me not only possible, but probable, that in a higher, and,
above all, a happier condition of human life, not annihilation, but immortality,
may be the burdensome idea ; and that human nature, though pleased with
the present, and by no means impatient to quit it, would find comfort, and
not sadness, in the thought that it is not chained through eternity to a con
scious existence, which i" cannot be assured that it will always wish to pre
serve.—Essays on Religion.
Published for the British Secular Union by Charles Watts, 84, Flee.
Street, London.—Price Sixpenee per hundred.
k
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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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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John Stuart Mill on religion and freethought
Creator
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Mill, John Stuart [1806-1873]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 2 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: Brief extracts from Mill's works. Published for the British Secular Union. Stamp for Bishopsgate Institute on front page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Charles Watts
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
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N484
Subject
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Free thought
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 (John Stuart Mill on religion and freethought), 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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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Free Thought
NSS
Religion