1
10
22
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/057c9d6f759dfab5a3ba42e8aeea82c2.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=A%7EsIZtlKycsFwAVYxeuT4kIwk6tXqAlA1ZnVXpLRQCMzq1M3H2NTvATHlzm4EtX4Lju5eixQDXR11IGJykxSIgQp83mRMoQZcv84BVF8zM28aGeRbMidBfGJ6rDT7lLQYm6vGxj3kkTh7fIRk3b3BzTXguxfgVqmWa5ugHsgBahSQk8RIZh8Xi36BhJqfJfpRD0%7EV8Z82gwe0GKn6Eqw2AyIfTwXW2OkGoJw9nAtrt0my9Rp%7EFjh7pCyhUrDNNKYfgtnYYKHr1IA8CS0nv%7EGqm8xw1ZKvwaoBeCdMGcXAlb9-G7NNd9NdZF3liQA0pfHf2NLvLwbZlpqQbBpD5t2Kw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
0a5409e92b38673546a588ec80dbf456
PDF Text
Text
e>2-rn
tJoZ|/
SEXUAL ECONOMY,
AS TAUGHT BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.
BY
PETER AGATE, M.D.
WITH ADDENDUM BY SALADIN.
London:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction ...
...
...
...
The Two B.’s and “ The Elements ”
...
Bradlaugh’s Quarrel with Joseph Barker ...
Sexual Religion
...
...
...
The Neo-Malthusian Doctrine of Marriage
Palaeo-Secular Views of Social Evils
...
Palseo-Secular Medicine...
...
...
The Palaeo-Secularist Malthusians
...
Palaeo-Secularist Society
...
...
Addendum, by Saladin...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
..
5
15
18
22
28
32
37
45
5;
53
��INTRODUCTION.
Saladin, chaste knight ot Secularism, Freethought, Agnos
ticism, says my essay, or compilation, illustrative of Bradlaughism, Cat-and-Ladleism, Knowltonism, and the moral
sewage question generally, needs an introduction. He knows
better than I; so probably it does. My instant and eager
reply was : Who so fit and proper to introduce an unknown
volunteer, meddling in a matter which does not in the least
concern him personally—who so competent as the illustrious
Saladin—poet, philosopher, moralist—whom I have never
seen, and only read a year or two, from week to week in his
Secular Review I
But why not give the letter as I wrote it ? Here it is,
verbatim et literatim. In a matter which future ages will
consider so important every scrap relating to the champion
of Freethought and purity of morals will have its interest
and value. I wrote :—
“My Dear Saladin!—You think I need to be intro
duced. Well, why not introduce me ? You know the whole
matter of this controversy so much better than I do. A
few lines from your vigorous pen will be better than any
thing I could write. I agree that they should be written ;
but, as you have the matter so much better in hand, and as
I really need to be introduced, why not prettily and grace
fully introduce me ?
“ I remember, many years ago, reading an English book
which defended—in fact, recommended—incest, Sodomy,
�6
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
and bestiality, and denounced the laws against them as
superstitious tyranny. It was a nasty, bad book; but I do
not believe it was a tenth-part so mischievous as this work of
Dr.--------- , which I hold to be false in science—which
is, of course, to be bad in morals. Man, as the highest, or
most developed, animal, should be better, more natural, than
the lower species. Why man goes wrong, and how he goeswrong, in these matters, I do not know, as I do not know
the ultimate why or how of anything; only that all vicesseem to me unnatural, and all unnatural practices vicious—
two words for the same thing.
“When I can get to it I mean to go into all these ques
tions as thoroughly as I can. In the meantime, or just
now, will you write the few needed lines of introduction, asyou so well can, or must I write them as well as I can under
the circumstances? You knowing so much better the
reasons why my small pamphlet should be written at all, and
occupying the leading position in this really important con.
troversy.
“ P.S.—It strikes me that the reason for these excessesof early Secularists was the disposition to defend and
recommend whatever had been denounced or forbidden
by religious teachers : the Bible denounced Sabbath-break
ing, so they made it a duty to break the Sabbath; the Bible
burnt up people with fire and brimstone for Sodomy, there
fore they defended Sodomy; and so on.
“Now, if I were to write the introduction or preface, it
would be something like this note. With this note will you
be so kind as to write the introduction ?
“I presume you will, at the proper time, also publicly
introduce, as you have announced, the pamphlet. And I
fancy that, just because it is a scrimmage, it will be read by
a great many who, perhaps, might hesitate to read the Secular
Reviews
That is what I wrote to Saladin. I leave it to the candid'
�INTRODUCTION.
7
veader to say, to himself, whether it is not a reasonable
letter. And here is Saladin’s reply, or, rather, part of it;
for he “ private ”-ly assures me that he has tried and failed,
■and then goes on in this way“ Although, at the date of the publication of the Knowl
ton pamphlet, I was hardly known in the party at all, I
managed to have my name placed on the list of speakers
in.the first meeting that met to protest that anti-Christian
thought was not necessarily associated with an adoption
■of the practices of Onan. The meeting was held at Cleve
land Hall, and was a crowded and excited one. Those
who could not accept Christ, but who seemed eager to
accept Onan, were largely in the ascendant. Mr. Bradlaugh
was evidently the hero of the hour, as he always is with the
rougher and less-cultured order of Freethinkers, who let
him do the thinking, after his fashion, in order to save them
the trouble of thinking at all.
“ Mr. Charles Watts was in the chair, and on the platform
were Mrs. Harriet Law, Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, Mr.
G. W. Foote, and myself. Mr. Holyoake was, as usual,
excessively prudent. He diagnosed the temper of the
meeting, and, instead of venturing to sail against the stream,
■delivered himself of a few colourless platitudes. His shilly
shallying prudence cast its spell over the other speakers
Mr. Watts, as I told him afterwards, made a timid and half
hearted speech, from which I gathered that he wished to
still keep the door open for reconciliation with 1 our chief.’
In fact, in spite of its fleshliness, he had published the
Knowlton pamplilet down to the point where publishing it
became dangerous, and there he had deserted it. Mrs. Law
looked ludicrously sagacious, and half stood to her guns
and half ran away from them. Confronted by that meeting
(probably packed), Mr. Foote alone, of all the prominent
speakers, did not allow his heart to sink down to his boots.
His platform experience was to him invaluable; he uttered
�8
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
some cutting and caustic things, but adroitly managed to
secure as many cheers as hisses. I followed, more in
earnest and more bitter than Mr. Foote, and sadly lacking
in his tact and platform experience. In reply to the hiss of
opposition, which I cared not to conciliate, even if I had
known how, I raised my voice to a shout of defiance. I
managed to make myself heard over the hiss and groan of
Onanic disapprobation, till I thundered forth the words,
‘Charles Bradlaugh has dragged the standard of Freethought through the mire of Holywell Street.’ Upon this
the storm which had been raging burst into a hurricane.
There were clenched fists, and an angry and ominous
surging towards the platform. I stood facing the mass,
mute and defiant. Mr. Holyoake seized my coat-tail, to
pull me back to my chair. Still facing the audience, I
lifted my arm, and, not over gently, dashed away his hand.
The audience noticed this incident, and, for a moment,
their cries and hisses of anger were mixed with a peal of
laughter. Close to my ear I heard, ‘ Draw it mild,’ from
the thin, tin-kettle voice of Mr. Holyoake. I still stood
facing the audience, erect and motionless ; and when, at
length, the storm of groans and hisses died away, I took
one step forward, and repeated, with firm, slow, and syllabic
deliberation : ‘ Charles Bradlaugh has dragged the standard
of Freethought through the mire of Holywell Street I’ ”
There—that is how a poet tells you he cannot write.
How he can write is shown in the Secular Review and, as
to the matter in hand, in “ Knowltonism,”* which he issued
four or five years ago, and which every one who can com
mand twopence-halfpenny may read. In its preface Mr.
Charles Watts recognised the “ unique ability ” of Saladin
in his attack upon “ the vulgar teachings of Knowltonism,”
and also expresses the opinion that this “ must be acknow
ledged as the great social question of the day.”
* “ Knowltonism,” by Saladin.
(London : Watts & Co.)
�INTRODUCTION.
9
In this essay, well worth reading for the powerful conden
sation of its style, Saladin distincts Malthus from Knowlton
with a cut of his sharp scimitar through the bone and marrow
of the Neo-Malthusian Trinity. He insists “ that the means
specified to prevent conception are inadequate to that end,”
as any physiologist can see with half a glance, and as many
a poor girl, no doubt, has experienced to her infinite sorrow
and shame. Saladin maintains that, “ even if Knowltonism
were practicable, per se, it would be unconformable with
physical, and an outrage upon ethical, law.” It is better,
he holds, that the struggles of life should go on, and bring
about their natural results in the “ survival of the fittest.”
He holds with nature all through, yet quotes the delicate
and forcible lines of the Marquis of Queensberry :—
“ Go, tell mankind, see that thy blood be pure,
And visit not thy sins upon thy race;
Curse not thy future age with poisoned blood,
For, cursing, it shall curse thee back again.
*
*
*
For there are they
Who, either from hereditary sin,
Or from the sin they have themselves entailed.
Possess no right to be progenitors. *
*
*
Alas ! that such a cruel wrong should be,
Of sins upon the children visited.
And shall these grow to be progenitors
Of other souls, more burdened than themselves
With feeble bodies of impurity ?
Ye gods, forbid it !”
Saladin eloquently—how could he say anything otherwise
than eloquently and poetically ?—defines the right of every
human being to'be born, and fight his way in this beautiful
world. “ The cardinal duty of humanity,” he holds, is “ to
discover the processes of cosmical law and obey them, not
try to reverse or modify them in the plenitude of spurious
science and the hauteur of unphilosophical arrogance.
Down amid the green algae and the gleaming shells of the
ever-swinging and thundering ocean it is joy to be a bright
�IO
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
and agile herring, even for an hour, before the jaws of the
shark snap rapaciously, and one egoism in the vasty deep
ceases to be. The Babe born on the straw of a hovel, or
amid the silk and down of a palace, inspires and respires
the glad air of being—for life is a boon, whether in cottage
or in castle—sucks from its mother’s breast the nectar of life
and love, stretches out its fingers and its toes, elate with the
rich wine of vital existence; and what is death at seven days
or seventy years ?—Only a forgetting of what has gone by
and an arrestment of what is to come ; only a returning to
where you were before the sun shone in the heavens, towhere you may be when the sun may be no more.
‘ ’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.’
And it is better to have lived under some circumstances than
never to have lived at all. The trifling differences between
brown bread and water and roast beef and champagne,
between the ingle of the cottar and the saloon of the duke,
are insignificant when taken into consideration with the
cardinal luxury of life. The sky is as blue to the peasant
as to the peer; as sweet is the fragance of the hawthorn, as
magnificent is the vista of hope; as joyous is the action of
muscle and nerve; as sublime and holy the first ecstacies of
‘Love’s Young Dream.’ It is an unfounded assumption,
resulting from the wide social hiatus which separates class
from class, that postulates all the sweetness of life with
riches, and all the bitterness of existence with poverty. If
it be true that the poor man does not eat his dinner because
he has no dinner to eat, the rich man as frequently cannot
eat his on account of dyspepsia and want of appetite ; and
perhaps the latter evil is worse than the former. The worn
fustian, with its spots of grime, ministers as well to the
animal caloric as does the purple and the ermine, flashing
with gold lace and resplendent with jewels. I ask, with him
'
�INTRODUCTION.
11
of Galilee, ‘ Is not the life more than meat and the body
than raiment?’
f
“The Knowltonian, by implication, admits himself to be
a coward, who would shirk the cosmical conditions which
are successfully coped with by the frog and the thistle, and
■even by the ephemera, which at the utmost has only an hour
to live, and has to plunge into the Struggle for Existence
for the privilege of entering upon the part or the whole of
the brief span of its life. With its stifled hum as it buzzes
in the blue air, or expands its wings in the flash of the
summer sun, it recites a homily that the Knowltonian might
con with profit. It enjoys the few minutes it has to live,
provides that there shall be ephemerae when it is no more,
and hums itself into the eternal non-ego of which it knows
as much as the wisest man that ever lived or ever will. Is
man afraid he may succumb to conditions which are suc
cessfully coped with by the aphis ? Even if absolutely
isolated from the male, the female aphis, by the peculiar
method of reproduction known as parthenogenesis, will pro
duce female young, and female young only, at the rate of
fourteen or fifteen a day; and these, in their turn, and in a
very short time, give birth to a third generation, and so on;
and this will go on for years without any male aphis whatever
being for once admitted. And yet in the whole world there
is, perhaps, not a single aphis more than there was a thou
sand years ago. The rapacity of the lady-bird, the lace
wing fly, and other enemies which prey upon the aphidre,
keep them within their legitimate bounds; and so the lady
bird of disease and the lace-wing fly of famine will keep
homo sapiens in his proper bounds without troubling him to
tax his ingenuity to degrade himself off the face of the
earth;
“ With the Knowltonian the earth is analagous to a boat I
at sea crammed with fifty shipwrecked men, but with food
for fifteen only. Under such circumstances it is normal to f
cast lots, and the Jonahs are thrown overboard. But it is
�12
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
better to ultimately get thrown overboard than never to have
been born. A struggle for six minutes in the deep is not so
much more terrible than a six months’ wasting disease in
bed. The man upon whom the lot falls to be drowned may
strip his coat and dive resolutely to death with the conscious
ness that he has, at least, had a grim and wild extension of
fairplay. Thus Knowltonians had better, than exercise
their sexual ‘ checks,’ go to the denizens of Whitechapel and
the Seven Dials at regular intervals, and mark out, Valkeyrylike, the particular individuals they deem redundant in their
microcosm, causing each to take a dose of strychnine, so that
only the correct number of ‘genteel’ people may take the
place of the plethoric fauna of the slums. As I have
pointed out, it is incalculable what philosophers and poets
and statesmen the ‘ checks ’ may dam back in the stream
of human existence. If the Knowltonian must adjust the
supply of the hoi poloi to the demand, he had surely better
do so in the light than in the dark; he had better engage in
a game of discriminating skill than in one of indiscrimi
nating hazard. By his ‘ checks ’ you know not whom he is
keeping out of the world: but, by his gallows, you would
know whom he is sending out of it. If the Knowltonians
were to erect a gallows in Vincent Square and clear out the
Westminster slums by the simple and drastic resource of
good plain hanging, one could have some voucher that they
had not robbed the world of a Shakespeare or a Bacon or a
Gladstone. But by their empirical pottering with sexual
physiology and pathology, with a view to make woman less
of a mother than a sort of safety-valve to sensual passions,
we know not whether we have not lost a spermatozoonal
Milton or a foetal Cromwell.”
In another place he says : “ I ask any of my readers to
note for themselves whether a non-Knowltonian mother of
fifty, and who has borne six or seven children, is not
stronger and healthier and happier than the Knowltonian
mother of the same age, and who has borne only one or
�INTRODUCTION.
13
two. I ask any of my readers to further note whether
every boy and girl of the family of six or seven is not
stronger, healthier, and happier than any member of the
family of one or two. If a woman do succeed in evading
her natural functions of parturition and lactation, she can
do so only by incurring greater sacrifices than parturition
and lactation entail. It is not my purpose to enter here
into the nosology of women who attempt to shirk their
natural and incumbent duty of Motherhood; but the
diseases, ailments, and mental and moral affections incident
to such are many and complicated ; and I aver unhesitat
ingly that the careful and extensive observation of any of
my readers, directed to this subject, will corroborate my
allegation on this point. You can, of course, prevent the
apple-tree from bearing apples; you can bark it, or dig it
half out of the ground, or cut it half through with an axe.
It is just as natural for a woman to bear children as it is for
an apple-tree to bear apples ; and in neither case can you
prevent production without doing violence to the producer.”
The Spartans settled the question in their fashion long
ago. Ignorant of, or scornfully rejecting, preventive checks,
they weeded out all babies that could be better spared. ,
The weaklings went early to the wall. The survival of the
fittest was decided as soon as fitness or unfitness was
apparent. They took also nearly as much trouble in the
breeding of the best qualities of men and women as our
stock-breeders and dog-fanciers now do in producing the
finest specimens of our favourite quadrupeds. Sensible, (
practical people, those Spartans; but not quite what we 'j
should call moral.
My object, in preparing this pamphlet, scarcely needs ex
planation. It is simply to show what is the actual position
of Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., on important questions of morals
and society. I show where he has stood for twenty odd
years. I do not question his right to stand there, nor the
right of the burghers of Northampton to have him for their
�14
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
representative, nor his right to have a seat and vote for his
constituents, the worthy cordwainers, pig-drivers, and Catand-Ladleites. He may stand before Mr. Speaker and shout,
“ So help me God !” (or “ god ”) to his heart’s content.
When Charles Bradlaugh swears allegiance to Queen Victoria,
and asserts his belief in god or God, or publishes “ The
Fruits of Philosophy,” or Mrs. Besant’s improvement upon
Knowltonism, or patronises “ The Elements of Social
Science,” it is no affair of mine. I hold to free thought and
free discussion; but I hold also that a man who aspires to
an eminent and responsible position should be clear, open,
above-board, and responsible for his words and deeds.
I have referred to Bradlaughism or Cat-and-Ladleism asPalaeo-Secularism, and to Saladinism or Anti-Cat-and-Ladleism as Neo-Secularism.
P. A.
�SEXUAL ECONOMY,
AS TAUGHT BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
Chapter I.
THE TWO B.’s AND « THE ELEMENTS.”
For about thirty years Mr. Charles Bradlaugh has been a
speaker and writer in the cause of Freethought, Secular
ism, and Atheism. Ambitious of political distinction, he
obtained, a few years ago, an election to the House of
Commons from Northampton. He also managed, in con
nection with a lady who has for some years assisted him in
his labours as writer and public speaker, to get convicted
of the misdemeanour of publishing an immoral pamphlet,
and both were sentenced to a term of imprisonment by the
then Lord Chief Justice; but both managed to escape what
many considered a merited punishment by a technical
informality. Not that a man or woman is the worse for
being legally convicted and unjustly punished. Mr. Brad
laugh and his partner in this supposed iniquity are Malthusians, and the pamphlet for which they were condemned
was written to teach people how they could gratify their
animal propensities without increasing an already burthensome population. The law, as represented by Judge and;
Jury, considered this immoral and criminal. The “Fruits;
of Philosophy ” was suppressed, and the lady in the case
wrote another pamphlet, which she considered better and!
more effective than Knowlton’s.
When elected member of Parliament for Northampton
nothing stood between Mr. Bradlaugh and the object of
�i6
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
his ambition but the oath, which he declared was meaning
less to him, but which he was, nevertheless, quite ready to
take. That is, Charles Bradlaugh, an avowed Atheist, was
more than willing to declare his belief in a God, in the most
solemn and public manner, by an act of religious faith and
worship—by kissing the Bible and saying, “So help me God!”
He actually did this. He read the oath and kissed the
book, putting up a public prayer to God in the House of
Commons; but the House, by a considerable majority,
refused to accept the solemn sacrifice. The Atheist’s prayer
remains unanswered.
I am not condemning Mr. Bradlaugh for not believing in
a God; I am not justifying the House of Commons for
requiring a declaration of such belief from all its members.
Belief is not a voluntary act of the mind, though supposed
to be necessary for admission to heaven and—at least, its
pretence—for taking a seat in Parliament. Mr. Bradlaugh
has for years insisted upon his right to kiss the Bible he
publicly denounces, and to say, “ So help me God!”
Whether an avowed Atheist, a public teacher and defender
of Atheism, can consistently and publicly put up this prayer,
or make this act of faith, is a question of conscience.
Thought is necessarily free. The advocacy of Freethought is not needed. The question is only whether any
expression of the free thoughts of men should be restrained
or punished. When such expression is considered a libel
the law punishes it by fine and imprisonment; when it is
considered treason it may bring heavier penalties. Mr.
Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant were sentenced to imprisonment
for the publication of their free thoughts as to the policy
and the means of satisfying sexual desires without increas
ing population.
As editor, for a long period, of a Freethought and Secularist
newspaper, and while until recently President of a Secularist
organisation, Mr. Bradlaugh publicly promoted the sale of
a book, entitled “Elements of Social Science”—a work
infinitely more demoralising, according to the common
ideas of morality, than “ The Fruits of Philosophya
book which denounces as a sin and a crime in men and
women what the civilised world has for ages considered
virtue and morality. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity
of Mr. Bradlaugh and His amiable coadjutor, Mrs. Besant
�THE TWO B.’s AND “THE ELEMENTS.”
17
I am not questioning their right to think and feel as they
can or must on all matters of religion or morals. The
policy of electing persons who promulgate such opinions to
Parliament is quite another matter, which constituencies must
settle for themselves. My sole object in this pamphlet is
to show what Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., has avowed as
his belief, and what he has publicly taught and, if a con
sistent man, privately practised; but that, of course, is no
one’s business but his own and that of “ whom it may
• concern.” I have nothing to do with any portion of his life
but his public teachings. For many years he has been the
friend and associate of the author of “ The Elements of
Social Science.” He has defended, eulogised, and, to the
extent of his influence, promoted the circulation of that
book. What I do and all I do is to show what that book
is by extracts from its pages. I only review the book, as
might be done in any magazine or newspaper, with such
extracts as show its scope, intention, and character.
I have nothing to do with the motives of either the
anonymous author or the well-known promoter of “ The
Elements.” I think I shall do a public service by showing
the character of the book and its promoter, even if its sale
is thereby increased. It is better, in all such cases, that the
truth should be known. If, knowing the facts, people choose
to stand by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, that is their
affair, not mine. I have no animosities to gratify. If a
majority of the electors of Northampton wish to be repre
sented by Mr. Bradlaugh, that is their business. If the
people of the United Kingdom wish to adopt the opinions
of Mr. Bradlaugh and his co-workers, it is no affair of
mine. If the palseo-Secularist sect or party wants him for its
leader, champion, and chief, their choice is free. They can
throw over Saladin, stand by the Neo-Malthusians, fatten
on “ The Fruits of Philosophy,” and revel in “ The Elements
~^f Social Science.”
�18
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter II.
BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH
BARKER.
Strange as the fact may seem, it is quite true that the Secu
larist party in Great Britain has divided on the question of
social or sexual morality. The party of Bradlaugh and
Besant—the readers of the National Reformer, the NeoMalthusians and Knowltonites—have taken their stand
irrevocably on the doctrines of the Malthusian League and
“The Elements of Social Science.” This book was first
published about twenty years ago. It purports to be written
by “ A Graduate of Medicine,” whose name has never been
made public; but, as the articles on Political Economy and
Malthusianism, in the National Reformer in i860,.signed
“ G. R.,” are evidently by the same hand, and as “G. R.”
is the annotator of Mr. Bradlaugh’s and Mrs. Besant’s edition
of “ The Fruits of Philosophy,” we cannot be wrong in
attributing to “ G. R.” the authorship of “ The Elements of
Social Science.”
In the National Reformer of July 20th, 1861, Mr. Joseph
Barker, co-editor with Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, denounces, in
his half of the Secularist organ, people who are filling the
other half with “ follies, indecencies, immoralities, and
crimes.” “ The Elements of Social Science ” having been
commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Barker declares that
“a work that exhibits, in ranker abundance or grosser
hideousness, all the bad qualities of the most revolting books
we never read;” and he denounces it as containing “ the
greatest amount of evil in the world,” and full of “ demo
ralising sentiments and odious vices ;” as containing “ popu
lation fallacies,” things “as foul as filth, the best of which a
man of sense and decency would sooner die than recom
mend
and yet this book, Mr. Barker complained most
bitterly, had been advertised and strongly and repeatedly
recommended in the other half (Mr. Bradlaugh’s half) of the
�BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH BARKER.
19
National Reformer. He complained also that Mr. Bradlaugh
had sent a secret circular to the shareholders of the National
Reformer, and had formed a conspiracy with some of his
friends to get exclusive possession of it, “ and so exclude all
articles of a moral tendency, and devote it to the spread of
negative and purely demoralising forms of Secularism,” their
object being, he said, “ to destroy all sense of moral obliga
tion, and curse mankind with an unbounded sensual license.”
11 G. R.” came to the rescue and defended Mr. Bradlaugh.
Mr. Barker, August 3rd, admits that many public advo
cates of liberal views had been notoriously immoral, and
had published indecent and immoral works. Mr. Holyoake,
more scrupulous than many others, would not publish
Rousseau’s “ Confessions ” entire; but another Freethought
publisher did, and his edition was recommended in Mr.
Bradlaugh’s side of the National Reformer. Then Mr.
Barker goes on to denounce immoral Sceptics, and declares
that, if he cannot find moral ones, he will bury himself in
the wilds of America; as he did, poor man, some years later.
He says : “ Mr. Bradlaugh is terribly mistaken if he supposes
he can drag down Buckle and Mill into the filthy slough in
which he is wallowing, or raise himself from his horrible
position by an abuse of their honourable names.” To
“ G. R.” he says : “ I expect to shortly expose in a pamphlet
the revolting doctrines which you and Mr. Bradlaugh are
endeavouring to promoteand speaks of “ the atrocious
Elements of Social Science,’ which Mr. Bradlaugh has so
often and so loudly praised.”
Finally, in the last number of the National Reformer
which he was permitted to edit, he fills pages with extracts
from the book to prove what he had said of its horrible and
revolting character.
Later, in his own paper, Barker's Review, vol. i., p. 118,
he vigorously denounces the doctrines taught by Mr. Brad
laugh and the National Reformer, and points out that “ the
principle that the animal appetites should rule; that powerful
animal appetites are great virtues ; that there is no danger in
their free, unlimited indulgence, is represented by the author
of the loathsome publication in which this theory is taught
and defended, and by those who commend the work and aid
an its circulation.”
And in Barker s Review, vol. i., p. 170, he says: “Only
�20
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
one public man among the Secularists condemned the book
until we exposed it. It has been advertised, recommended,
and circulated by Secularist lecturers; its author almost
worshipped, and the moment a Secularist retracted his com
mendation of the work he was savagely assailed by the
editor of the National Reformer.”
It was in vain that Joseph Barker worked for the separa
tion of Freethought from immorality, and called his oppo
nents “ the unbounded license party.” The majority was
against him. Mr. Bradlaugh was consistent, and stands to
day where he did twenty years ago, with Mrs. Besant as hisfirst Vice-President of the National Secular Society, and the
eloquent defender of the doctrines denounced by Mr. Joseph
Barker, who had vainly tried to carry the morals of Methodism
into the advocacy of Secularism. From that day, up to a
recent period, during sixteen years, “ The Elements of Social
Science” was advertised in the then leading organ of
Secularism, and its principles advocated in its columns ; and;
in “The National Secular Society’s Almanack for 1878” I
find the following advertisement:—
LEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; OR, Physical, Sexual,,
and Natural Religion. An Exposition of the True Cause
and Only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils—Poverty, Prostitu
tion, and Celibacy. By a Doctor of Medicine. Sixteenth Edition.
Twenty-eighth Thousand.
E
Translations of this Work have been published in the following
languages:—
In French—Elements de Science Sociale.
In German—Die Grnndzilge der Gesellschafts-vissenschaft.
In Dutch—De Elementcn der Sociale Wetenschag.
In Italian—Elementi di Scienza Sociale.
In Portuguese—Elementos de Sciencia Social.
And among the “ Opinions of the Press ” we read :—
“ This is the only book, so far as we know, in which, at a cheap price
and with honest and pure intent and purpose, all the questions affecting
the sexes, and the influence of their relations on society, are plainly
dealt with. It has now been issued in French as well as in English,
and we bring the French edition to the notice of our friends of the In
ternational Working Men’s Association, and of our subscribers in France
and Belgium, as essentially a poor man’s book.”—National Reformer
edited by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
�BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH BARKER.
21
The Medical Press and Circular says :—
“We are told that it has been largely read in London by medical
men.”
The Examiner, in one of its many phases, said :—■
“.This is’ we believe, the only book that has fully, honestly, and in
a scientific spirit, recognised all the elements of the problem, How are
mankind to triumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils ? and
fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution.”
The Reasoner, edited by Mr. G. J. Holyoake, said:—
“ It is, in one sense, a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage
to publish.”
The Boston Investigator, the leading palaeo-Secularist paper
in America, says :—
“ We_ have never risen from the perusal of any work with greater
satisfaction.”
Italian and German Secularist writers even more emphati
cally commend it.
This book, “ The Elements of Social Science,” was thus
for years advertised, eulogised, and promoted by Mr. Brad
laugh. He has never, to my knowledge, withdrawn his
commendations or repudiated its teachings. It remains,
therefore, only necessary to show what are the doctrines of
the book, in order to show what are the social and moral,
beliefs of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., etc.
�22
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter III.
SEXUAL RELIGION.
The religion of Palaeo-Secularism, as accepted and promul
gated by Mr. Bradlaugh and his associates, consists in the love
of the world and the worship of matter, and especially of the
human body. Thus, in this “ Bible of Secularism,” we have
sections on “ Natural Religion ” and “ Physical Religion
but nearly the whole book is occupied with teaching the
most important principle, or doctrines, of “Sexual Reli
gion.”
According to this religion, the chief end of man is to
glorify his animal desires, and, this being his only world and
only life, to have in it all possible sensual enjoyment. This
great duty of humanity is enforced as a matter of natural
religion, sexual religion, science, and philanthropy. It is
urged for physiological and pathological reasons, and recom
mended as a means of preserving health and of curing
disease.
The union of the sexes in marriage has been supposed by
moralists to have for its principal end the production of
offspring and the continuation of the human race on the
earth. ThePalaeo-Secularist Bible teaches an entirely different
doctrine. The great object of such intercourse is pleasure;
and the production of offspring is, beyond a very narrow
limit, an evil which it is our duty to avoid. Chastity, it
■contends, is a violation of natural law; continence is a
•crime ; marriage, so far as it limits or hampers the enjoyment
of the senses, is a superstitious and tyrannical institution;
fidelity is an evil; prostitution, as far as it goes, is a remedy
for bad institutions; but it may be abolished by the universal
acceptance of Palaeo-Secularist doctrines and practice as re
commended in “ The Elements of Social Science,” a book
which is so warmly commended and widely circulated among
Palaeo-Secularists all over the world, and especially by Charles
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
23
Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, who say, in the Publishers’
Preface to “The Fruits of Philosophy,” last edition, 1877 :
“ Physiology has made great strides during the past forty
years, and, not considering it right to circulate erroneous
physiology, we submitted the pamphlet to a doctor in whose
accurate knowledge we have the fullest confidence, and who
is widely known in all parts of the world as the author of
‘ The Elements of Social Science.’ The notes signed
‘ G. R.’ are written by this gentleman.” Thus it appears
that “ G. R.,” the annotator of “ The Fruits of Philo
sophy,” is the author of the Bible of Secularism, “The
Elements of Social Sciencewhile Dr. Drysdale, also
a distinguished physician, is President of the Malthusian
League, whose offices are’ those of the publishers of the
National Reformer and “The Fruits of Philosophy;” and
Mrs. Besant, first Vice-President of the National Secular
Society, is Hon. Secretary of the Malthusian League and
the author of “The Law of Population,” a pamphlet written
to take the place of the legally-condemned and rather obso
lete one of Dr. Knowlton, and which is intended to aid
people in carrying out more thoroughly the most important
duties of “ sexual religion,” as laid down in “ The Elements
of Social Science.”
I have stated briefly what these duties are. It is evident
that they are the exact opposites of the duties taught and
practised more or less by what are called respectable people.
Christians are supposed to renounce “ the world, the flesh,
and the devil;” Secularists, of “ The Elements ” type, glorify
the world; they teach the duty of revelling in sensuality, and,
rejecting all ideas of spiritual existence, they do not, of
course, believe in angels, good or bad.
It remains for us to show, by extracts from the book,
which contains the most comprehensive and authoritative
statements we can find of Mr. Bradlaugh’s doctrines respect
ing sexual morals," or “ sexual religion ”—a book so
thoroughly endorsed in the National Reformer that we have
not mis-stated nor over-stated the purport of such doctrines
as he so warmly approves, and mean to do simple justice in
this matter by giving the doctrines as set forth in the words
of the writer of “ The Elements of Social Science,” as well
as the reasons he gives for maintaining them.
This book, so highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh—
�24
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
written by one of his most active partisans, as well as his
teacher in morals—holds that all men and all women should,
not only as a right, but as a duty, and as a religious duty
appertaining to “ sexual religion,” live in the free, full, fre
quent exercise of their sexual propensities. It teaches
as duties what moralists condemn as lust, and fornication,
and adultery. It teaches that continence and chastity, com
mended by others as virtues, are unnatural vices and deadly
-sins. It teaches the necessity, and therefore the right, of
marital infidelity and the duty of seduction. It defends
and honours prostitution, while it regards universal license
and promiscuity as a more natural and desirable condition.
These are the doctrines which some of the chosen, or self
appointed, leaders of the Palaeo-Secularist party have for many
years accepted and defended, and which they have pro
pagated in their far-reaching organisation.
It is probable that many Palaeo-Secularists will be disposed
to deny, and angrily resent, this indictment. I can sympathise
with them ; but I am obliged to do what is much worse than
to make such charges—I am obliged to prove them. To do
ihis I must give a few extracts from “ The Elements of
Social Science,” as Joseph Barker did twenty-four years ago
in his portion of the National Reformer, before he ceased to
be one of its editors.
Here, then, are the doctrines and morals set forth in a
book highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, M.P., circulated
wherever the English language is read, and translated into
the most important languages of Western Europe.
In the section on “ Sexual Religion : Laws of the Sexual
‘Organs,” it is stated that:—
“One physiological law of supreme importance and
“ universal application in our constitution is, that every
“ several member must, in order to be vigorous and
“ healthy, have a due amount of exercise, and that of the
“ normal kind. Thus the eye must have light, the limbs
“ motion, the intellect reflection, and our appetites and
“ passions their normal gratification, else will they infallibly
“ become enfeebled and diseased. Either excessive or
“ deficient exercise is injurious ; and, in order to have a
“ well-balanced bodily constitution (just as much our
“ honour and our duty as a well-balanced mind), we must
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
2$
“ obey this law. The generative organs are subject to it
“ as well as every other; and hence we shall see the duty
“ and necessity of their having due exercise from the time
“ of their maturity, which takes place at puberty, till that
“ of their decline ” (page 78).
“ Hence we must acknowledge that every man who has
“ not a due amount of sexual exercise lives a life of natural
“ imperfection and sin ; and he can never be certain how
“ far Nature’s punishment for this will proceed in his
“ case ” (p. 83).
“ The commonly-received code of sexual morality is
“ most erroneous, and erected in ignorance of, and opposi“ tion to, natural truth; the real natural duties of every
“ human being (however social difficulties may interfere
“ with the discharge of them) towards his reproductive
“ organs, and the passions connected with them, consisting
“ in their due and normal exercise, for which the social
“ provision of marriage is quite inadequate. Nature lays
“ one command on us : ‘ Exercise all thy functions, else
“art thou an imperfect and sinful being” (page 153).
“ It is absolutely certain that Nature meant the sexual
“ organs in either sex to have a due amount of exercise,
“ from the time of their maturity till their decline; and
“ no one who knows anything of the bodily laws can
“ doubt that every departure from the course she points
“ out is a natural sin; and she shows this herself by the
“ punishments she inflicts. She forms no organ that she
“ does not intend to be exercised, rouses no desires merely
“ to torment by their self-denial. It is not by shutting
“ our eyes to these facts that we can hope to progress
“ either in knowledge or in virtue” (page 163).
“ Chastity is considered one of the greatest of all virtues
“ in woman, and in man too, though in his case it is
“ practically less regarded. We have no longer voluntary
“ nuns, but of involuntary ones there are myriads_ far
( more, in reality, than ever existed in any Roman
“ Catholic country. Millions of women pass a great part
“of their sexual lives, and immense numbers pass the
“ whole, in total sexual abstinence, without any of the
“ enjoyments of sexual pleasures or the happiness of a
“ mother’s affections. For all this incredible self-denial,
“ which causes more anguish and disease than any mind
�-2 5
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“can conceive, they have for their reward the barren
“ praise of chastity ” (page 162).
“Chastity, or complete sexual abstinence, so.far from
“ being a virtue, is invariably a great natural sin. We are
“ short-sighted beings, full of errors and false theories;
“ but Nature is absolutely unerring, and it is only by con“ suiting her that we can gain a true knowledge of our
“ virtues and vices. If we attend to Nature, we shall find
“ that all our organs are subject to the same law of health;
“ the great law of normal and sufficient exercise. There
“ is no organ in our body, nor any faculty in our mind,
“ which, to be healthy (or, in other words, virtuous), does
“ not require its due share of appropriate exercise. The
“ sexual organs are subject to this law exactly as all others;
“ and, whatever theories we form about them, Nature in
variably rewards or punishes them, according as the
“.'conditions of their health are observed. She cares not
“ for our moral code ; marriage has nothing sacred in her
■“eyes; with or without marriage, she gives her seal of
“ approbation to the sexually virtuous man or woman in a
“ healthy and vigorous state of the sexual organs and
“appetites, while she punishes the erring by physical and
“moral sufferings ” (p. 162).
“The two natures [of man and woman] are built on
“ the same original model, and, in the main, they are alike
“ in their laws. The great law of exercise of every part
■“ applies equally to both sexes; and in woman, as in
“ man, physical strength is more virtuous than weakness;
■“ courage than timidity; nervous power than nervous
“debility; and it is a sign of an effeminate and un“ natural theory of life that these truths are not deeply
“ felt by all of us ” (p. 163).
“ We may do what we please in the way of other healthy
“ influences ; we may bestow every other care on the
“ nurture and education of our beloved ones; but it is
“ absolutely impossible to make women healthy or happy
“without a due amount of sexual enjoyment” (p. 175).
“ When the universal applicability of the great law of
“ exercise to all our organs is understood, every one will
“ perceive that he is morally bound to exercise duly his
“ sexual organs throughout the period of sexual life. Thus
“ the young man, on entering upon puberty, will feel that
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
27
“ Nature commands him to indulge, to a moderate extent,
“ his sexual desires; and, when once he is fully convinced
“ of the natural rectitude of this, he cannot fail to perceive“ the insufficiency and unnatural character of our moral
“ code ” (p. 176).
We need not extend these quotations, which cover the
whole ground of sexual morality as taught by the highest
Malthusian authority, and as accepted and taught by pro
minent Secularist leaders. The book from which they are
taken is to be found in most Secularist libraries, and it isread in six languages.
�28
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter IV.
THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF
MARRIAGE.
Marriage, according to the principles laid down in the
preceding chapter, is an unnatural institution, a hateful
monopoly, a delusion and a snare. The one fact of a large
surplus female population is, with Palaeo-Secularistic Malthusians, sufficient to condemn monogamic marriage. Polygamy
would be a partial remedy for that evil; but in other
countries, and in all new colonies, there is a surplus male
population—sometimes a very large one—whose require
ments are to be provided for, which would introduce the oppo
site institution of Polyandry, said to exist in Thibet, where
one woman is married to several husbands. The only other
resources are prostitution, as it exists in nearly all com
munities, or general promiscuous intercourse, such as is
advocated by the author of “ The Elements.” He is too
scientific, in his way—too logical, and too honestly out
spoken, to leave us in any doubt on a matter of such im
portance. He sees clearly that “Sexual Religion,” as he
preaches it, cannot be practised with the existence of legal
marriage. This is a clear deduction from his “ Law of
Exercise;” but it is enforced, as we shall see in another
chapter, by reasons drawn from what he considers medical
science.
In “The Elements of Social Science” (department of
“ Sexual Religion ”) we read :—
“ Many of the sexual evils most widely spread among
“ us depend directly upon the errors of our code of sexual
“morality. According to this code, all love except
“married love is considered sinful. Marriage, it is held,
“ moreover, should bind people together for life, without
“ leaving them the power of indulging in any other sexual
“ intimacy, or of divorce from each other, unless either
�THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE.
29
“ the husband or wife commits adultery. If this, which
“ is the view of marriage generally entertained in this
“country, were to continue, there are very many fearful
“ sexual evils which could not be removed. In the first
“place, what is, or should be, the grand object of any
“social institution for uniting the sexes? It is, that each
“ individual in society, every man and woman, should have
“ a fair share of the blessings of love and of offspring, and
“ that the children should be duly provided for. But, if
“ marriage be the only honourable way of obtaining sexual
“and parental pleasures, very many must be excluded
“ from them; for, even supposing that there were room
“ for the exercise of all the reproductive powers, as in
“ America, or that, by preventive intercourse, the propor“ tion of children in each family were to be small, so as
“ to allow of a great many marriages, still there would be
“ a large number of women, and even of men, who, from
“ plainness and other unattractive qualities, would find no
“ one who would be willing to be rigidly bound to them
“for life” (p. 356).
“ The irrevocable nature of the marriage contract, and
“ the impossibility of procuring divorce, lead to the most
“fearful evils. Mr. Hill shows this in his work on
“ ‘ Crime,’ telling us that the great majority of murders
“ and brutal assaults now-a-days are committed by
“ husbands upon their wives, and showing that it is in the
* nature of all long and indissoluble contracts to cause
similar evils. All contracts binding two human beings
“ together in an indissoluble manner for long periods are
“the fruitful source of crimes and miseries............. The
“ custom, moreover, of selecting one sole object of love,
“steeling one’s heart, as far as sexual desires are con“ cerned, against all the rest of man or womankind, has a
“ very narrowing effect on our capacity for affection and
“ appreciation of what is good and amiable in the different
“ characters we see around us. Hence, in great measure,
has arisen that fastidiousness in love which is so marked
“ among us, and is the sign of a narrow and effeminate
“ culture ” (p. 358).
The great natural sexual duties of man and woman
“ do not, as is commonly imagined, consist in being a
“constant husband or wife, or in avoiding unmarried
�3°
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ intercourse, but are of a very different nature. It is of
“ the highest importance that the attention of all of us
“ should be steadfastly concentrated upon the real sexual
“ duties, and not dazzled by mere names. Marriage
"■diverts our attention from the real sexual duties, and
“ this is one of its worst effects ” (p. 363).
“ Every individual man or woman is bound to exercise
“duly his sexual organs, so that the integrity of his own
“ health shall not be impaired on the one hand, and so
“ that he shall not, on the other, interfere with the health
“and happiness of his neighbour.
Every individual
“ should make it his conscientious aim that he or she
“ should have a sufficiency of love to satisfy the sexual
“demands of his nature, and that others around him
“should have the same. It is impossible, as has been
“ shown before, that each individual should have this in
“ an old country, unless by the use of preventive means.
“ The use of these means, therefore, comes to be incum" bent upon all those who seek to enjoy the natural
“ pleasures of love themselves without depriving their
“neighbours of them ” (p. 366).
“ It is absolutely impossible to have a free, sincere, and
“dignified sexual morality in our society as long as
“marriage continues to be the only honourable provision
“ for the union of the sexes, and as long as the marriage
“ bond is so indissoluble as at present............ It is only by
“ relaxing the rigour of the marriage bond, and allowing
“greater sexual freedom, that it is possible to eradicate
“prostitution, and with it venereal disease” (p. 368).
“ Now, in reality, facility of divorce does away with
“ marriage ; it thoroughly alters the theory of the institu“ tion, and makes it in reality nothing more than an agree“ ment between two people to live together as man and
“ wife, so long as they love each other. And such is the
“ only true mode of sexual union; it is the one which
“ Nature points out to us; and we may be certain that
“ any institution which defies the natural laws of love, as
“ marriage does, will be found to be the cause of immense
“ evils; ever accumulating as the world rolls on, and man“kind become more free and more enlightened in the
“physical and moral laws of their being............. Let
“those who will marry; but those who do not wish
�THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE.
31
“ to enter upon so indissoluble a contract, either on
“ account of their early age, or from a disapproval of the
“ whole ceremony, should deem it perfectly honourable
“and justifiable to form a temporary connection” (p. 371).
“ As I have already endeavoured to show, the present
“ system of prostitution and indissoluble marriage (which
“ are closely connected together), might be, or ought to
“ be, superseded by preventive intercourse, and by a re
laxation of the marriage code, when the diseases of
“ abstinence and abuse might not only be satisfactorily
“ treated, but effectually prevented ” (p. 504).
“ The noblest sexual conduct, in the present state of
“ society, appears to me to be that of those who, while
“ endeavouring to fulfil the real sexual duties, enumerated
“ in a former essay, live together openly and without dis“ guise, but refuse to enter into an indissoluble contract
“of which they conscientiously disapprove ” (p. 504.)
It is needless to multiply quotations on this point, for the
whole science and logic of the book are utterly irreconcil
able with the institution of marriage ; so that this book, so
highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, M P., in its chapters
on “ Sexual Religion,” is a protest and a conspiracy against
it; and, if the teachings of “ The Elements of Social
Science ” are carried into practice, marriage, as commonly
understood, becomes impossible.
�32
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter V.
PAL^O-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
Let it be understood that I do not impeach the motives of
the author of “The Elements of Social Science.” No
doubt he would abolish marriage and chastity, and what
men have for so many ages called purity and virtue, for what
he believes to be the best interests of humanity.
The author of “ The Elements ” is earnestly, and even
pathetically, philanthropic. In the last paragraph of the
book he says:—
“ It is not for myself that I ask consideration; it is for
“ the unfortunate sufferers to whom this work is devoted,
“and for whose benefit I would readily submit to any
“ amount of obloquy—even from those I wish to serve.
“ Alas ! when I see around me the poor perishing in their
“ squalid homes, the forsaken prostitutes wandering in our
“streets, the sexual victims pining in solitude and bitter“ ness; when I look down into the fearful abyss of our social
“ miseries and wrongs, and think, moreover, of the mutual
“ destruction by which all this suffering is attended, the
“reflection overpowers me—that it matters little what
“ becomes of myself. What am I better than they that
“ I should be happy when so many are miserable ? If I
“ can help my suffering fellow-men, it is the dearest wish
“of my heart—that for which I live—that for which
“I would willingly die; if not, I am indifferent to
“ my own fate. But I have a deep and abiding convic“ tion that these evils are not insuperable ; that the future
“ of our race will be brighter than the past; and that what
“ I have written has not been written in vain ” (p. 592).
In another place he says :—
“Morality, medicine, religion, law, politics are solemn
�PAL7E0-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
33
“ farces played before the eyes of men, whose imposing
“ pomps and dazzling ceremonies serve but to divert the
“ attention from the awful tragedies behind the scenes.
“ We may be absolutely certain of this, that, unless we can
“attain to some other solution of the social difficulties,
“our society must for ever continue, as it ever has been,
“a chaos of confusion, of wrongs, and of misery.”
The ground he takes in regard to our great social evil,
prostitution, proves his humanity, as the whole book does
his sincerity. He regrets its evils, he mourns over its
degradation, he pities its victims, but thinks “ the life of
voluntary celibacy led by these ladies ”—who try to reform
prostitutes—“ quite as sinful a one as that of the prostitutes
they endeavour to convert,” and asks :—
‘In what light, then, is prostitution to be regarded
“ when we take into consideration the great primary
“ necessity of sexual intercourse ? It should be regarded
“as a valuable temporary substitute for a better state of
“ things. It is greatly preferable to no sexual intercourse
“ at all, without which, as has been shown, every man and
“ woman must lead a most unnatural life. Therefore, the
“ deep gratitude of mankind, instead of their scorn, is
“ due, and will be given in future times, to those unfortu“ nate females who have suffered in the cause of our sexual
“nature. We shall find that, if we love and reverence
“these girls (at the same time that we endeavour totally
“ to remove from our society the fearful evil of prostitu“ tion), they will love and reverence us, and on no other
“consideration. If Society enfold them in her bosom,
“ they will soon learn gratefully to repay her love; but,
“if she continue to spurn them, her punishments and
“ sufferings will be no less than theirs. Her unnatural
“ treatment has made them so degraded, and from that
“ degradation only her repentant love and reverence will
“uplift them” (p. 270).
In the present social state, the only resource of a young
man, he says, is one of three necessary evils, of which mer
cenary love is the least. But—
“ Mercenary love, besides the fearful dangers of venereal
�34
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ disease, is exceedingly degrading; and the amount of
“ evil done to men, as well as to women, by this general
“ degradation of their first sexual experiences is little con“ceived. The young woman is in a much worse sexual
“ position than even the young man, for even mercenary
“love is far better than total sexual abstinence” (p. 239).
Here, as elsewhere, our author seems content to make
woman the victim of what he considers the necessities of
man ; but the social system he advocates would make men
and women equal, and there is, from his point of view, both
justice and good feeling in the following observations :—
“ Clandestine love fills the whole of society with deceit
“ and suspicion ; every one suspects his neighbour, and is
“in his turn the object of suspicion ; and even were there
“ no other obstacles to the elevation of the human cha
racter, this alone, as long as it continues to exist, must
“ be fatal to the hopes of the moralist.
“ But, if man be placed in so humiliating a position in
“ sexual matters, unfortunate woman is infinitely more so.
“ In the first place, we have the vast multitude of
'•'■prostitutes, on whose awful degradation one cannot think
“ but with dismay and anguish. That there should be
“among us a class of unfortunate women, who are
“ treated worse than dogs; who are hunted about by the
“ police, despised and abhorred by their own sex, and
“abused and neglected by man, to whose wants they
“minister, is a page of human shame too dark for tears.
“ It is the greatest disgrace of civilised society—a dis“ grace deeper even than negro slavery. And for what
“are these poor girls hunted down in this merciless
“ manner ? In truth, for acting exactly the same way as
“ all of us—as all young men, who go with them, enjoy
“ ourselves with them, and then desert them, and leave
“ them to their fate; for supplying a want in our society,
“ which man, by the necessities of his nature, cannot do
“ without, and which only they, who know little of human
“nature, imagine may be withheld without the most de“ structive consequences. Instead of contempt, these
“poor neglected girls deserve the warmest thanks of
“ society, for the heroic mode in which they have borne
�PAL7E0-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
35
“ the misery and the burden of our shame. Notwith“ standing the enormous evils which they aid in causing,
“ they have been in the main exceedingly serviceable to
“ mankind, by palliating in some degree the other alter“ native evils of the law of population—namely, sexual
“ abstinence or premature death; and thus, as already
“ mentioned, they should be regarded as sexual martyrs.
“ If youth is to be humiliated and disgraced for indul“ ging in sexual intercourse, at least let all of us bear our
“ share, and be ashamed to throw the whole burden on
“ poor helpless woman. While so glaring an injustice
“ exists, how can we talk of the nobility or dignity of
“ man ? In truth, no one member of the human family,
“ no prostitute nor criminal, can be degraded, without
“ dragging down all the rest. In the case of prostitution
“ the whole of society is concerned in it. Men, it may be
“ said, are as a general rule all prostitutes ; for there are
“ but an inconsiderable section of them who do not
“ indulge more or less at some period of life in mercenary
“ loves, and it matters little in such a case whether the
“ money be given or received. The general character of
“ woman also is exceedingly debased, and their dignity
“ and freedom lessened, by the existence of such a class
“among their sex” (p. 409.)
He feels deeply and he complains bitterly of this unnatural
state of things, and says :—
“ As long as the present sexual system lasts there is no
“ such thing as a dignified life for youth. Mercenary
“ love, in itself, is an abomination, utterly abhorrent to
“Nature, and full of degradation to all concerned in
“it........... In fact, in all sexual intercourse, except in
“ marriage, the young man has to act and feel like a pick“ pocket, shunning the light, and being for ever on his
“guard against discovery ; and it can readily be perceived
“ what an effect this must have in degrading his character”
(p. 407).
Condemning prostitution as abominable, utterly abhorrent
to nature, full of degradation, our philosopher can still look
upon prostitutes as heroic martyrs, who “deserve the
�36
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
warmest thanks of society.” But a scientific philanthropist
can look charitably even upon what are called unnatural
vices. He says:—
“All these vices have met with an opprobrium far
*
“ greater than they deserved ; for the public mind loses all
“ sense of justice when it comes to consider a sexual fault,
“and is always far too harsh in its judgments. I should
“ say that, of all acts, none are viewed with such unjust
“ severity as these unnatural vices........... As long as the
“present obstacles continue to the gratification of the
“ normal desires ; as long as all unmarried love is regarded
“ in a harsh and degrading light, so long will prostitution
“ and unnatural vices flourish, and it will be out of human
“ power to suppress them ” (p. 249).
The present obstacles to perfection are the institution of
marriage and the common ideas and feelings opposed to
universal license and promiscuity. The great evil—almost
the only evil in the world—is the repression of what Chris
tian moralists call licentiousness. The greatest good possible
for humanity would be the removal of all such prejudices
and restrictions, so that prostitution, shameful, unnatural,
abhorrent as it is, is to be preferred to civilised morality;
and our author says :—
“ As long, however, as prostitution continues to be, in
“ many cases, the only attainable intercourse, although I
“ deeply deplore its existence, it seems to me a far smaller
“ evil that a man should indulge in it than that he should
“ waste away under the miseries and evils of abstinence
“ or unnatural and diseasing abuses.”
In a word, the “ social evil ” is to be tolerated, and even
cherished, until women generally become so far Malthusianised—or, may I say, Bradlaughised ?—as to make it no longer
a necessary evil.
�PALAEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
37
Chapter VI.
PAL^EO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
It could not be expected that a “ Graduate of Medicine ”
would write a book upon “ The Elements of Social Science
and Sexual Religion ” without treating largely of the diseases
which are caused by civilised morality, and are to be cured
by the opposite system, accepted, adopted, and recommended
by the partisans of the seatless M.P. What are called the
sexual diseases of men and women are, therefore, described
at length; but it is not necessary that we should enter into
these unpleasant professional details. It will be sufficient to
show that, according to this author, all these diseases have
their origin in the one evil of sexual restraint or chastity,
and their one cure is sexual license.
Writing of “Hysteria,” the author of the “Elements”
says :—
“ Chastity or sexual abstinence causes more real disease
‘‘and misery in one year, I believe, in this country than
‘‘sexual excesses in a century. We must not include
‘‘venereal disease among the evils of excess, as it has
“ nothing to do with it; it depends always on infection,
“not on over-use of the sexual organs ” (p. 186).
“Woman’s peculiar torments begin at puberty, and
“ from that time, in innumerable cases, till her marriage,
“ she is the constant prey of anxiety. Ungratified desires
“ distract her, endless temptations and excitements
“surround her, marriage is for her so critical a step, and
“ yet she has not the power of selection. The fatal ques
tion, Shall she be married at all? gradually dawns
“ upon her, and the clouds and whirlwinds of anxious
‘‘and conflicting passions darken her sky............ The only
“ one who can cure a hysterical young woman is a young
‘‘ man whom she loves, and with whom she may gratify
“ her natural feelings, and have a free and happy outlet
�38
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ for the emotions which have been so long disordering
“her” (p. 183).
“ I am convinced,” says this high medical authority, “ that,
if sexual intercourse were used early enough in these diseases
[mentioning some to which young girls are liable], very few
cases would exsist ” (p. 172).
Treating of “ Chlorosis,” a disease of girls, he says :—
“ The crippling idea of chastity and female decorum
“ binds her like an invisible chain, wherever she moves,
“ and prevents her from daring to think, feel, or act, freely
“and impulsively........... If we examine into the origin and
“ meaning of these singular ideas with regard to woman,
“we shall find that they are based upon no natural distinc
tion between the two sexes, but upon the erroneous
“ views of man, and especially upon the mistaken ideas as
“to the virtue of female chastity. It is to guard this
“ supposed virtue that all the restrictions on female liberty
“ and female development in body and mind have arisen.
“........... Society is itself to blame for all such errors as
“unnatural sexual indulgences in either sex. Until we
“ can supply to the violent sexual passions of youth a
“ proper and natural gratification, we may be absolutely
“certain that an unnatural one will be very frequently
“resorted to............ The only true and permanent remedy
“is a proper amount of sexual exercise” (pp. 167-171).
Of course, the same remedy is prescribed in diseases of a
similar character in men, and there is no doubt that this kind
of practice has spread to a considerable extent in the medical
profession, and that—
“It is now comparatively common among our most
“skilful medical men to recommend sexual intercourse to
“young men suffering from genital debility.”
With them there is little difficulty in carrying out such a
prescription; with women it is different. Our author says :—
“ But for suffering woman no one has yet raised his
“ voice, no one has applied to her case the only true and
“scientific remedy; that remedy which is the keystone of
�PALJEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
39
“ female therapeutics, and without which all treatment or
“ prevention of female disease is a vanity and a delusion.
“ The great mass of female sexual diseases, even more than
“ those of men, arise from sexual enfeeblement, consequent
“ on the want of a healthy and sufficient exercise for this
“important part of the system. From the want of this,
“the green sickness, menstrual irregularities, hysterical
“ affections without number, proceed; and it is utter
“ vanity to expect to cure, and still more to prevent, these
“ miserable diseases, without going to the root of the
“ matter. It is a certain and indubitable fact that, unless
“ we can supply to the female organs their proper natural
“ stimulus, and a healthy and natural amount of exercise,
“ female disease will spring up on every side around us,
“ and all other medical appliances will be powerless against
“ the hydra ” (p. 163).
But, in addition to the slavery of one sex to prejudices
and superstitions about chastity, virtue, and morality, there
are still but comparatively few physicians who have the
science and the courage to make the proper prescription :—
“ How few English physicians are there who have the
“ courage, even if they have the knowledge, to prescribe—
“ nay, even to tell the patient of this one and only physio
logical remedy! No; overawed by the general erro“ neous moral views on these subjects, they shrink from
“ their duty of asserting the sacredness of the bodily laws
“ in opposition to all preconceptions ” (p. 81).
In some cases physicians advise marriage; but how seldom
can such advice be taken! What man or woman would
wish to be administered in that way as a remedy for disease ?
Our author sees and admits the difficulty. He says :—
“ Marriage deserts us at our greatest need; and, if it
“ should continue to be the only attainable sexual inter“ course, the cure of vast numbers of genital diseases
“ would be, as at present, impossible, and might be given
“ up in despair. But not only the cure, the prevention of
“ these diseases in any satisfactory degree would be
“ impossible; for, unless all young people were to marry
�40
,
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ about puberty, which would create the most fearful sub“ sequent repentances, an immense amount of genital
“ disease would be certain to arise, were no other honour“ able provision made for the gratification of the first and
“ most impetuous passions. It is very generally about and
“shortly after the age of puberty that masturbation
“ begins to be practised among both sexes; chlorosis is
“ most frequent in girls still in their teens ; in short, it is
“ an absolute impossibility to prevent the development of
“ an immense amount of genital disease and morbidity if
“ marriage be the only sexual provision for youth.”
The sole alternative, as we shall see more fully stated later
on, is to abolish marriage, and adopt universal promiscuous
intercourse.
Treating of “ Dysmenorrhoca,” our author, after prescrib
ing his panacea, says : —
“ To prevent this disease, we must endeavour to eradicate
“ throughout society the causes which lead to it. Of
“these by far the most important is sexual abstinence...
“....... And I believe that by far the most important class
“ of sexual diseases are those which arise from sexual
“abstinence or abuse, and which are characterised by
“ genital enfeeblement, giving rise to general debility and
“ mental irritation, discontent, and despondency. These
“are universally spread throughout our society in the
“present day, and spring naturally from the universal
“ difficulties opposing the healthy exercise of the sexual
“ organs” (p. 238).
Young men suffering from a very common form of nervous
exhaustion are advised to use “ the natural remedy ” very
moderately at first—once a week or so—gradually increasing
with the waxing powers (p. 105).
I regret the necessity of entering into these particulars,
but can see no other way of bringing this very important
subject to the attention of thoughtful men and women. It
is right that fathers and mothers should know what kind of
advice such a “ Graduate of Medicine,” and all who may
agree with him, may give their sons and daughters, and it is
right that society should know what kind of medical doc
�PAL2E0-SECULAR MEDICINE.
41
trines are approved and widely promulgated by those who
sympathise with the author of this book, and those who
have done most to aid its circulation. But for the fact that
this book, from which I have so liberally quoted, solely
because I do not wish to do any injustice to its distinguished
author, or his more distinguished or better known patrons
and supporters, has been and is a recognised text-book of a
great movement, or one branch of a growing organisation, I
might have hesitated to lay such doctrines or such opinions,
claiming to be scientific and medical, before the possible
readers of these pages. But since I have decided that it is
best that the real facts of life should be known—whether of
the slums investigated by Royal Commissions, or the moral
slums of false science and false philosophy, I think it right
to give the author’s defence of what most men, and, one
may hope, nearly all women, will consider horrible doctrines.
It is also but just to the unseated member for Northampton,
who has so long and steadfastly stood by the book and worked
with its author, who was, it will be remembered, the profes
sional endorser and friendly annotator of “ The Fruits of
Philosophy,” published by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant.
The author of the “ Elements ” says :—
“ Every act of every organ is essentially good. This
“ law applies exactly in the same way to all the intellectual
u and moral operations ; every thought and feeling of the
“ mind must, by the necessity of our being, tend to the
“ preservation, and not to the destruction, of the organism,
“ and therefore must be in like manner essentially
“good ” (p. 415).
“ In health and disease,” he says, “ this is alike true
so that it is impossible for a man to think a bad thought or
do a bad act.
All thought and all action is the result of material forces,
which can, of course, have no moral character. He says :—
“ Matter, when in the form of a muscle, can contract;
“ when in the form of living nervous substance, it can
■“ think. Thought is, in some mysterious manner, con“ nected with phosphorus, and must, in some way or other,
“ be an exaltation and refinement of properties naturally
�42
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ inherent in that substance and in the other elements of
“ the brain, but in what way is yet totally unknown. On
“ reflection, we perceive that, as there is a chemical action
“ attending every mental process, just as there is one
“ attending every act of life, every change in the mind
“ must be connected with an exactly corresponding change
“ in these chemical actions ” (p. 440).
Certainly no one would think of attributing free will,
responsibility, and morality, or immorality, to chemical com
binations ; and here is the whole philosophy of Materialism.
There is no longer any question of morality, since morality
cannot exist.
Mr. G. J. Holyoake, a less logical Materialist than the
“Graduate of Medicine,” admits accountability for the
operations of phosphorus, carbon, and oxygen, but limits
it. He says (“ Principles of Secularism ”): “ No man or
woman is accountable to others for any conduct by which
others are not injured or damaged.” As it must be difficult
to determine when or how much others are injured by our
acts, this rule is not easy of application; and it clearly
denies the right of interference with any act whose conse
quences may be supposed to be confined to the individual,
as suicide or murder; since it cannot be certainly proved,
according to palaeo-Secularist principles, that for a man to
hasten his own annihilation can be an evil to society ; while it
may be a decided benefit; and the “ painless extinction ” of
the lives of others might be, under conceivable circumstances,
a mercy to them and a favour to the community. In any
case, it would only interrupt unpleasant chemical action.
The action of phosphorus, according to the author of
“ The Elements,” has hitherto been very unfortunate. He
says :—
“When we look around us among our friends and
“ acquaintances we can scarcely find a single individual
“whose life we could call a happy one. For my part, I
“ do not think that I know in this country a single such
“ case, and I have heard the same opinion from others.
“ All of us are worn by anxiety, and depressed by the
“ atmosphere of misery that overspreads our society........
“ Hitherto all happiness has been built on the misery of
�PAOEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
43
“ others. No man at present can be happy himself without
“inevitably causing his neighbour’s misery” (p. 335).
The remedy for this miserable condition of the chemicals
by whose reactions we think, feel, and suffer we have given
in abundant extracts from the palaeo-Secularist’s text-book and
Materialist’s vade mecum. It consists in unbounded freedom
of “ Sexual Religion,” and the artificial prevention of its
natural consequences—only a very slight interference with
the chemical operations of phosphorus, carbon, etc.; for
he says:—
“ An increase of sexual connections is, indeed, in itself,
“ one of the greatest blessings; but it is only a subject
“ for true and unqualified congratulation when it is not
“ followed by a corresponding increase of offspring ”
(p. 481).
Mrs. Besant, the present shining light of Bradlaughism,
though a devout believer in “The Elements,” whose
doctrines she has written a special pamphlet to promote,
attributes the miseries of human life to that peculiar result
of the operations of phosphorus and other chemicals called
Christianity. In No. 10 of the National Secular Society’s
tracts, “The Fruits of Christianity,” which are “black,
bitter, and poisonous,” she says: “How Christianity has
darkened the innocent brightness of the world is known to
■every student. Roman Catholic Christianity made a miser
able life a holy life, but was content to leave it to the
religious only: Protestant Christianity forced it on all
alike. The Swiss Calvinists set the example of austerity,
and the French Huguenots quickly followed. They forbade
theatres, private theatricals, dancing, gay dresses, conjuring,
puppet shows, etc., making gloom synonymous with piety.
In Scotland the Protestants made the Sunday a misery.”
And she quotes Buckle as saying of them : “ Men, in their
daily actions, and in their very looks, became troubled,
melancholy, and ascetic. Their countenance soured, and
was downcast. Not only their opinions, but their gait, their
demeanour, their voice, their general aspect, were influenced
by that deadly blight which nipped all that was genial and
warm........... Thus it was that the national character of the
�44
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Scotch was, in the seventeenth century, dwarfed and muti
lated.” Astounding effects of chemical reactions, natural
selection, and the survival of the fittest! and only to be
remedied by joining the National Secular Society and the
Malthusian League, sending Mr. Bradlaugh to Parliament,
and making a diligent study of “ The Elements ” and Mrs
Besant’s “ Law of Population.”
�THE PAUEO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
45
Chapter VII.
THE PAL/EO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
Mr. Malthus was a respectable English clergyman, who
thought that there was a danger that the population of a
country might increase faster than its supply of food, and
he proposed that people should prevent the calamity of
having more children than they could take care of by avoid
ing early marriages.
As a matter of fact, the people of several European coun
tries do postpone marriage from prudential motives, and,
in England, while the lower classes in towns marry at twenty,
in the upper ranks the average age at marriage is about thirty.
The calculations and warnings of Malthus made some
excitement in his time, and his ideas were adopted by James
Mill, John Stuart Mill, and other political economists, and
also by Richard Carlile and some Socialist writers. Some of
these were not, however, content with the prudential checks
to population of late marriages, or of married people living
in continence, to limit the number of their children; and
they recommended the use of certain methods for preventing
pregnancy. Some went further and advocated infanticide, or
what was called the “ painless extinction” of every unwelcome
babe at the moment of its birth. There is no doubt that,
more or less in consequence of such teachings, a vast
number of children have been wilfully murdered; as a vast
number are also dying continually of unsanitary conditions
and parental neglect.
The Population Question, as it is called, has been taken
up by the leading Cat-and-Ladleites, and they have generally
advocated “ preventive intercourse ” in preference to late
marriages or married abstinence. Carlile in his “ Every
Woman’s Book,” Robert Dale Owen in his “ Moral Physio
logy, ” Dr. Knowlton in his “ Fruits of Philosophy,” the
�46
SEXUAL ECONOMY
“ Graduate of Medicine ” in his “ Elements of Social
Science,”' and Mrs. Besant in her “ Law of Population,”
have all taken the same ground—the dangers of too great
and rapid an increase of population, and the necessity of
finding some check; and they have adopted some mechani
cal or chemical method of preventing conception.
After Richard Carlile, Watson, a Secularist publisher, sold
“ The Fruits of Philosophy,” which was also sold by the
Holyoakes, and by Charles Watts until his prosecution,
when it was taken up by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant.
But the great authority accepted by nearly all the Secu
larist leaders is the book from which I have made so many
extracts. The “ Graduate of Medicine ” is a thorough
Malthusian ; only he rejects Malthus’s remedy for over-popu
lation. He is not in favour of late marriages—he prefers
that people should not marry at all; but he is in favour of
perpetual and limitless licentiousness, and of preventing its
natural result. Here is the case as he puts it over and over
again, with all his force and eloquence:—
It is absolutely necessary to health and happiness that
every male and female should have frequent sexual inter
course, from the age of puberty as long as the propensity
exists.
It is absolutely necessary that the number of children
born should be limited to the supply of food.
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to prevent the natural
result of sexual indulgence.
Granting the premises, it is impossible to arrive at any
other conclusion.
Let us give the concise statement in his own words :—
“ The Law of Exercise. The health of the reproduc“ tive organs and emotions depends on their having a suffi“ cient amount of normal exercise ; and the want of this
“ tends powerfully to produce misery and disease in both
“ man and woman.
“ The Law of Fecundity. Each woman tends to pro“ duce from ten to fifteen children or thereabouts.
“ The Lazo of Agricultural Industry, or Diminishing
“ Productiveness. The proportional returns to agriculture
“ tend to diminish. In other words, the produce of the
“soil tends to increase in a less proportion than the labour
“ bestowed on it.
�THE PAUEO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
47
“ From these three laws arise—
“ The Law of Population, or Malthusian Law. The
“ natural increase of population has always been, and
“ will always continue to be, most powerfully checked in
“ all old countries, and in new colonies also, as soon as
“ their cultivation has reached a certain extent, by Celibacy
“ (that is, Sexual Abstinence), Prostitution, Sterility, Pre
ventive Intercourse, or Premature Death, whose collec“ tive amount varies inversely in proportion to the rapidity
“ with which the population of the country is increasing,
“ and to the number of emigrants minus that of immi“ grants ; while the amount of each individually varies
“ inversely in proportion to the others.
“ From these laws arise two duties—
“ The Duty of Limited Procreation. In an old country
“ it is the duty of every individual, whatever be his or
“ her station in life, to bring into the world only a very
“ small number of children.
“ The Duty of Sexual Lntercourse. It is the duty of
“ every individual to exercise his or her sexual functions
“ during the period of sexual life, abstinence and excess
“ being alike avoided ” (p. 558).
This is, briefly stated, the doctrine of the book which has
been, and is, accepted by the Palaeo-Secularist leaders, and
we may fairly conclude is approved by the great body of their
followers; for this is the doctrine set forth in the speeches
of Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, with great ability and
eloquence, in our courts of justice and in their lectures to
crowded houses in the principal towns in Great Britain.
After giving an abstract of the essay of Malthus on
“ Population ” in “ The Elements,” the author says
“Thus finishes this wonderful essay, the most im
“portant contribution to human knowledge, it appears
“ to me, that ever was made. On rising from it, with a
“ mind overpowered by the vastness of the subject, and
“ the incomparable way in which it has been treated, I
“ cannot but consider its author to have been the greatest
“ benefactor of mankind, without any exception, that ever
“existed on this earth” (p. 315).
�4«
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Describing the evils of poverty, he can find but one
remedy:—
“ Poverty is a sexual evil, depending on a sexual cause,
“ and admitting only of a sexual cure ” (p. 484).
“ If the proportion of the people to the food can be
“made a smaller one, poverty will be benefited [pre
sented?], but by no other conceivable means. The
“ only possible way to remove poverty is to have fewer
“children” (p. 341).
Admiring Malthus as he does, the author condemns his
advice in regard to marriage ; besides, there is a vast number
of women for whom marriage is impossible :—
“ In some parts of England, and in many counties in
“ Scotland, the proportion of spinsters is as high as forty“ one per cent, of the women, from the age of twenty
“upwards. There are 1,407,225 women between the
“ ages of twenty and forty who have never married, and
“359,969 old maids of the age of forty and upwards.
“ Those who are at all aware of the misery and disease of
“ sexual abstinence will be able to form a slight idea of
“ the suffering arising from this form of the preventive
“check” (p. 343).
“ The great error in Mr. Malthus’s reasoning was that
“ he, like most of the moralists of his and our own age,
“was unaware of the frightful evils and fearful natural sin
“ of sexual abstinence. The ignorance of the necessity of
“ sexual intercourse to the health and virtue of both man
“ and woman is the most fundamental error in medical
“ and moral philosophy ” (p. 345).
Here, as in every instance, the italics are those of the
author.
“ There is a way, and but one possible way, of sur“ mounting these evils and of securing for each individual
“ among us a fair share of food, love, and leisure, without
“ which human society is a chaotic scene of selfishness,
“injustice, and misery” (p. 347).
“ The means I speak of—the only means by which the
�THE PAL7E0-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
49
“ virtue and the progress of mankind are rendered pos'“ sible—is Preventive Sexual Intercourse. By this
“ is meant sexual intercourse where precautions are used
“ to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be
obtained without entailing upon us the want of food and
“ leisure by overcrowding the population........... Women,
“ if they had not the fear of becoming pregnant before
“ their eyes, would indulge their sexual desires just as
“ men do. Hence the vehement prejudices in favour of
“ our present code of sexual morality, and of the institu“ tion of marriage, together with the determined hostility
“ to anything in the shape of unmarried intercourse—at
“ least, on the part of women—are the chief obstacles to
“the consideration of the most important of all subjects—
“ preventive sexual intercourse ” (p. 349).
“ Preventive sexual intercourse, then, is the mode, and
“ the only possible mode, of reconciling the opposing
“difficulties of the population problem, and is the only
“possible solution for the great social evils of this .and
“other old countries. I stake my life—I would stake a
“thousand lives—on the truth of this. There is no
“ subject on which I have thought so long and felt so
“ deeply as the sexual one. It has been ever present to
“ me for many years; and, long before I read the works
“of Mr. Malthus and Mr. Mill, my mind was absorbed
“ in the evils I saw and read of from sexual abstinence
“and other sexual difficulties and diseases ” (p. 352).
“ Therefore, any man or woman, it matters not what
“ be their station in life, whether their destiny be a palace
“or a hovel, who has more thari the small proportion of
“children which the circumstances of an old country
“ allow, as the fair average to each individual, is an irre“ ligious being, and disregards one of the most sacred of
“ all the moral duties, thus inevitably causing disease and
“misery to some of his fellow creatures” (p. 362).
This must end our quotations from a book which we
need not characterise; written, as the reader may be able
to judge from the examples we have given, with great
earnestness and with considerable ability. We have quoted
fairly, but could not properly go into medical and surgical
-details, and we refrain from publishing the methods suggested
�5°
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
for securing the end proposed. They are similar to thosegiven in “ The Fruits of Philosophy ” and in Mrs. Besant’s
“ Law of Population.”
Will it be pretended that these are merely the teachings
of one man, for whom the great body of Secularists are not
responsible? Mrs. Besant thinks otherwise. “What is
morality ?” she asks, in her “ Law of Population.” “ It is
the greatest good of the greatest number. It is immoral to
give life where you cannot support it. It is immoral to bring
children into the world when you cannot: clothe, feed, and
educate them.”
And she goes on to instruct women as to how they can
avoid the greatest evil of life, and justifies herself by
quotations from a long list of Secularist philosophers:
Francis Place, James Watson, Robert Dale Owen, the two
Mills, the two Holyoakes, and several others. But we have
already had abundant evidence that “ The Elements of
Social Science ” embodies the principles of Cat-and-Ladle
Secularism, and we should as soon expect to see the Koran
repudiated by Mohammedans, or the New Testament by
Christians, as “ The Elements ” by any palaeo-Secular orga
nisation.
�PAL7E0-SECULARIST SOCIETY.
51
Chapter VIII.
PAL^EO-SECULARIST SOCIETY.
It is time that we consider what is involved in these Palaeo
Secularist doctrines, and what would be the condition of
human society if they were universally adopted and carried
out in practice. Either boys and girls, as soon as they
arrived at the age of puberty, say from fifteen to seven
teen years, would marry, or would engage in sexual amours
without marriage. If the rule were marriage, it would
necessitate polygamy in old countries where there is a
surplus of women, and polyandry where there is a surplus
of men. Virginity in either sex is denounced as a state of
mortal sin, dangerous to health and life. For the married
some provision must be made for husbands during the
periods of maternal disablement, necessary absence, or the
illness of either wife or husband; and there could be per
mitted only very brief widowhood.
Palaeo-Secularists stipulate for free and easy divorce, and
that means simply a system of concubinage such as now
exists to some extent, and is not considered of sufficient
importance for legal registration. If the physiological
doctrines of “ The Elements ” are true, special arrange
ments should be made for the army, navy, and all sea-going
vessels. Women should be enlisted in all the services as
well as men. Prostitution, as we have seen, though de
grading, is honourable; but, if all women would adopt
these principles, there would be no need of a particular
class, because all women would be virtually prostitutes, and
The now necessary and useful profession would be abolished.
Seduction would be neither actionable nor immoral—in
fact, as soon as all women are converted to palaeo-Secularism
it would cease to exist. As common hospitality and common
humanity would forbid men and women to deny to others
any necessary of life, there could no longer be any jealousy,
�52
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
or miserably selfish suits in the Divorce Court about
adultery. With free divorce the court could be abolished,
and marriage itself, in its legal form, must quickly disappear.
All poems, novels, tragedies, and comedies, based upon past
or present ideas of virtue, chastity, fidelity, and what have
been considered manly and womanly virtues, would be obso
lete, and read only as antique curiosities. We should have
a practical palaeo-Secular world, satisfying its animal propen
sities and using artificial means to prevent having too many
children.
Men and women of England, this is the picture of the
society of the future set before you by the palaeo-Secularist
leaders and the author of “ The Elements of Social
Science.” These are the lessons taught to the young men
and young women in the halls of science, advocated in news
papers and pamphlets, and studied in Secular reading-rooms^
Look at these doctrines :—
Chastity is a crime.
Unbridled sensuality is virtue.
The Law of Nature commands the constant exercise of
the pro-creative function.
The Law of Population forbids that this act should be
allowed to produce its natural result in the production of
offspring.
There have been Atheists who worship Nature; but the
Secular Malthusians hold her in small reverence. They
mend her blunders with their superior wisdom. Nature
has united pleasure with the function which continues the
life of the race. They seek to enjoy the pleasure and
prevent the object for which the function was made. This
is the outcome of development by natural selection. There
must be, however, some old-fashioned people in the world
to whom these results of “science, falsely so-called,” are
what the Bible has characterised them, in three words:—
“ Earthly, Sensual, Devilish.”
�ADDENDUM.
55
ADDENDUM.
We have heard a good deal about the heroism involved
in the publishing of such works as “ The Elements ” and
the Knowlton pamphlet. There is no heroism in the thing
at all; but there is a good deal of cowardice, not without a.
dash of greed and avarice. A section of the public is
prurient, and the publication of “ nasty ” books like “ The
Elements’’and “The Fruits of Philosophy” is profitable.
It is a trait of a coward to insult when he deems he can do
so with impunity. The publishers and abettors of these
feculent works have insulted society, but they dare not
defy it. If a certain lady and gentleman be earnest and
consistent teachers, they surely ought to practise what
they preach re promiscuous coition and artifices to escape
*
maternity.
Dare they state in the press that they do so ?
Dare they mount the platform and illustrate before the audi
ence animal as they might do vegetable physiology, as re
gards fructification and reproduction ? They dare not do
this because of the police. They have the avarice and
truculence to insult society; but they have not the earnest
ness and heroism to defy it. They can put their names to
obscene works ouf of which they can make notoriety and
money, but beyond this they dare not go: decency they
have already set aside, but they are deterred by fear.
* It must be strictly understood that I deal with the two persons,
referred to as public teachers, and as public teachers only. As indi
viduals I have nothing whatever to do with them.
�54
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
While we execrate their indecency, let us be thankful for
their fear. Let us congratulate ourselves that, although by
their pruriency Freethought has been insulted, we owe it to
their cowardice that Freethought has not been outraged.
Talk of the Pagan Saturnalia and Eleusinian Mysteries ; talk
of the early Christian Agapse : what were these to the Brad
laugh and Besant theory carried out to public demonstra
tion “in the interests of the poor”? Split in the party!
Better a thousand splits than a moment’s acquiescence in
such inexpressible subter-beastliness ! Attacking fellowFreethinkers ! Fate forfend that I should acknowledge them
as fellow Freethinkers of mine. The cross is the symbol
of Christianity; and, if the syringe is to be the emblem of
Freethought, I must mourn without ceasing that, in virtue of
my mental and moral organisation, it is impossible for me to
'be a Christian and accept the creed whose symbol is the
•cross and not the syringe.
Do I state a far-fetched and false corollary when I allege
that the propagandists of Knowltonism should resort to
practical demonstration if they were consistent and had the
■courage of their convictions ? I submit that the corollary
is a pertinent, inexpugnable one. Knowltonism involves
practical physiology, practical chemistry, and practical
mechanics, and I contend that those branches of science
cannot be taught effectively without demonstration and ex
periment. In a little theoretical treatise at sixpence I
deny that they can be taught effectively “ in the interests of
the poor.” Why, in the name of courage and consistency,
is the demonstration lacking ?
Do I write on an indelicate subject ? The fault is not
mine. I am a Freethinker, and those describing themselves
by the same specific term have committed themselves to
abominations against which I, in the name of Freethought,
must protest. I must protest, too, that the only organised
•Society of “ Freethinkers ” in England perpetually elects as
President one who has done worse than blasphemed fifty
�ADDENDUM.
55
gods, has outraged the highest and purest instincts of human
nature. Do I write harshly ? It is because the language
of mortals lacks in bitterness that I do not write more
harshly still. The gentleman who could sit down with
another gentleman’s wife to edit in conjunction with her a
work on sexual commerce should be painted in pigments the
due manipulation of which is beyond my skill as a limner.
Is it well to place in the front of English Freethought
a gentleman who, in conjunction with another gentleman’s
wife, edited a work which dealt with making sexual inter
course abortive, and which work a jury of his countrymen
pronounced obscene ? I say it is not well. And, since on
the subject every other voice in the Freethought ranks is
dumb, I lift my voice in the name of the mothers and
daughters of England who, in renouncing Christ, did not
also renounce chastity; who, in disbelieving that their
bodies were temples of the Holy Ghost, did not necessarily
believe that they were mere organisms for the gratification
of carnal desire. In the name of the English wife and
mother I plead and I appeal. Against obscenity in office
and filth in high places in bur party I, a man in the ranks,
lift up my testimony, execrating all that would sully the
purity of woman and the sanctity of home.
I am willing to admit that our existing social arrangements
are not all that can be desired; that the social machine
works with considerable friction. This may be a reason
why the machine should be lubricated; but it is no reason
why it should be broken to pieces. That wives are not
always happy is no reason why all women should be un
married harlots. The besetting sin of mob-Freethought of
the Richard Carlile school is the prejudiced assumption
that everything that is is wrong, simply because it is.
“Down with all that’s up!” is practically the motto and
watchword of the unthinking outcasts and rebels who, for
the last seventy years, have made Freethought stink in the
nostrils of everybody whose adhesion would be valuable.
�56
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Prima facie, because a thing is up it should be up, and
because a thing is down it should be down. The world was
not “created” yesterday; and, by the doctrine of Evolu
tion, about which mob leaders prate so loudly, and which
they understand so imperfectly, it has had considerable time
and opportunity to arrange itself according to evolutionary
law. Evolution must be permitted to work till we rise to
higher and purer social levels. In the home and the family
centre the most dearly-cherished love and the holiest
sentiment of the English race. This cannot and must
not be overthrown by cataclysm. We cannot and must
not substitute for the family only isolated children, whom
sulphate of zinc have spared, and who may know their
mother, but who cannot possibly know their father; while
•their mother’s ignorance on the subject would necessarily be
nearly as profound as their own. The bare idea is a crime,
because it is revolting to the holiest instincts of our nature.
Would man gain as much by the free exercise of sensuality
as he would lose by having no home—for a wife a supply of
harlots, and for sons and daughters promiscuously-begotten
and promiscuously-supported children, the results of sen
suality having failed in its devilish artifices ?
The Freethinkers, so-called, persistently place at their head
a man who, as I have said elsewhere, the gentlemen of the
British House of Commons will not permit to sit on the
same benches with them, even though, by keeping him out,
they break the law and outrage the Constitution. On
technical pretexts he is prevented from taking his seat; but
the true reason for the aversion to him is not heresy and
Radicalism—there are plenty of heretics and Radicals in
the House already—but men turn away, as from a toad or
a serpent, from a person who teaches that marriage is an
•evil and chastity a crime, that promiscuous coition is most
desirable, and that seduction is a virtue. Liberal and Con
servative alike bolt the door in the face of this Caliban who
■would, by his teachings, make every woman a prostitute, every
�ADDENDUM.
57
home a maison-de-joie, and licentiousness and the manufac
ture of syringes the staple industries of England. And this
person, not permitted to sit with the most abandoned rake
and reprobate the House can produce, the English “ Free
thinkers ” elect as their President, and then they wonder that
they do not succeed, that they have to meet in tenth-rate pub
lic-houses, and clank their applause with pewter-pots ; while
not even a solitary thinker of distinction has ever joined
them—not one scientist of reputation, not one poet or man of
letters, not one individual of the slightest social weight. The
Freethinkers proper—the Herbert Spencers, the Huxleys,
the Tyndalls, the Frederic Harrisons, the Matthew Arnolds,
and the Algernon Swinburnes—would never dream of
touching the mess of Secularistic pottage into which the
“ fighting President ” has dropped his syringe, in order that
no respectable person may put a spoon in it. Popular Freethought can never reach the Ai of success while Achan,
the son of Carmi, is in its ranks, treasuring “ the accursed
thing”—the shekels of silver and the goodly Babylonish
*
garment —in the shape of profits from the sales of works
that contend that man should be a sensualist and the world
a numero.
We have, more than once, been assured that “The
Elements ” and kindred works are issued with the best
intentions. Even if we take this apologetic allegation as
genuine, we cannot forget that a certain mythical locality is
paved with good intentions ; and surely this advocacy of
unbridled lust is the largest and most prominent paving
stone in all hell. I am free to admit that the author of
the book is evidently a man with more than average ability,
and there is a certain Machiavelian insidiousness in his
pages which greatly enhances their danger to the morals of
the young and inexperienced, and they make up a very large
component part of the public.
* See Joshua vii., passim.
�SEXUAL ECONOMY.
True, the Divorce Court and the existence of such social
hideousness as was only too distinctly indicated by the
Mary Jeffries exposure may afford a pretext for a desperate
*
measure to counteract a desperate malady; but surely, in
the name of common sanity, to abolish the Divorce Court
by abolishing marriage, and to suppress houses of evil fame
by making all women courtesans, is a measure drastic even
to madness. Monogamic marriage may set up a standard
which is too high to be generally attainable; but all social
standards should be high, and public teachers should ever
be urging on the public conscience to an attempt to reach
the highest moral level. This, with its thousand faults,
Christianity, through its ministers, has not failed to do; and
we must not censure it too harshly because it has not
always succeeded. As long as Christianity insists on sexual
purity and restraint, and debars the transgressor from her
sacraments, she does the world a service which goes some
way to compensate for many crimes and errors of which
she has been guilty. As long as Freethought gives counte
nance and encouragement to sensuality, she perpetrates
against society an error and a crime for which all the good
she has done the world can hardly compensate. As long as
the Christian teaching as to sexual morals obtains and has
Society’s endorsement, the most pronounced evil-liver is
constrained to be remorseful that he has fallen short of the
standard; and that very feeling of remorse acts as a restraint
to still further excesses. But he who adopts the teachings
of “ The Elements ” has no high ideal up to which he
tries to bring the measure of his conduct; with him
there need be no remorse and no regrets; there is no
standard of purity after which to struggle and to strive;
there is only the inexpressible Malebolg£ of unbounded
sensuality and shameless lust: no woman you love that it is
not proper for another to love to-morrow; no maid such as
See the Sentinel for June, 1885.
�ADDENDUM.
59
has heretofore blessed the bridegroom’s arms, but only a
shameless and deflowered harlot who has responded to the
desires of others as she responds to yours; a social con
venience, like a drinking fountain or a chalet; a creature
liable to be called into use anywhere, at any time, and by
anybody, and who constantly carries a syringe in her muff,
in the name of Bradlaugh and “Freethought!”
Saladin.
��
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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sexual economy, as taught by Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. : with addendum by Saladin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Agate, Peter
Ross, William Stewart
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 59 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Appears to have taken from a bound volume. Top edge gilded. Date of publication from KVK. Stamp on verso of t.p.: Bishopsgate Institute Reference Library. Part of another Bishopsgate stamp on p. 59. From the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N041
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sexuality
Birth control
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Sexual economy, as taught by Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. : with addendum by Saladin), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Birth Control
Charles Bradlaugh
Contraception
Joseph Barker
NSS
Sexual Behaviour
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1826f24fe7f5af625994ef558ade7392.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=uvguzi6dFbO9RxHL6AgizoFfqc8bgcr2lRjcurBZbeycr9ECFut5hYy9ihfIu1ttvUFDHQ9qTioTEsQEn-SGKrEzE8pale3syDQAocey%7EB0vnw3QfjuVODmz6mGfJqidDaSUfqk2QqIhWja8EqfEwHKdrqQ98cisGDsWtSm4v4h77GSVFq20jmHXHo3IHy9IY6ATCFZss8E8IJQP1HuijDlUOSUu6zuuu8fktjCkjx4E-IcHOkcUlV2DYGuVxpb%7EQfq7J1RjTimbXiQQADXrMPj0oMfyQSHIElHPQo0gpI%7EPpNni92wR9wXwSZePv0eSkqvRKk6DXjEz-kY7sLpMSw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
361c044b83ccf85a3e8dbef19496e1be
PDF Text
Text
THE
BEAUTY OF HOLINESS,”
AND
THE HARP OF HELL.
BY
SALADIN,
AUTHOR OF “ GOD AND HIS BOOK,” ETC.
London:
W. STEWART & CO., 41 FARRINGDON ST., E.C-
�New Edition, price is., by post is. id.
THE CONFESSIONAL:
ROMISH AND ANGLICAN.
An Exposure.
By SALADIN.
Contents:—Introduction — Licentiousness of the
Pre-Reformation Church—Lechery of the ConfessionalRitualism : “The Priest in Absolution”—The Anglican
Confessional—Ineffectual Efforts to Suppress Reforming
Tendencies in the Anglican Church—Confessions of an
Escaped Nun—Extracts from Dens and Liguori—Ex
amination of the Church’s Claim to have Fostered
Learning : Pier Attempts at Continency even more
Ruinous than her Self-indulgence—The Relative Crimi
nal Statistics of Catholicism and Protestantism—Ap
pendix.
London:
W. Stewart & Co., 41 Farringdon Street, E.C.
�Q(,cThe "Beauty of Holiness.”
“ Bible Extracts and Assertions in Proof of its Origin ”
is the title of a brochure which I have received by post.
Like all works which feel their position before the law
rather shaky, no printer’s or publisher’s address is given ;
and thus, to escape the possibility of prosecution, by
doubtful means this work has leapt into the greater
evil of making successful prosecution certain, should any
one feel it to be his mission to set the law in motion.
The compiler’s name is not given; but the author from
whom the compilation is made is well known; he is
none other than the Christian deity, and, as he is the
author of one literary production only, and every babe in
this country knows the name of his book, and as my forte
is not supererogation, I need not name it here.
When I was a boy I read a work entitled “ Dodd’s
Beauties of Shakespeare,” this anonymous brochure
should be entitled “Somebody’s Beauties of Deity.” I
confess I do not know much of Deity; but, from the
extracts from his writings which are before me, he must
be a very plain-spoken sort of person, who certainly calls
a spade a spade, and that with a vengeance too. Judging
from modern standards of etiquette, he must evidently
have spent a good deal of his life among costermongers
and the rest of it as bully in a maison-de-joie. Should
any of his own well-paid priests resent this as an asper
sion upon the culture and gentlemanly bearing of “ the
Lord,” I have the pleasure to refer them to what “Rabshakeh said unto them,” * and to the pleasing little
anecdote anent Judah and his daughter-in-law.f “The
* 2 Kings xviii. 27.
f Genesis xxxviii., passim.
�THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.
4
Lord,” judging from the extracts from his book, maybe a
decent enough body in his way; but he can hardly be
described as a cultured writer, and he would certainly be
very questionable company at a young lady’s tea-party.
He has not had the advantage of having James Boswell
for a biographer; but he has got along remarkably well
without him ; and I make bold to say that Dr Johnson
and Jehovah-jireth are the most minutely-biographed
persons in the temple of Fame, and Jehovah has the
advantage of Johnson in this—he himself is the recorder
of his own life and achievements. It must be admitted
that these achievements evince a remarkable versatility
of talent. In his autobiography I find that he “ created
the heavens and the earth,” but that all that he did sub
sequently was not on so magnificent a scale. After
creating the heavens and the earth he did not “ live up to
it,” for I read that, condescendingly, he spued and sent
scabs and winked, and chatted with the devil, and was
troubled with his bowels, and took no pleasure in men’s
legs—neither do gentlemen who go to the Alhambra to
see the ballet; they have no pleasure in men's legs,
and in this they resemble “ the Lord.”
I should be inclined to think that talents that range
from world-making to spueing and winking are of an
order to which the Admirable Crichton could not have
held a candle. The compiler of the “Bible Extracts” has
arranged, with loving care, a list of the feats of the
“ Almighty Maker of heaven and earth.” With a pious
hand, I transcribe them here for the refutation and dis
comfiture of such as allege that of Deity nothing can be
known. I transcribe chapter and verse, which proves
to demonstration that a great deal can be known about
him:—
God
God
God
God
God
God
God
God
walks—Gen. iii. 8.
talks—Deut. v. 24.
smells—Gen. viii. 21.
works—Gen. ii. 2.
rests—Gen. ii. 2.
repents—Gen. vi. 6.
flies—2 Sam. xxii. xi.
sits—Psalm xcix. 1.
�THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.
5
God stands on a wall with a plumb-line—Amos vii. 7.
God spues—Rev. iii. 16.
God laughs—Psalm xxxvii. 13.
God runs like a giant—Job xvi. 14.
God roars like a lion—Hosea xi. 10.
God curses—Gen. viii. 21.
God changes his mind—Exodus xxxii. 14.
God sends lice—Exodus viii. 16.
God sends scabs—Deut. xxviii. 27.
God wrestles with Jacob—Gen. xxxii. 24, 26, 30.
God a tailor and clothier—Gen. iii. 21.
God writes on stone—Deut. iv. 13.
God afraid of man—Gen. iii. 22, 23.
God is a husband—Isa. liv. 5.
God shows his back parts—Exodus xxxiii. 23.
God shaves with a razor that is hired—Isa. vii. 20.
God winks—Acts xvii. 30.
God chats with the devil—Job. i. 7, 8.
God hardens men’s hearts—Exodus xiv. 4.
God takes no pleasure in men’s legs—Psalm cxlvii. 10.
God argues—Job xxiii. 4.
God graves on his palms—Isa. xlix. 16.
God delivers men into the devil’s power—Job ii. 6.
God charges his angels with folly—Job iv. 18.
God distrusts his saints—Job xv. 15.
God causes adultery—2 Sam. xii. xi.
God causes suicide—Jer. viii. 3.
God causes cannibalism—Jer. xix. 9.
God causes desecration of the dead—Jer. viii. 1, 2.
God causes indecency—Isa. xx. 4.
God orders the slaughter of men, women, and chil
dren—1 Sam. xv. 3.
God causes lying—1 Sam. xvi. 1, 2.
God punishes the guiltless—1 Sam. xv. 3.
God uses low language—Jer. xxv. 27.
God is said to possess foolishness—1 Cor. i. 25.
God makes Moses a god—Exodus vii. 1.
God sanctions borrowing without repaying—Exodus
xi. 2 ; xii. 36.
God creates evil—Isa. xlv. 7.
God is a merchant—Hosea xii. 7.
God loves to oppress—Hosea xii. 7.
�6
THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.
God is troubled in his bowels—Jer. iv. 19.
God smites his hands together—Ezek. xxi. 17.
God speaks to fishes—Jonah ii. 10.
God breathes—Gen. ii. 7.
God’s breath causes frost—Jobxxxvii. 10.
God asks questions—Gen. iii. 9.
God is a baker—Exodus xvi. 4.
God works with his fingers—Psalm viii. 3.
God swears—Deut. xxxiv. 4.
God bares his arm—Isa. lii. 10.
God is in hell—Psalm cxxxix. 8.
God considers some men as a smoke in his nose—
Isa. lxv. 5.
God gives bad laws—Ezek. xx. 25.
God finds rest refreshing—Exodus xxxi. 17.
God rewards transgressors—Prov. xxvi. 10.
God creates the wicked for the day of evil—Prov.
xvi. 4.
God is a man—Exodus xv. 3.
God rewards fools—Prov. xxvi. 10.
God is a consuming fire—Deut. iv. 24.
God orders men to drink, be drunken, and spue—
Jer. xxv. 27.
God blasts through his nostrils—Exodus xv. 8.
God requests Moses to “let him alone”—Exodus
xxxii. 9, 10.
God came down to earth in form of a bird—Luke
iii. 22.
God is like soap—Mai. iii. 2.
God takes away nose jewels, etc.—Isa. iii. 21.
God hisses—Zechariah x. 8.
God visits the earth to inspect buildings—Gen. xi. 5.
God was born—Colos. i. 15.
God is weary with repenting—Jer. xv. 1.
God spreads dung on men’s faces—Mai. ii. 3.
And His Son
Jesus orders us to hate our parents and all belongings
—Luke xiv. 26.
Jesus ordered swords—Luke xxii. 36.
Jesus tells us to be improvident—Luke xii. 24.
Jesus sent devils into pigs—Mark v. 13.
�THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.
7
Jesus says he came to cause war, not peace—Matt,
x. 34.
Jesus rode upon two animals at once—Matt. xxi. 7.
Jesus supped after resurrection on broiled fish and
honeycomb—Luke xxiv. 42.
Jesus says all who disbelieve him shall be damned—
Mark xvi. 16.
Jesus says all who ever came before him were as thieves
and robbers—John x. 8.
If the work before us had been a chemical, instead of a
literary, production, it might have been put into a phial
and labelled “ Pure Essence of Dunghills.’’ Only a
stern sense of duty could have induced the compiler to
engage in such a labour of disgust. I have gone through
the Greek and Roman classics, Boccacio, and “ The
Merry Muses,’’ as well as the pages of “ Thomas Little,”
and Tobias Smollett; but “the Lord” beats all of them
at writing clean dirt.
The worst of “ the Lord ” is, he has few traits to redeem
liis coarseness. We find in Psalm xxxvii. 13 that he
laughs : but it certainly cannot be at his own jokes. Wit
will redeem much; but pure coarseness is irredeemable.
However, let me say it to his credit (I have always
tried to give the very devil his due), he never seems, to
me, to indulge in a libidinous tale just for the mere
love of the thing. At a moment's notice he will go off
from his dirt into a rigmarole about breeches and candle
sticks and fringes, which shows that he does not deal in
dirt for dirt's dear sake, but that he is such an unsophisti
cated old innocent that he does not know dirt when
he sees it. In this age and country we have come to be
aesthetic and fastidious ; and, as for “the Lord,” “his
ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts,”
and, for this same fact, those who glance at the “ Bible
Extracts’’ will be devoutly thankful.
Again, in the interests of “the Lord,” I willingly admit
that there is no absolutely fixed standard of taste, more
than there is an absolutely fixed standard of morals. The
England that accepted the English Bible of 1611 was
leagues away from the England of to-day. Its English
is that of the Shakspearian era, and, upon the whole,
�THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.
Shakspeare is just about as indecent as “his maker.”
The tastes of England and Heaven were, at that time,
about on a par ; and, with the then standard of taste, the
Bible did not strike any one as indecent. The Black
friar’s theatre, in which Shakespeare himself had a share,
has been described, and, from the description, we can
gauge the state of public taste and morals. There was
no chalet to which the playgoers could retire; but, as
substitute, a big tub stood on the floor, serving an ex
ceedingly useful, if not over-ornamental, purpose. Plain
old Jah, in i Kings xvi. ii, and elsewhere, refers to
a “wall,” and the English playgoers, who used their
tub and cracked their now unspeakable jokes, did not
see anything improper in Jehovah-jireth and his “wall.”
So much for the manners of England about the time
when the country was first made acquainted with the
manners of Heaven.
Gadzooks and marry-come-up, Jehovah could get along
well with Queen Elizabeth ; but he is out of all harmony
with Queen Victoria. Elizabeth could have read these
“ Bible Extracts,” and had a good guffaw over them with
Cecil or Raleigh ; but the sight of the very first page
would drive Victoria into the hands of Sir William Gull.
The truth is, modern intellect has not done so much as
modern sentiment to knock a hole in the drum of
Holy Writ. The flames of hell still roar and sputter
away at Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, and at one or two
Bethels of the vulgarian order; but nowhere that culti
vated nineteenth-century men and women do congregate
is the doctrine of hell now preached. Hell has not been
reasoned out of the Christian creed; it has simply been
rejected because it is revolting to the moral sentiment of
modern times. When you reason Hell away, you will
reason away Heaven also; for, in theology, they are
correlated, and stand or fall together.
Heaven still
stands, not because it is more reasonable than Hell, but
simply because it is not so repugnant to the moral senti
ment of this latter quarter of the nineteenth century.
zEstheticism has not reached a very high level even yet.
It can stand wing-flapping and “holy, holy!” but it
draws the line at chain-clanking and yelling and brim
stone.
�THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.
9
The “ Bible Extracts ” is far from commendable
reading; but the disagreeable task of noticing it, and
what must have been the still more disagreeable task of
compiling it, will be served if it, to some extent, help to
rend away the veil of pseudo-sanctity which hangs around
the book which is the Protestant fetish. It cannot be
urged that it is a small matter that the Bible offends
against the canons of taste; for, had I space, I could show
that this is only another way of saying that it offends
against the canons of morals. True, the standard of
morals differs in different ages ; but the standard of
morals which obtains in any particular epoch is, practic
ally, fixed and immutable for that epoch, and to attempt to
roughly and hastily upset that standard is more than a
venial offence against Mrs Grundy and Mrs Gamp—it is
treason against the best interests of mankind. Such
treason Holy Writ is perpetrating in Europe to-day wher
ever it is read; but the saving clause is, it is not read
by one in a thousand even of those who pretend to
regard it as infallible and associated with the highest
solemnities of their career in life, and their destiny when
life is over. The principal part of the Bible with the
ordinary Protestant John Smith is the fly leaf in front of
it, on which are inscribed the date of his marriage with
Janet, and the dates of the births of all the young Smiths
which were the result of the union of John and Janet.
If the book be big enough and gilt enough, it is also
useful for laying on the window-sill with a small anti
macassar over it, the whole surmounted with a little vase
of flowers. The ordinary chapel-goer is as ignorant of
the Bible as he is of the Koran or the Zend-Avesta.
And it is through this very ignorance of it that it has
been possible for him to rise to an elevation of purity
and delicacy of word and deed which leaves “ the Lord ”
and his crude and plain-spoken book far behind—a land
mark nearly out of sight, away back in the wilderness
through which the human race has marched to the
comparatively green pastures and relatively still waters
that are now theirs to enjoy.
�The Harp of Hell.
Robert Burns wished, in the interest of the deil him
self, as well as in the interest of others concerned, that
he (the deil) might—
“ Aiblins tak’ a thocht and men’.”
The deil has certainly followed the suggestion. He is
not the malefic fiend he once was; and, as I have said, he
is the most interesting character in the Christian drama,
and he has the most “go ” in him. His personal friend,
Burns, wrote an address to him, distinguished by great
candour, and John Lapraik responded on behalf of the
deil; but I should say the deil had not authorised him
to do so, as the “answer” is but poor, and has nothing
devilish in the ring of it.
As I am more of a heretic than “ blithe Lapraik ” was,
and, in consequence, presumably more of a personal
friend of the deil, I will take the liberty of replying to
Burns on the deil’s behalf. My reply is based upon an
anonymous and fugitive performance which fell into my
hands some years ago.
THE DEIL’S ADDRESS TO ROBERT BURNS.
Oh, wae’s me, Rab 1 hae ye gane gyte ?
What is’t that gar’s ye tak’ delight
To jeer at me, and ban, and flyte,
In Scottish rhyme,
And falsely gie me a’ the wyte
O’ ilka crime ?
�THE HARP OF HELL.
“Auld Hangie’s” no a bonnie name,
But just the warst word in your wame,
But I forgie ye a’ the same ;
I’ll let ye see
Quite plain what’s what, when ye come hame,
And live wi’ me.
An’, Rab, fu’ frankly let me tell,
Ilk ane o’ mettle like yoursel’
Had far, far better mop and mell
Wi’ rattlin’ chiels
Sic as ye’ll fin’ down deep in hell
Amang the deils
Than ye had lie in Abram’s lap,
Or hingin’ on by Sara’s pap,
Giein’ yer wings an extra flap,
A heevenly hen,
And leavin’ aff the milky drap
To scraich “ Amen/”
O’ auld nicknames ye hae a fouth,
O’ sharp, sarcastic rhymes a routh,
And as you’re bent to gie them scouth,
’Twere just as weel
For ye to tell the honest truth,
Just like the deil.
Rab, far mair lees are tauld in kirk
By every bletherin’, preachin’ stirk
Wi’ whinin’ theologic quirk
Than deils daur tell
Down in the blackest brumstane mirk
O’ lowest hell.
I dinna mean to note the whole
O’ your unfounded rigmarole ;
I’d rather haud my tongue, and thole
Your clishmaclavers,
Than try to plod through sic a scroll
O’ senseless havers.
O’ warlocks and o’ witches a’,
O’ spunkies, kelpies, great or sma’,
There isna’ ony truth ava’
In what you say ;
For siccan frichts I never saw,
Up to this day.
11
�12
THE HARP OF HELL.
The truth is, Rab, that wicked men,
When caught in crimes that are their ain,
To find a help, are unco’ fain
To share the shame ;
And so they shout, wi’ micht and main,
The deil’s to blame.
Thus I am blamed for Adam’s fa’ ;
You say that I maist ruined a’ ;
I’ll tell you ae thing, that’s no twa,
It’s just a lee ;
I fasht nae wi’ the pair ava’,
But loot them be.
I’d nae mair haun in that transgression,
Ye deem the source o’ a’ oppression,
And wae, and daith, and man’s damnation,
Than you yoursel’;
I filled a decent situation
When Adam fell.
I was a god o’ the first water,
An’ wad tae Heeven’s auldest daughter ;
But, by my sooth, the dad that gat her
Trod on my taes—
I took my sword an’ tae the slaughter,
Amang his faes.
For I could neither thole nor dree
Or god or deil to tramp on me ;
An’, Rab, in this I’m like to thee,
Fu’ croose and bauld,
Wha car’d na no a single flea
For Daddy Auld.
Nae doot I hae o’ sins enoo,
But lees, an’ neither sma’ nor few,
A tail like dragon, foot like coo,
Hae gien to me,
As, Rabbin, mony an evil mou’
Has spak’ o’ thee.
And, Rab, gin ye’ll just read your Bible
Instead o’ blin’ Jock Milton’s fable,
I’ll plank a croon on ony table
Against a groat,
Tae fin’ my name ye’ll no be able
In a’ the plot.
�THE HARP OF HELL.
Your mither, Eve, I kent her b rawly ;
A dainty quean she was, and wally,
But destitute o’ prudence haly,
The witeless hissie ;
Aye bent on fun, and whiles on folly
And mischief busy.
But, by my saul, she was a limmer
At ever kittled heart o’ kimmer ;
Nane were bonnier, some were primmer,
For, gif ye please,
She jinked about, through a’ the simmer,
Without chemise.
The loesome lassie wadna bin’,
Just whaur forbidden she wad rin,
A’ Natur’ sought her smile to win,
An’ deil may care,
Up tae her bonnie waist in sin,
She jumpit fair.
An’, Rantin Rab, I tell ye true
There’s much o’ mither Eve in you ;
So rein ye up, or ye sail rue,
I rede ye weel,
An’ tak’ a word o’ warnin’ noo,
Though frae the deil.
Eve had a leg like Bonnie Jean ;
She was a wily, winsome quean,
Wi’ rosy mou’ an’ pawky een,
Airms warm an’ saft,
She needit only to be seen
To drive ane daft.
Had Jah himsel’ been in that yaird
An’ tae that witchin’ lassie pair’d,
As sure as daith he’d kissed the swaird
E’en Jah himsel’;
E’en he wad no hae better fared
Whaur Adam fell.
An’, Rab, my birkie, gie’s yer haun’,
Now whether ye be deil or man,
If she says Na ye winna stan’
Her wiles ava,
But like a tree by wind up-blawn
Ye feckless fa’.
13
�14
THE HARP OE HELL.
As for that famous serpent story,
Tae lee’ I’d baith be shamed and sorry ;
It’s just a clever allegory,
An’ weel writ doon ;
The wark o’ an Egyptian Tory—
I ken’t the loon.
Your tale o’ Job, the man o’ Uz,
Wi’ reekit claes, and reested guiz,
My hornie hooves and brocket phiz,
Wi’ ither clatter,
Is maistly, after a’ the bizz,
A moonshine matter.
Auld Job, I ken’t the carl richt weel;
An honest, decent, kintra chiel,
Wi’ heid to plan and heart to feel
And haun tae gie—
He wadna wrang’d the verra deil,
A broon bawbee.
The man was gey and weel tae do,
Had horse, and kye, and ousen too,
And sheep, and stots. and stirks enoo,
Tae fill a byre ;
O’ meat and claes, a’ maistly new,
His heart’s desire.
Foreby, he had within his dwallins
Three winsome queans, and five braw callans,
Ye wadna, in the hale braid Lallans,
Hae fund theii' marrow,
Were ye to search frae auld Tantallans
Tae Braes o’ Yarrow.
It happened that three breekless bands
O’ caterans cam frae distant lands,
And took what fell amang their hands,
O’ sheep and duddies,
Just like your reivin’ Hielan’ clans,
Or Border bodies.
I tell thee, Rab, I had nae share
In a’ the tulzie, here or there ;
I lookit on, I do declare,
A mere spectator,
Nor said, nor acted, less or mair
About the matter.
�THE HARP OF HELL.
Job had a minstrel o’ his ain,
A genius rare, and somewhat vain
O’ rhyme and leir ; but then, again,
Just like yersel’,
O’ drink and lasses unco fain,
The ne’er-do-well.
So wi’ intention fully bent,
My doin’ to misrepresent,
That book o’ Job he did invent,
And then his rhymes
Got published in Arabic prent,
Tae suit the times.
You poets, Rab, are a’ the same,
O’ ilka kintra, age and name ;
Nae matter what may be your aim,
Or your intentions,
Maist o’ your characters o’ fame
Are pure inventions.
Your dogs are baith debaters, rare,
Wi’ sense galore and some to spare,
While e’en the verra brigs o’ Ayr
Ye gar them quarrel—
Tak’ Coila ben tae deck your hair
Wi’ Scottish laurel.
Haith ! Michael ne’er laid haun’s on me ;
Your tale, Jock Milton’s, a’ a lee,
Tak’ tent, puir crater though ye be,
Puir Roundhead loon,
Had ye had but had een to see,
I’d crack ye’re croon.
I like Rab’s deevil mair than Jock’s,
A hamely deil for hamely folks ;
He swirls his tail, his bonnet cocks,
An’ aff he goes
To sup among the preachers’ “ flocks,”
His Scottish brose.
Yet, Rabin, lad, for a’ your spite,
And taunts, and jeers, and wrangfu’ wyte,
I find, before you end your flyte,
And win your pirn
Ye’re nae sae cankered in the bite
As in the girn.
]5
�THE HARP OF HELL.
For when ye think he’s doomed to dwell
The lang for ever mair in hell,
Ye come and bid a kind farewell,
And guid be here,
E’en for the verra deil himsel’
Let fa’ a tear.
I own it, Rab I like it weel
To be auld Scotian’s ain auld deil,
An’ 1’11 stan’ by her staunch and leal,
Whate’er may be,
An’ ne’er a son o’ hers sail “ squeal ”
That comes to me.
An’ I hae brimstone for their yeuk,
An’ down in hell I’ll hae your buik,
An’ aqua vita in the neuk
In kegs galore,
An’ never parson, plague, or spook
Shall vex them more.
When e’er I hear the Scottish tongue
I’ll frae the barrel knock the bung,
Sing “ Scots Wha Hae ” wi’ lusty lung,
An’ by the urns
O’ a’ the great wha Scotian’ sung
The deil an’ Burns
Sall stan’ the rough burr thistle by,
An’ haud the drinking quaich on high
Wi’ heather wreathed frae Ayr or Skye,
Frae Clyde or Dee.—
“ Lo, Dogma perish, Priestcraft die ;
Scotian’ !—Tae thee ! ”
�
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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The "Beauty of holiness, and The harp of hell, by Saladin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: The Harp of Hell is a poem by Ross in the style of Robert Burns. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N575
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The "Beauty of holiness, and The harp of hell, by Saladin), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible-Evidences
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/8745998e4126af25afee67ec1a8ac839.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=RDrVGV-bW6p4YhLEXw49rhk3YhMOGEiRJbo07ODfaGGgvkmIaJRt2Sl95CerYGfBzV%7El-VK75GbB0OS8S7FC1yTTgJ-ZaGJsE-krE7vrQg4bM%7EB-8WtLOJjIDmalWOxTuhxeZXyFKo6lsdNy0KrlsEtn1oeoK4yddfIOX1v8wCJUmU8FKcqyzCFXG0f6VVIITjamZ01Fa60AXcSKDzBJidnX3EHDsmTdhAaBJ05bRPVKn6Rsse4xGFRSmjS%7E10BmVkYuqiGG3LeBGjQu449bJxCGY1KHMwm2iGhVQcSFWffz5V1nnXOKHmA3pkO4ggXWu5GwE%7EgVAi56ih5k8ZV-dQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
1e95cc6f9d83b501732ceb1506dab8ad
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL secular society
the'
ICONOCLASTS.
BY
SALADIN.
[reprinted
from
“the secular review.”]
London:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��gXO 76
THE
ICONOCLASTS.
Christianity was the tender foster-mother of Art. At
her benign glance the canvas became vivid with the
creations of genius ; at her touch the marble breathed
and burned into the symmetry of heroes and the linea
ments of gods. Indeed! Let us examine the preten
sions of this rolling magniloquence, and, if it be found
to have no feet to stand on, kick it to Gehenna, its heroes
and gods notwithstanding.
“ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
•or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or
that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under
the earth,”* quoth Jehovah; and it is no use asserting
that more recent Scriptures abrogated this, for Jehovah’s
son (of the same age with Jehovah himself) assured all
concerned that he came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfil it. So much for Christianity with its genius glowing
■on the canvas, and its demi-gods limned in the marble.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image is
pretty explicit as far as sculpture is concerned ; and in his
oracular, “ nor any likeness of anything” Jehovah kicks
the artist from his campstool, upsets the easel, and knocks
Titian headforemost through his canvas. And yet there
are Christian apologists who contend that, like the late
Joseph Gillott, Jehovah and his son are distinguished
patrons of Art.
Now, it only devolves upon me to show that Christians,
with some exceptions, were loyal enough and consistent
enough to attend rigorously to what Jehovah had said
and what his son had not contradicted in regard to the
“graven image” (sculpture), and the “likeness of any
thing ” (painting). Our George Second admitted that he
“hated boetry and baintingand Jehovah First, and
Exodus xx. 4.
�4
THE ICONOCLASTS.
let us hope last, endorsed the exalted standard of taste
attained to by his royal contemporary in England. Chris
tianity was only a bastard child of Judaism, and we learn
from Josephus* that the Jews regarded images, whether
painted or sculptured, with bitter aversion. The insignia
of the eagles on the Roman standards were hated as
much as the weapons in the hands of the Roman soldiery
were feared. Naturally, as far as painting and sculpture
were concerned, it took a few centuries for the dull
Christian brat to learn anything essential that its Jewish
mother had not taught it. The early fathers, such as
Minacius Felix, Origen, and Lactantius, boast that the
Christians had no “ images,” as Christian Boeotianism
was pleased to call the creations of the sculptor and the
painter.
But the progressive tendency inherent in human
nature, in the long run, began to enter its protest against
the ignorance, vulgarity, and bestial aesthetics of genuine
and primitive Christianity, and painting and sculpture
developed in their despite. A net, a fish creel, a kippered
haddock, a few shavings, and a carpenter’s adz might be
the most elegantly artistic objects to the low-bred rabble
who first pinned their faith to the Nazarene, and to his
apostle, Paul of Tarsus; but gratification had to be found
for higher sesthetical aspirations when Christianity became
imperial and began to absorb proselytes, ennobled by
the culture and taste of decaying heathendom. The
temples of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva became, under
State auspices, Christian Churches, and the only halfChristianised Athenian or Roman refused to break the
art treasures of the temples, out of deference to the
porcine tastes of Christianity. This compromise between
heathen culture and Christian bestiality went on till the
eighth century, when it reached a climax. Then the clear
issue arose, Was Art to be endured or suppressed ? The
Christians who were above their Christianity contended
that it should be endured—nay, fostered ; and those who
were only on a level with their Christianity, a fanatical
and ferocious mob, agitated that the pictures should
be torn to pieces and the images broken with hammers,
Bell. Jud. i. 33, 2.
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
5
conformably with the teachings of Scripture. And thus
sprang into being that brutal and shameful rabblement
■of insurgents known in history as the Iconoclasts.
The first serious Iconoclastic outbreak was in 726,
when the master Iconoclast was the Emperor Leo the
Isaurian. He passed an edict ordering the demolition
of statues and the defacing by whitewash of the paintings
upon the walls of churches. In the face of this edict of
this Christian Emperor (and several succeeding emperors
followed in his footsteps), which was popular with and
zealously carried into execution by tens of thousands of
his subjects, the ordinary Christian apologist is either
dishonest enough or ignorant enough to contend that
Christianity has been the inspiration and patron of Art 1
Over the entrance to a church in a part of Constan
tinople, known as Chalcopatria, stood a statue of him of
Nazareth. By the way, a statue or picture of this per
sonage must, of necessity, bear a very striking likeness to
him, seeing that the fact that such a preaching mechanic
existed is so firmly established, and seeing that there was
a photographer of such distinction in Martha Street,
Bethany. Justin Martyr and Tertullian both admit their
Lord to have been ugly, “ without form or comeliness •”
and his saint and servant, Cyril, is complimentary enough
to describe him as of shabby appearance, “even beyond
the ordinary race of men.” But the ugly Saviour of the
early fathers blossomed into a sort of Galilean dandy in
a spurious epistle, pretending to have been written by
Lentulus to the Roman Senate. So it is to an epistle, by
all scholars admitted to be spurious, that “ the Lord” is
indebted for his good looks ; and it is to four other
epistles, or gospels, which have also undoubtedly much
of the spurious about them, that he is indebted for all
that anybody knows about his existence.
Well, this statue of him of Nazareth (had it a basket
of tools slung over its shoulder, a saw under its arm, and
a foot-rule obtruding from its pocket?) stood over a
church door in the part of Constantinople known as
Chalcopatria. Leo sent a party of soldiers to destroy the
statue. Behold the historic tableau! On came the
soldiers through a crowd, principally made up of exas
perated and hissing women. A ladder was placed with
�6
THE ICONOCLASTS.
its upper end touching the base of the statue; and, amid
cheers, mingled with a storm of hisses and execrations,
armed with a heavy axe, he mounts the ladder. The
excitement is so intense that it fixes itself into wide-eyed
and breathless silence. Would this soldier of the irreve
rent Leo really smite with his axe the miraculous image
of the son of God ? This statue had been specially
useful to wives that had desired to be mothers, and to
maidens who had dreaded lest they should become
mothers. They had prayed to this image of a thing
compounded of world-maker and carpenter, and it had
assisted them in many of the delicate circumstances and
junctures peculiar to their sex. Would the Roman
soldier be permitted to strike the miraculous image? No,
by the thunders of God he should not. They waited
with stopped breath and straining eyes to behold him lift
his axe and arm, and to see whether they should not
be shattered and blasted by a bolt from heaven. Their
suspense was soon over. The soldier reached the top of
the ladder, swung his impious axe, and dealt a heavy
blow upon the face of Almighty God. In the fearful
hush of expectancy the sound of the blow reverberated
through Chalcopatria, and the faint echoes died away
upon the waters of the Golden Horn.
But the calm was only the hush before the crash of
thunder. Ere another blow of the axe could be dealt
upon the face of Jesus, the street was shaken with a
tempest of yells, a hurricane of curses. Men and women
rushed frantically to the ladder, tore it away from the wall
against which it rested, and brought the impious soldier and
his axe crashing to the ground. He rises, he staggers—it is
only for a moment; an angry ocean of human beings dash
against him and overwhelm him ; he is trampled to death,
and torn to pieces. His comrades draw their swords and
fall upon the mob. A mere handful; they are lost in the
armed and infuriated multitude. Women, fierce as tigers,
protecting their hands with their shawls, grasp the swords
of the soldiery, snap them into flinders, and fling the
steel fragments in the faces of their foes. Sounds of the
ferocious uproar reach Leo in his palace. He sends a
relay of soldiers to quell the mob. At last it is quelled.
The street is blocked with corpses and streaming with
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
7
blood, and Jesus, with smashed nose and broken jaw,
looks down upon the carnage.
Vigorously as the Iconoclasts had been led on by Leo
against the Iconduli, as the defenders of the images were
called, their depredations were pushed to even more
lamentable excesses by his son and successor, Constan
tine Copronymus.
Some of the finest treasures of
Roman and Greek art* were, under the Iconoclastic axe
and hammer, irrecoverably lost to the civilisation of the
world. Any priest who dared to make use of an image in
his sacerdotal function, or was known to conceal an image
or picture to save it from destruction, was to be degraded
from his office. An aged monk, named Andreas, was
scourged to death for vindicating the position of the
Iconduli against that of the Iconoclasts. Banishment,
imprisonment, scourching, the cutting off of noses, ears,
and hands, and the burning out of eyes, were the punish
ments resorted to against those who had a word to say
for the preservation of the treasures of painting and
sculpture. One bishop, sound in the Iconoclastic faith,
trampled the paten, or golden plate, used for the conse
crated bread, under foot, because there was carved upon
it the head of Jesus Christ.
Constantine, to conciliate the Christian dregs of the
Roman population for political and military ends, had
made the erection of statues punishable by death. So
much for the encouragement of sculpture by the first
Christian Emperor; and, in this respect, the Christian
Emperors, Constantius and Theodosius, followed in his
footsteps. The great Christian Emperor, Charlemagne,
in this pious detestation of images, followed in the wake
of his imperial predecessors. The Roman pontiffs had
got thinly painted with the brush of civilisation, and, at
the second Council of Nicea, in spite of Jehovah and his
aversion to “ graven mages,” it was enacted that statues
be introduced into the churches. But Charlemagne re
presented the Christianity of the age rather than did the
Pope, and against these statues, supported by the Biblical
anathema against “ graven images,” and eagerly
* Many of the Pagan temples had been converted into Christian
Churches, and the marble statues of heathen gods came to be wor
shipped as Christian saints.
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
seconded by the Christian mob, he sat his face like
flint. This omnipotent “ Emperor of the West,” whose
sway extended over France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and
Hungary, was too powerful a rival for the Papal power
itself to successfully cope with, and so he tore up the
painter’s canvas and smashed the sculptor’s marble
without let or hindrance.
A striking representative of popular Christianity was
this potent Emperor, who had been anointed with the
holy oil. He, in common with every honest man, found
in the Bible inexpugnable sanction for slavery, and did
his best to make it a lucrative source of income to the
State. Here, at least, Charlemagne was at one with the
Papacy, for Pope Adrian, for gain, sold his Italian vassals
to the Infidel Saracens. Like a good Biblical Christian,
this most powerful of the Christian Emperors believed
in polygamy, and, when not engaged in the affairs of the
camp or the senate, had the opportunity to forget the
ills of life amid the blandishments of his nine wives
and numerous concubines. Nine wives he considered
not sufficient for a good Christian, and he tried hard to
make his nine into ten by the addition to his household
of the fiendish Empress Irene, who had gouged out
the eyes of her own son, and that in the chamber in
which she had given him birth. So much for him whom
the representative of Christ on earth had adored and
anointed with holy oil. I have only to add that this
champion of “ the living God ” was so illiterate that he
could not sign his name, and the great majority of God’s
own monks and priests were in the same predicament.
And why not ? Ignorance and Illiteracy are the very
bed-rock upon which are based Faith and Piety.
Although Charlemagne stood unflinchingly by Icono
clasm as the wisest course for his own personal interests,
he was desirous, at the same time, not to come to over
strained relationships with the Pope. Consequently,
although he humoured his myrmidons to the top of their
bent by permitting them to rush over shattered sculptures
to the waning beacon-fires of a former civilisation, he
permitted them to attach all the consequence of super
stitious awe to shrine-cures, talismans, and relics. The
Pope, unwilling to come to a rupture with a potentate
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
9
against whom he was likely to find himself overmatched,
shut his eyes to Charlemagne’s iconoclastic devastations,
while there was no hindrance to his driving a flourishing
business in relics. As long as the populace could be
exercised in wild hyperaesthesia, and behold statues with
wounds that could bleed, eyes that could wink, and
arms that could brandish swords, his Holiness of the
Seven Hills had little reason to complain. The statues
of saints, apostles, martyrs, Christ the carpenter, and
Polly Davidson, his mamma, might be smashed at will,
as long as his Holiness could plenish the pontifical
coffers with the profits from the sale of bones and relics,
never-ending junks of the true cross, hundreds of
bottles of Polly Davidson’s inexhaustible milk, hundreds
of yards of napkins which had been used by her baby
to the Holy Pigeon, and hundreds of legs of the ass
upon which her thaumaturgical son Jesus had ridden
into Jerusalem. The touching of saints’ bones would
cure all maladies, from whitlow to rumblegumption in
the great toe, or the pains of ladies parturient with an
anvil and a grindstone. If the saints, like roaches, had
been nearly all bones, and every saint had been as big as
a hippopotamus, they would not have had enough of
bones to meet the demand of those who, at a moderate
price, were willing to buy them. So his Holiness broke
into the catacombs, and sent out bones in waggon loads
to be sold over the length and breadth of Christendom;
and money flowed copiously into the Papal exchequer.
The fleshless bones of nobodies and somebodies—the
strong femor of the Pagan gladiator and the carious
pelvis of the syphilitic sybarite—were sold as the femoral
and pelvic ossifications of the apostles of Jesus. So,
because it suits the designs and projects of Charlemagne,
let the treasures of painting and sculpture go to eternal
smash, the accursed “graven image,” and the “likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the
earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth”!
Catholicism chiselled out the statue with the one hand
and broke it with the other. But Protestantism, ignoring
tradition and basing her principles upon the infallible
Scriptures, and upon them only, was confronted by
Exodus xx. 4, whenever she might attempt to rise from
�1O
THE ICONOCLASTS.
the bathos of ascetic doctrine and iron dogma to the sublimer levels of the painter’s rapture or the sculptor’s ideal.
As soon as she had the power, to the extent of that
power she exerted it to eradicate Art from the earth.
If, in this direction, she had never done a day’s work but
one, she would have laid claim to the grateful recognition
of him who described himself, “ I the Lord thy God am
a jealous God,” and who inspired some one to write
Exodus xx. 4. That day’s work was performed on the
14th of August, 1566, and it laid the interior of Antwerp
Cathedral, the glory of Europe, in ruins.
Antwerp Cathedral! What poetry in stone the words
conjure up unbidden, what lyrics in oak, what epics in
marble ! The heart of even me, the sometimes con
sidered irreverent Freethinker, wanders reverently back
through the mists of the years that are no more to the
ancient city on the Scheldt and to its hoary Cathedral—
“ Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.”
Who claims the triumphs of architecture for Christianity
speaks blasphemy—blasphemy against the hills and the
stars and the sea, and against the highest visions and
loftiest aspirations in the heart and brain of man that
ring responsive to the ocean’s roar or exult in the hush
and silence of the starlight upon the whispering trees.
To these subjective and objective impulses, and not to
the blood-dyed nails and the crown of thorns, are due
the fluted column and the shafted oriel. Who has stood
in the cathedral chancel and beheld the vesper sun light
up with mellow radiance the scrolls and the blazonry and
stream through the glass, burning with tints of gold and
deepening into blood-red in the limning of saints and
martyrs, and not feel the pulse and glow of a religion of
which no Bible or Veda has touched the fringe ? Who,
as that holy sunlight, catching the stained-glass’s tints of
purple and amythest, flings them upon the tombs of the
rulers and the heroes, fears that all the majesty of Life
can be locked up in the sarcophagous of Death ? Who,
as his heel strikes the flagstone in the aisle and wakens
the echoes among the dead below, does not hear in that
echo a resurrection anthem and feel that man is too
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
II
grand for worms and too mighty for dust ? Man cares
little for the peddling edicts of mere Science, when, in
Religion’s chariot of fire, he careers into realms where
Science dare not follow, and, in his emotional might,
leaps over the flaming wall of the Eternities.
Christianity originate architecture like that of York
Minster or Westminster Abbey, never to speak of the
fane of ancient Antwerp ! Men shall, indeed, gather
grapes off thorns and figs off thistles before Christianity
will be aught else than she ever has been, a plagiarist
and thief, a jackdaw strutting in the plumes of Pagandom,
a Hebrew idiot jabbering the myths of India, vulgarising
the hieroglyphs of Egypt, clowning the philosophy of
Greece, and burlesquing the Pantheon of Rome. She
originate the cathedrals in which she performs her
mummeries of worship ! They are often the holy ground
of Art which she is not worthy to tread upon, even when,
like Moses at Horeb, she has cast the shoes from off her
feet. Her touch to such edifices is sacrilege. I love them
and am. religious in them when she is not there mumbling
about her debased deity and her crazy carpenter, her
tawdry heaven and her revolting hell. When she is
there with her conjurer and her dupes, her book, her
wine, and her bread, conjuring away like the witches
round the hell-pot in “ Macbeth,” I feel pityingly dis
gusted, as I would be if I could see Caliban enshrined
in the temple of Minerva. The tree of architecture had
flourished centuries, if not chiliads, before the tree had
been planted out of which was fashioned Christianity’s
manger-cradle : it was growing while the earliest sept of
shepherds kept watch by night on the starlit plains of
Shinar; it will continue to branch and blossom when the
worship of Jesus has died away from the world as has
that of Thoth.
But the Cathedral of Antwerp, the cynosure of cathe
drals, what of it ? “ There was no Church in all Northern
Europe........... -which could equal the Notre Dame of the
commercial capital of Brabant, whether in the imposing
grandeur of its exterior or in the variety and richness of
its internal decorations. The magnificence of its statuary,
the beauty of its paintings, its mouldings in bronze and
carvings in wood, and its vessels of silver and gold,
�12
THE ICONOCLASTS.
made it the pride of the citizens, and the delight and
wonder of strangers from foreign lands. Its spire shot
up to a height of 500 feet; its nave and aisles stretched
out longitudinally the same length. Under its lofty
roof, borne up by columns of gigantic stature, hung
round with escutcheons and banners, slept mailed
warriors in their tombs of marble, while the boom of
organ, the chant of priest, and the whispered prayers of
numberless worshippers kept eddying continually round
their beds of still and deep and never-ending repose.”*
It was in the middle of Autumn, on the fete-day of
the Assumption of the Virgin, 1566, when the Protes
tant zealots, mad with “ the fear of God,” and horrible
with hammers, burst into Antwerp Cathedral. The
statue of the Virgin was dashed to pieces. Ropes were
thrown over the necks of statues that stood high up on
the walls, and the yelling zealots of pious rabbledom
tugged at the ropesand brought down with a crash upon
the flagstones the marble effigies of gods and heroes—
each marble effigy worth a hundred of the carrion brutes
that destroyed it. For, mark me, the child that proceeds
from the head of the man of genius is of more value to
elevate and redeem the world than is the rabble issue
from the loins of John Smith during a thousand years.
The tapers were lifted from the altar and carried round
with axe, hammer, and crowbar to light up the gloom of
that night of devilry. The pictures were torn down from
the walls, the frames broken, and the canvas torn to
shreds. The stained glass of the noble windows was
dashed to splinters. The Protestant bigots filled the
chalices with the sacramental wine, and roared their
drunken ditties in discord with the clank of their
hammers. A deafening hubbub of clash and crash,
and clang and shout, pealed thunderously under the
groined arches during the live-long night; and, before
the morning threw its first ray upon the Scheldt, the
madly-swung candles which had been taken from the
altar revealed, in ghostly hideousness, such a scene of
devastation as, peradventure, the world had never known
before, and which, let us hope, it will never know again.
Wylie’s “ History of Protestantism,” vol. iii., p. 53.
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
j
z
13
The candles, in the hands of the Iconoclasts, drunk with
sacramental wine, through that mighty temple flung
vivid and fitful glares of light, which rendered more
awful the impenetrable gloom that lay beyond the line
of their illumination. How fearful the ever-shifting area
where the illumination fell! There, under the feet of
the Protestant mob, lay the debris that proclaimed to the
world of Art a loss irreparable. There, in mad com
mingling, lay battered martyr and shattered saint, oaken
carving dashed to matchwood, and pictures torn to
ribbons; patens, pyxes, plate, chalices, and mass vest
ments lay mixed with broken crucifixes and splintered
glass; the Cathedral’s seventy altars were levelled wit
the floor, and the Protestants danced upon them the
jig of destruction.
This at Antwerp. I could go on to recount the
same deeds of Vandalism at Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom,
Lier, Tournay, Hague, Delft, Brill, Leyden, Dort, Rotter
dam, Haarlem, and scores of other towns ; but ex pede
Herculem, and the task is one which no poet or artist
could execute without a feeling of anger and shame.
“ Ah, but,” say you, “ Protestantism gave her learning
to the people, and Rome kept it to herself.” And what
learning, pray thee, did Protestantism give to the people ?
The only learning she gave, and which Catholicism
refused, was that which can be culled from “ an open
Bible.” And this is, of course, learning to be proud
of—inexpugnable cosmogony, incontrovertible astronomy,
and geology that cannot be questioned; and abundant
sanctions for stealing, lying, murdering, slavery, poly
gamy, harlotry, and, perhaps, every crime of which human
turpitude has ever been capable. This is the learning
(save the mark) which Protestantism gave and which
Catholicism wisely withheld. An “open Bible” is an
open Pandora’s box. Learning proper neither Church
has ever encouraged ; and, at this hour, Catholicism is
not more hostile than Protestantism to the fearless
researches of science and the unbiassed generalisations
of philosophy. Catholicism and Protestantism—which
of the two weird sisters is at present most amiably
disposed to Charles Darwin’s Evolution or to Herbert
Spencer’s Agnosticism ?
�14
THE ICONOCLASTS.
This “open Bible” would, ere now, have done irrepar
able mischief but that it might almost as well have
never been “ openhardly anybody reads it. The
ordinary Protestant knows as much about its contents
as does the ordinary Catholic. Not one Protestant in a
thousand knows anything about it beyond a few hack
neyed texts. Miss Nancy Smith walks mincingly home
from chapel with it in her muff, in sublime ignorance of
what it contains. If you were to introduce yourself to
her, and narrate to her certain stories to be found in the
“ sacred volume,” she would blush and scream and
call you a vile, bad man, and a liar; and, if her papa,
Mr. John Smith, were to come up, he would swear that
no such filth was to be found in “ God’s Holy Word
that you were a scoundrel attempting to corrupt a young
girl’s morals, and try to drag you into the police court.
So much for the Protestant knowledge of the “open
Bible.” The Bible is nice to go to church with, and, if
big enough and gilt enough, it is pretty to lie on the
window-sill; but nobody really reads it. I am glad Miss
Nancy Smith does not, as I prefer her ignorant innocence
to her guilty knowledge. The people who have really
read the Bible are to be found in the ranks of the
Infidel, and there the careful reading of the Bible sent
them. It is a tedious and nasty pathway to the repudia*tion of the Christian myth ; but a careful reading of the
Bible is that pathway. I should say that, during the
last seven years, the Bible has made a thousand Infidels
where the Secular Review has made one. So much for
Protestantism’s learning for the people in the shape of
“ an open Bible.”
I have said that literature and learning suffered under
the illiterate malice of Protestantism. The verification
of the statement must be present to the mind of every
student of history. Up to the period of the so-called
Reformation, about which Mr. John Smith and his Non
conformist Beetle speak so endearingly, the whole of the
literature and learning of Europe was concentrated in
the monasteries. The 5,000 MSS. to form the nucleus
of the Vatican Library were collected as early as the
time of Pope Nicolas V.; and, soon after, all over Chris
tendom, every monastery had its library and its scrip-
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
i
15
torium where the patient and laborious monks, with
richly-coloured inks, illuminated and copied on vellum
the works that had come down through the storm and
gloom of the bygone centuries of the world. But the
literary treasures of the ages were sold for waste-paper,
because the charms of Anne Boleyn (said, by the way,
to be his own illegitimate daughter) made Henry VIII.
a Protestant. As a Protestant he suppressed the monas
teries and abbeys, edifices of whose grandeur we can
form some estimate from their magnificence, even in
ruin. The splendour of these institutions may be in
ferred from an account of one of the abbeys, Glastonbury,
left us by the commissioners who visited it in 1538. It
was, we are told, “a house meet for the king’s majesty,
and no man else, great, goodly, and so princely as we
have not seen the like. There are four parks adjoining,
the furtherest of them but four miles from the house ; a
great mere, five miles round, and a mile and a half from
the house, well stocked with great pikes, bream, perch,
and roach; four manor-houses belonging to the abbot,
the furthermost only three miles distant.” This magni
ficent “ House of God,” along with hundreds of others,
was dismantled and gutted, its noble architecture plead
ing in vain against the hand of Protestant Vandalism, its
precious vessels and art treasures in vain opposing their
sanctity to the greedy yearnings of Protestant avarice.
What Protestant Christianity had done for Art at Antwerp
and Dort she now enacted at Glastonbury and Col
chester, and in hundreds of other abbeys and monasteries,
whose broken arches and ivy-mantled towers cast a
melancholy glory over many an expanse of English and
Scottish landscape.
And carefully mark Protestantism’s reverence for books
and learning. She sold the libraries, just as she sold the
lead on the roofs, for whatever sum they would bring.
And, since all the learned institutions were being sup
pressed and an educated priesthood beingdisinherited,the
libraries sold for next to nothing. The Protestants were
too full of heavenly wisdom to care anything for secular
MSS. and learning, the former of which, in its ignorant
disdain, it regarded as “ monkish trash.” The library of
Glastonbury was disposed of as waste vellum. Some of
�i6
THE ICONOCLASTS.
the libraries, says Bale,* they sold “ to grocers and soap
sellers, and some they sent over the sea to the book
binders, not in small number, but, at times, whole ships’
full. Yea, the universities of this realm [when they
became Protestant] are not at all clear of this detestable
fact. I know a merchantman that bought the contents
of two noble libraries for forty shillings. This stuff he
has used instead of grey paper for more than ten years,
and he has enough for ten years to come.”
I have now submitted a few out of many historic facts
for the honest consideration of those who, either in dis
honesty or in ignorance, venture to maintain that Chris
tianity has been the friend of Art and Learning, instead
of recognising that they breathe an air in which she
cannot live. Now we have some Art and Learning; but,
in consequence, we have a tame parody of Christianity,
a poor Protean parasite that will abrogate any previous
dogma, and wriggle itself into any shape, to escape evic
tion and enable it to hold on with its bicuspids to the
obolus of Mammon.
* Declaration upon Leland’s Journal, 1549.
Every Thursday.
THE
Price Twopence.
SECULAR
REVIEW:
A JOURNAL OF AGNOSTICISM.
EDITED BY SALADIN.
Order of your Newsagent, or send direct to the Publishers—W.
Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, London, E.C.
RECENT PAMPHLETS.
The Divine Interpretation of Scripture, being a Reply to
Cardinal Manning, by Saladin ...
...
...
o I
The Crusades, by Saladin
...
...
...
O 1
The Covenanters, by Saladin
...
...
...
01
Christian Persecution, by Saladin ...
...
...
o 1
The Flagellants, by Saladin
...
...
...
01
London : W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The iconoclasts
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Reprinted from the Secular Review. "by Saladin" [title page]. Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N590
Subject
The topic of the resource
Religious practice
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The iconoclasts), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Iconoclasm
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/df020c01835eb2918ec05994b96b4c13.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=IBi1ogwm7zZg%7EEn2fl5yDXnSzX1JV87aJAkw7vjTGMajb2tOEphTJHxhaoom7PMcIFr4CPHQChIom0tPm%7EOJK7ulM3vqZeV8i0rpP5hwg-FjweqO0DVzAP4xWd-e6QBKv-ZPprp5Fm5YckcZj44iI3YRTRqhtL6eUTbdwTAYZOVCpCkiKRb4JMBD5pIERwcNMbaovP8jZy6naofsDZO3uDpWxwj4QAluxUs4x7B4pnhFYKiYIi7HLWc6Xx3KGvBmJd4XNF45C3PaOenjMiWzbtqOqxevSg4wdxdwAEYhJvEkDkjgRiexSTuw%7ESca6fSg7cJeG075emcEt1VdhITHgg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a39bfd11e5e9b71f10b6d6f530da37f8
PDF Text
Text
VALASCA:
A New Woman of the Olden Time,
BY
SALADIN,
Author <?/ “ Janet SmithJ etc.
LONDON:
W. STEWART &]CO.,’4i, FARRINGDON ST., E.C.
��g 10 3 i
N5J?
VALASCA:
A NEW WOMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME
It is only comparatively recently that I became per
sonally acquainted with the New Woman. Previously,
what I suppose, what without imputations of senility or
disrespect may be termed the Old Woman, had been the
object of my raptures and the subject of my songs; for,
an erotic bard was I “when my old hat was new,” and
the head it covered was newer and greener than it is to-day.
I am, although I have girded at Janet for years, her de
voted paladin and romantic minstrel. An uncourtly can
dour has, perhaps too frequently, prompted me to drag
heavy iron harrows across the weedy field of her faults and
foibles. But, somehow, let the harrows tear ever so deeply,
rending, rugging and riving till it would seem that hardly
any of her virtues, and only a few rags of her vices are
left her, she knows that I am her own true knight with
the last drop of my black ink or red blood at her service.
I love the Old Woman, and I love the New. I love the
whole sex and never could, and never can, help it. Cer
tain of the sex have shrugged and screamed at what one
of them once denounced as my “red-hot poker style of
fighting ” ; but, hard though my iconoclastic fight has
been, it would have been impossibly hard if delicately
nurtured and highly educated women had not ex
tended to me their moral and material support. My
blessing on the Old Woman, my benison on the New.
“ Their tricks an’ craft hae put me daft,
They’ve ta’en me in an’ a’ that ;
But, clear your decks, an’ ‘ Here’s the Sex’ !
I like the jads for a’ that.
“ For a’ that an’ a’ that,
An’ twice as muckle’s a’ that,
My dearest bluid, to do them guid,
They’re welcome till’t for a’ that ! ”
�4
VALASCA:
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of an introduction to
one who was then at any rate a conspicuous New Woman.
For, had she not publicly announced that, to wrest the
rights and privileges of her sex from the masculine-gen
dered tyrants, the women of England should have
recourse to the bayonet! The utterance, at the time,
came in for an ungallant share of newspaper persiflage and
derision. Of fairly bellicose temperament myself, I
yearned to behold this Semiramis of Cockayne. In the
early and salad days of Saladin, the sex had frequently
been the cause of his heart being deeply pierced with the
arrows of Cupid; and, now, he was possessed of a half
daring, half terrified, desire to behold a Janet who, for the
rights he had withheld from her, was prepared to transfix
his diaphragm with a bayonet.
Through a lady friend, I obtained an introduction to
mine enemy. I had half expected to be introduced to
some wizened, weird and stalwart Hecate with a raucous
voice that dirled the rafters, and with a handshake that
would burst my finger-tips and stain with my detested
masculine blood the blanch of her voluminous and
majestic skirts. I was introduced, instead, to a young and
fair-haired English gentlewoman, in appearance more sug
gestive of being a ministering angel when pain and
anguish should rend the brow of us poor males than a
bellicose hell-cat and flaming fury who was to stretch us
stark on the battle-field with the cold earth drinking our
unavenged gore and our death-glazing eye glaring up to
the unpitying heaven. She indeed, O Virgil, suggested
“ arms and the man ”; but the arms in which Hector
enclasped Andromache, not the arms with which Patroclus
vanquished Hector. I told the sweet, gentle and refined
amazon something to this effect. Who knows, my words
at random thrown may have borne seed in the heart of
this young lady who scorned the needle and aspired
to the bayonet. Who knows but I have saved my sex
from overthrow, or even extermination ? Be that as it
may, since the date of my brief interview with her, the
world has heard little or nothing of, and has ceased to
tremble at, the name of the belle of the bayonet.
It is a far cry from Cockayne to Prague, and from the
�A NEW WOMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME.
5
end of the 19th to the end of the 7th century ; but, over
the gulf of historic reminiscence, I make that cry, and link
this belle of the bayonet with Valasca, a valorous if illstarred predecessor. The story of Valasca is told by no
meaner chronicler than yEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope
Pius the Second, in his history of Bohemia. Valasca
was one of the maids of honour in the court of Queen
Libussa. Libussa, who had succeeded her father, Crocus,
on the throne of Bohemia, ruled for some years with
ability and acceptance; but her strict administration of
justice eventually gave deep umbrage to one of the most
powerful of her nobles who deemed that his importance and
influence should have been sufficient to have indemnified
him against punishment for his malefactions. Burning with
hatred and thirsting for revenge, he raised the standard
of revolt against his queen, urged that a queen was an
absurdity and worse in a nation of hardy and warlike
men, and protested that, during her reign, Libussa had
persistently favoured her own sex and as persistently
suppressed and insulted the entire male population of
Bohemia.
Libussa, quite recognizing the danger which menaced
her throne, put her woman’s wits asteep to discover
how best to cope with the perilous emergency. She
summoned a great assembly of her people, and ad
dressed them in conciliatory fashion and with marked
discretion and diplomacy. In her peroration, she assured
the Bohemians that, if they really desired a king, rather
than a queen, she had no desire to reign over an unwilling
people. “ If you really desire to have a king,” said she,
“ take my milk-white palfrey, caparison him in his most
costly trappings, and lead him out to the plain. There,
throw his bridle-reins over his neck, and let him go
wherever he will—to the north, south, east or west; but,
ye of the nobility, follow him, and note his conduct with
the most scrupulous attention. Follow him till you see
him halt before a man feeding upon a table of iron.
Bring that man, whoever he may be, back with you to my
palace, and he shall be your king and my husband.”
This proposal pleased the Bohemians mightily. They
richly caparisoned the palfrey, as Libussa had directed,
�6
VALASCA:
let him wander at his own sweet will, but observantly
followed him. After the horse had proceeded ten
miles he reached the bank of the river Biell, where,
in a field, a hind named Primislaus was ploughing.
Before this Primislaus he whisked his tail and reared and
capered and winnied, apparently in a transport of equine
delight. The embassy that had followed the horse now
accosted the peasant and instructed him to mount into
the saddle and accompany them back to the Bohemian
Court to be their king and the husband of their queen,
Libussa. “ Delighted,” replied Primislaus, “ and a remark
ably fine king for you, as well as a gallant husband for your
queen; but the distance to the court is considerable, and
I have not yet broken my fast.” And he laid bread and
cheese on his iron ploughshare fora table, and ate heartily.
The Bohemians remembered what Libussa had said anent
a man eating off an iron table, and felt that a mysterious
Providence had directed them to the man who was
destined to sway their sceptre and wed their queen.
Primislaus was brought ^into the presence of Libussa.
There was a merry marriage bell, and all went happily fcr
some years ; then, there was a doleful funeral bell, for
Libussa had died ; and Primislaus alone was left to rule
over Bohemia. Then the difficulties of King Primislaus
began. His wife dead, the women of Bohemia protested
that he no longer ruled justly, equitably and considerately
over those of their sex. Their mouth-piece, their real
evangelist, was the young, gifted and beautiful Valasca who
had been the private secretary and the closest and dearest
friend of Queen Libussa. No common or garden Janet
this Valasca, but as beautiful as an angel and as clever as
the devil. Bohemia would again find itself under the
rule of petticoats, or she would know why—and she was
not particular to a shade or scrupulous to a line when she
had the dazzling design before her of establishing a
gynocrasy on the hills and through the forests of
Bohemia.
In the depth of the primeval forest, and, at the gloomy
noon of night, the leading malcontent women of Bohemia
assembled in solemn secret at the behest of Valasca.
To forestall possible detection and male interference, the
�A NEW WOMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME.
7
fair malcontents came armed to the teeth. There rose
through the gloom the suppressed hum of feminine
voices, for, even in dread and dire conspiracy, Janet
cannot quite constrain her tongue to silence. Gloom, sup
pressed whispers and rustling amongst the undergrowth
of the forest. Then, of a sudden, a flambeau was
lighted. Its alternately red and yellow light flashed and
flared over as romantically grotesque a spectacle as ever
forest depth or cavern recess has witnessed in the working
out of the weird, mad drama of man’s life on earth.
The women of Bohemia were there in their thousands ;
for, apparently, few had desired to take no notice of
Valasca’s summons ; and, possibly, certain who desired to,
dared not disregard it, for Valasca, like the queen under
whom she had served, was known to be a sorceress of the
most esoteric and awful character, prophetically conver
sant with the designs of heaven and the decrees of hell.
A colossal female, with her vizor raised, disclosing
insanely wild eyes and a coarse, voluptuous, but fierce
and cruel mouth that no man born of woman would
desire to kiss, held aloft the gigantic flambeau, mounted
on a tall shaft of pine. In front of this dread amazon
was a great boulder, grey with lichen and green with
moss. With supreme grace and dexterity, a singularly
lithe and symmetrical figure ascended to the summit of
the boulder, right under the glare of the flambeau. The
suppressed female whispering became excited and
threatened, at all peril, to burst into a cheer, for the
figure of almost more than earthly beauty that had
mounted the boulder was that of Valasca.
The splendid young rebel undid her helmet and laid it
on the green moss at her feet. The rippling wealth of her
golden hair streamed down her steel-clad back, while certain
light, vagrant curls fell carelessly over her polished gorget
and flashing breast-plate. Her sword-hilt literally blazed
with gems, amid which was a fateful opal she had had as
a dying gift from Queen Libussa, which was reputed to
carry with it, at the will of the possessor, the most baleful
magic spell, and which was reported to have been gifted
to a remote ancestress of Libussa by the Arch Enemy of
Mankind.
�8
VALASCA :
Valasca was beautiful ; but, her beauty was of the
dignified, statuesque, and severe order, unredeemed by
aught of sweetness and amiability; her eye had the lustre
of cold steel, and her mouth, though exquisitely chiselled,
had in its delicate curves a latent reserve of scorn and
bitterness. She raised her steel-gauntletted hand deprecatingly to silence the comparative clamour her mounting
the boulder had excited. Then, with clear, resonant, but,
at the same time, prudently restrained voice, she
addressed the treason-stained ladies who, with their
swords, were prepared to hack to pieces the throne of
King Primislaus.
“Women of Bohemia, sisters, women born under
the rule of that foremost champion of her sex, Queen
Libussa, our assembling here under present circum
stances, is not unattended with peril; consequently,
I will not detain you long. I should not have brought
you here, but no building in all Bohemia was large
enough to accommodate those I secretly summoned; and,
it was necessary I should, face to face, address you all, so
that no shadow of doubt may be left as to our plans, and
the concerted methods for carrying them out. I fear not,
not even on the part of the basest of you, treachery and
betrayal; for, as you know, I learnt from our late lamented
Queen many secrets of divination and magic ; and, hell
is blessedness to the eternal torture that I can, and shall,
make sure, waits upon her who betrays, or upon her who
falters in carrying out the instructions with which she
shall be charged. That ploughman, Primislaus, shall rule
over us no longer, neither shall any of his accursed sex.
Man is the born enemy of woman, even as the hound is
the born enemy of the hare. By your swords, ladies, you
can rule, and you -will. But the males outnumber us.
“ We must reduce their number before we venture to
meet them on the field of battle, foot to foot, and blade
to blade. I have a powder which Libussa taught me to
produce, and enjoined upon me that, in the proper
emergency, I should use. No man who, at sunset, ever
partook of even the most minute particle of it, was alive at
sunrise. A small quantity of that powder is, while I
speak, being, by girls to whom I have assigned the task,
�A NEW WOMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME.
9
handed to each woman present. Ye women who are
wives, your task is easy; and, eternally damned be she
who does not wake to-morrow morning in the arms of a
dead husband, in the cold, stiff arms of a dead enemy of
your sex. And, ye sisters, who have brothers, and ye
maidens who have lovers, ye mothers who have sons, see
that to-morrow, before the sun has disentangled himself
from the ruddy eastern horizon, ye have brothers, lovers,
and sons no more. Swear it! Swear it! ”
And a dull and deadly murmur of “ We swear it!” “ We
swear it! ” in a low but massive chorus rose from under
oak and beech and pine. In a moment the great flambeau
was extinguished ; and, from the lurid contrast, darkness
unutterable fell upon that conclave of women who
groped their way homeward to sleep in the arms of
dead men.
Janet will not readily consent to murder John, even
to secure the emancipation and ascendancy of her sex.
Valasca quite recognized this fact, but she met and
counteracted it by administering charms and kataphilters
to the women to nullify all aversion they might have to
do to death their fathers, brothers, sons, lovers, and hus
bands. The women, so the record of 2Eneas Sylvius
states, carried out their deadly and diabolical commission,
and flew to arms to meet and vanquish such of the males
as poison had not already laid low.
But, while this gynetic conspiracy was being hatched,
King Primislaus had an ominous dream in which a virgin
stepped forward and offered him a goblet of blood. His
late queen had initiated him into many of the profound
mysteries that everywhere touch faintly and dimly upon
the warp and woof of man’s life and destiny. He recog
nized the dream to be symbolical and prophetic, and
resolved that, to prevent his drinking a cup of blood
handed to him by Janet, it would be absolutely necessary
for him by force of arms and drastic and ungallant means,
to bring the rebel ladies to their knees. This he well knew
to be no easy task, for the women of Bohemia were, at
this period, a race of amazons, from the cradle upward
trained to arms and feats of hardihood. Unlike the
male military, they were not enervated by vice and dissi
�IO
VALASCA :
pation. They were exceptionally graceful, lithe, and
active, full of dash and spirit, accomplished equestriennes,
fearless huntresses, dexterous with the sword, deadly with
the javelin, and implacably hostile to the male section of
the human race.
Warned by the dream of the cup of blood, Primislaus
prepared for immediate action; and, when Valasca
marched her amazons to under the walls of Prague, to
her astonishment and chagrin, she found that her design
had been anticipated and that Primislaus, at the head of
an army of male warriors, was already there to receive
her. With the fire and fury of a torrent of burning lava,
Valasca and her Janets of the sword dashed down upon
the vanguard of the army of Johns. Horse and man
staggered back from the wild impetuosity of the charge.
And, thought Primislaus, this is the first sip from the
virgin’s cup of blood, and I like it not. He retreated to
the fortress of Vissagrada with the victorious blood and
dust-covered Janets hacking and hashing at the rear.
Victorious in the field, Valasca yet found the walls of
Vissagrada impregnable to such siege-machinery as she
could bring to bear against them. She raised the siege ;
and, withdrawing to an almost inaccessible mountain rock,
she built thereon a castle which was called Dievize,
dievize being, in that day, the Bohemian word for a virgin.
The mountain upon which this castle stood is still known
as “The Mountain of Virgins.”
John ruefully recognized that, unless he bestirred him
self now, petticoats would be over him forever and ever.
The army clamoured for Primislaus to lead them on to
Dievize. But Primislaus had had another dream of the
goblet of blood order, and he implored the troops to
restrain their impatience as he had had a distinct pre
monition that if they marched against the Janets at the
present juncture, they would, inevitably, march to red
ruin. Cowardly ploughman, thought the valorous knights
of Bohemia, to Pluto with your dreams and divinations ;
without you, in spite of you, we will march upon Dievize.
And, march they did. With toil and peril, they
clambered up the rocks, to attack the amazons in their
fortress of Dievize. Valasca was ready for them and
�A NEW WOMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME.
II
accorded them a welcome to her castle, which, writhing in
gore, many forgot instantly, and which those who survived
remembered to the end of their lives. Before springaids
and catapults and rams, and the siege ordnance of the
age could be fairly brought into operation upon the Castle
of the Virgins, the virgins after, with deadly effect,
hurling molten lead, boiling pitch, and great masses
of rock upon the besiegers, with Valasca at their
head, made a sudden sortie of a fiery and desperate
character.
Valasca, conspicuous in the impetuous van, was
superbly mounted, her wealth of yellow hair streaming
down her back as far as her jewelled sword-belt, her eyes
blazing with the fire of battle, her sword circling round
her head like the flash of the winter lightning, she
led the charge, her amazons pressing close behind. They
dashed in upon the male warriors before, owing to the
suddenness of the attack and the irregular character of
the ground, they had had time to form to resist the onset.
There was the fierce skirl of the feminine cheer, mingled
with the hoarser roar of masculine curses and execrations,
a wild swaying of swords, plunging of steeds and clashing
of spears. But only for an instant. The besiegers were
driven headlong down the rocks they had so laboriously
scaled ; and, rich carnival was provided for the eagles of
the Bohmer Wald and the vultures of the Moravian Hills.
History has handed us down the names of several of
the valiant who, in the battle storm, pressing close behind
the war-charger of Valasca, won bloody laurels for their
maiden brows. JEneas Sylvius gives the names, which
are now but little heard of, owing to the enormous
muster-roll of the brave which intervenes between their
day and ours. But, may it gratify their manes, I repro
duce their names here, after the lapse of twelve hundred
years, that the New Women of to-day may call their
children after them. The names of the specially valiant
on the day the Castle of the Virgins was stormed, were :
Malada, Nodea, Sveta, Vorasta, Rad^ea, Zastana, and
Tristana. Ye fair and brave who preferred swords to
distaffs and slaying men to wedding them, come forward
and let me pin over the nipples of your high, white
�I2
VALASCA:
bosoms such Victoria Cross, “ for valour,” as it is in the
power of the A. J. to confer.
By their repulse on the rocks of Dievize, the male
warriors of Bohemia became discouraged and demoral
ized ; and Valasca and her martial maidens carried fire
and sword, almost to the gates of Vissagrada itself, the
stronghold of King Primislaus. Years rolled by, and the
ladies of the court and army of the victorious Valasca
sank, one by one, into the grave, till the military strength
of the virgins became perceptibly diminished. And
none took the place of those whom death laid low. For
no children were being born; and the ghastly truth
dawned upon Valasca that, with every death, there being
no corresponding birth, her kingdom was departing from
her. This must be averted. But, How ? Valasca’s in
genuity was well nigh limitless, and her faculty as a
sorceress penetrated the most awful arcana of being
But, how her ladies were to produce children outside the
co-operation of the hated male sex transcended alike the
limit of her inventiveness and the compass of her magic.
No Mars as in the case of Rhea Sylvia,no ghost as in the
case of Mary, was available. Spells and incantations, of an
imaginable rather than a transcribable order, were
resorted to by which the ladies lost their health and bade
adieu to their beauty, but still remained as barren as the
rock upon which their castle was built.
And the male warriors of Primislaus had their revenge.
As death thinned out, birth recruited their martial ranks.
For, denied their own Bohemian Janets, Janets from
Bavaria, and from over the Carpathians, kindly obliged.
And, more rapidly than the sexton clapped down the sod
upon a grave, the midwife spread the blanket tenderly
over a birth. And, maidens of Bavaria and Hungary who
had hung matrimonial fire in their own country rejoiced
exceedingly at the opportunity for their special talents
and energies which had been opened up in Bavaria.
And they set themselves with a will to producing subjects
for King Primislaus.
Under the untoward circumstances, the queen and her
retinue grimly resigned themselves to the inevitable. The
hated male must be re-admitted to the chamber, but
�A NEW WOMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME.
13
never, never to the affections, of the ladies of the court
and army of Valasca. Was ever such a sacrifice of per
sonal feeling made for the public weal since the world
began ? A council was held to settle upon the terms with
which the enemy should be approached. And it was
hereby resolved
That, such of us as are equal to the performance, bear children to
the subjects of King Primislaus.
That the male children which we may bear shall be delivered up
to the government at Vissagrada.
That the female children which we may bear shall be retained by
the government at Dievize, to wit, the Mountain of the Virgins.
That every male child, before being surrendered to the govern
ment at Vissagrada, shall have his right eye extracted, and the thumb
of both the right and left hand amputated ; so that it will not be
possible for any male born in the dominions of Queen Valasca ever
to wield sword or bow against his own mother and the ladies of the
Mountain of the Virgins. As witness our seal and sign-manual to
those presents, greeting.
After some diplomatic humming and hawing the
proffered terms were accepted by the government at
Vissagrada. And, under a flag of truce, a numerous
embassy was despatched to Dievize to ratify them.
Valasca, in a light, gauzy garment of sarcenet, open at the
bosom, reaching to the knee, and resplendent with gems,
mounted the steps of an extemporized throne which had
been erected on the esplanade outside the castle, and with
the cold dignity of the queen in conflict with the yielding
tenderness of the woman, addressed the brilliant congress
of male ambassadors’ “ Nobles, knights and gentlemen,
I, in the name of the ladies of my kingdom bid you
welcome to Dievize and to such hospitality as its halls
afford. For this reception, however, I make free to
advise you that you are not indebted to me and the ladies
who aid and abet me in my councils, but to the edicts of
an inexorable heaven. In this juncture, heaven has con
quered for you, and the rewards of victory are yours.
And------”
Months elapsed and the majority of the ladies were no
longer lithe and athletic. They had abandoned their
wonted indulgence in the fierce excitement of the gym
nasium, the fencing-ring, the joust and the chase. They
�14
VALASCA :
had come to pass much of the day in sedentary employ
ment and in listless reclining upon couches. The warlike
ardour, and the capacity for physical exertion had, at least
temporarily, departed. But it seemed that, from a
propitious turn of fortune, they would not require, for the
future, the martial elasticity and hardihood which had
hitherto distinguished them. A despatch had reached
them from Primislaus to the effect that, in favour of
Valasca, he voluntarily surrendered all claim to the crown
of Bohemia, being possessed of a desire to divest his
brow of royalty’s crown of thorns and return to the
peace and quiet of the plough, which he regretted he had
ever abandoned. “ 1 received the crown from a woman,
to a woman will I render it back,” said the gallant and
magnanimous King Primislaus. Aud, he requested that
Valasca should despatch a battalion or two to Vissagrada
to take formal possession of the fortress and the throne.
A detachment of lady cavaliers from Dievize were
despatched in the terms of Primislaus’ invitation. They
were not the lissome and agile amazons who erst had been
at once the delight and terror of their enemies. Each
draped in a long, loose mantle that left her form indefinite,
sat on her saddle like a sack of salt. The drawbridge
was let down and the portcullis raised, and, amid the
jangling of joybells, the blast of bugles, the thunder of
drums, ringing cheers, and every ostentatious evidence of
welcome, the cavalcade filed into the castle of Vissagrada.
In the evening the ladies from Dievize sat down to a
magnificent banquet which had been spread in their
honour. At the close of the repast, King Primislaus who
had done the ladies the honour to take his seat at the
head of the festive board, with his dagger-hilt, struck the
table three times to indicate that he demanded silence.
Silence secured, a heavy golden goblet in his hand, filled
to the brim with the richest Burgundy, he rose to propose
the toast of the evening, “The health of Valasca, from
this night forward, sole and undisputed Sovereign of
Bohemia.” He had spoken for a few minutes when, ot
a sudden, with a wild, derisive laugh, he hurled the
goblet and its contents to the roof of the banquetting
hall. In a moment, the arras all round the vast apart
�A NEW WOMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME.
15
ment lifted; and, from behind it, rushed hundreds ot
armed men. In an instant, over a wild medley of over
turned tables, broken benches, and scattered vessels and
viands, swords flashed, axes swung, and daggers stabbed
fast and fiercely. A quarter of an hour of wild cries and
thudding blows ; and then, all was silent. Down on the
rush-strewn floor amid the shattered furniture and
trampled food, lay the guests in every distorted and
horrible position into which ferocious massacre had flung
them. Almost all were dead; but a gurgling groan rose
from several which gave evidence that they still breathed
and were being drowned in the blood on the floor, in
which the murderers and their king now stood to the
ankles.
Little remains to be told. The power of Valasca was
broken. Primislaus lost no time in hurling the military
strength of his kingdom against the walls of Dievize.
Riding a spear length in advance of her bravest, Valasca
made a brilliant sortie in the attempt to cut her way
through the ring of steel that cinctured her fortifications
and cut off her supplies. Her whilom dash and spirit
had no whit deserted her. The spirit was willing;
but, the flesh was weak. She had, during the last
month’, had to let out her sword-belt by several
holes; and the blade which had been the terror of
Bohemia lacked its quondam lightning speed and lethal
precision. In the thickest and deadliest of the fight she
fell, covered with wounds, and the flower of her army,
suffering under the same disability that, had affected the
energies of their queen, fell fighting, impotently, but
devotedly, round the corpse of her they had known,
adored, and loved. Primislaus ordered that his fallen
enemy should have no burial, but be left to the beak of the
raven and the fangs of the wolf. The males remorselessly
butchered the enemy whom their own embraces had ren
dered comparatively impotent. On the night of that day
of slaughter, the moonbeams fell, white and peaceful, on
the folds of the royal standard of Primislaus as it
streamed over the battlements of Dievize. And, one of
the strangest, wildest, and least-known tragedies of the
world had closed.
�Saladin’s Recent Volumes.
Uniform style, Price 2s. 6d. each, post free 2s. 9c!.
THE HOLY LANCE.
Saladin’s Latest Volume.
A Series of Monographs in Saladin’s most trenchant and
brilliant style, full of caustic satire, Rabelaisan humour,
pathos, eloquence, and learning.
THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.
A fierce onslaught on the horrible mediaeval hell of the
orthodox Christian, written in the most intensely earnest
and caustic vein, and exposing the wickedness and
fraud of conventional religion.
JANET SMITH.
A Promiscuous Essay on Women.
A bold, daring and clever book in which the author revels
in tilting at conventional sham. Full of pathos and
poetry.
BIRDS OF PRAY.
The contrast between the preaching and the practice of
the clergy of all the churches is vividly shown in this
work, rich in historical information and resistless logic.
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON STREET,
LONDON, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Valasca : a new woman of the olden time
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Valasca is a woman mentioned in the History of Bohemia by Aeneas Silvius. On the death of the mythical Princess Libussa, Valasca seized power and created a state ruled by women. "Saladin's recent volumes" listed on back cover. "by Saladin" [title page]. Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N599
Subject
The topic of the resource
Women
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Valasca : a new woman of the olden time), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
NSS
Valasca (Legendary Character)
Women
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/bcab6b895a4a8eab5f7f64944f998c37.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=OmlWcwrmDxNbxyF7Hpy23dZNRBPibzWpY1Gb25DuRjMUlA8AXDS-mTDUBsgQzbX-EkYnb-Gfs03DzWk9XOV0xFsPiFTYY8SH2yQx-7amwB3P6mU4Dg-9WqW3Hch7MUXflrvzn4eoi2rZOMXzJORfkak2WbOqSxZohMw2tgno-zdpdTEOF7yltt9ykWEO0fnNoV8OosBAZKtgJyp7IZgYqsGBCAVuG-Dhmj2Wr2DaO-S8YRk2sM6RDhd%7E2x0FsmL0zcJCxrI3IidYmVteEuRYColS9xnKVH05ZMvm%7EG9pSSlqYHd0pEcOHKZ9OBRdlDpEOS1oaD1x%7E%7EzEQmHb4wHOog__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
128b957a49e97ef1e33f2b57d45cc97a
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE DIVINE
INTERPRETATION OF
SCRIPTURE:
A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
BY
SALADIN.
Being a Paper read at the Cassadaga Conference, Neu< York,
by S. P. Putnam, Secretary, American Liberal League.
[reprinted
from
“the secular review.”]
London:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��NS£3
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF
SCRIPTURE.
Where the currents of human thought and destiny are now
drifting to the wisest of us cannot determine with any degree
of precision. We search in vain for a precedent in the form
and pressure of the present age over all the past annals of
the world. It may be that history repeats itself; but wre
have now reached a juncture of social, political, moral, and
intellectual forces which we look for in vain back through
the dim corridors of time; and how history is to repeat itself
speculation is overwhelmed in the attempt to decide, and
vaticination is dumb.
Never in that tract of the world nominally Christian did
aggressive and defiant “ Infidelity ” close and grapple with
the legions of the Cross as she does to-day; and never
since the Reformation era did the Scarlet Woman flaunt her
skirts so proudly in the great cities of both the Eastern and
Western Hemisphere. Protestantism has no geographical
area that she did not win by the zealous fanaticism of her
first rush. The Protestant countries of the sixteenth cen
tury are the Protestant countries of to-day, and no new ones
have been added thereto. Nay, and the old ones are rent
and riven; and the seed sown by Luther and Spalatin, by
Huss and Calvin, by Wycliffe and Sawtre, by Knox and
Melville, has grown up almost choked with Romish weeds
�4
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE :
and Rational tares. The mentation and the aspiration of
the fifteenth century were not identical with those that
actuate the nineteenth. The floods of human folly have
worn other channels, the currents of human tendency have
torn their way through other rocks and over other shoals.
The old battle-fields are deserted, and only through the
mists of departed time can we descry them, with their rank
grasses, broken and shapeless weapons, half-obliterated
trenches, and dull mounds marking more or less dishonoured
graves. The battalions have reeled and surged into other
fields, and there, with other weapons and other battle-cries,
the often-changing but never-ending tide of human conflict
ebbs and flows. Guns are yet planted on the roof, and there
is a rattle and blaze of musketry from the windows, of the
old half-way house between Rome and Rationalism; but
the shot and shell fall wide of the mark. Formerly, the old
house was in the centre of operations ; now it is on the
extreme left flank, and miles away the real conflict rages.
The half-way house is tottering to its fall. The emergency
to meet which it was built has passed away. Its giants are
dead, its heroes are no more ; its prestige is over, and
Ichabod is inscribed over its gateway. A shabby despotism,
three centuries ago, it modified a terrible despotism, and
thereby justified its existence; but now, Why cumbereth it
the ground ? Hardly taking it into account in military
strategy, up on the side of the windy hill the banners wave
and the troops are ranking, the forces of Rationalism and
Rome, and with them and no other rests the balance
between victory and defeat in the Armageddon of these
latter ages.
Everywhere now Ecclesiasticism howls against “the spread
of Infidelity,” and everywhere Romanism is active, frcm
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
5
New York to Birmingham. In the latter town, the other
day, a church dedicated to St. Anne was opened by his
Eminence, Cardinal Manning, with all the august ceremonial
of pontifical High Mass. In his subtle and able dedicatory
address, his Eminence is reported to have said : “ They
believed all that God had revealed, unwritten and written,
the old Divine traditions of the Church from the beginning
—every jot and every tittle. But why did they believe this?
The ‘ Word ’ in the text did not mean the Book, and they
who would draw their Christianity out of the written Scrip
ture had proved for centuries the inefficiency of that rule of
faith by the multitudinous contradictions and ever-increasing
diversity of the interpretation that had been put upon that
Word. Without Divine certainty they could not have Divine
faith, and, therefore, the wisest human critic could give him
no definite certainty of the meaning of the Holy Scripture;
the most learned scientific historian could not fix for him the
meaning of the Word of God. No one, however pious
or good; no minister of religion or priest of the Church,
apart from the Divine authority of the Church itself, could
venture to interpret that written word by his own light or
his own discernment.”
I am a soldier in the ranks of those who would face un
told fatigue and peril to flesh their blades in the heart of
Rome; but I heartily endorse the utterance of his Eminence
in regard to the “wisest human critic” being unable to
express any “ definite certainty of the meaning of the Holy
Scripture.” So far, I, a Rationalist, am in exact accord with
a Romish Cardinal. But when the learned Cardinal pro
ceeds to say that, although the esoterics of Holy Writ are
too deep for human learning, too mystical for human wisdom,
they can be infallibly interpreted by “ the Divine authority
�6
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE :
of the Church itself,” I join issue with him, and oppose him
foot to foot and hilt to hilt. I positively and emphatically
deny that the Church has, in the past, shown that it could
interpret Scripture more successfully than the mere “human
critic” could. Nay, my Lord Cardinal, I will refer you to
only one example—e.g., of how your Church interpreted a
certain Scripture passage; but the example I will give is
such a striking, picturesque, and conclusive one as should
be able to explode forever your Church’s monstrous preten
sions to divinely-inspired hermeneutics. It is unfortunate,
your Eminence, for you and yours that our more modern
times have laid the intellectual wealth of the world’s yester
day at the feet of men who have neither post nor pension
from your Church. It is unfortunate for you and yours that
there are men of my type, who will read and study for many
years in obscurity, anxious only to find out what is true, and
never once asking what is profitable; studying for no pro
fession, hoping for no preferment; poor, but aspiring to no
gain, no crozier, no cardinal’s hat; but freely giving learning
and time and life to the most thankless of all causes—to a
cause that for independence gives you poverty, for celebrity
gives you infamy. What a pity you have not still your Index
Expurgatorius to prevent such as I from misusing the best
years of their life in toiling over volumes the perusal of
which can only be inimical to your hierarchy! How lament
able that you cannot now arrest pens like mine by giving
those who wield them a twinge of the thumbscrew, or make
the blazing fagots at the stake reduce the hand of the writer
to ashes ! Like its God, your Church is the same yesterday,
to day, and forever. Among the calcined bones of the
mighty you would honour me by mingling those of thi
humble Scottish heretic and rebel, but that Protestantism
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
7
held you at bay till the party that I in some imperfect way
represent grew strong; and now an enemy infinitely more
terrible than Protestantism confronts you.
Your Church, my Lord Cardinal, has alone the true in
terpretation of Holy Scripture, has it? We shall see. You
should have ceased to make such assertions when it became
possible for men like me to unearth and decipher the works
of such writers as Glaber, Abbo of Fleury, Gennadius, and
Corodi. You will, no doubt, my Lord Cardinal, have heard
of the Millenarian insanity of the tenth century, although
you would undoubtedly rather that such as I had never
heard of it. How excellently the “ Divine authority of the
Church ” interpreted Revelation xx. 2-3 ! The binding of
Satan for a thousand years your Church alleged began at
the birth of Christ; so, of course, at the expiry of a thousand
years from that date, Satan was to be let loose, and unutter
able calamity, if not absolute annihilation, be visited upon
the world. In the tenth century your Church was in full
swing, with its Divine interpretations and all the rest of its
monstrous jugglery; and not even one solitary bark of a
heretic dog resounded through the caverns of your ecclesias
tical Avernus. You had, or your annalists belie you, a
perfect plethora of dirt and piety and plague and pestilenceLike rotten sheep, your ignorant and filthy dupes died off
in tens of thousands ; while the half-naked, vermin-eaten,
and nasty—but ignorant and holy—survivors crowded into
your abbeys and churches and implored God to have mercy
upon them; but he would not. You showed them relics,
and they wanted a bath ; you treated them to the Mass, and
they wanted soap ; you incited them to godliness, and they
wanted cleanliness. So much attention was given to dying
and to seeking the kingdom of God that the wheat and com
�8
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE :
and barley remained unsown, or were allowed to be destroyed
by blight and mildew; and the survivors of the plague, for
wild roots, had to burrow in the ground like pigs, eat rats
and other vermin, and regale themselves upon diseased
human flesh from the corpses of their plague-stricken dead.
In this state of affairs what did your Divine and Scripture
interpreting Church do ? What wine and oil and bread and
consolation did it give to the scared and famished remnant
plague and pestilence had left ? Your holy Bernhardt of
Thuringia turned to the twentieth chapter of Revelation and
preached the immediate end of the world. As the clock
struck midnight on December 31st, 1000, the Devil would
break his chains, and, with blood and fire and misery, make
a prelude to the Day of Judgment. The clergy of your
Church took up the cry of Bernhardt. It was howled from
every abbey; it was thundered from every cathedral; and
frantic monks, with cope and stole and cord, appealed in
town and village and hamlet to a still more frantic populace.
Portent and miracle, wraith and apparition, dark shadows
on earth and blood-red signs in heaven, bore evidence to the
near advent of the Day of Doom. Europe was all but
ruined, but what mattered that ?—your “ divine Church ” was
enriched. Kings and nobles rushed to the sanctuary to
endow it with lands and wealth which they had won by
carnage and fire. With the sword they had gained place
and power by doing the work of the Devil, and now they
devoted all to the service of God, since they should have
to part with everything, anyhow, by the time the clock
struck twelve, ringing in the awful millennium and usher
ing in the end of the world. Kings and nobles, whose
pastime was slaughter, as regarded men, and lust as regarded
women, in spite of the dominance of the Church, grew
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
suddenly penitent, and flung away the sword for the missal
and abandoned the couch of the voluptuary for the monk’sshirt of hair. William of the Long Sword, Duke of Nor
mandy, was fain to abandon his ducal rank and take shelter
in the monkish cell. Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, was anxious
to throw up all to find shelter in the monastery against the
terrors of the Day of Doom; and Hugh, Count of Arles,
was like-minded. The Emperor, Henry II., crownless and
unkinged, presented himself at the abbey gate of St. Vanne,
howling piously from the psalms : “ This shall be my rest
forever; here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.”’
Numbers of nobles left lands and castles and all to the
Church and hastened to the Holy Land, bare-footed, ragged,
and penniless, in the cunningly Church-inspired hope that
those who, at the crack of doom, were found in the sainted
clime in which the Redeemer had died would have certain
immunities from the horrors and terrors about to be wrecked
upon the rest of the human race. Others stubbornly and
desperately remained in their doomed castles and on their
estates, left to barrenness and weeds, and did not impiously
attempt to propitiate the vengeance of God. But the altars
were loaded with, and the church floors strewn with, legal
instruments, venerable parchment, and dusty vellum, repre
senting gifts to the Church of some of the noblest estates in
Europe, and thousands upon thousands of serfs and vassals.
The Church took them all, just as if the Day of Judgment had
not been so close at hand. The monks, Cardinal Manning,
were themselves the conveyancers, and the deeds of convey
ance began with the stereotyped words : “ Seeing that the
end of the world is now approaching, and that every day accu
mulates fresh miseries, I, Baron--------- , for the good of my
soul, give to the monastery of--------- ,” etc. The last day of
�IO
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE:
the world was the harvest-day of the Church, and the twen
tieth chapter of Revelation was, for the time being, worth
more than all the remainder of the Book of God. And
gloriously your Church interpreted it, my Lord Cardinal, in
the interests of your order. The nobles you had under
your thumb by this divine gift the Church has for putting
the correct meaning upon Scripture texts; and, as for the
common people, they forgot all the instincts of human
nature in their abject terror. They wallowed in ignorance,
filth, and vermin. An eclipse of the sun became visible to
the Emperor Otho’s army on their march. They at once
recognised in it one of the apocalyptic “ signs in the sun.”
They were paralysed with fear. They dropped their
weapons, broke their ranks, and such of the screaming and
disorganised rabble as terror did not render motionless fled
to the mountains, literally calling to the rocks to hide them
and the hills to fall upon them.
On dragged the awful weeks—coming nearer and still
nearer to the instant when heaven and earth should pass
away. At length, at the end of the most terrible December
the world has ever seen, came the last week of the year
1000 a.d. Then there were such agonising suspense, such
paralysing fear, and such abandoned phrenzy as never
before or since have cursed such masses of the race of
man. Your Church, my Lord Cardinal, had indeed vindi
cated its claim to be “ the divine interpreter of Scripture.”
You took up the twentieth chapter of Revelation, and, by
your interpretation thereof, exalted the hierarchy and well
nigh ruined the world. During this terrible week the work
of the world was utterly suspended. For the ring of the
anvil there was the yell of the maniac; for the whirr of the
shuttle there was the shriek of the madman. Drearily rose
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
11
the sun, and drearily set in the last few wintry days before
his light was to be extinguished forever. Men held their
very breath in terror. Blanched white were the dark-brown
locks that so lately shaded the smooth and open brow of
youth. In the halls of luxury, where the arras was of the
richest, where the patines were of gold, and where the air
was heavy with odours, now lay the dead and dying com
mingled, no sexton to bury, and no thief to steal the
vessels of gold, and where the air had been heavy with
odours were now the filth of the living and the putrescence
of the dead. Beauty was beautiful no longer, heroism was
extinct, and valour was no more. The deer and the boar
roamed in the greenwood unscathed. No household fires
were lighted to shed a warmth through the wintry air. The
wine cask wTas unbroached and meals were no longer pre
pared. Men, women, and children, of all ranks and classes,
lay huddled together, clutching each other convulsively in
imminent expectation of the crashing of chains that would
herald the release of Satan and of the trumpet blast that
should signal the end of the world. Love was banished,
hate was forgotten, and terror was master of all. The
thread upon the distiff remained unwound, and the sword
lay rustling on the floor. Revelation xx. 3-4 had con
quered. Your divine-interpreting Church, Cardinal Man
ning, had driven Europe frantic that her riches might be
purloined as she lay in delirium.
All vocations were dead, save that of the priest. With
husky voice, haggard mien, and supernatural wildness of
gesticulation, the monk harangued in the market-place, and
around him surged all that Terror and Death had spared.
Nearer, nearer, and nearer came the end of the year, till
only a few hours intervened between mankind and the Day
�I2
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE :
of Judgment. Then the remnant of human beings crushed
into the churches till they were filled to suffocation. Thou
sands clamoured in vain for admission at the gate of convent,
cathedral, and abbey. Resolved that it would be better for
their souls should they perish among the ruins of the house
of God, they who could not obtain admission scrambled up
to the roof, and mingled their chants and wails with the roll
of the organ which ascended from within. Midnight on the
31st of December was the utmost limit given for the release
of Satan ; but it was held that the release might take place
an hour or two before night’s solemn noon. The great
candles of the cathedral shone under groined arch and by
fluted column over the pale and upturned faces of a con
vulsed and motley multitude. There were no clocks; but,,
at regular intervals, on the great candles metal balls were
fixed by inflammable strings, and as, hour after hour, the
flame reached each string in succession, the ball fell into a
basin-shaped gong below, with a clang that, in the breath
less suspense which waited upon the burning of each string,
resounded to the loftiest turret, and reverberated among the
graves under the flag-stones in the aisle. One by one, an
eternity of suspense between them, fell the balls into the
gong, and yet the end of the world did not come, and the
winter morning dawned of the 1st of January, in the year
1001. The Holy Catholic Church had indeed interpreted
the Scripture—interpreted it to replenish her own coffers
and augment her own power. The world slowly slunk back
into its old work-a-day ways, but without taking pains to
resent its having been duped and hoaxed by the unscru
pulous cunning of Rome. Shame, my Lord Cardinal 1
Remember, you are not addressing the illiterate vassalageof the Dark Ages. Your words reach those who can criti-
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
13
rise them without favour and reject them without fear.
When you would speak of your Church being the only
divine interpreter of Scripture, remember the twentieth
chapter of Revelation and the year 1000 a.d., and be forever
dumb.
Nay, my Lord Cardinal; the pretensions of your Church
are going the way of all the earth. You yet manage to
hobble along on two crutches—the mental apathy and
moral credulity of mankind. But the earth swings round,
and the gnome casts another shadow upon the dial of Time.
A race arises that cares neither for your book nor your
infallible interpretation thereof. Address, if you will, the
present-day spawn of the bats and owls of medievalism ;
but the beams of the true sun of righteousness have now
broken through the gloom of your censor smoke and your
windows, dim with the effigies of saints. The perdition
which has overtaken Zeus and Isis is overtaking you.
Untold opulence, the romance of history, the wealth of
erudition, and the subtlety of intellect are yet on your side;
and I admit that even I, the “ Infidel,” immeasurably more
pronounced than ten thousand “ Infidels ” you have tortured
and burnt, have some feeling of sympathy with you as, girt
with the cestus of the mighty memories of two thousand
years of the irrevocable Past, you stand confronting your
inevitable doom from the fiat of the merciless Future.
Hater as I am of tyrants and tyranny, the tears have coursed
down my face as I have figured my fathers at Culloden
amid ruin and rout, riven tartan and shivered claymore,
perishing in the whirlwind that swept away the “divine
right of kings.” Like sympathy I extend to you and your
Church, Cardinal Manning, standing between the sunset of
the world’s yesterday and the dawn of the world’s to-morrow,
�14
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.
defending the divine right of priests. But, like a spectre of
the Brocken, your towers and citadels melt away into the
viewless air. You have made a darkly-interesting chapter
in anthropology; but the race rises to the level of new
developments and new seons, and, ere a long time pass,
your censor will smoke no more, your Jesus will have taken
his place with the obsolete gods, and the candles upon your
altar shall burn no more forever. The same sun in the
heavens that has looked down upon the waning altar-fires
of the faiths of the world’s hoary yesterday shall yet look
down upon your altars, cold, deserted, and desolate. The
altar of the future will be the concave of the sky overarching
in glory the everlasting hills. The -worship of the future,
irrespective of teleological dogma, will be the reaching
forward to stronger brain, purer morals, and a happier world.
To further the advent, my Lord Cardinal, of that nobler
altar and grander worship, the Freethinkers of America are
met to-day on the Cassadaga heights, and they permit me
thus to shake hands with them over the “ misty and mourn
ful Atlantic,” and add my feeble spark to the splendour of
the coming day in a land where Romanism never had the
mastery—on a continent of which your Jesus never heard.
�Post Free Three-Halfpence.
JE rice One Fenny.
FROM THE VALLEY
OF
THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
By SALADIN.
IN
BRUNO
MEMORIAL
STEWART
ROSS,
Died igth November, 1882, aged two years and five weeks.
London : W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C
Recently Published.
Post free Twopence-halfpenny.
WITCHCRAFT
IN CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES.
By SALADIN.
Being an Address delivered at the Inauguration of the Secular
Society at Stockport, November 19th, 1882—the Marquis of
Queensberry in the Chair.
London : W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
Price 2s. post free.
Elegantly printed in colours.
SONGS BY THE WAYSIDE
OP AN AGNOSTICS LIFE.
By Himself.
“It is not an irreverent Agnosticism that is uttered in these pages,
although, without doubt, it is terribly heterodox ; but the author evidently
feels and think, which is more than can be said of some of our versifiers.’
—Scotsman, July 21st, 1883.
London: W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�Every Thursday.
Price Twopence.
THE SECULAR REVIEW:
.
», A JOURNAL OF AGNOSTICISM.
‘EDITED
BY SALADIN,
The Secular Review is the recognised organ of cultured
Freethought in England, and its contributors comprise some
of the leading scholars and foremost thinkers of the country.
...
Subscription
...
2s. Zp^d. per Quarter.
Publishing Office : 84, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
In Limp Cloth.
Price 2s. Post Free
POEMS:
GENERAL, SECULARISTIC, AND
SATIRICAL.
By LARA.
Dedicated to Saladin.
“ Contains specimens of the most biting satire penned since
the days of Pope.”
London: W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C. ’
Recently Published.
Price is. 6d. Post Free.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE
,
HYL0-IDEALIST1C PHILOSOPHY
demonstrating the true basis of
AGNOSTICISM.
By WILLIAM BELL McTAGGART.
London: W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The divine interpretation of scripture : a reply to Cardinal Manning
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 14, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: "Being a paper read at the Cassadaga Conference, New York, by S.P. Putnam, Secretary, American Liberal League." Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered page at the end and back page. "By Saladin" [title page], the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[188?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N583
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The divine interpretation of scripture : a reply to Cardinal Manning), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible-Criticism
Henry Edward Manning
Interpretation
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2a5c20e4b76146a2f9580b9a341c924e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=mAhPtK7GBUObXs0rq%7E-h%7Eb9LvCQVoXjRkll3RAEZJNdEMFGxrvQAbvml8WEguEwuwqvP4X6GW1P8rrrtA9pqbTi-nINNv3tk8748nqteot1s0f-Ho5mStbiYSHCLsnETsXQGJXZesQU2ordx6xRAu64KBuIur-vIAYaTH%7EhFKkAI7%7EFSDqTXOhABFgFXLA0dNCiyD4JCUr%7EK%7EHtvRRsPc4j%7Eew90DxGJaWmDD7vaoj7RoVxZ7gVgLkufaUKzRrev1S-ZGnBXwqMuvBxieAMDCeo8zWMGM-0u57dkzA-P2Ym9eDJqhZWzqh1Vc4UWTVwUYmTi%7E0dRy6cnqZI-L8TVtg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d74a0c8484344feb5986ea5e68dd6eb4
PDF Text
Text
THE DIVINE
INTERPRETATION OF
I
SCRIPTURE:
A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
BY
Being a Paper read at the Cassadaga Conference, New York,
by S. P. Putnam, Secretary, American Liberal League.
SECOND EDITION.
London :
W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�4
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE :
and Rational tares. The mentation and the aspiration of
the fifteenth century were not identical with those that
actuate the nineteenth. The floods of human folly have
worn other channels, the currents of human tendency have
torn their way through other rocks and over other shoals.
The old battle-fields are deserted, and only through the
mists of departed time can we descry them, with their
rank grasses, broken and shapeless weapons, half-obliterated
trenches, and dull mounds marking more or less dishonoured
graves. The battalions have reeled and surged into other
fields, and there, with other weapons and other battle-cries,,
the often-changing but never-ending tide of human conflict
ebbs and flows. Guns are yet planted on the roof, and
there is a rattle and blaze of musketry from the windows
of the old half-way house between Rome and Rationalism
but the shot and shell fall wide of the mark. Formerly, the
old house was in the centre of operations ; now it is on the
extreme left flank, and miles away the real conflict rages.
The half-way house is tottering to its fall. The emergency
to meet which it was built has passed away. Its giants are
dead, its heroes are no more; its prestige is over, and
Ichabod is inscribed over its gateway. A shabby despotism,
three centuries ago, it modified a terrible despotism, and
thereby justified its existence ; but now, Why cumbereth it
the ground? Hardly taking it into account in military
strategy, up on the side of the windy hill the banners wave
and the troops are ranking, the forces of Rationalism and
Rome, and with them and no other rests the balance
between victory and defeat in the Armageddon of these
latter ages.
Everywhere now Ecclesiasticism howls against “the spread
of Infidelity,” and everywhere Romanism is active, from
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
5
New York to Birmingham. In the latter town, the other
day, a church dedicated to St. Anne was opened by his
Eminence, Cardinal Manning, with all the august ceremonial
of pontifical High Mass. In his subtle and able dedicatory
address, his Eminence is reported to have said: “ They
believed all that God had revealed, unwritten and written,
the old Divine traditions of the Church from the beginning
—every jot and every tittle. But why did they believe this ?
The ‘Word’ in the text did not mean the Book, and they
who would draw their Christianity out of the written Scrip
ture had proved for centuries the inefficiency of that rule of
faith by the multitudinous contradictions and ever-increasing
■diversity of the interpretation that had been put upon that
Word. Without Divine certainty they could not have Divine
faith, and, therefore, the wisest human critic could give him
no definite certainty of the meaning of the Holy Scripture;
the most learned scientific historian could not fix for him
the meaning of the Word of God. No one, however pious
■or good ; no minister of religion or priest of the Church,
apart from the Divine authority of the Church itself, could
venture to interpret that written word by his own light or
his own discernment.”
I am a soldier in the ranks of those who would face un
told fatigue and peril to flesh their blades in the heart of
Rome ; but I heartily endorse the utterance of his Eminence
in regard to the “wisest human critic” being unable to
express any “definite certainty of the meaning of the Holy
Scripture.” So far, I, a Rationalist, am in exact accord with
.a Romish Cardinal. But when the learned Cardinal pro
ceeds to say that, although the esoterics of Holy Writ are
.too deep for human learning, too mystical for human wisdom,
they can be infallibly interpreted by “ the Divine authority
�6
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE :
of the Church itself,” I join issue with him, and oppose himfoot to foot and hilt to hilt. I positively and emphatically
deny that the Church has, in the past, shown that it could'
interpret Scripture more successfully than the mere “ human
critic ” could. Nay, my Lord Cardinal, I will refer you toonly one example—e.g., of how your Church interpreted a
certain Scripture passage ; but the example I will give is
such a striking, picturesque, and conclusive one as should
be able to explode forever your Church’s monstrous preten
sions to divinely-inspired hermeneutics. It is unfortunate,
your Eminence, for you and yours that our more modern
times have laid the intellectual wealth of the world’s yester
day at the feet of men who have neither post nor pension
from your Church. It is unfortunate for you and yours that
there are men of my type, who will read and study for many
years in obscurity, anxious only to find out what is true, and.
never once asking what is profitable; studying for no pro
fession, hoping for no preferment; poor, but aspiring to no
gain, no crozier, no cardinal’s hat ; but freely giving learning
and time and life to the most thankless of all causes—to a
cause that for independence gives you poverty, for celebrity
gives you infamy. What a pity you have not still your Index
Expurgatorius to prevent such as I from misusing the best
years of their life in toiling over volumes the perusal of
which can only be inimical to your hierarchy ! How lament
able that you cannot now arrest pens like mine by giving
those who wield them a twinge of the thumbscrew, or make
the blazing fagots at the stake reduce the hand of the writer
to ashes I Like its God, your Church is the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever. Among the calcined bones of the
mighty you would honour me by mingling those of this
humble Scottish heretic and rebel, but that Protestantism
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
7
held you at bay till the party that I in some imperfect way
represent grew strong ; and now an enemy infinitely more
terrible than Protestantism confronts you.
Your Church, my Lord Cardinal, has alone the true in
terpretation of Holy Scripture, has it ? We shall see. You
should have ceased to make such assertions when it became
possible for men like me to unearth and decipher the works
of such writers as Glaber, Abbo of Fleury, Gennadius, and
Corodi. You will, no doubt, my Lord Cardinal, have heard
of the Millenarian insanity of the tenth century, although
you would undoubtedly rather that such as I had never
heard of it. How excellently the “ Divine authority of the
Church ” interpreted Revelation xx. 2-3 ! The binding of
Satan for a thousand years your Church alleged began at
the birth of Christ ; so, of course, at the expiry of a thousand
years from that date, Satan was to be let loose, and unutter
able calamity, if not absolute annihilation, be visited upon
the world. In the tenth century your Church was in full
swing, with its Divine interpretations and all the rest of its
monstrous jugglery ; and not even one solitary bark of a
heretic dog resounded through the caverns of your ecclesias
tical Avernus. You had, or your annalists belie you, a
perfect plethora of dirt and piety and plague and pestilence.
Like rotten sheep, your ignorant and filthy dupes died off
in tens of thousands ; while the half-naked, vermin-eaten,
and nasty—but ignorant and holy—survivors crowded into
your abbeys and churches and implored God to have mercy
upon them ; but he would not. You showed them relics,
and they wanted a bath; you treated them to the Mass, and
they wanted soap ; you incited them to godliness, and they
wanted cleanliness. So much attention was given to dying
and to seeking the kingdom of God that the wheat and corn
�8
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE :
and barley remained unsown, or were allowed to be destroyed
by blight and mildew; and the survivors of the plague, for
wild roots, had to burrow in the ground like pigs, eat rats
and other vermin, and regale themselves upon diseased
human flesh from the corpses of their plague-stricken dead.
In this state of affairs what did your Divine and Scripture
interpreting Church do ? What wine and oil and bread and
consolation did it give to the scared and famished remnant
plague and pestilence had left ? Your holy Bernhardt of
Thuringia turned to the twentieth chapter of Revelation and
preached the immediate end of the world. As the clock
struck midnight on December 31st, 1000, the Devil would
break his chains, and, with blood and fire and misery, make
a prelude to the Day of Judgment. The clergy of your
Church took up the cry of Bernhardt. It was howled from
every abbey : it was thundered from every cathedral; and
frantic monks, with cope and stole and cord, appealed in
town and village and hamlet to a still more frantic populace.
Portent and miracle, wraith and apparition, dark shadows
on earth and blood-red signs in heaven, bore evidence to
the near advent of the Day of Doom. Europe was all but
ruined ; but what mattered that ?—your “divine Church” was
enriched.
Kings and nobles rushed to the sanctuary to
endow it with lands and wealth which they had won by
carnage and fire. With the sword they had gained place
and power by doing the work of the Devil, and now they
devoted all to the service of God, since they should have
to part with everything, anyhow, by the time the clock
struck twelve, ringing in the awful millennium and usher
ing in the end of the world. Kings and nobles, whose
pastime was slaughter as regarded men and lust as regarded
women, in spite of the dominance of the Church, grew
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
9
suddenly penitent, and flung away the sword for the missal
and abandoned the couch of the voluptuary for the monk s
shirt of air. William of the Long Sword, Duke of Nor
mandy, was fain to abandon his ducal rank and take shelter
in the monkish cell. Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, was anxious
to throw up all to find shelter in the monastery against the
terrors of the Day of Doom ; and Hugh, Count of Arles,
was like-minded. The Emperor, Henry II., crownless and
unkinged, presented himself at the abbey gate of St. Vanne,
howling piously from the psalms: “ This shall be my rest
forever; here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.”
Numbers of nobles left lands and castles and all to the
Church and hastened to the Holy Land, barefooted, ragged,
and penniless, in the cunningly Church-inspired hope that
those who, at the crack of doom, were found in the sainted
clime in which the Redeemer had died would have certain
immunities from the horrors and terrors about to be wrecked
upon the rest of the human race. Others stubbornly and
desperately remained in their doomed castles and on their
estates, left to barrenness and weeds, and did not impiously
attempt to propitiate the vengeance of God. But the altars
were loaded with, and the church floors strewn with, legal
instruments, venerable parchment, and dusty vellum, repre
senting gifts to the Church of some of the noblest estates in
Europe, and thousands upon thousands of serfs and vassals.
The Church took them all, just as if the Day of Judgment had
not been so close at hand. The monks, Cardinal Manning,
•were themselves the conveyancers, and the deeds of convey
ance began with the stereotyped words : “ Seeing that the
end of the world is now approaching, and that every day accu
mulates fresh miseries, I, Baron--------- , for the good of my
soul, give to the monastery of---------,” etc. 1 he last day of
�IO
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE:
the world was the harvest-day of the Church, and the twen
tieth chapter of Revelation was, for the time being, worth
more than all the remainder of the Book of God. And
gloriously your Church interpreted it, my Lord Cardinal, in
the interests of your order. The nobles you had under
your thumb by this divine gift the Church has for putting
the correct meaning upon Scripture texts; and, as for the
common people, they forgot all the instincts of human
nature in their abject terror. They wallowed in ignorance,
filth, and vermin. An eclipse of the sun became visible to
the Emperor Otho’s army on their march. They at once
recognised in it one of the apocalyptic “ signs in the sun.”
T hey were paralysed with fear. They dropped their
weapons, broke their ranks, and such of the screaming and
disorganised rabble as terror did not render motionless fled
to the mountains, literally calling to the rocks to hide them
and the hills to fall upon them.
On dragged the awful weeks—coming nearer and still
nearer to the instant when heaven and earth should pass
away. At length, at the end of the most terrible December
the world has ever seen, came the last week of the year
ioco a.d. Then there were such agonising suspense, such
paralysing fear, and such abandoned phrenzy as never
before or since have cursed such masses of the race of
man. Your Church, my Lord Cardinal, had indeed vindi
cated its claim to be “the divine interpreter of Scripture.”
You took up the twentieth chapter of Revelation, and, by
your interpretation thereof, exalted the hierarchy and well
nigh ruined the world. During this terrible week the work
of the world was utterly suspended. For the ring of the
anvil there was the yell of the maniac; for the whirr of the
shuttle there was the shriek of the madman. Drearily rose
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
II
the sun, and drearily set in the last few wintry days before
his light was to be extinguished forever. Men held their
very breath in terror. Blanched white were the dark-brown
locks that so lately shaded the smooth and open brow of
youth. In the halls of luxury, where the arras was of the
richest, where the patines were of gold, and where the air
was heavy with odours, now lay the dead and dying com
mingled, no sexton to bury, and no thief to steal the
vessels of gold, and where the air had been heavy with
odours were now the filth of the living and the putrescence
of the dead. Beauty was beautiful no longer, heroism was
extinct, and valour was no more. The deer and the boar
roamed in the greenwood unscathed. No household fires
were lighted to shed a warmth through the wintry air. The
wine cask was unbroached and meals were no longer pre
pared. Men, women, and children, of all ranks and classes,
lay huddled together, clutching each other convulsively in
imminent expectation of the crashing of chains that would
herald the release of Satan and of the trumpet blast that
should signal the end of the world. Love was banished,
hate was forgotten, and terror was master of all. The
thread upon the distiff remained unwound, and the sword
lay rustling on the floor. Revelation xx. 3-4 had con
quered. Your divine-interpreting Church, Cardinal Man
ning, had driven Europe frantic that her riches might be
purloined as she lay in delirium.
All vocations were dead, save that of the priest. With
husky voice, haggard mien, and supernatural wildness of
gesticulation, the monk harangued in the market place, and
around him surged all that Terror and Death had spared.
Nearer, nearer, and nearer came the end of the year, till
only a few hours intervened between mankind and the Day
�12
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE:
Judgment. Then the remnant of human beings crushed
into the churches till they were filled to suffocation. Thou
sands clamoured in vain for admission at the gate of convent,
cathedral, and abbey. Resolved that it would be better for
their souls should they perish among the ruins of the house
of God, they who could not obtain admission scrambled up
to the roof, and mingled their chants and wails with the roll
of the organ which ascended from within. Midnight on the
31st of December was the utmost limit given for the release
of Satan; but it was held that the release might take place
an hour or two before night’s solemn noon. The great
candles of the cathedral shone under groined arch and by
fluted column over the pale and upturned faces of a con
vulsed and motley multitude. There were no clocks; but,
at regular intervals, on the great candles metal balls were
fixed by inflammable strings, and as, hour after hour, the
flame reached each string in succession, the ball fell into a
basin-shaped gong below, with a clang that, in the breath
less suspense which waited upon the burning of each string,
resounded to the loftiest turret, and reverberated among the
graves under the flag-stones in the aisle. One by one, an
eternity of suspense between them, fell the balls into the
gong, and yet the end of the world did not come, and the
winter morning dawned of the 1st of January, in the year
ioci.
The Holy Catholic Church had indeed interpreted
the Scripture—interpreted it to replenish her own coffers
and augment her own power. The world slowly slunk back
into its old work-a-day ways, but without taking pains to
resent its having been duped and hoaxed by the unscru
pulous cunning of Rome. Shame, my Lord Cardinal !
Remember, you are not addressing the illiterate vassalage
of the Dark Ages. Your words reach those who can criti
�A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
13.
cise them without favour and reject them without fear.
When you would speak of your Church being the only
divine interpreter of Scripture, remember the twentieth
chapter of Revelation and the year 1000 a.d., and be
forever dumb.
Nay, my Lord Cardinal; the pretensions of your Churchare going the way of all the earth. You yet manage to
hobble along on two crutches—the mental apathy and
moral credulity of mankind. But the earth swings round,
and the gnome casts another shadow upon the dial of Time.
A race arises that cares neither for your book nor your
infallible interpretation thereof. Address, if you will, the
present-day spawn of the bats and owls of mediaevalism ;
but the beams of the true sun of righteousness have now
broken through the gloom of your censor smoke and your
windows, dim with the effigies of saints. The perdition
which has overtaken Zeus and Isis is overtaking you.
Untold opulence, the romance of history, the wealth of
erudition, and the subtlety of intellect are yet on your side ;
and I admit that even I, the “ Infidel,” immeasurably more
pronounced than ten thousand “ Infidels” you have tortured
and burnt, have some feeling of sympathy with you as, girt
with the cestus of the mighty memories of two thousand
years of the irrevocable Past, you stand confronting your
inevitable doom from the fiat of the merciless Future.
Hater as I am of tyrants and tyranny, the tears have coursed
down my face as I have figured my fathers at Culloden,
amid ruin and rout, riven tartan and shivered claymore,
perishing in the whirlwind that swept away the “ divine
right of kings.” Like sympathy I extend to you and your
Church, Cardinal Manning, standing between the sunset of
the world’s yesterday and the dawn of the world’s to-morrow,.
�14
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.
defending the divine right of priests. But, like a spectre of
the Brocken, your towers and citadels melt away into the
viewless air. You have made a darkly-interesting chapter
in anthropology ; but the race rises to the level of new
developments and new aeons, and, ere a long time pass,
your censor will smoke no more, your Jesus will have taken
his place with the obsolete gods, and the candles upon your
altar shall burn no more forever. The same sun in the
heavens that has looked down upon the waning altar-fires
of the faiths of the world’s hoary yesterday shall yet look
down upon your altars, cold, deserted, and desolate. The
altar of the future will be the concave of the sky overarch
ing in glory the everlasting hills. The worship of the future,
irrespective of teleological dogma, will be the reaching
forward to stronger brain, purer morals, and a happier world.
To further the advent, my Lord Cardinal, of that nobler
.altar and grander worship, the Freethinkers of America are
■met to-day on the Cassadaga heights, and they permit me
■thus to shake hands with them over the “ misty and mourn
ful Atlantic,” and add my feeble spark to the splendour of
the coming day in a land where Romanism never had the
.mastery—on a continent of which your Jesus never heard.
�Just Issued, 64 pp. in wrapper, post free 7d.
Part I. of
GOD AND HIS BOOK,
By SALADIN.
Being an Examination of the Origin and History of
the Bible.
64 pp, crown 8vo, price 6d, post free 7d,
SKETCH OF THE
LIFE OF SALADIN
By RICHARD B. HITHERSAY & GEORGE ERNEST.
With Portrait of Saladin and Fac-Simile of Handwriting.
“ The Life of Saladin” is a deeply interesting and striking sketch of the life
of the editor of the Secular Review. Saladin is a man of great learning,
fearless and noble spirit, and who wields a graceful _ though trenchant pern
There is marked genius, rich culture, and real power in all that he writes.
■Oldham Chronicle.
,
,,
,
r 1
n
This is a sketch of the life ot one who is, undoubtedly, a characterful and
highlv-rffted man............ That he should waste his enormous learning (if not in
the suialy academical, at least in a far higher sense) and brilliant talents on
the bleak and barren field of Secularism demonstrates that he has only a dim
•notion of the power that is in him.—Beaconsfield standard.
With a different early training, Saladin might have used his talents to aid
the Christian cause and we cannot but regret that the over-zealous and crue^
action of his guardians should have been the means of losing to the ChnsUan
■brotherhood a writer who mignt have been one of its brightest ornaments.
North Western Gazette.
Altogether Mr. W. Stewart Ross is an extraordinary character. He has pro
duced some beautiful poetical pieces ; he writes with a glowing pen, both in
prose and poetry. When speaking from the platform in advocacy of his negative
.creed he rises to the zenith of impassioned oratory.... He is the author of the
.noble prize poem on the Dumfries statue of Burns.—Dnmjncs Standard.
Price is, post free is id,
THE
CONFESSIONAL-
ROMISH AND ANGLICAN.
An Expose.
By Saladin.
Contents :—Introduction—Licentiousness of the Pre-Reformation Church—Lechery of the Confessional—Ritualism : “The
Priest in Absolution’’—The Anglican Confessional—Ineffectual
Efforts to Suppress Romanising Tendencies in the Anglican Church
—Confessions of an Escaped Nun—Extracts from Dens and Liguori
_ Examination of the Church s Claim to have fostered Learning.
Her Attempts at Continency even more Ruinous than her Self-lndulgence—The Relative Criminal Statistics of Catholicism and
Protestantism—Appendix.
London: W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�HISTORICAL PAMPHLETS.
BY SALADIN.
HpHE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE A ReP1)? t0 Cardinal ManninS- 16 PP> price id., post free
npHE CRUSADES.
A post free l%d.
16 pp, with Illustration, price id., post
E
CHR/dTI^N PERSECUTION.
he flagellants.
T
iie iconoclasts.
T
he covenanters.
T
he inquisition.
T
he inquisition.
T
T
free ij^d.
free i%d.
free ij^d.
I%d.
I%d.
16 pp, price id., post free
In neat wrapper, price id., post
In neat wrapper, price id., post
In neat wrapper, price id., post
Part L, 16 pp, price id., post free
Part II., 16 pp, price id., post free
HE DANCERS, SHAKERS, AND JUMPERS.
16 pp., price id., post free ij^d.
THE DANCERS, SHAKERS, AND JUMPERS.
16 pp , price id., post free ijjd.
Part I
’*
Part IL
HE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.
price id., post free ij^d.
Part I., 16 pp.
rT
HE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.
price id., post free Ij^d.
Part II., 16 PP.,
T
T
E
R
ELIGIOUS EDUCATION. A Letter to Cardinal Manning;..
Fart I., 16 pp., price id , post free l%d.
ELIGIOUS EDUCATION, a Letter to Cardinal ManningPart II., 16 pp., price id., post free ij^d.
EDUCATION. A Letter to Cardinal Manning.
XJ",.Part J11 >with Addenda, “The Christian Heaven” and.
Chivalry.
16 pp., price id., post free ijjd.
London : W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The divine interpretation of scripture : a reply to Cardinal Manning
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 14, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: "Being a paper read at the Cassadaga Conference, New York, by S.P. Putnam, Secretary, American Liberal League." Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered page at the end. Other works by Saladin published by W. Stewart on back page. "By Saladin" [title page], the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[188?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N584
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The divine interpretation of scripture : a reply to Cardinal Manning), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible-Criticism
Henry Edward Manning
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/956cdb3a8e124b1e9fa0e3ab20c0d61b.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=p6j2J159bJP-HkQ%7EPFvSa6y5HucWSjoBDiuvyKR5TTHUUkieLzgpK-dM5zprzQtc3rsaMw2UCSvN1wTYn0J9AQP-0pg-ONHFUAzhh%7EYTQ7UinfSwj2oy5B0PpCjhYai2zaafIxc7IExpd-NQC5ur1fT2Lisx7mJdTL7XpHhHZ-J3NytSLOpAyloLbRMfUzFRcSO3rL%7EuUauUdhQMM48EW7pZXuaukWAr6pe%7EDx%7EjL%7ER7GmWPh%7EvEUvl14gTqTO77DFgwk30gdw-UYEEo67Y49OxxJ8j3%7ESecAWwXMSwhfLvfTZlbEU9o4R-YDo1wymAV2FmR6N7zCYnXPGNqld0gNw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8eeae4abe981b7ba451c2ec29e90fd64
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
FLAGELLANTS
'
AND
THE
COVENANTERS
(New Edition).
BY
SALADIN.
Author of “God and His Book,” etc.
London :
W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�THE FLAGELLANTS.
From the era of its half-mythical Galilean down
wards, Christianity has laid incontestable claims to
be considered the Religion of Misery. A radical
doctrine of the faith is that this world is only a
Babelmandeb, or Gate of Tears to the “ glory that
shall yet be revealed.” The teaching’s recorded of
Christ have all the jaundiced acerbity of the Essenes.
The son of Mary was an ascetic, or nothing. Ac
cording to him, the end of the world was close at
hand. Its concerns and aims were despicable, and
the best that could be done was to regard its plea
sures as pernicious seductions and lay up “ treasures
in heaven,” as it would avail a man nothing should
he ** gain the whole world and lose his own soul.”
Strictly compatible with the teachings of Christ
were the doctrines of Cardinal Damiani, when he
wrote a panegyric upon the efficacy of self-inflicted
suffering, and those of the celebrated Dominic, when
he introduced penitential hymns, to be chanted to
a tune to which the self-inflicted lash kept time.
Hair shirts, protracted periods of fasting, and the
like, had long been m vogue as means to propitiate
an angry heaven ; but Dominic affirmed that twenty
recitations of the Psalms, accompanied by selfinflicted scourging, was equal to a hundred years,
of ordinary penitence.
Dominic flourished towards the middle of the
eleventh century ; but it was not till about two
centuries later (1260) that the seed of asceticism
he had sown sprang up to be a great and popular
tree of self-torture. It was in an age of gloom
and suffering and wickedness that, at Pergugia,
in Italy, a monk named Regnier, with wild and
bitter eloquence, preached Flagellation as the anti
dote that would restore an afflicted people to the
�The Flagellants.
3
favour of an angry God. Like Peter the Hermit
in the first Crusade, like Luther at the Reformation,
or Bernhardt of the Millenarian insanity, this
Regnier had rightly interpreted the spirit of the
times. He put in his sickle, and the corn was
already ripe for the harvest. The wars of Guelph
and Ghibelline, famine, pestilence, rapine, murder,
and misery had, after a thousand years of Chris
tianity, made Italy and the most of Europe feel
that life was, indeed, not worth living, but only
a horrid and mysterious burden, which was taken
up involuntarily, and which left those who bore it
such cravens that they had not the courage to lay
it down.
And so another violent epidemic of Lose you-r
Reason to Save your Soul fell upon Christendom
like a rinderpest. The memory and inspiration of
the Man of Sorrows was again to lay the load of
a great sorrow upon the shoulders of the world.
Once more, as, under the preaching of Bernhardt
and Peter the Hermit, rowdy and rascal, swash
buckler and sword-player, blackguard and blackleg,
worked themselves into a frenzy concerning one
Jesus, whose name has always been a spell-word
with miscreants from the time of the Christian cut
throats mentioned by Tacitus down to Booth’s latest
prize, the “ blood-washed soul ” of ’Arry Juggins
the burglar.
Two by two the holy ones of the whip-lash
marched through the gaping multitudes on the
crowded streets. Their heads wTere covered with
sackcloth ; their remaining article of attire was a
bandage round the loins, which rendered them a
little decent for God’s sake. Their backs and breasts
were entirely nude. The back bore a huge cross,
daubed upon J&B skin with red paint ; and another
cross was smeared upon the naked breast. On
through the town, and through the wilderness, in
long and narrow file, like the march of the ducks
from the dub to the dung-hill, marched those nasty
saints of God. The hand of each sacred fanatic
bore a heaw and horrible whip, the thongs tipped
with iron ; and, with this whip, every pious madman
lashed his own bare back till the thongs were clotted
and gory, and long lines of blood running down
�4
The Flagellants.
from the scapula to the pelvis defaced the red cross
which had been painted on the skin.
To what shall we liken the men of that genera
tion? To a crazy dog, refusing its food and chew
ing off its own hind legs to please its master. But
the analogy is imperfect, and the man flogging his
own back to please his Jesus is more irrational than
the dog chewing off his own hind legs to please his
master ; for the dog is positively sure he has a
master ; but the ablest Christian that has ever writ
ten has not been able to establish that his Jesus
really ever existed. The only record of him is in
four so-called “ Gospels,” written by nobodv knows
who, nobody knows where, and nobody knows when,,
and the statements of which are contradicted by
each other and are utterly unsupported by history.
A pretty source, indeed, from which to derive a
Jesus in whose honour you can flog your back 1
But backs always will be flogged, and noses ever
will be held close to the grindstone, till he with
the back and he with the nose takes the trouble to
cultivate his brain, and dares to confront, eagleeyed, the authorities that would make him a chattel
and a poor mad cats-paw in the hands of priest
and tyrant.
Jehovah has ever liked singing and dancing and
capers to his glory and honour. David, the “ man
according to God’s own heart,” danced naked be
fore deity and certain young girls ; and another
worthy sang to God’s glory with acceptance because
Jael had hammered a nail into her guest’s head
while he slept. So the Flagellants, besides tickling
their own backs with whips, deemed it would be
well to tickle Jehovah’s ears with music. Accord
ingly they sang while they flogged. If vou think
flogging your back is conducive to making you
rival the efforts of Sims Reeves, just try the ex
periment. Flog your back while you sing, and you
will find-that many a quaver flies off into a scream,
and that many a crotchet is dead-born. But the
Lord had just to content himself with such music
as- was obtainable under the circumstances. Cer
tain fragments of the hymns which the Flagellants
sang have been preserved. Here are brief speci
mens
�The Flagellants.
5
“Through love of man the Saviour came,
Through love of man he died ;
He suffered want, reproach, and shame,
Was scourged and crucified.
Oh, think, then, on thy Saviour’s pain,
And lash the sinner, lash again ! ” *
The following are a few lines from the metrical
rendering' into English of “ The Ancient Song of
the Flagellants ” :—
“Tears from our sorrowing eyes we weep,
Therefore so firm our faith we keep
With all our hearts, with all our senses :
Christ bore his cross for our offences.
Ply well the scourge, for Jesu’s sake,
And God, through Christ, your sin will take.
For love cf God abandon sin—
To mend your vicious lives begin ;
So shall we his mercy win.” t
Thirty-three days and a-half was the shortest term
in which a Flagellant must macerate and lacerate
himself ; and these thirty-three and a-half days were
meant to be mystically symbolical of the thirty-three
years and a-half which the third part of God, and
yet equal to the "whole of God, had lived on earth
4‘saving souls” and making three-legged stools,
lhe devotees fell down on their dirty knees in the
dirty streets, and, setting up their naked, putrid,
and horrible backs, prayed to Jah and Jesus and
Mary to have mercy on their souls, before having
taken the trouble to find out whether they had souls
or not. Jah and Jesus and Mary had, however,
something else to do than attend to kneeling lunatics
with voices like cross-cut saws and backs like half
cooked beef-steaks. But the cities, then as now,
had plenty of fools, and certain of them rushed out
at their doors or leapt from their windows for God’s
sake to join the ranks of those who lashed their
hurdies with thongs and prayed with their knees
in the gutter. When all Christendom had managed
to lash its back to its own satisfaction, it threw
down the whip, got up from its knees, and took
to swearing and sinning in the usual way.
But, some fifty years afterwards, Christendom
again took it into its head that its back would be
* Preserved by L’Evesque : quoted by Lingard.
t Dr. He:ker.
�6
The Flagelleiits.
all the better for a flogging. So, in 1296, the saints,
particularly those of Strasburg, Spires, and Frank
fort, took unto themselves whips, and began busi
ness in earnest. The Jews had good broad backs,
which they were impious enough never to whip,
and this mightily offended the Christian Flagellants.
The Jews did not see their way to whip their own
backs, so, in the most obliging manner, the Chris
tians offered to whip them for them. The Jews
preferred to look after their commercial enterprises
to tearing away with a scourge at their own dorsal
rafters ; and, for this deadly sin, they were foully
massacred. The wretches who did not scourge their
backs had scourged the third of deity and crucified
him. Down with them to Tophet! One Jew,
goaded to desperation by Christian persecution and
outrage, set fire to the Town Hall and the Cathedral
of Frankfort, and they were reduced to ashes. Down
with the seed of Iscariot and Barabbas ! The holy
ones flung away their whips, and, seizing sword,
hatchet, and knife, devoted some hours of horror
to the slaughter of man, woman, and child of the
seed of Israel. The God of Jacob looked on ; but,
apparently, did not see his way to interfere. In
Frankfort, of all the sons and daughters of Salem
whose ancestors had sung to the Lord by the streams
of Babel, none remained alive, except a small rem
nant that, bursting through the carnage, had
escaped into Bohemia. Christ had “ redeemed ”
these Christians (they were well worth it) by a
bloody sacrifice upon Calvary, and, out of com
pliment—like Catherine Medici in her sanguinous
bath—they set him in blood to the chin. Every
tree must be judged by its fruit. I hereby defy the
history of all the other faiths to produce a tree like
the Christian one, which, from the deepest root to
the topmost twig, is dyed with human gore.
After the Frankfort tragedy of 1296, Flagellantism
did not rear its head conspicuously till the year 1348.
To students of history the mention of this date re
calls the deepest and widest grave that was ever
dug to receive the slag and refuse of morality. The
“ Black Death ” took into her hands the besom
of destruction, and swept into the sepulchre twentyfive millions of human beings ! Europe fell upon
�The Flagellants.
7
her knees, and from Dirt appealed to Deity. But
the appeal was in vain. In every Christian city
there was a plethora of disgusting sewage and un
speakable stench. Cleanliness is, proverbially, next
to godliness ; but the citizens of mediaeval Europe
were so godly that they forgot to be cleanly. Out
side Mohammedan Constantinople there was not a
bath on the entire European continent, from the
Straits of Behring to the Straits of Messina. Pious
Ignorance and theological Intolerance sat to the
eyes in filth, which it would give my readers the
jaundice to describe ; and mankind perished as do
clouds of locusts when overtaken by a gale at sea,
or as perish at the end of autumn tens of thousands
of hives of bees, when imprisoned amid the fumes
I
of burning brimstone.
“ God in heaven, Mary and all the Saints, what
is the matter now? ” gasped Christendom, as, with
pale lips and phrenized eye, she, in whole cityfuls,
-staggered into the grave. Nothing practical, as
connected with this wretched “Vale of Tears,’’
suggested itself to the follower of Jesus. He was
beyond and above attending to the carnal conditions
of this despicable earth, and from the midst of his
priests and relics and shrines and miracles his whole
hope was in heaven, and his only court of appeal
his “ Maker and Redeemer.’’ But neither Maker
nor Redeemer could be induced to interfere ; and
graves were dug till there were none left to dig
them, and corpses were borne out of the streets
and houses till there were none left to bear them.
There were only the voice of prayer, the cry of pain,
and the rattle of the death-cart ; and in certain dis
tricts even these sounds died away. In the houses
the dead were left with the dead. There lay a dis
used cart and a skeleton horse. Grass and weeds
flourished in the streets where a busy traffic had
— rolled its tides, and there the wind waved ghastly
shreds of human apparel, still adhering to more
ghastly relics of human beings. There was high
carnival for maggot and fly, and dogs and swine
tugged and snarled among the entrails of those who
bad trusted in Jesus and neglected their dust-bins.
The New Testament was looked to as the anti
dote to the bane ; and, whatever may be its merits,
�8
' -
The Flagellants.
it is a poor manual of hygiene. Scrubbing is never
mentioned, and there is no reference to washing,
except to the washing of “ souls,” whatever they
may be, in blood. There is, moreover, allusion to
the washing- of a certain party’s feet with tears,
and then drying them with maiden’s hair ; but this
is a sentimental and not an efficacious lavation. It
is not on record that Mary or Tabitha, or anyone
else, ever washed the shirt or tunica which was
worn under the seamless garment of Jesus, and I
question if it was ever washed or changed from
the day on which he left the carpenter’s bench till
the day that, with his life, he expiated his sedition
and folly. Through all the horror of the Black
Death we hear of no wholesome and honest wash
ing with water ; but there certainly was a washing
of the streets with blood. It was surmised that
tlris visitation of the wrath of Heaven was instigated
by the sinfulness of the Christians in allowing the
Jews to live ; for it was the Jews who had crucified
the Lord ; and yet, according to the Christian theory,
if the Lord had not been crucified, the world would
inevitably have been lost. The Black Death was
accompanied with another merciless massacre of the
Jews. It was also accompanied by another pitiless
flogging of backs. So fanatically wild did this selfinflicted back-flogging become that many held that
the rite of Flagellation should, in the Christian
Church, supersede the rite of Baptism. Many liter
ally flogged away the flesh off their bones, and yet
the plague did not abate ; and the sky and the earth
were pregnant with supernatural terrors. A pillar
of fire hung over the pope’s palace at Avignon ;
a red ball of fire in the heavens blazed over Paris,
and Greece and Italy were shaken with an earth
quake. And the Christians flogged and prayed, and
prayed and flogged, and sang and slew, and slew
and sang, and still the plague went on.
Flageliantism was not without its serio-comic as
pect. I cannot say whether it copied from the game
of Leap-the-Frog, or whether Leap-the-Frog has
copied from it. In Leap-the-Frog each boy vaults
over his neighbour’s bended back, and then bends
his own, and so on the process goes till each has
vaulted over the back of all. The Flagellants lay
!
/
|
�The Flagellants.
9
in rows, and one ran along the row scourging
furiously as he went with a leathern scourge tipped
with iron, and then he lay down ; and so on and
so on, till each had flogged the naked backs of all.
In lying in the rows to be flogged, however, those
who wished to do penance for certain crimes had
to observe certain recognized postures indicative of
these crimes. If the crime was perjury, till it was
his turn to get up and flog, the penitent lay on his
side, holding up three fingers ; if it was adultery,
he lay flat with his face on the ground ; and so on,
different postures of the body were fixed upon to
indicate different crimes. The Flagellants, too, were
not without their grotesque impostures in the shape
of pious forgeries. At one of their assemblies they
actually read a letter which had been sent to them
direct from heaven, and in which Jesus Christ was
good enough to give them his favourable opinion of
the efficacy of flagellation. The “ Blessed Virgin ”
had, with maternal affection, given her son some
assistance in the composition of this celestial missive.
Unlike the Millenarian mania, the Flagellant craze
•extended even to England. In 1351 a deputation
of 120 continental Flagellants visited London ; but
insular stolidity did not see its way to carry its piety
to the extent of lacerating its own flesh with
scourges. Even on the continent the irenzy began
to exhaust itself. The leaders betook themselves to
desperate resources to buttress up a falling cause.
They set themselves to the task of restoring life
to a dead child, and performed the “ miracle ” so
clumsily that the performance hastened their dis
solution instead of giving them a new lease of in
fluence. In the hey-day of their fanaticism neither
king nor pontiff saw it prudent to interlere with
the Flagellants ; but when the tide turned against
them, king and pontiff turned against them too. . A
bitter persecution set in, and Flagellantism, like
most other isms, was called upon to furnish its roll
•of martyrs, and it heroically enough responded to
the' call. Its dying spasm—and it was a vigorous
and terrible one—was in 1414, and some time later
it finally expired in the dungeons and amid the
fagots of the Holy Inquisition. Mankind, in the
mass, continue to be fools ; but, in the last four
�10
2 he Couenanteis.
centuries, there has been some small advance to
wards sanity, and it is now somewhat difficult toget anyone to flog his own back for the love of God.
W. S. R.
THE COVENANTERS.
MONDAY, October 27th, 1884.
The House met at tour o’clock.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
Answering Mr. Buchanan, the Marquis of Hartington said hehad communicated with Loid Wolseley as to the employment of a
greater number of Presbyterian chaplains with the Scottish regi
ments under his charge, adding that one at present at Alexandria
would be available, if his services were required.
Alas, that the world has not yet dispensed with'
the services of Presbyterian Beetles of god and gun I
I myself ran such a narrow escape of being a Scotch.
Beetle that this project of employing the ScarabceusScotorum in Egypt brings up to my memory sundry
of the bloodthirsty insects’ previous ravages scrolled,
over history’s panoramic canvas, and that in pig
ments of blackness and fire.
There, with hign cheek-bones and scowling browsr
with black gowns and Geneva bands, file past thedour and grim fanatics who barred the path of
Charles I., and of Laud, Juxon, and Wren. There
go they who, lor twenty-eight years, through steel!
and blood and heather, set their backs against thewall of Fate, and practically swore to lead Scotland
to Hell, rather than to Rome.
History has a pretty feasible hint that the shower
of clasp-Bibles that, on July 23rd, 1637, rained so>
murderously round the head of Dean Hanna, in
St. Giles’s Church, were flung by Scottish ministers,,
dressed in female gowns and mutches, and that
their pulpit-trained voices initiated the popular yell
of “Anti-Christ! Anti-Christ! A Pope! A Pope!
A Bellv-god ! Stone him ! ” It was the fanatical"
and hard-headed Presbyterian Beetles who, by their
wild biblically-phrased warnings, roused the Scottish
�The Covenanters.
11
peers to a vivid apprehension that, if Charles and’
Laud succeeded, the estates which had been con
fiscated from the Church at the Reformation would7
be .wrenched from the nobles and restored to Rome.
This was a potent argument ; for, whatever might
be the territorial lord’s desire for a place in the
kingdom of heaven, he would fight and sing psalms
for twenty years rather than lose a single acre of
his lands in the kingdom of Scotland. And thus
there was almost instantly arrayed ag-ainst the
Government a black phalanx of ninety Beetles,
walled round by John, Earl of Rothes ; John, Earl
of Cassilis ; Alexander, Earl of Eglington ; James,
Earl of Biome ; William, Earl of Lothian ; John,
Earl of Wemyss ; and John, Earl of Loudon ; Lord
Lindesay, Lord Yester, Lord Balmerino, Lord
Cranston, and large numbers of the gentry and
lesser nobility. These, of course, led with them
the psalm-singing yokels of their estates, primed
up by the Beetles to a perfect phrenzy of religious
fanaticism, which could not fail to be exceedingly
profitable to their lords and masters. There is no
patriotism in denying that Scotland’s desperate
struggle in the seventeenth century was carried out
bv the immoral instrumentality of Beetle and nobleprimed bumbkins, howling from Jeremiah and cant
ing from Ezekiel, grimly frantic with suffering and
fanaticism, who, singing psalms, mutilated the slain,
and dashed their texts and swords at the same time
through .the bodies of the dragoons of the Govern
ment. Scotland did all this drunk with divinity,
and I should respect her quite as much if she had
done it all drunk with whisky. And yet I should’
like to see the land in the whole world that can
afford to scoff at her. Man, up to this time, has
been a small and nasty animal at the best, and what
are magniloquently called his noblest motives will
not bear anything like rigid analysis. You are
kinder to mankind when you expect too little of
them, than when you expect too much. And it will.'
puzzle your ingenuity to expect less than you will
get.
1 The passage in Genesis, anent God’s making all
things very good, would have stood better on its
legs, if it had read, 4 God made all thing's verv good
�12
The Covenanters.
save man, and him he made mad.” It is teleology
alone that makes man madder than his “ earth-born
companions and fellow-mortals. ” Well might Burnsapostrophise the mouse :—
“ Still thou art blest, compared wi’ me :
The Present only toucheth thee ;
But, ah ! I backward cast my e’e
On prospects drear ;
And, forward though I canna see,
I guess and fear,”
It is all very well for writers of the school of Dr.
Lewins to abjure, teleology absolutely. It rises
superior to abjuration. The speculatively religious
instinct is strong in normal man, and I, for one,
rejoice, rather than lament that it is so. It is not
the religious instinct that has stultified and cursed
the race, but the diversion of that instinct into
baleful channels by interested sacerdotal and civil
chicane. Man has too little religion, rather than
too much ; but he has certainly too much theology
rather than too little.
"
fc' ’
But, back to the Black-Beetles of the Presbyterian
corner of the vineyard of the Lord. So well did
the interested leaven of religious sedition work, that
in June, 1638, the Hig’h Commissioner swaggered
up to Holyrood escorted by 20,000 men, most of
them mounted. There were present, moreover, 700
Beetles, the most sour and grim kind that ever
banged a bible for the love of God. Many of them
had buff coats under their Geneva cloaks, and,
according, to Burnet, many wore in their belts
swords, pistols, and daggers, that, for the love of
heaven, they might redden the earth with blood.
Madly Beetle-bitten, the peasantry flew to arms ;
every Beetle-box in the country breathed of fire and
slaughter ; the crackle of musketry was in every
sermon, the roar of cannon in every prayer ; the
sword-blade was sharpened on the pulpit, and the
kirk became a recruiting-ground for the battlefield.
We have now cast down the walls of Jericho ;
let him who rebuildeth them beware of the curse
of Hiel and Bethelite, ” was the refrain of a Tyrteeaa
sermon by Henderson, of Leuchars. Beetles Musfiet,
Row, Cant, Dickson, and a mighty host of mur
derous piety, took up the cry. It was thundered
■from hundreds of pulpits. The heather was, indeed,
�The Covenanters.
U
on fire. The Beetle struck the Bible with his fist
in the emphasis of bloodthirsty rhetoric, and his
voice found a terrible echo in the ring of the
armourer’s anvil, as the hammer clashed and clanged
upon the red-hot iron that was being fashioned into
bit and stirrup, helmet and sword-blade.
The Lords of the Covenant prepared for war..
Wheresoever the carcase of prey is, there shall the
eagles of militarism be gathered together. Hereto
fore Scotland had proved too stale and pacific to be
a fitting arena for the restless energies of her gentle
men of the sword and swashbuckling fire-eaters,
and they had accordingly poured in thousands from
the banks of the Forth, the Dee, and the Clyde to
the banks of the Elbe, the Oder, and the Danube,
to follow Gustavus Adolphus for gold and glory,
and write their names imperishablv in their blood
in the annals of the Thirty Years’ War, in which
the stubborn valour of the Scottish Legion filled
all Europe with their renown. The Beetles had now
wrung the coin out of the pockets of their frugal
countrymen at home, and their fighting countrymen
abroad rushed back to offer their steel blades and
their blood for the merks of the peasant and the
burgher. The world had no better soldiers than the
Scoto-Swedish officers of Gustavus, among the most
distinguished of whom were Sir Alexander Leslie,
Sir Alexander Hamilton, Sir James Livingstone,
Monroe, Baillie, and other heroes of Prague and
Fleura, and numerous battlefields in Polish Prussia,
Brandenberg, Westphalia, and Silesia. The Beetle,
the ancestor of him now wanted in Egypt, had done
it with a veng-eance. Every -fourth man in Scotland
was to consider himself a soldier. The sword of
the Lord and of Gideon ! The land was as busy as
a beehive declaiming sermons, whining prayers,
drawling psalms, and getting ready arms and muni
tions—bodv armour for the cavalry, buff-coats and
morions for pikemen, and muskets with rests for
the musketeers. A cannon foundry was, moreover,
established at the Potter Row, Edinburgh, under
the direction of Sir Alexander Hamilton, formerly
master of the cannon foundries of Gustavus
Adolphus at Urbowe, in Sweden. And all Beetledom was up on end, and raving to Jehovah to hurl
�14
*
The Covenanters.
• down the curse of Meroz upon those who failed
to gird up their loins and go forth to help the Lord
.against the mighty.
The old legend-book of Judah was clasped to the
very heart of Scotland. Its bloodiest and most ter
rible texts were interwoven with the common par
lance of mundane affairs, and preached from with
a wild and volcanic vehemence. “ And I will feed
them that oppress thee with their own flesh ; and
they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with
sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I, the
Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty
one of Jacob.” ‘‘The Lord hath a sacrifice in
Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of
Idumea.” “ Cursed be he who keepeth back his
sword from blood.” “ Thus saith the Lord God cf
Israel : Put every man his sword by his side, and
go in and out, from gate to gate, throughout the
camp, and slay every man his brother, and every
man his companion, and every man his neighbour.”
These were the sort of bases of Beetle-spun
harangues that scared the pee-wheet and the plover
-of the hills and moors. “ Now go and smite Amalek,
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare
them not ; but slay both man and woman, infant
and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And
Saul gathered the people together, and numbered
them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen,
and ten thousand men of Judah. And the Lord sent
thee on a journey, and said : Go and utterly destroy
the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them
until they be consumed,” was the fearful text from
which a certain Beetle of Hell preached, and incited
the Covenanters to, after the Battle of Philiphaugh,
enclose the defeated musketeers of Montrose in the
-courtyard of Newark Castle, and pour in volley
after volley of shot upon the defenceless and un
resisting mass, till not a man remained standing ;
and the gunpowder smoke cleared away and left the
court covered with blood and brains like the floor
of a slaughter-house, and the air rent with the
shrieks of those to whom Death had not yet come
in mercy to end their agony. After this holy
massacre, 1,000 corpses were interred in a spot
which to this day bears the shuddering- name of
�The Covenanters.
15
'The Slain Man's Lea. And so much did the
Presbyterian Beetles insist upon the curses that
-would overtake those who spared the A malekites,
the enemies of God, and so terribly did they em
phasise “ man and woman, infant and suckling,”
that the swords of the Covenant ripped open the
■bodies of the women with child, and transfixed the
unborn babe with the blade reeking with the blood
-of its mangled mother, that the Scripture might
*
be fulfilled.
So much for the antecedents of the Presbyterian
Beetles Mr. Buchanan inquires about so kindly, and
in regard to whom the Marquis of Hartington replies
that there is a spare one to be had at Alexandria.
Even now, it would seem, Scottish soldiers do not
feel they can slaughter properly for the Lord unless
they are under the beetlefications of an Ephraim
MacBriar or a Gabriel Kettledrummle !
How long, O Lord, how long, will it be accounted
glorious to drill a bayonet through a diaphragm,
and valorous to lodge a leaden pellet in the medulla
•oblongata? No religion whatever can be true whose
God is the God of Battles, and whose priests officiate
in the sanctification of slaughter. O that there were
.a righteous heaven, and that man’s objective Para•dise was correlative with man’s subjective desire I
Then would I call to this heaven to witness that
the torn banners and emblazoned rags of war are
hung up as trophies in the Christian churches and
^cathedrals—the relics and memorials of wounds and
misery and hate and death in the temples of “ the
Prince of Peace ” ! I have sat in a certain cathedral
and listened to the Gospel of goodwill to all man
kind, although, at the entrance, I had to pass dusty,
torn, and ghastly relics of some of the bloodiest
-engagements in India and the Peninsula. I yearn
for the religion that will account State murder and
■private murder alike unhallowed, and which will find
no room in its fanes for bannered rags in memorial
of burning towns, slaughtered men, shrieking
widows, and breadless orphans, more than for the
gory knives which were wielded by the miscreants
and murderers whose infamy is perpetuated in the
'Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s.
*
W. S. R.
Gordon of Ruthven.
�NEW EDITION.
'
•
380 pp, cloth, gold lettered. Price 3s.; post free, 3s. 3d;
GOD-AND HIS BOOK.
By SALADIN.
Ix Two Volumes Complete.
New Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt lettered.
Vol. I., 260 pp. Price 2s. 6d. ; post free, 2s. gd.
Vol. II., 268 pp. Price 2s. 6d. 5 post free, 2s. 9d.
WOMAN :
Her Glory, Her Shame, and Her God.
By SALADIN.
Large Crown Svo, cloth, gold lettered, 265 pp.
Piice 3-.; post free, 3s. 3d.
THE
BOOK OF “AT RANDOM.”
By SALADIN.
Catalogue of Recent Works by Saladin free on application.
London: Il. Stewart & Co, $r, Farringdon St, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Flagellants and the Covenanters
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: The Flagellants (p.[2]-10).--The Covenanters (p.10-15). The Covenanters is a new edition. Publisher's advertisements on back cover Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[188-?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N587
Subject
The topic of the resource
Religious practice
Protestantism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Flagellants and the Covenanters), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Covenanters
Flagellants
Flagellation
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/cc606d069ebb14226628d770f2d850d5.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=bNWYwNSBwmzdxDx%7EsIrnqR6uknVXVX4uI1WWc-Q7r4GTniam-tgOgrIgTaq%7EOInxiccYG724cjAs-8ObUVVARvOmN%7EZ6VFCoztlsOnfctObz2cSpLjBbuSFdFOB14bPfyq9ItHnK%7EHgZsI-XdgOEa5%7EPVHUr-JMK3xxiuHlggI8taPQWaucKl4ICORdJVZ%7EuOTxIplTUdMDsCDen6Sdij2yglWw1abXSkeQ3EdT6ARXaobYwnLxLZilRe2vdtkvesejZfQBlpP5XU7Hmhn4IqdPj33%7EOdxlwG4ytiwTHV0qQJ0DXKXpjgHqgZ3spxTgBNquUHkBMV5FjmNINRvtu0A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
37fbd22e2895217c6da3192431bd2e49
PDF Text
Text
CHRISTIAN
PERSECUTION.
BY
SALADIN
Author of “ God and His Book” “ The Bottomless Pit”
“ Lays of Romance and Chivalry” etc.
LONDON:
W. STEWART & CO., 41 FARRINGDON ST., E.C.
�By SALADIN.
Price 1d., Post Free 1%d., unless otherwise specified.
HISTORICAL PAMPHLETS.
THE DIVINE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.
A Reply to Cardinal Manning.
THE CRUSADES. Their Reality and Romance.
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
THE FLAGELLANTS.
THE ICONOCLASTS.
THE INQUISITION. Part I.
THE INQUISITION. Part II.
THE DANCERS, SHAKERS AND JUMPERS. Part ITHE DANCERS, SHAKERS AND JUMPERS. Part II.
THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. Part I.
THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. Part II.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. A Letter to Cardinal Manning.
Part I.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. A Letter to Cardinal Manning.
Part II.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
A Letter to Cardinal Manning.
Part III.
ST MUNGO.
The Saint who Founded Glasgow. Price 3d.,.
post free 4d.
Or in one vol., handsomely bound in cloth, gilt lettered, 2s., post
free 2s. 2d.
MISCELLANEOUS PAMPHLETS.
THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. Price id., post free i|d.
A VISIT TO MR SPURGEON’S TABERNACLE.
With Portrait.
A VISIT TO THE GRAVE OF THOMAS CARLYLE.
With Portrait.
ROBERT BURNS: WAS HE A FREETHINKER?
With Portrait. Appendix :—The Prize Poem in Connection
with the Dumfries Statue to Burns.
HELL : W^HERE IS IT? Price id., post free i|d.
BEETLES AND BATHERS : Coffins and Cantrips.
CONCERNING THE DEVIL.
A FEARFUL FLOGGING. Price 3d., post free 4d.
THE AGONIES OF HANGING. Price 3d., post free 4d.The above, in one vol., cloth, gold lettered, price ir. 6d., post
free ij. 8<7.
LONDON: W. STEWART & CO., 41 FARRINGDON STREET, E.C.
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
The Church that is better at argument must give way to
the Church that is better at blows. Theology is not a
dialectician with words—she debates with the shillelagh.
The young plant of Christianity never grew till it was
fenced round with a hedge of swords. “ Proof,” say
you ? If such a statement be not true on the very face
of it, history can produce proof in abundance. The
Saxon axes hewed Christianity out of Britain; it had to
be restored by the monks of St Augustine, and they
managed to re-establish it, only because they managed to
get the axes on its side. The Society of Jesus fairly
planted Christian colonies in Japan ; but, in spite of the
sword of the spirit and the whole armour of righteous
ness, Christianity became utterly exterminated before a
torrent of spears. If Christian cannon had only spoken
louder, the sound of the “glad tidings of great joy”
(save the mark !) might to-day have been ringing from
the cathedral of Yeddo. If, instead of the sword of the
spirit, there had been 20,000 British bayonets, the
breezes of Niphon might at this hour have been musical
with the psalms of David. Persecution paralysed the
/Wejy' of the Albigenses, and ran its stilleto through the
heart of Protestantism in Spain. In France, Catholicism
waded to power through the carnage of the St Bartho
lomew massacre, and set her heel on the neck of the
Huguenots by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
In England the issue between Rome and the Reforma
tion hung in the balance till the diplomatic ability of
Elizabeth and her ministers flung the preponderance of
bills and bows, pikes and spears, into the scale against
the interests of her of the Seven Hills.
�4
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
State religion is State persecution. It is privilege to
one band of sectaries and disability to all others. “ The
opinions,” says Lecky, * “ of 99 persons out of every 100
are formed mainly by education, and a Government can
decide in whose hands the national education is to be
placed, what subjects it is to comprise, and what prin
ciples it is to convey. The opinions of the great
majority of those who emancipate themselves from the
prejudices of their education are the results, in a great
measure, of reading and discussion, and a Government
can prohibit all books, and can expel all teachers, that
are adverse to the doctrines it holds. Indeed, the
simple fact of annexing certain penalties to the profes
sion of particular opinions, and rewards to the profession
of opposite opinions, while it will, undoubtedly, make
many hypocrites, will also make many converts. For
any one who attentively observes the process that is
pursued in the formation of opinions must be aware that,
even when a train of argument has preceded their adop
tion, they are usually much less the result of pure reason
ing than of the action of innumerable distorting influences
which are continually deflecting our judgments. Among
these one of the most powerful is self-interest.” Thus
the mere act of taking one sect of Christians under State
protection is injustice and persecution to all other sects
whatever.
But, in the past, Christian persecution has seldom
stopped at the infliction of mere civil and social disabili
ties. When persecution is spoken of to Christian apolo
gists, under the influence of modern humanitarianism,
they reply that persecutions have, indeed, been carried
on by professing Christians; but that, in so far as they
indulged in them, they belied Christian principles and
permitted their vindicative passions as men to overmaster
the essentially tolerant and humane principles of their
faith. This is false. Nay, the very opposite is the truth.
The modern and cultured Christian is tolerant only in
proportion as he is not a Christian, and in ratio as he
has progressed in the path of enlightenment and bene
volence and forsaken that of Paul and the Fathers. The
The Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe,” vol. ii. p. 3.
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
5
belief that you have the finality and fixity of truth from
authority that cannot err is an inevitable source of
intolerance towards those who cannot accept the truth
which is, to you, a complete entelechy. Doubt in your
own mind, as regards the tenets you hold, is the well
spring of toleration towards those whose tenets are
different. Absolute faith inevitably means persecution ;
doubt is the fons et origo of toleration. “ The only
foundation for toleration,” said Charles James Fox, “ is
*
a degree of scepticism, and without it there can be none.
For, if a man believes in the saving of souls, he must
soon think about the means, and if, by cutting off one
generation, he can save many future ones from hell-fire,
it is his duty to do it.” Not only, then, does Chris
tianity, being a divine revelation, “ the very word of very
God,” contain in it essentially the principle of persecution ;
but the Bible exemplifies the practice as well as supplies
the theory. For his most horrible cruelties to the heretic
the Churchman could always quote, “ Idolatra educebatur
adportas civitatis, et lapidibus obruebatur.” t
Christianity itself whined and groaned under persecu
tion on the scaffold or among the wild beasts of the
arena; but, in conformity with its inherent principles,
the moment it got the power to do as it had been done
to it inaugurated persecution upon a scale tremendous
and terrible, and to which the world had previously
been a stranger. The early Christians were real; the
modern Christians are a sham. If the Christians were
real, they would before this have burnt to ashes the
hand that pens these lines. Christianity would have
done it unhesitatingly in the days before it degenerated
into a conventional bogus that nobody can well attack,
because nobody knows exactly where it stands. But
in the old and true days, when it stood by the Scriptures
and the Fathers, it acted in a way which, however
deplorable, we must respect the actors for sincerity and
consistency. To try to stamp out heresy it hesitated
not to slaughter thousands and tens of thousands—nay,
to exterminate a nation, or even to depopulate the
world. “ Give me the earth purged from heretics, and I
Rogers’ “ Recollections,” p. 49.
+ Deuteronomy xvii.
�6
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
will give you a heaven! ” was the vehement cry of
Nestorius to the Emperor. After the mission of
Dominic the persecution of heretics in certain districts
amounted to absolute extermination; and in 1568 a
sentence of the Inquisition doomed the entire popula
tion of the Netherlands to death as heretics.
“ Three
millions of people, men, women and children were
sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.” * So terribly
in earnest was the Christian Church, preferring that the
earth should be rendered a depopulated and howling
wilderness rather than be peopled by heretics.
No sooner had the perfidious murderer, Constantine,
declared in favour of Christianity than, armed with the
civil power, it sprang from the dust in which it had
been writhing and shrieking under the rod, and, wrench
ing that rod from the hands of the persecutors, it
brought it down with remorseless cruelty upon the backs
of all and sundry who failed to recognise deity incarnate
in the wandering preacher of Galilee.
First, with
terrible hate, the Christian blade was stabbed into the
Jewish heart, and persecution, such as they had never
before experienced, fell upon the seed of Abraham,
although they were of the same race as the man-god
of this new faith in whose name they were called upon
to suffer. The race-blood from which their Christ had
sprung the Christians shed like water. Next, the
Christian fury was directed against the Pagans, who,
when in power, had been so tolerant to them, and who
had never punished them for their monstrous creed,
but only for their flagitious crimes. And, next, the
Christian fury fell upon such Christians as differed from
the majority on some nugatory and hair-breadth point
of doctrine; and neither Jew nor Pagan was hounded
to dungeon and death with more remorseless zeal than
was Christian by brother Christian.
“ There are,”
exclaimed the heathen, “ no wild beasts so ferocious as
Christians who differ concerning their faith.” A Jew
who married a Christian incurred the penalty of death ;
a Christian who might select a Jewess for his mistress
was liable to be burned alive ; and a certain Christian
* Motley’s “ Rise of the Dutch Republic,” vol. ii. p. 155-
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
7
*
Queen passed a statute going into the details as to how
Christians were to be entertained and accommodated in
Christian brothels, but enacting that, if a Jew dared to
enter the chamber of the holy harlots, he was to be
flogged.
The Jew’s own Scriptures furnished texts which the
new sect read as his death warrant. Deity himself was
cited as the first persecutor in that he expelled Adam
from Eden for a breach of the divine law, and cursed
his descendants. Elijah was referred to as having slain
the prophets of Baal, and also Hezekiah, Josiah, and
Nebuchadnezzar as noted persecutors of heretics under
divine approval. Moreover, the master-spirit of the early
Church, St Augustine, gave to persecution the impetus
of his genius, learning and zeal. He cursed religious
liberty in the memorable words: 11 Quid cst enun pejor,
mors animce quam libertas errorisP\ With him heresy
was the most destestable of all crimes, immeasurably
worse than ordinary murder, being the murder of the
soul. Toleration was an absolute crime. The closest
and the tendcrest relations of life were to be utterly
trampled on and disregarded in the interests of suppress
ing heresy. “ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or
thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or
thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee
secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods which
thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; namely,
of the gods of the people which are round about you,
nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one
end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth ;
thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto
him ; neither shalt thine eye pity him ; neither shalt thou
spare, neither shalt thou conceal him ; but thou shalt
surely kill him ; thine hand shall be first upon him to
put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the
people; and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he
die ; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from
the Lord thy God.”J “ He that believeth and is baptised
* Jeanne I., in 1347. DVZs Sabatier, “Hist, de la Legislation
sitr le Femme Publique,” p. 103.
f Epist. clxvi.
I Dent. xiii. 6-10.
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be
damned.”* “ If there come any unto you and bring not
this doctrine, receive him not into your house, nor bid
him God speed.”f “ If any man preach any other
Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be
accursed.”§ “ I would they were even cut off that
trouble you.”f The whole Christian fabric was rested
upon “Believe and be baptised.” Any hypocrite and
liar could, when he found it suited his interests, say he
believed, and generally there was an end of it. But,
with baptism, it was different; there required to be the
“ outward and visible sign : ” every human being that did
not submit to being damped by a priest went inevitably
to perdition. Practically, the Christian watchword was
“ Be damped or be damned.”
The Church took care that children who were likely
to die before their mothers gave them birth should be,
prenatally, baptised with a syringe. Christendom was
baptism mad. Only the waters of baptism could render
you so damp as to be unsuited for hell. The keenest
intellects of the Middle Ages engaged in a subtle and
acrimonious controversy in regard to a Jew who got
converted to Christianity in an arid desert. The Jew
was dying, no water could be found, and, instead of
the cooling fluid, his brow was sprinkled with hot desert
sand, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. |)
The controversy hinged on the question as to whether
baptism with sand was, or was not, effective in securing
salvation. The Council of Trent settled the matter, and
declared that baptism must be by water, and water only;
and so it was discovered that, after all the bother, the
converted Jew was damned. Every unbaptised infant
was consigned to the same region as the sand-baptised
Jew. Every child came into the world bearing the
guilt of “Adam’s first sin,” and under the sentence of
eternal torment; and learned works advocating this view
have been written as late as in the memory of men still
living, and by no less able theologians than Dr Jonathan
* Mark xvi. 16.
f 2 John i. 10.
t Gal. i. 9.
§ Gal. v. 12.
|| PT/k Thiers’ “Traite de Superstitions.”
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
9
Edwards—so firmly based is Christian persecution upon
ihe bed rock of infallible dogma.
Under Christian persecutions thousands of Jews took
the precaution to get baptised with water to save their
lives. Christianity thus made tens of thousands of
hypocrites and liars, and she makes millions of them
even at this hour—men and women who do not believe
her dogmas, but who are too indolent to investigate and
too cowardly to avow in vindication of conscience as
against selfish interest. The converted Jews had more
moral verve. Whenever there was a lull in the storm of
persecution they returned to Judaism. No fewer than
17,000 converts that had been made by one man re
turned, as soon as they dared avow it, to the faith of
Israel. This one man was St Vincent, a friar so pure
that it is recorded of him that he always undressed in
the dark lest his modesty might be shocked by seeing
himself naked. The Christians have had numerous
purists of this order : they had, in more recent times, the
holy ones who inveighed against Linnaeus as indecent
because his system of botany taught the doctrine of the
sexes of plants.
The Crusades alone are estimated to have cost the
lives of two million Christians, who dashed their religious
fury, almost as impotently as the wave dashes its foam
on the rock, on the warriors of the turban and crescent.
And even to this day the detested Mohammedan has his
mosque on the site of the Holy Sepulchre. But the
fury of Christian against Infidel was surpassed by the
ferocious zeal with which Christian persecuted Christian,
often for differences all but imperceptible, except to the
faith-opened eyes of religious lunatics. As we have seen,
a keen and rancorous dispute raged for years as to
whether it was lawful to baptise with sand, instead of
water; and to the learned and devout such problems
were ever presenting themselves as the double proces
sion of the Holy Cyhost, the exact nature of the trans
figuration light upon Mount Tabor, and the existence in
Christ of two coincident, but perfectly independent,
wills. Want of soundness on such insane subtleties was
sufficient to have the unsound one burnt to a cinder.
Indeed, to a common-sense observer, who can divest
�io
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
himself of the distorted and diseased spirit which
animated the centuries when Christianity was yet strong,
it would seem that the faith had entered into a solemn
league with the powers of Evil to fill the world with
horror and misery. When accused by the Inquisition
you were not permitted to confront your accuser, nor
even to know his name. You might be as orthodox as
it was possible to be; but, if any one entertained a
grudge against you, he could have you tortured to death
by simply giving in your name to the nearest agent of
the Holy Office. Then it was all over with you.
The procedure was thus :—“ The Inquisitor tried to
mystify the accused by captious questions. He asked
the presumed delinquent whether the new-born infant
came from man or God. If the reply was, ‘ From man,’
‘Then,’ said the Inquisitor, ‘you are a heretic; for only
heretics deny the creation of man by God.’ And if the
accused happened to reply, ‘ From God,’ he was equally
convicted of heresy, as making God the paramour of a
woman. They asked, too, whether the soul began with
the embryo, or after it; whether all souls were made at
one and the same moment, and where; whether the host
consecrated by the priest was the whole deity, or only
part of him. If he answered, ‘ The whole deity,’ the
examiner exclaimed : ‘ Suppose, then, that four priests
consecrate the host at one time in the same church,
how can the whole deity be contained in each conse
cration ? ’ and, if the trembling respondent admitted, in
his confusion, that such was the necessary inference, the
Inquisitor triumphantly convicted him of asserting the
existence of four gods at once. A Franciscan monk
ventured to declare openly (1319) in Toulouse that Peter
and Paul themselves would have been unable to prove
their orthodoxy before the Inquisition, and was con
demned to imprisonment for life for uttering this un
palatable truth.” *
Among the first schismatics to suffer martyrdom were
the Arians and the Donatists. Their churches were
destroyed, their leaders banished, and their writings
committed to the flames. Then there was a lull. The
* Mackay’s “ Rise and Progress of Christianity,” pp. 301, 302.
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
II
tremendous power of the hierarchy had welded and
pressed together the shattered fragments of the dis
membered Roman Empire. The influence of the then
Church and the condition of the then Western Europe
were commensurate, and on the quiet of moral apathy
and intellectual atrophy rested the pillars of the Age of
Faith. But this age was, naturally, only a transition, not
a permanency. The innate restlessness of human specu
lation and the Revival of Learning chafed against the
iron ring with which the Vatican bounded the world.
Under the blow of the crozier Europe lay stunned, but
not slain. She arose, and, looking around in the dim
sunrise which had succeeded a rayless night, she beheld
Rome holding the crown and keys, and posing as the
sole and only oracle to which the problems of existence
and destiny could be carried and the vexed questions of
secular life referred. The pretensions of the oracle were
doubted. Scepticism arose spontaneously and blossomed
into heresy—in the eyes of the Church the most exe
crable of all crimes.
Though heaven and earth should fall to pieces, this
heresy must be put down. Rome arose in her majesty,
strong as the north wind, cold and pitiless as the de
scending avalanche. Her attitude had been, and must
be, unquestioned, unchallenged authority ; and that
authority must be vindicated. The issues of man s
everlasting destiny were in her hands, and she would
rise equal to the charge confided to her. She had the
whole truth, and outside her pale was inevitable perdi
tion. The fate of souls was in her keeping, and those
souls should be kept, at whatever cost to the body.
Better that earth should shriek for a thousand years
under the fellest tortures human ingenuity could devise
than that a single soul should pass an eternity of fiery
agony in hell.
Her mind was made up, her Holy
Scriptures explicit, and her duty clear. She set afoot
her Inquisition, deepened her dungeons, sharpened her
heading axe, got ready her torch and fagot and her
machines of torture, and set about her duty as expressly
indicated in her doctrines. Christianity was then strong
and honest. She could see her duty and carry it for
ward for God’s sake, even through consequences the
�12
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
most terrible—through the annihilation of all that is
essentially human and the substitution of all that is
positively fiendish.
“Men, like fish, were devourers of each other; there
was no fear of God or man; iniquity trod on the heels
of iniquity ; adultery, sacrilege, and homicide abounded ;
the strong oppressed the weak.”* This was the state
of matters that obtained from 1208, when Pope Innocent
III. established the Inquisition. For weary century after
century the red spectre of persecution presided over
the thud of the heading-axes and built up the fires that
were fed with human flesh. On, from 1208, this spectre
stalked down the ages till it was lost amid the bloodmists of the French Revolution. The ancient red
spectre died in the grasp of the modern one ; the rack
of Innocent gave way to the guillotine of Marat. But
the Inquisition did not depart till it had piled its
holocausts mountain high. According to Llorente, who
had free access to the Inquisitorial archives, in Spain
alone the Inquisition burnt 31,000 persons to death,
and condemned 290,000 to punishments in many cases
only nominally less extreme than the death penalty.
These numbers do not include the victims who perished
under branches of the Inquisition established in Mexico,
Lima, Carthagena, the West Indies, Sicily, Sardinia, and
Malta. In the Netherlands alone 50,000 suffered death
for heresy in a single reign—that of Charles V.
Vivicremation—burning alive—was the stale and ordi
nary manner in which the Christian Tweedledum dis
posed of the equally Christian, but more unfortunate,
Tweedledee. But the vivicremation had, in the interests
of Jesus, to be conducted on a scale so extensive that
the ordinary stake-and-fagot arrangement was found to
be inadequate. Besides, the quantity of timber it took
to roast him was too expensive to be consumed on such
a worthless thing as a heretic. It accordingly came
into fashion to make strong enclosures, like cattle-pens,
into which the heretics were packed along with some
cart-loads of straw and brushwood. Then the pen was
closed and surrounded with troops, and the straw and
* Hallam’s “Middle Ages,” ii. 223.
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
IJ
brushwood set fire to. And there, amid flame and
smoke, perished scores at a time, their cries of agony
falling on the impervious ears of their brother Christians,
and the stench of their burning flesh ascending as a
sweet-smelling savour to the nostrils of Jehovah Elohim,
in whose accursed interests man had so terribly turned
his hand against his brother man. Then followed the
wholesale and unconsecrated burial. Scores still alive,
but blistered with burning straw and half-suffocated with
smoke, had the cold earth of the grave-pit laid upon
their scorched flesh, and were, in their tomb, left to die
at their leisure. The Archbishop of Rheims and seven
teen other prelates looked upon the conflagration in
such a pen as I have referred to, when no fewer than
184 heretics were in it, at one and the same time,
suffering death by fire.
In the face of the appalling numbers of those who died
for real or suspected heresy in regard to often incom
prehensibly subtle points in that most unscientific of all
sciences, theology, dare you, O Christian apologist, con
tend that a faith that, in one way or other, has been
guilty of the violent death of millions of the human race
has brought “glad tidings of great joy”? Thousands,
tens of thousands, were tortured for days with the fellest
torture that human ingenuity could devise, and then
borne out with dislocated joints, broken bones, and
mangled limbs to, over a slow fire, writhe out the bitter
dregs of life that yet remained. Hear their groans, their
shrieks, their yells of anguish arise from the torture
chamber and the fagot’s burning agony. These cries of
mortal pain yet peal down the corridors of the ages, and
proclaim your “ peace and goodwill ” a mockery and a
lie. And to the fiery sufferings of dissolution was added
all the poignancy of supernatural terrors. The Spanish
heretic was burnt in a yellow blouse, upon which the
flames of hell were painted to indicate that the few days
or hours of torment on earth were to be succeeded by
torment everlasting in the infernal world. The heretic’s
goods were confiscated, his children left to perish, and
his wife, under social and ecclesiastical ban, to sink to
prostitution and beggary; for the heretic's crime was so
terrible that it blighted all that had been connected with
�14
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
him like a canker and a curse. Thus was spread the
suffering over an immeasurably wider area than the mere
tens of thousands who perished at the stake. For every
sufferer had some friend, some father, some mother, some
child, and the bane of his martyrdom alighted upon all,
and the fearful conviction that the one who had been so
dear to them had gone only through a fiery prelude on
earth to the everlasting burnings of hell. Thus the
Christian faith blighted and embittered the lives of
millions whom its malevolence only indirectly reached.
Unsatiated with the burning of the living, the Romish
Church tried for heresy the very dead man in his grave,
and the coffin and the pall and corruption could not save
him from the dread tribunal, more especially if his heirs
were in possession of property which, finding him guilty,
would confiscate to the Church. Death and suffering
to millions and outrage to the very dead in the tomb are
associated with the faith of the Galilean and his Gospel
of sarcastic mockery: “ On earth peace and goodwill
to men.”
If any apologist for Christianity may venture to affirm
that Catholicism had the monopoly for persecution, I am
prepared to maintain that Protestantism, in proportion
to its power, in the work of persecution, was no whit
behind the Church of Rome.
“ He that believeth not,” etc., was a statement so explicit
and on such inexpugnable authority that the extirpation of
those who should tend to shake the belief of the orthodox
became the foremost and most imperative of duties. Be
lieve this statement, and the better man you are, the more
merciless persecutor you will be. Buckle has cor
roborated the testimony of Llorente, that the most terrible
of the persecutors, Torquemada included, were, in them
selves, humane and kind-hearted men ; but they believed
in the doctrines of their Scriptures and Church, and con
sequently, when heresy was under judgment, deemed it
their duty to God and man to steel their heart against
every human emotion, and to become merciless as the
she-wolf from whose dugs her young had been torn away.
The crime lay not with the inquisitors and torturers; it
lay with those who forged writings which they alleged to
be of divine origin—it lay with the Church that, in
�CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.
I5
maintenance of her own dominancy, perpetuated and
enforced the fiendish corollary of the written fraud.
Consequently, as I have said, Papist and Protestant
alike persecuted in proportion to their respective influ
ences. For the stake and rack were on both sides, at
the disposal of strong and earnest men—souls capable
of the direst renunciation and sacrifice, and prepared,
at the call of what they felt certain was duty, to make
earth an Aceldama of gore and groans, that heaven might
be an Elysium of gold and glory. In England here we
have been fed full of horrors on the recital of the per
secutions by the Papists; and the ordinary Protestant
in the street holds persecution to be a trait of the hated
Romish Church, and is unaware that /?A Church ever
persecuted at all. The prolonged and gallant struggle
of the Scottish Covenanters was not against Papists but
against their fellow Protestants. It was a Protestant
hammer that drove the wedges down upon the splintered
bones of Hugh MacKail; it was Protestant murder that,
in front of his own doorstep, scattered the brains of John
Brown of Priesthill. They were Protestant hands that
tore the body of Alexander Peden from the grave. Those
fierce blades at Bothwell are in Protestant hands, and,
from point to hilt, they are red with Protestant blood.
The mad and miserable hundreds in Greyfriars’ church
yard are Protestants, and it is a hedge of Protestant
muskets that keeps them there. The Crown that goes
down into the churned fury of the deep, gored to ruin on
the rock horns of the Orkneys, is filled with Protestants,
shipped off by other Protestants to be sold in the Indies
as slaves. Protestant voices sing that death-psalm till the
sea closes and roars over the psalm and the singer.
The John Calvin was no Papist who, in order to
prolong his agony, caused Michael Servetus to be slowly
roasted to death. In Holland a man who had already
been scorched, racked, and partly flayed is trailed across
the floor of the dungeon out into the light, that other
horrors may be perpetrated for the purpose of inducing
him to take a certain view of certain doctrinal points—
one more attempt to bring him properly to him who said,.
“ He that believeth not shall be damned.” The man,
back downwards, was firmly secured to the floor. '1 hen,
�I6
CHRSTJAN PERSECUTION.
on his naked abdomen, was placed an inverted metal
vessel containing under it a number of rats. On the
bottom uppermost of this basin live coals were heaped
till the rats underneath, to escape being roasted alive,
tore their way through the man’s flesh into the cavity of
his body to find refuge among his intestines. The basin
was removed, and fiery cinders were thrust into the holes
in the flesh through which the rats had torn their way.
*
* Adapted from “The Bottomless Pit” to which the reader is
referred for further details of persecution by Protestants.
�
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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christian persecution, by Saladin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Publisher's advertisements on p.[2]. "by Saladin" [title page], the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1887]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N577
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Christian persecution, by Saladin), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
NSS
Persecution
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9beadcc33cd3fd6332744f49d2b737a2.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=ttqJgUyNXiAb8ZfWgJQt-cYLyy3QttBavnNH25NBCAxvHrepY7-JAgukmJP4E6WXhioJka7Fy9lIps1ySATCEpg0sdxBRwjClwCb3nACGk7FS7DFRUw3otBJwrk6QACF4XX8kUKuuffkmC8pbhfJvFQadi9VT1GZ-wbY%7Eyv8itOpJ8K883%7EctJ26q8qVuOD8RJAYrFaIM-pEVjOw3i9awuqDX2FM2zdFMXL%7EROq3hnpjg7gNoCK4cJPMtcsL%7E4jMKa5bLSMOiWl2msaPt2XB3yJH9R0z9QOd8W3FGv0K8mdLNYyhWqZnnLBR48zG1ZU4dt%7ETNV-S82zJiC578wl%7EyQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a388ebcfa1759ff18418fc00a92b2b33
PDF Text
Text
“Religious Education.”
A LETTER TO
CARDINAL MANNING.
PART I.
BY
London :
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��6 JO 7/
KT555
“Religious Education.”
May it Please Your Eminence,—I have read in the
Newcastle Daily Chronicle the report of your sermon,
delivered at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
on Saturday, September 26th, 1885. From your interest
ing biography, venerable age, and exalted position in the
Romish Church, your utterances challenge criticism.
Whether they challenge criticism from any intrinsic con
siderations I leave your readers and mine to decide.
Recognising that you and I respectively stand at the
very antagonising poles of modern tendency and thought,
I will make an effort to come within touch of you, in order
to, as far as possible, realise your position before I assail it.
Your attitude I recognise to be a complete anachronism:
it belongs to the time when Rufus founded a castle on
the banks of the Tyne, not to the generation in which
Stephenson spanned that river with an iron bridge.
Your Eminence lays stress upon the special solicitud(e
heaven took in children, although only the children of
Jews, before the Christian dispensation, and then you
exclaim:—
How much more, then, are yours—your children that are born
again by water and the Holy Ghost, and are made children of God
in a higher sense than the children of Israel—members of Christ,
heirs of the eternal heirship of the Son of God, of the kingdom of
heaven ?
Am I to infer from the hackneyed and half-meaningless
pulpit jargon of this passage that God likes Jew children
well, but Christian children better ? I have been told
by God, on the authority of his own book, that he is
“ no respecter of personsbut you apparently know
better. Has the unchangeable God changed his mind
and given your Eminence the advantage of a private
revelation, prefaced by : “ Don’t mind my old book : I
�4
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. ’
am a much older and wiser God than I was when I wrote
that”? My children, your Eminence, are neither Jewish
nor Christian : perhaps you would be courteous enough
to say how he regards them. If there be a God who,
on account of the faith of its parents, would even com
paratively disfavour (as you allege he does) an innocent
child, I am glad I am only an Agnostic, and cannot,
by searching, find out such a God ; for, were I a Theist,
and could find him out, I should denounce him as a
malignant fiend and curse him to his face. Thrust aside
your theological tantrums for a moment, Cardinal Man
ning, and tell me if you are not ashamed of this mean
little godling you worship, who, before'he determines to
what degree he will love an innocent baby, takes into
consideration whether its parents are Jewish or Christian.
One of the reasons you allege why God loves the
Christian baby more than the Jewish one is, that the
former is “ born again by water and the Holy Ghost.”
Pray be good enough to step down for a moment from
your ranting theological perch to the firm ground of
common sense, and tell me, in the name of all that is
explicable, what this means. “ Born again by water and
the Holy Ghost” ! You know as well as I do that this
expression is as utterly nonsensical as if your Eminence
had said : “ Born again of a paving-stone and of the
fire-shovel.” Your dupes ask you for bread, and you
give them a stone; they ask for an idea, and you give
them words. Your Church conducts much of its service
in Latin, to impose upon the ignorant and keep them
ignorant; and your priesthood take care that their English
is as unintelligible as their Latin, the threadbare and labo
riously nonsensical platitudes of pontifical jargon. The
“fools and blind ” are awed by the presentiment that some
fearfully significant and mysterious meaning underlies
your priestly babblement. “Born again by water”!
Such jargon, instead of exciting reverent piety with those
with whom you have to cope now-a-days, evokes only
the irreverent contempt which asks : Do you refer to
parturition in a punt on the river, or to an accouchement
down in a diving-bell ? And as for your exceedingly
phantasmal Holy Ghost, will you tell me anything he
ever did, except his being mixed up with an affiliation
�“ RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
5
case under remarkably shady circumstances, appearing
once in the guise of a dove or fantail pigeon, and once
again in the shape of “ cloven tongues as of firewhile
appearing as Paysandu tongues, at 9d. a lb., would have
been more to the purpose ? Is this scurrilous blasphemy?
So be it. It is our contemptuous reply to divine thimble
rigging. Give us arguments to deal with, and wre will
deal with them ; but insult our reason with the hackneyed
and vapid platitudes of professional priestcraft, and our
sneer and our sarcasm will give you to understand what
we think of them and you.
Your Eminence assures us that, as regards children—
They have an invisible guardian—an angel ever watching over
them.
Here, your Eminence, you have effectively curbed my
irreverent levity. To talk, as you do, of an “invisible
guardian ” watching over every child is too sinister and
solemn a mockery for flippant refutation. You are
double my age, Lord Cardinal. Have you not seen
children as I have seen them ? Do you speak in igno
rance, or do you speak in truculent and terrible jest ?
Have you seen the child, partially born, have its skull
crushed in in splinters upon its brain by iron forceps,
as the solution of the desperate alternative whether the
life of the mother or that of the child should be saved?
Where was the “invisible guardian’? Have you seen
the child born mutilated and covered with ulcers, fearful
heirloom from the sins and sorrows of its progenitors ?
Where was the “ invisible guardian ” ? Have you seen
the babe, with sunken eyes and ravenous lip, and the
haggard look that babyhood should never know, tug at
the milkless nipples of a-starving mother ? Where is the
“invisible guardian?” Have you seen that haggard
baby dead and shrouded in a newspaper, as I have seen
it, and smuggled surreptitiously into the coffin of an
adult pauper, and buried with him to save expense ?
Where was the “ invisible guardian ” ? That baby was
so buried in its newspaper cerements because its mother,
who followed it to the grave, through want, would not
stoop to prostitution, even to save its life and her own.
Where was the “ invisible guardian ” ? Have you seen,
�6
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
as I have seen, the child born in “ holy wedlock,” but with
the prostitution of its mother resorted to in order to save
its life and hers ; and have you seen that babe, as I have
seen it, drain from its mother’s breast the syphilitic virus
till the cartilege of the baby nose and the scalp on the
baby skull rotted away, and the innocent infant was
putrescent before it reached the tomb ? Where was the
“ invisible guardian ” ? Have you seen the prepossessing
female child fed and nurtured by its own parents, to be
sold to the lecher—incipient human flesh exposed on the
shambles of lust, and knocked down to the highest
bidder? Where was the “ invisible guardian ” ?
I could go on with interrogations like these, your
Eminence, mounting step after step in the terrible climax;
for I, who write to you, am a man who have turned from
the study of Greek to study the fearful moods and tenses
of the streets ; and I have left Hebrew that I might
study the square characters of the alleys and the Massorah of the slums. The hand that holds the pen that
now writes to you has lain upon the pulse of the world,
and felt all the irregular throbbings of the heart of
Humanity.
The eye that glances upon the paper
upon which this missive is written has, for God, gazed
through the clouds of the esoteric till it has been com
pelled to look down in Agnosticism, dimmed and blinded,
outside the unopening gates of Mystery. I have seen
falsehood on the throne, and truth on the scaffold; but
I have never traced, and neither have you, the action of
the “invisible guardian.”
In pleading for the support of schools in which the
Romish faith may continue to be inculcated, your
Eminence remarks:—
And, lastly, some of you, perhaps, may remember the schools of
this parish when you make your last will and testament, and your
Lord’s name will be found among the names of your heirs.
Did your Eminence so far master your risible tendencies
as to look sufficiently solemn for your sacred calling when
you uttered these words ? Cicero opines that two augurs
could not meet without laughing in each other’s faces,
in tacit recognition of how they managed to gull the
populace. When you spoke of Catholics executing their
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. »
7
wills, and making Jesus Christ one of their heirs, did
you, internally, put your divine thumb to your sacred
nose and extend your holy fingers? You well know
that Jesus Christ—whether that half-mythical character
ever really existed or not—wants none of your filthy lucre.
You use his name as the shears with which to shear the
sheep, that the fleece may come to the priests. This
lending money to the Lord in celestial debentures is a
very old confidence trick and financial swindle, Cardinal
Manning. The swindle has never been a farthing in the
pocket of “ the Lord,” whatever and whoever he may
be ; but it has, for centuries, swelled the coffers of a fat,
lazy, and licentious priesthood. For how many dreary
and black ages the priest of your baleful creed has
attended at the bedside of the dying man and indemni
fied the expiring wretch against the red fire of hell in
consideration of the Church receiving the red sheen of
his gold ! Is the palpable imposition not yet played
out ? How long, O Lord, how long, will the mothers of
our race only bear and suckle fools ?
Your Eminence goes on to say :—
I would fain much rather speak upon the Sermon on the Mount,
or upon the useful history of the gospel we have read to-day, than
upon the matter on which I may say necessity compels us at this
time to think with all the energy of our hearts—I mean the state
and condition of the education of this country, the peril that is
before us, the unconsciousness of that peril; and that peril multi
plied by the fact that men are not roused up or awakened to see
what is certain and inevitable in the future. Let us, then, con
sider this. From the seventh century down to the present the
education of the people of this land was a Christian education.
The Christianity of England was perpetuated by that which made
England in the beginning. At this moment we have come to what
I may call a deviation from that sacred tradition, which, until now,
has sustained the Christianity of the people of this land. Some
men will call it a new departure. It is the language of the day ;
and it is a useful phrase for us for it is a departure—a striking off
from the tradition, the broad highway of the people, of Christian
England. And we are threatened at this time with a system of
education neither Christian nor English, but borrowed from the
vain and shallow theories of the first French Revolution—that is to
say, a State education without definite teaching, and, therefore—I
will say it boldly—Christianity. Down to fifteen years ago the
education of this land was in the hands of the parents of children
and those whom they spontaneously and voluntarily chose. For
the last fifteen years the State has claimed the children as its own,
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
and the State has claimed to be the educator of the children born
within its boundaries. These two principles are the principles of
the old Greek philosophy of the Platonic Republic, revived at the
end of the last century, as I have said, by the vainglorious and
superficial minds who wrecked the noble and Christian people of
France. And these two principles are establishing themselves in
the minds of the people of this country.
I quite credit your Eminence when you allege that you
would much rather dilate upon the “ Sermon on the
Mount ” than comment upon the, to you, extremely
painful fact of the education of the children of this
generation passing out of the hands of your Church, and,
indeed, out of the hands of Christianity. The “ Sermon
on the Mount,” with its cruel mockery and fiendish
sarcasm of '‘'■Blessed be ye poor,” is, possibly, the source
from which you have drawn your terrible trope anent the
“ invisible guardian ” which stands in watch and ward
over every child. But be assured, my Lord Cardinal,
that men are “ roused up or awakened to see what is
certain and inevitable in the future.” They see as clearly
as you do that the “ inevitable ” is that your Church is
doomed ; but they anticipate its dissolution and ruin with
equanimity, where they do not contemplate it with satis
faction. You, most reverend father, and your caste, have
lived upon the base craft of the priest and ascended on
the wings of sacerdotalism to the high places of the
earth; but those who do not belong to your craft have
had to maintain you, and they begin to find out that they
have been gulled too long by your wheedling them to
endure a hell upon earth on the promise that they will
have wings and glory in the skies. They are beginning
to discover that they know as much about the wings and
glory as you do, and find that they are so extremely
problematical that they have resolved to make the best
and the happiest of Here and Now, leaving the wings and
the glory to take care of themselves. They have resolved
that their children shall be taught Reading and Writing
and Arithmetic, and, where practicable, the “ Extra
Subjects and they have freely permitted themselves to
be rated for this purpose, and have practically told you
and yours to stand aside with your Gospels and your
“ Sermon on the Mount,” and let them have a little more
bread and intelligence here, and not stultify them any
�“religious education.”
9
longer with your child-bearing Virgin, your crucified
joiner, and your other monstrous, but to you profitable,
“ teachings ” upon which your poor dupes are to depend
for their wings and their glory.
The very France upon which your Eminence lays
such great stress is drifting away with England from
the rusty and obsolete moorings of your Church.
In France the item for education has just been con
sidered in the Budget; and, when Bishop Freppel
objected to secular schools, M. Debost replied that
they were gaining in popularity, having had since
last year 65,000 more attendants, while the scholars in
the Catholic schools have in the same time decreased
by 13,000. The establishment of professorship of the
History of Religions, to be filled with men who count
the Christian religion as but one among many, was also
very naturally objected to by the Bishop, as virtually
teaching a State irreligion. But to all this it was con
sidered sufficient to reply that these posts would be
filled by men like Ernest Havet and Renan, who would
discuss texts, and not dogmas.
What does your Eminence think of men of the type
of Ernest Renan and Ernest Havet? They are not
exactly the kind of persons upon whom your Church has
pronounced panegyrics. Your Almighty God and your
infallible Church are behind you. Strike and spare not.
Scatter the charred dust of the heretics on the wings of
the wind, as you were wont. You w’ould do so without
invocation from me; but your God has become decrepit
and your Church has become imbecile. There are, alas
for you, no lightning at Sinai to vindicate, no Holy
Inquisition at Rome to avenge. We “Infidels” have
emerged from the Stygian gloom. Our eyes have caught
from the far horizon the sunrise of the world’s morning;
and, long before the sun has climbed to the zenith, we
will stand with our heel upon the neck of your God and
your Church, proclaiming that heaven is annihilated and
hell extinguished, that the Demon of the Seven Hills is
dead, and that man, at last, is free.
Renan and Havet! Alas ! poor Cardinal. Your lines
have not fallen in pleasant places. Simeon Styletes,
standing uselessly on the top of his pillar praying, while
�IO
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
worms and vermin were eating holes through his shrunken
flesh into his sapless bones, was the type of manhood
your papist cultus produced. Marie Angelique, praying
forever, except when she stood on her head before the
Lord, and pointed up to his throne with her unwashed
heels ; or when she sucked, in his holy name, rags that
had bandaged and were saturated with the pus from sores,
was the model type of womanhood your Church pro
duced when she alone was the educator, and none
durst say unto her, What doest thou ?
Your Church, when all the power was hers, my Lord
Cardinal, inculcated a coarse, but devout, blasphemy far
beneath the mental and moral status of the School
Board system which you abhor. For instance, in
several churches of France, remarks Russell, in his
“ Modern Europe,” a festival was celebrated in com
memoration of the Virgin Mary’s flight into Egypt. It
was called the “ Feast of the Ass.” A young girl, richly
dressed, with a child in her arms, was placed upon an
ass superbly caparisoned. The ass was led to the altar
in solemn procession. High mass was said with great
pomp. The ass was taught to kneel at proper places ;
a hymn, no less childish than impious, was sung in his
praise; and, when the ceremony was ended, the priest,
instead of the usual words with which he dismissed the
people, brayed three times like an ass ! and the people,
instead of the usual response, brayed three times in
return!
Your Eminence objects to the School Board and to
secular education generally : no wonder, it is so exceed
ingly different from the “ religious education ” which
held sway when all the power was yours, and when Pro
testants and “ Infidels ” were unknown. A “ religious
education ” embraced profound speculations as to
whether Adam, not having a mother, was “created”
with a navel, and as to whether Christ could have taken
any other form but that of man—as, for instance, that of
a woman, of the devil, of an ass, of a cucumber, or of
a flint stone. Then, supposing he had taken the form
of a cucumber, how could he have preached, worked
miracles, or been crucified ? Whether Christ could be
called a man while he was hanging on the cross;
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
I1
whether the Pope shared both natures with Christ;
whether God the Father could in any case hate the Son ;
whether the Pope was greater than Peter, and a thousand
other niceties far more subtle than those about
“notions,” “formalities,” “quiddities,” “ ecceities,” “in
stants,” and “essences.” This “religious education,”
whose demise you lament, disposed the mind all through
Christendom to give a ready credence to miracles worked
by bottles of Christ’s blood and bottles of Mary’s milk,
“ God’s coat,” “ our lady’s smock,” part of the last supper,
a piece of the halter with which Judas hanged himself,
a bone of Mary Magdalene, at least two different heads
of Thomas-^.-Becket, Christ’s picture on a handkerchief
which he had sent to Abgarus, Christ’s foreskin, and a
finger of the Holy Ghost. In the genuineness of these and
thousands of other sacred and miracle-working relics all
Europe believed, Cardinal Manning, when your Church
had undisputed power in education; and, in the few re
maining dark dens of ignorance where your power remains
unbroken, your dupes believe in these relics still; but,
except in her dens of ignorance, Europe will tolerate your
“ religious education ” no more forever.
Ichabod ! the glory of your house has departed ;
and it would not be without sympathy that I should
listen to your wail of desolation, your voice as of one
crying in the wilderness ; but I hear in your wail the
clarion-blast which heralds that the New World is
drawn up in battle-line against the Old. I hear in
your voice in the wilderness the clash of steel in the
Armageddon in which Truth shall conquer Error, and
from which the world shall emerge, not looking for its
salvation to your poor Jew upon Calvary, but looking to
the might that slumbers in its own heart and brain for the
working out of its own sanctification and redemption.
Your Eminence states that, “from the seventeenth
century down to the present,” the education of this
country has been a “Christian education.” Yes; but it
is just because Christianity was established in England
so early as the seventh century (it was established much
earlier than that, as your Eminence will see when you
begin to read history) that it should be continued no
longer. What suited the seventh century will not suit
�12
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
the nineteenth. Human progress is as slow as the
proverbial “ mills of Godstill, it is progress ; and
what suited lethargic Saxons or steel-shirted Danes under
Offa or Hardraga will not suit the awakening intelligence
of England in the reign of Victoria.
Could I sympathise with a terrible calamity falling
upon the defenceless head of Abaddon, I should sym
pathise with your Eminence in your cry of tribulation
thatvthe education of the children of our time is passing
—has almost passed—out of the control of the Church.
This, to your Christian Abracadabra, simply means
perdition. It was only because the Christian priesthood
got hold of plastic childhood, and maimed the intellect
and mutilated the understanding, that you got Christianity
to be accepted by any except lunatics. Try it with adults
who never heard of it till they were adults, and from
the experiment you will be able to determine whether
or not what I say is true. I make bold to allege that
there never was a really sane human being in the world
who had reached manhood before he had heard of Chris
tianity, and then adopted it from the appeal it made to
his mental and moral acceptance. You have tried the
adult Jew and the adult Hindoo for ages, and what have
you to show for your missionary zeal and vast monetary
sacrifice? Your labourers have got no souls for their
hire. The field consecrated by their devotion, and not
infrequently watered with their blood, is sterile. The
effort is stupendous, and the result is mV.
No wonder that you cry with a bitter and despairing
cry that the children are taken from you. For centuries
you have crippled and debased them to bring them down
to the low standard of your creed and render them
the half-hewn caryatides to support the superstructure of
your wealth and power and splendour. It is in youth
the Chinese must distort the feet of their ladies into the
pedal abortions upon which Chinese ladies walk. If
they tried to do so in later life, the more consolidated
tarsal and metatarsal bones would resist, and the woman
would perish before the deformity was effected. It is
only in early youth you can bend the credence into accept
ing as fact that Jonah was three days “ in the whale’s
belly,” and that the Son of Man was three days “in
�“religious
education.”
13.
the heart of the earth;” and that, at the end of three days,
Jonah got vomited out on dryland ; and that, at the end
of three days, the Son of Man got up out of his grave
and flew to heaven. Tell this to any man out of Colney
Hatch, and see whether he will believe you. Then, is
it moral to impose to such an extent upon the innocent
credulity of a child as to impress fables upon him as
facts, and burn them so deeply into his soul with the
accursed branding-irons of your priestcraft that the
intellect of his manhood is unable to deface the scars ?
You can rely upon the judgment finding for Christianity
only when that judgment is strongly warped by early
prejudice. Without the instilling of that early prejudice
you cannot make Christians, and you never will. You
use with skill all the most powerful influences of mental
distortion : you use shuddering fear ; you use the most
exalted love. You terrify the child with the fire and
brimstone of your hell, and you decoy him with the
tenderest emotions to which the human heart ever
throbbed; for the child first lisps his prayer at his
mother’s knee, and, in after years, the words have still
memories of a mother’s kiss and the halo of a vanished
face and the echo of a voice that is no more. The first
dread of hell, the first memories of a mother’s love, are
skilfully linked on to a debased and degrading supersti
tion, and they are, alas! too often strong enough to
support that superstition through a whole life. And this
deep engraining of prejudice, in favour of monstrosities
which, but for this prejudice, wrould never, on their own
merits, have had a moment’s serious consideration, is
what you and your clerical fraternity of all denomina
tions call Education ! Education, forsooth—it is the
very antithesis of it. You know that the intellect, if left
unmutilated till it matured, -would attach at most as
much credence to the Arthurian as to the Gospel legends.
Accordingly, to make sure that the intellect shall never
see above and beyond the “ truths ” which must be
believed in the interests of priestcraft, you take the
intellect in its infancy and burn out its eyes, or at least
afflict them with myopia and a malignant squint.
And this is Education ! For shame, my Lord Cardinal 1
If your Christianity be so true and reasonable, wait till
�14
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
the reason is developed before you attempt to teach.
I will then make you welcome to the half-dozen idiots in
all England who will believe your fable. But, in the
name of all that is sacred in the soul of the race, desist
from mutilating the intellect and debasing the morals
of little children in the interests of your irrational and
execrable creed. They are guilty who mutilate the feet
of Chinese girls, that when they become women they
may not wantonly walk into their neighbour’s houses;
but thrice damned is the guilt of those who mutilate the
intellects of European boys and girls, that when they
become men and women they may “ walk in the way of
the Lord.”
The section of the Christian Church of which your
Eminence is an ornament has always presumed upon the
crass ignorance of its votaries, and done its best to keep
that ignorance devotedly dense. But surely you presume
too much upon the ignorance of even the dupes of the
Church of Rome when you slanderously refer to “ the
vainglorious and superficial minds who wrecked the
noble and Christian people of France.” Surely some,
even in your ignorant auditory, must have had a surmise
that the “vainglorious and superficial minds” you referred
to were the Economists and the Encyclopaedists. Your
disparaging sneer was flung at Voltaire, D’Alembert,
Diderot, Duclos, Mably Condillac, Rousseau, Turgot,
Marmontel, Helvetius, and Raynal. Was there not,
even in the dull brains of the bigots who listened to you
at Newcastle as you sneered at “ superficial minds,” some
unbidden vision of a living pigmy kicking at a phalanx
of dead colossus ?
And, as for “the noble and Christian people of France,”
where did they exist outside of the prejudiced imagina
tion of your Eminence ? As for the people of France
before the Revolution you deplore, “ Christian ” they
may have been ; but “ noble ” they were not. The world
has never seen—and may the world never see again—a
people so utterly trampled down into the abyss of want
and misery and general degradation. Every schoolboy
knows this ; but your Eminence, apparently, does not
know it—or, rather, does not want to know it. “ Every
thing was fastened on by a few hands; everywhere the
�“ RELIGIOUS EDUCATION/’
J5
smaller number was in set opposition to the plundered
many. The nobility and clergy possessed nearly twothirds of the landed property ; the other third, possessed
by the people, paid taxes to the crown, a multitude of
feudal dues to the nobility, tithes to the clergy, and was,
moreover, subjected to the devastations of noble sports
men and the depredations of their game. The taxes
upon commodities weighed upon the great mass, and,
consequently, heaviest upon the people. The mode of
levying them was vexatious; the gentry might be in
letters with impunity; the people, on the contrary, were
ill-treated and imprisoned in default of payment. It
maintained by the sweat of its brow and defended with
its blood the higher classes, while scarcely able to subsist
itself. The inhabitants of towns, industrious, enlightened
—less miserable, certainly, than the peasantry, but en
riching the country by their industry and reflecting credit
upon it by their talents—enjoyed none of the advantages
io which they were entitled. Justice, administered in
some provinces by the gentry, in the royal jurisdictions
by magistrates who had bought their offices, was slow,
often partial, always ruinous, and especially atrocious in
criminal cases. Personal liberty was violated by lettres
de cachet, the liberty of the Press by royal censors.
Lastly, the State, ill-defended abroad, betrayed by the
mistresses of Louis XV., compromised by the ministers
of Louis XVI., had just been dishonoured in the eyes
of Europe by the shameful sacrifice of Holland and
Poland.”* So much for “the noble and Christian people
of France,” and the glorious state of affairs that the
“ superficial minds ” overthrew !
It is with diffidence I remind your Eminence of what
a “ noble and Christian people” the French were before
the “superficial minds” wrecked their nobility and
Christianity. To pay the infamous gabelle, a tax on
salt of about sevenpence in the pound, and other grievous
taxes, “ I have known poor people,” says Michelet, “sell
their beds and lie upon straw ; sell their pots, kettles,
and all their necessary household goods, to content the
unmerciful collectors of the king’s taxes.” There is a
* Thiers’ “ History of the French Revolution,” vol i., p. 9.
�“religious
16
education.”
well-known official document extant which proves that
the people were oppressed to such a degree that they,
“ could not buy wheat or barley ; they had to live on
oats, to nourish themselves on grass, and even to die of
hunger.” “ The people have not money to buy bread ;”
and Foulon, the model tax-collector, retorted : '"'■Then kt
them eat grass ”—this “ noble and Christian people of
France,” whose exalted position the “ superficial minds ”
so wickedly overthrew! No doubt your Eminence
admires the corvee with the admiration you lavish upon
the vingtieme and the gabelle. By virtue of this corvee,
on certain days in each year, the officers of the Court
went through the country, seized the peasants at will,
and marched them off in droves to make or repair the
public roads. For this the peasants received no pay;
and, if they could not, during their short respites from
labour, beg enough to keep themselves alive, they might
perish of hunger. Your Comte de Charolois amused
himself by going about with his musket in his hand,
looking out for peasants thatching their cottages, that
he might fire at and shoot them for the sport of seeing
them roll off the roof to the ground. How deplorable
it is to be sure that the “ superficial minds ” should
object to such a happy condition of affairs among “ the
noble and Christian people of France !”
Every Thzirsday.
THE
Price Twopence.
SECULAR
REVIEW:
A JOURNAL OF AGNOSTICISM.
EDITED BY SALADIN.
Order of your Newsagent, or send direct to the Publishers—W.
Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, London, E.C.
�
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/793055de08fd6487e4f9fe5ecdc6b172.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=dOiGjgGzmBHO6M-rl60W3M3GPK%7EjJ1Yv8qBguFbwTYzs0yPabcd-yRKpWnL0GaGwjdM3S2-ie8vDiUUQdnu6zK9LqEy374ygToSm73iCUHEIEfQGwIBJnsCE1PlkIqjs4FGLwm6rrcRb3Vvw%7EDAT%7EKl3FLxoCe99Z9NwnigKYYvFWjqmHDF0695NkJ3TvBRLMCML-J2UzrhUPZsfnruBp6nXtcXTXOh70xJZqtgaAAc3tfWjJ7RCreH1UUWGlM919cV-v%7EZTMeuxuoIPSZjuN44UZ9zTnZDgjbcDl8twtFLzPCD9WoV7ne9RyfnBhzEd04Gwg2FGyDb51beNA0xhHg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8b6827c7ae3a4c1f4d8f4689dd88f18d
PDF Text
Text
“Religious Education.”
A LETTER TO
CARDINAL MANNING.
PART II.
BY
London :
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
�.......
¿ 1i
�B3 0 7y
“Religious Education.”
And, Cardinal Manning, you will be gratified to hear
that your Church played an exceedingly prominent part
in the state of affairs the abolition of which you lament»
Great numbers of “ the noble and Christian people of
France ” were Huguenots. We will say nothing of how
your Church waded through the blood of 70,000 of these
Huguenots on a certain eve of St. Bartholomew. But
here is a record in regard to how your Christian Catholics
loved the Christian Huguenots : “ Some they stripped
naked, and, after they had offered them a thousand
indignities, they stuck them with pins from head to foot;
they cut them with pen-knives, tore them by the noses
with red-hot pincers, and dragged them about the rooms.
........... They tied fathers and husbands to the bed-posts,
and ravished their wives and daughters before their
eyes.”* No doubt, since your Eminence considers these
the amenities of a “ noble and Christian people,” you are
justified in your opposition to the un-Christian character
of School Board education. It will certainly not pro
duce the state of things you seem to admire. No set of
men brought up at a Board school will ever see any
motive to use red-hot pincers upon the flesh of those
trained at any other Board school. The teaching of
secular subjects produces no such result. To produce
adult actors in the red-hot pincers tragedy, you must train
children m the horrid dogmas and ruthless intolerance of
your Church. All the murder and martyrdom has been
over your Catechisms. I have never heard that an inch
of human flesh has been scorched, or that a drop of
human blood has been shed, over the Rule-of-Three.
Quicks “Synodicon,” vol. i., pp. 130-131.
�4
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
If you want all the old stabbing and scorching and
persecution and hatred to go on as they were wont, you
will, in early childhood, have to lay the substratum on
which they are based. The School Board will engender
only Philadelphia and cosmopolitanism; therefore, you
do well to attempt to arrest its hand, if you desire a con
tinuance of theological sectarianism and rancour. Get
hold of the children, if you can, my Lord Cardinal;
for it will take very early and unfair initiation to induce
them to tolerate, much less adore, your creed and
you. I repeat, Get hold of them early, if you can ; for
remember the truism Dryden renders so epigrammatically
in his “ The Hind and the Panther —
‘ ‘ By education most have been misled ;
So they believe because they so were bred.
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.”
The Due de Chartres built himself a magnificent
brothel, to which from 150 to 200 fallen women were
led each night blindfolded. A gorgeous supper, com
prising the most generous and heating wines, was what
met the eyes of the wantons when the bandages were
removed therefrom. The 150 or 200 women sat down
to the feast in a state of perfect nudity, and had. the
fiery vintages poured out to them by the assembled
*
libertines.
Modesty cries to Mercy to let the curtain
drop upon this carnival of lust participated in by “ the
noble and Christian people of France,” before the
“ superficial minds ” incited the populace to wash away
the stains of Christian lechery in the blood of a godless
revolution. Madame de Pompadour founded that “ noble
and Christian ” institution, the Parc aux Cerfs, and to
this institution were decoyed pretty maidens, no matter
how young, to minister to the pampered sensualities of
the king when Pompadour herself, in the course of years,
had lost her fascinations as a courtesan. A secret police
was instituted to entice, or kidnap, these young girls for
sensual orgies in the Parc aux Cerfs. The pious
Christian king insisted that these girl-children should tell
their beads and say their prayers, anxious that he should
* Vide “ Regede Louis XVI.;” “ Soulaire,” vol. ii., pp. 103, 104,
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.'
5
have their bodies and that Christ should have their souls.
Christ generously responded to this solicitude. One of
the little kidnapped ministers of the king’s licentiousness,
a girl of fourteen, had contracted small-pox. From the
girl, in whom it was as yet undeveloped, the king caught
the disease. The malady was fire to tinder in the
corrupt and poisonous blood of the royal débauchée.
His body was one mass of nauseating putrescence. The
stench from the dying lecher was so intense that no one
could go near the bed upon which he festered and died.
Before the writings of the “ superficial minds ” had had
time to take effect, your God, Cardinal Manning, took
this “ noble and Christian ” king unto himself, because
that, when debauching the bodies of little girls, he was
so solicitous that Christ should have their souls !
In 1777 the surface of their “noble and Christian”
France was crawled over by 1,200,000 diseased beggars,
all hungry, all in rags, all criminal and murderous, all
suffering from hideous diseases which want and filth had
brought on, but all “ noble and Christian.” For mercy’s
sake, your Eminence, do, when you are moved by the
Lord Jesus Christ to speak, insist that he move you to
speak a little nearer the truth ! Remember you are not
speaking amid the darkness of the seventh century, to
which you refer so fondly. Remember that I, an ir
reconcilable layman, conduct a journal which shrinks
not from the duty of speaking plainly to you, Cardinal
though you be. The only arguments you ever had to
meet such objections as I raise, such criticisms as I offer,
were of the dungeon-and-fire order ; and neither of these
you can now employ against me. The storm of public
opinion has' blown the roof off your dungeon, and Freethought stands defying you with her foot placed upon
the torch that lit your martyr-fires. Do, then, keep a
little nearer the truth ; for, if you do not, I promise you
I will strike and spare not ; and although the clientele I
appeal to may not, in your opinion, be “ noble,” and is
certainly not “ Christian,” it is neither small nor power
less ; and it prefers my history to your faith, my blasphemy
to your mass, and my sarcasm to your prayers. This
clientele can, if you persist in putting forward devout
fallacies, afford to dispise your Eminence ; but your
�6
“ RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.’
Eminence cannot afford to despise it; for, unlike you,
it raises no wail that its house is falling into decay : it
faces you, young indeed, but strong and resolute ; and,
panoplied in the armour of truth and righteousness, it
means to go forward conquering and to conquer, till
“ noble” does mean noble, and till the term “ Christian”
is first execrated and then abandoned.
Let the tree of Roman Catholic education be judged
by its fruits. Those ignorant and down-trodden thralls
of “ noble and Christian France ” are a specimen of
the fruits. Do you object: “ These are the fruits of
the laic branches of the tree”? Very well, your
*
Eminence, I am willing to stand by testing the fruit on
the cleric branches of the tree—by the very Pope
on the chair of St. Peter. Pope Sergius III., the vice
gerent of God upon earth, lived in concubinage with a
woman named Marocia. Pope John X. lived in con
cubinage with Theodora, a younger sister of Marocia.
Pope John XII. converted the papal palace into a perfect
seraglio, and lost his life by the hand of a husband whose
wife he had dishonoured. Pope John XVII. pursued
the same licentious course, and also perished under the
hand of an avenging husband. Benedict IX. led such
a scandalous life that he outraged even the too tolerant
laxity of the Roman citizens, and was expelled the city.
Clement V. lived in concubinage with his own relative,
the Countess of Perigord. Paul III. was a Sodomite.
Pope Sixtus IV., the founder of the Inquisition, and who
is reported to have died of venereal disease, opened
brothels in Rome, which produced an annual income of
20,000 ducats, which went to help to support the luxurious
lechery of your most holy Christian Church. It was the
same Pope who, in reply to the petition of Cardinals
Robere, Riario, and San Lucas, requesting that Sodomy
might be permitted in Rome during the warm months of
June, July, and August, wrote on the margin of the
petition, “ Let it be so.” And as to Alexander VI., the
Borgia, what thinks your Eminence of him as a specimen
of the fruit of your Christian teaching? He lived in
concubinage with a young girl called Catalina Vanoci: by
her he had several sons and one daughter, the infamous
Lucretia. Lucretia became the concubine of her own
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
7
father, the Pope of Rome and vicegerent of God, and
cohabited with her own brothers, Luigi and Caesar.
This holy father-in-God—and father and more of
Lucretia—died of poison which he had himself prepared
for three Cardinals, and which he took in mistake. We
learn from Burnet’s exposition that indulgence in un
natural lusts was so prevalent among ecclesiastics that
St. Bernard, in a sermon preached to the clergy of
“ noble and Christian France,” affirmed Sodomy to be so
common in his time that bishops Sodomised with other
bishops! What think ye of this, your Eminence? Have
I shown you sufficient specimens of the fruit of your
Roman Catholic education? If I have not, say so, and
I will show you more. Give us, who believe in secular
education, a fair chance; give our system some fifteen
centuries, as yours has had, and see whether we will not
produce better fruit. One thing is certain : we can
hardly produce worse.
Your “religious education,” my Lord Cardinal, but
for influences which were non-Christian—nay, antiChristian—would have blotted out forever all the
learning that the past centuries of the world had accu
mulated. While your Church was piously and labo
riously discussing such problems as Was Adam’s faeces
before the Fall malodorous? How many angels at a
time can stand on the point of a needle ? the learning
which dead Greece had left, the learning which mighty
Rome had bequeathed to the world as she herself
crashed and crumbled into ruin, was trodden under the
brute hoofs of your Christian Church, but taken up and
cherished as a priceless boon by the followers of the
Prophet of Islam, whom your Church despised and
hated. “ All the knowledge of mathematics, astronomy,
medicine, and philosophy, propagated in Europe from
the tenth century onward, was derived principally from
the schools and books of the Arabians in Italy and
Spain.”* “ Mere human learning,” as your Christianity
contemptuously called it, owed its salvation from extinc
tion to the persecuted and detested Saracen.
No, your Eminence; learning never did flourish
Mosheim, vol. ii., p. 194.
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION/
under Christian auspices ; and she only dares to par
tially assert herself now because Christianity is rent and
shattered and half-dead, and where she could once bury
the Albigensian heresy under a million of bloody corpses
she is now impotent to break and silence a bitter pen
like mine. Learning was never at all in the line of the
followers of your uneducated carpenter and his illiterate
fishermen. Your creed, my Lord Cardinal, was hatched
in the nest of Ignorance, and only on the dunghill of
Ignorance can it thrive. Learning, I repeat, was never
in the Christian line; but, to cheer and encourage your
Eminence, I will tell you what was in the Christian line.
From accounts of the Council of Pavia we find that
horses and hawks and gambling and harlots and drunken
ness were very much in the Christian line, and very con
spicuously distinguished the Christian priesthood. And
as for the sanctity of woman, your Church conserved it
as such a sacred trust that the same Council remarks
of your religious houses : “ They seem to be rather
brothels than monasteries.” From accounts of the
Council of Mayence—and, remember, the accounts
of these Councils were not written by wicked Infidels,
but by devout Catholics—it is candidly remarked
that “some priests, cohabiting with their own sisters,
have had children by them.” How to make convents
into brothels, and how to have children by their own
sisters, was the kind of learning your priesthood culti
vated when they were not deep in absorbing studies as to
the exact odour of prelapsarian excrementum, whether
Adam, having had no mother, had a navel, and the
precise number of angels that could stand on the point
of a needle.
One other branch of “ religious education ” was parti
cularly in the Christian line; and, in this branch, the
Christians left the Saracens and all other pagans far
behind. This branch of a “ religious education ” in
which your Church so greatly excelled was Hatred. The
Christians could hate each other more bitterly, and per
secute each other more cruelly, than any other religionists '
on the face of the earth, and their ancient excellence in
this department of polite learning is not yet entirely lost.
It was, as you are no doubt aware, the common proverb
�“ RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.”
9
of the pagans, “ No wild beasts are so hostile to men as
are Christian sects to one another.” No one save rival
Christians ever drenched the fields of the earth with
blood over a diphthong, or ever flew at each other’s
*
throats over such hair-breadth twaddle as the difference
between Filioque and no Filioqne, till the Christian
Church was permanently rent into two sections, the
Latin and the Greek. We have seen the results of
“ religious education ” when your Church had the power.
These things were done in the green tree ; we shall take
care they are not done in the dry.
Is your Eminence aware that in 1861 (before the
institution of the School Board which you deplore), of
persons sent to prison, 8^ per cent, were under 16
years of age. In 1870 7 per cent, were under 16. In
1884 only 3 per cent., and this 3 per cent, has been found
to consist almost entirely of children who have managed
to elude attendance at school. So much for the abhorred
School Board and the diminution of criminality; but,
then, criminality and devotion to your Church go
together; and thus it is that you practically lament that
crime is on the decline. Statistics show with inexorable
clearness that, out of all proportion to their numerical
efficiency outside, the inmates of our prisons are Roman
Catholics. With Superstition and Ignorance you always
must have Crime; but, then, without Superstition and
Ignorance you cannot have Christianity, and, of course,
from a priest’s point of view, better have Crime with
Catholicism than throw over Catholicism to get rid of
Crime.
Before the Education Act of 1870, which is so detest
able to your Eminence, the so-called National Schools
were, as a judicious writer remarks, only sq in name, and
they were administered by one religious denomination,
being therefore under the control of its sectarian influence,
while also supplying instruction to a comparatively small
number of children. The remainder were to be found
in the Dame Schools, British and Ragged Schools, and
the Voluntary Schools of various denominations. But
* I refer to the dispute between the Homoousians and Homoibusians.
�TO
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.'
what of the larger residue ? They were running about
the streets; they were ignorant and uncared for, except
at the hands of noble philanthropists, like the late Lord
Shaftesbury and his colleagues. Imbibing the instincts
of idleness and crime, without a counteracting check,
they sapped the healthy life of the growing generation.
Crime among the juvenile classes had grown to such an
extent that in 1870 no less than 9,998 children were
committed to prison for a variety of offences. Over all
educational facilities for their improvement the State
possessed no control, excepting where schools were
subject to Government inspection as the condition of
receiving grants of public money.
And, in the incontrovertible words of another writer,
“ the Board Schools have through good and evil report
sown the seeds of a new era. The children who go back
to the slums from the Board Schools are themselves
quietly accomplishing more than Acts of Parliament,
missions, and philanthropic crusades can ever hope to
do. Already the young race of mothers, the girls who
had the benefit for a year or two of the Education Act,
are tidy in their persons, clean in their homes, and decent
in their language. Let the reader who wishes to judge
for himself of the physical and moral results which educa
tion has already accomplished go to any Board School
recruited from the ‘ slum ’ districts, and note the differ
ence in the older and younger children ; or attend a
Board meeting, where the mothers come to plead
excuses for their little ones’ non-attendance, and mark
the difference between the old and young mothers,
between those who, before they took ‘mates’ or husbands,
had a year or two of school training, and those who had
given birth to children in the old days of widespread
ignorance.” But all this indisputable improvement of
the social, moral, and intellectual condition of the masses
is, of course, to your Eminence, only a cold and comfort
less fact, seeing that your theological absurdities are being
neglected, and stubborn knees are being trained that will
not genuflect to crosses and relics ; manly voices being
trained, but not to whine your litanies; and above all,
breeches pockets being plenished which will not disgorge
their contents for penance and purgatorial fees for vest-
�“ RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.”
11
merits and images and candle-sticks .and altars and
painted glAss and mummery.
My Lord Cardinal, it is a simulation and a mockery
for you to speak about education at all. As a Cardinal
of the Romish Church, your comments upon education
are about as valuable as would be those of Satan upon
holy water. It has ever been your aim and policy to
murder education; he who murders any person is the
last one in the world whose sincerity we should trust in,
should he evince a specially anxious affection for the
person he had murdered.
I am sorry that the limits of this letter preclude
my giving more than the very vaguest outline of the
learning (?) of your Christian priesthood and the attitude
they have from first to last taken up as regards education.
However the exigencies of the time may urge upon you
to enunciate your theory to-day, we well know what your
attitude has been through all the centuries of your domi
nation. You have ever maintained that the wisdom of
man (and, in the name of casuistry, what other wisdom is
there ?) is foolishness in the sight of God. The unalter
able attitude of your faith towards education, about
which you now orate, may be summed up in the wellknown retort of the infallible Pope, Felix V. A cardinal
one day ventured to reproach him for his ignorance,
whereupon, with pious bigotry, the pontiff replied : “ The
Holy Ghost is not an ass, is it? Well, it will inspire me.
That is its business.” You educated, and (because you
change not unless when you cannot possibly help it) you
would still educate Christendom on the old-fashioned
lines of the Holy Ghost. Now, this Holy Ghost may be
very well as “ the comforter ” to devout imbeciles who
feel the peristaltic movements of the abdominal viscera,
and mistake them for the action of the Holy Spirit. Rut
this Holy Ghost, “the comforter,” is no schoolmaster,
and this I say to his face ; and if he, she, or it have no
face, then I say it to its os coccyx, or whatever part of
it it is decorous to address.
Your infallible Felix V. sounded the keynote of the
devilward march of your hierarchy when, instead of to
study, he gave himself up to gluttony and volup
tuousness, and where anything like education was
�12
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
wanted left the matter in the hands, or feet, or
tentacula, or some such organs, of the Holy Ghost.
And this said Holy Ghost has shirked its business
deplorably. It has been as successful in standing to man
in the place of education as the other third part of a
juggle of a deity has been in redeeming the world. The
party that permits me to speak in its name, your
Eminence, has had enough of the Holy Ghost as a
schoolmaster. We mean to dismiss this ghost, and try
some mortal with a degree from an university, or a certi
ficate from a training college. Besides being a school
master, this ghost of yours has figured as a dove, or
pigeon. The world will figure better when it sees this
pigeon finally baked into a pie and its feet sticking up
through the crust. Is this offensive ? It is not our time
to apologise; it is yours. You first insult our sense and
outrage our reason with your divine twaddle and pious
balderdash, and then expect us to be deferential and
apologetic. Your absurdity and cant is as revolting to
the Agnostic as the Agnostic’s anti-Christian blasphemy
can be to you. Cease to print your inane and insane
lunacies, and, of course, we will cease to attack them.
But, in the interests of the sanity of our race, in the
interests of man’s practicable hopes and rational aspira
tions, insult us no more with the pious legerdemain and
divine conjuring tricks of your pulpits; or, with the
most savage cat-o’-nine tails that sarcasm can wield, we
will lash your rhinoceros hide, O Church, till you will be
glad to find even in the depths of hell a refuge from our
scourge.
You have heard of the lex talionis, your Eminence.
Feel it. We are not your friends. We are your enemies
to the death. We refuse in the interests of conventional
amity to forget your faith’s diabolical record of over a
thousand years. Rivers of the best blood of Europehave, O Church, been let loose by your sword. They
have flowed into a sea of vengeance over which now
gather the thunder-clouds that will burst and shatter
you. These rivers of human blood flow between us and
you ; and over them we refuse to reach you any olive
branch. The charred bones of Giordano Bruno lie
between us and you. The flame that shrivelled up his
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
z3
majestic brain and heroic heart yet throws its heat upon
our “ Infidel ” cheek, and over these bones—holier than
tons of your priestly relics—we swear, by our deathless
and relentless hatred of wrong and tyranny, that with
you we will hold neither truce nor parley, that our helmet
shall never leave our head, that day or night our swordbelt shall never be ungirded till your utter destruction is
accomplished and guarantee thereby given that you, O
Rome, will curse the world no more.
“ Christian education ” indeed, your Eminence !
Unless you presumed upon the impenetrable ignorance
of your dupes, you would never dare to refer to such a
sinister sham and flagitious hypocrisy. I say it delibe
rately, judicially, and ' perfectly prepared to take up the
gauntlet of any historical student who may challenge
me : Christian education has been the curse of Europe.
From the very first, Christianity “ despised all knowledge
that was not useful to salvation.”* A great majority
of Christians were anxious “ to banish all reason and
philosophy out of the confines of the Church.”f Up to
the time when Constantine, the libertine and murderer,
took Christianity by the hand, and she found she was in
a position to argue with the sword and debate with the
heading-axe, she took no further pains to discipline
herself in what she contemptuously called mere human
learning. Formerly a section of the Christian priesthood
had taken some interest in such learning, in order to be
able to argue with the Pagan; but the Christian was able
now to argue with the Pagan in a far different fashion—
with the dungeon and the stake, and accordingly “ the
liberal arts and sciences and polite literature fell into a
declining condition.’’^ This Christian bigotry and
murderous persecution asserted itself till, in the words
of Moshiem,§ “ learning was almost extinct; only a
faint shadow of it remained.” Philosophy was persistently neglected, for, writes Moshiem, “ nearly all
supposed that religious persons could do very well without
it, or, rather, ought never to meddle with it.”
I could go on interminably, your Eminence, in demon
* “ Decline and Fall,” chap. xv.
J “Jorian,” vol. ii., p. 212.
+ “ Mosheim,” vol. i., p. 148.
§ Vol. i., p. 359.
�14
“religious education.”
strating that your Church not only utterly neglected
“worldly learning,” but that it assumed to it an attitude
of actual hostility; but I presume that even you, with
your faculty for pious romancing will not pretend there is
any way of rebutting the charge in this respect; so, turn
ing from your neglect of and hostility to “ mere human
learning,” I shall briefly revert to the “ religious educa
tion ” which you have inculcated for fifteen centuries,
and which you teach to-day. You want the education of
the children of this our England to be in your hands.
You teach that these children must be baptised, or that
they will be damned. So urgently do you contend for
this barbarous hocus-pocus of baptism that, if the mother
be likely to die while she is in a state of pregnancy, she
must be cut up alive so that the foetus may be extracted
alive and baptised to obviate its spending an eternity in
fire and brimstone. The sweetness and delicacy of this
doctrine is as conspicuous as its loving kindness of
the fiery sort that demonstrates itself in never-dying
worms and inextinguishable flames. This, your Eminence,
teaches us the incalculable importance of a few drops of
water at the right time, and the ineffective impotence of
the whole Pacific at, say, five seconds subsequent to the
right time. It also teaches us how profound are the
divine mysteries of a “ religious education.”
One beauty of belonging to your Church, your
Eminence, is exceedingly solacing and comforting, and
that is, that you and your fellow Catholics will be saved,
and that all the rest of the world will be damned; for I
find, from your “ Ordo Administrandi Sacramenti,” that
outside “ the true Catholic Faith ” “ no one can be
saved.” Of course, this is quite certain. It is also very
modest; there is not a vestige of blasphemous cheek
about it. The whole world has been “ created ” for the
purpose of being roasted for ever and ever, to afford
amusement to the handful of Catholics who will sit up
aloft in heaven looking down upon the agony wriggle of
the infernal pit. The inhabitants of the globe have
been estimated at 1,000,000,000, and the Catholics amount
to only 160,000,000. Heaven will be the dress-circle,
and Hell will be the stage ; and those on the stage,
amusing those in the dress-circle, dancing an agony break-
�‘religious education.’
15
down, and footing the fiery jig of the damned, will be out
of all proportion to the mere handful of privileged Papists,
wearing crowns, waving wings, thumbing harps, and
looking on. This doctrine is as humble as it is humane,
and gives us a divine insight into the glories of a “ re
ligious education.” It must be so gratifying to a true
Catholic to see his Protestant wife in endless torment.
She was loving and true and noble. She bore him sons
and daughters. In poverty, distress, and sickness she
stood by him with that self-denying and heroic tender
ness with which woman alone is gifted. She was the wife
of his bosom; but now, in hell, she leaps into the em
brace of devils. All this because she could accept the
Tweedledum of Consubstantiation, but not the Tweedledee of Transubstantiation. For this “ thou art com
forted” and she is “tormented.” So much for the
unspeakable happiness of “religious education.” I am
only an “ Infidel,” and only imperfectly appreciate it.
In fact, honesty impels me to make the impious admis
sion that I desire to be with my wife and children
wherever they are. I wish to be with them, whether
they be in Heaven, Hell, or Annihilation.
The “religious education” of your Eminence implies
subscription to the creed that, “ in the most holy Sacra
ments of the Eucharist, there are truly, really, and sub
stantially the body and blood, together with the soul and
divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made
a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into
the body and of the whole substance of the wine into
the blood.”* After you have eaten a slice of this God
who made the earth and then came down to it as a
joiner and made wheelbarrows, your “religious educa
tion ” advises those who have eaten hocus-pocussed Godand-joiner to pray as follows : “ May thy body, O Lord,
which I have received, and thy blood which I have
drank, cleave to my bowels, and grant that no stain of sin
may remain in me who have been fed with this pure and
holy sacrament.”! If I could humbly 'presume to
comment on a mystery so sacred, I should reverently
* “ Ordo Ministrandi Sacramenti.”
+ “ Missal for the Use of the Laity,” p. 30.
�16
“religious education.”
observe that, after you have eaten a world-maker and
wielder of a jack-plane, there is little wonder if he should
“ cleave ” to your “ bowels,” that you should be afflicted
with divine constipation ; but I should, with therapeutic
piety, suggest that you work off the god with Glauber salts
and the joiner with jalap. Is this blasphemous, your Emi
nence ? It is infinitely less blasphemous than your missal.
Mine is a drastic attempt to make men sane; yours is an
insidious attempt, in the interests of priestcraft, to keep
men cross-signing and genuflecting idiots.
Price Twopence.
Every Thursday.
THE
SECULAR
REVIEW:
A JOURNAL OF AGNOSTICISM.
EDITED BY SALADIN.
Order of your Newsagent, or send direct to the Publishers—W.
Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, London( E.C.
HISTORICAL PAMPHLETS.
A Reply to Cardinal Manning, by Saladin ...
The Crusades, by Saladin
The Covenanters, by Saladin
Christian Persecution, by Saladin ...
The Flagellants, by Saladin
The Iconoclasts, by Saladin
The Inquisition, Part I., by Saladin
...
The Inquisition, Part II., by Saladin
The Dancers, Shakers, and Jumpers, Part I., by Saladin
The Dancers, Shakers, and Jumpers, Part II., by Saladin
The Persecution of the Jews, Part I., by Saladin
The Persecution of the Jews, Part II., by Saladin
o
I
o
I
o
I
o
I
o
I
o
I
o
I
o
I
o
I
o
I
O
I
O
I
London : W. Stewart & Co,, 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ac42b05fa6e08f7d070c327f7e01c591.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=I71urxm7JSi0Omu7rdE7oY7cruzGRrk1gwrRSszjB1Ux3Ipu1XYDN7wOeA8FyzzrRjB0fGX6Y6D-DShumBtPFVxkKCYBsMV-g45ks4lnhkiAfRLIc5KdCw0apFW1x3Ijn8Gw7IfG3vwBqw00biKw15Z5Jm-YkB3qDXTPn3jfPVgp1JIBwd5u78gKG2GXXg1H3M38CR1IWTl6I68dXC4l3b-i2ESp91qSo405XwRVgKH8rIxXxG4hY3kj5zhSd4QIqzRFoBvfZP1q1E%7EzZ64xKGlbK9-WZLumbDm45I1mgpNCXMygC3Q2HsjXJS6Cvb%7EPgTTGfSX0YcKFGuRKyVIGoQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
6b2539ecd4afe671d4fc2d17c4606c73
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCT^ty
“Religious Education.”
A LETTER. TO
CARDINAL MANNING.
FART III.
WITH
ADDENDA.
London:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��B 30?9
M5 <>7
“Religious Education.”
Have I recommended purgatives to work deity and
mechanic out of the enterics of saints? May I point
out, your Church, in its “ religious education,” proceeds
on somewhat similar lines ? I find, from a rubric in the
“ Roman Missal,”* what is to be done with Christ, pro
viding that the saint vomit him ! The blasphemy implied
in a “ poor worm of the dust ” retching away and
vomiting God is a hyperbole of sacrilege to which I
cannot aspire to reach, and I leave all the honour and
glory of it to the Roman Catholic Church. I find that,
according to the rubric (how unspeakable the advantages
of a “ religious education ” !), the vomit is to be kept in
“some sacred place” till it is “corrupted”—in other
words, till God is rotten. It is so considerate of your
Church to thus write down to the level of a sow—perhaps
the only creature besides a priest who could contemplate
without nausea first swallowing the Lord and then
vomiting him, and then looking for him in the vomit.
And your Eminence would like this emeticating of God,
prodding about for him in the vomit, finding him and
swallowing him over again, or not finding and, therefore
burning him and the vomit, and casting the ashes into
the sacristan to be taught at the expense of the rate
payers ! The ratepayers are mostly fools, and pay rates
and taxes with too little investigation into the why and
wherefore; and many of them are addicted to finding
Jesus. But they draw the line somewhere. They
have begun to draw the line at the priest who, in
order to “find Jesus,” prods about in a vomit with a
breakfast fork! Ugh! But no. This is nastiness to
be sure; but it is divine nastiness, and part and parcel of
* Published in Mechlin, 1840.
�4
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.'
a “ religious education.” Would it be etiquette, your
Eminence, for the person prodding about with the fork,
when he has discovered the half-digested wafer in the
vomit, to exclaim, “I have found Jesus!”
Then, your Eminence, the fine, cheerful doctrine of
Purgatory enters into the curriculum of a “ religious edu
cation.” In purgatory there is a nice, clear fire (ignis
)
*
for cooking souls. This nice, clear fire is exceedingly
useful; it enables you to rifle the pockets of a man’s
relations after he himself has been laid in his grave.
The fires in purgatory are just the sufficient heat for the
dead to enable you to extract half-crowns from the
pockets of the living.
Old Brown dies, his body is
buried, and you get certain fees over that; and his soul
canters off to purgatory. Young Brown would not mind
a cent about his dad being in purgatory, if you would
make the place at all comfortable for him ; but you
manage to make old Brown hot enough to make young
Brown pay to get him out. All this is very clever, and
very religious. St. Christina, who had been in purgatory,
and managed to come back to the earth again (possibly
for her umbrella), told your great and learned Cardinal
Bellarmine that “ the torments that I there witnessed
are so dreadful that to attempt to describe them would
be utterly in vain.” The place was found to be filled
with “ those who had repented indeed of their sins,
but had not paid the punishment due for them.’T After
this, from St. Christina to Bellarmine, who would be so
unfilial as to leave his father, or even his mother-in-law,
in purgatory ? Out they must come. The devout one
must “raise the wind ” to put out the fire. What man
who has the soul of a man would not pawn his braces;
what woman who has the heart of a woman would not
sell her garters, to get her dear dead out of such a hot
and damnable hole as the purgatory of Bellarmine? It
is set apart, it seems, for those who have repented of
their sins, but have not paid for them. Those who
have neither repented of their sins nor paid for them go
straight to hell; but that matters little : the temperature
* See Catechism on the fifth article of the Creed of Pope Pius IV,
t “ De Genitu Columbse,” bk. ii., ch. ix.
�RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
5
is only a trifle higher, and a good, round, sound specimen
of a sinner can soon get accustomed to that. The great
thing is the pay. Pay, and it hardly matters a cinder
whether you repent or not. Yours is a grand and noble
Church, Cardinal Manning. It has the knack of getting
all possible moneys out of a man when he is alive, and,
through its purgatory, it can pursue the dead through
the very bottom of the grave, as it were, and shake him,
red-hot, flaming, and shrieking, in the eyes of the friends
he has left, that they may sell their very shirts to relieve
him of his agony. The one paid for leaps out from the
flames into the midst of heaven’s wings and harps, and
the gold and silver ring and rattle into the coffers of the
priest.
The Agnostic, alas, has no such facilities for turning
an honest penny. He does not know God sufficiently
to be able to induce him to enter into the swim with
him to help him to swindle and juggle. It is no use
any one trying to swindle on any exalted and profitable
scale, unless he has got God on his side, and does his
juggling in God’s name. All history and all experience
teach us that lesson with pious emphasis. I have not
God on my side, so all that I get is a little pittance for
my honest toil. I have no way of extracting cash for
the love of harps that have never been strung, and for
the fear of fires that have never been kindled. I am at
this disadvantage for not having acted up to the precepts
of a “religious education.”
Still, O Cardinal, if God be God—if he be noble and
generous and humane—you may stride up to him with
all the wealth and grandeur your Church has acquired,
and I will walk up into his presence with only this year’s
volume of the Secular Review under my arm. And, if
he say, “ Depart from me, ye cursed 1” it will be to you,
O Cardinal, and not to me. He will say, “ Give me a
shake of your hand, Saladin. You searched earnestly
and honestly for me, and could not find me ; but you
see I am here. You often studied and read all day, and
then burned the oil till long after midnight. Without
fee or reward, amid contumely and in obscurity, you
worked out your very life to teach others what you con
ceived to be right and true. To be mistaken, Saladin, is
�6
“religious
education.”
a small thing in the eyes of a God ; but to be honest is a
great thing. Read me some passages from ‘At Random
they are flashes from the immortal soul of a man
struggling in the dark ;• and passages written in the red
blood of an earnest human life are worthy the attention of
a God.”
I am, My Lord Cardinal,
Your Eminence’s
Obedient Servant,
Saladin.
�ADDENDA.
THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN.
Bishop Croke of Cashell recently mounted the highest
stilts of sacred oratory, and dashed along thus, with his
head in New Jerusalem and his feet in Kildare :—
When we read in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according
to St. Luke that “there is more joy in heaven upon one sinner
that doeth penance than upon ninety-nine just who need not
penance,” we may very naturally be expected to say each one
within himself—Sin, then, must sadden God exceedingly, and cast
a gloom, so to speak, over the face of His angels ; because penance
that wipes sin away gives great gladness to God, fills with joy the
whole court of heaven, makes the loveliest seraph there smile yet
more sweetly, and Heaven itself become more heavenly still. Only
just think of it, brethren. There is the great God of the universe
sitting serenely, as we are used to picture him, on his throne of
state on high. Millions and hundreds of millions of angels
brighter far than the sun and infinitely more beautiful than the
moon stand ever-joyous sentinels around him. The ample domain
of,heaven itself, extending far and wide—yea, full many a mile
further than created eye can carry—encompasses him on every side.
It is lit up with lamps that know no dimness, and peopled with
happy spirits that are not destined to die. This earth is but an
atom in their sight. Wars, conflagrations, earthquakes, plague and
famine, and pestilence sweep over and decimate its inhabitants, and
Heaven heeds not the ruin that is tints made. Yet, strange to say,
one man, a poor weak worm of the earth, living on it, born of it,
and destined to return to it again in death, trangresses a law that
had been given to him by God for his guidance—thereby commit
ting sin—and behold the heart of the Most High is saddened, a
cloud comes across the countenance of his angels, and heaven itself
seems to be heaven no more. But, see, that same man repents;
that sinner is converted ; that rebel hand raised in pride against
the Almighty is uplifted no more, and, as the herald of God’s mercies
to man proclaims the glad tidings aloud, the music of heaven’s
choir becomes sweeter still; the light of heaven’s lamps becomes
brighter still ; the face of heaven’s angels becomes more smiling
still, for there is more joy in heaven upon one sinner that does
penance than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance.
�8
ADDENDA,
You see into that passage in Luke the Archbishop
has got his papist “penance” inserted where the
Protestant version has “repentance.” With the Pro
testant, “penance” is an heretical abomination. But
you observe the “word of God” is so explicit and simple
that it means either, or both, or neither. This vague
ambiguity is a distinguishing feature of divine writing.
If a man were to lose his reason, he could write tolerably
like God; and a man who has lost his reason, or who,
as is usually the case, had never any to lose, understands
best what God has been graciously pleased to write.
“ Sin,” according to Croke, and of course he knows
all about it, must “sadden God exceedingly.” A “sad”
deity, God-in-the-dumps, sitting on the white throne,
with all the beasts roaring “ Holy, holy, holy 1” and
glaring at him with the eyes they have in their tails and
their elbows, convinces me that Augustus Harris will
never produce a really effective pantomime at Drury
Lane till he has had the advantage of spending a week
in heaven. Would the great Croke, who seems to know
heaven and its denizens so intimately, inform me whether
the hebdomadal issue of this journal can “sadden God
exceedingly ” ? I know of no god, and I prefer to know
of none till I find one magnanimous and mighty enough
not to get “sad” at the writings of a weak mortal like
Saladin, or be pleased with the ranting but pious blarney
of a little sermon-spinner like Croke.
God used to be unchangeable. But that was in the
good old days, before Ireland and Croke were invented.
Now he gets “sad” whenever anybody sins; but grins
from ear to ear, and kicks up his holy heels with delight,
whenever anybody does penance. Pretty sudden and
fiequent transitions these for an unchangeable God.
But the authority is very high—the authority of his
friend, Croke of Cashel.
u
am „really sorry f°r
P00r dear angels with the
gloom on their faces. I once had a notion of becom
ing an angel myself by imitating, say, David, the man
“according to God’s own heart.” But now I give up
the project. There would always be somebody sinning,
and so my face would always be clouded with “gloom,”
except when somebody did penance—the only thing, by
�THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN.
9
the-bye, that seems to throw a gleam of light into heaven.
This “ gloom ” would never do for me; I like a good
laugh now and again; and I can laugh, too, a loud hurri
cane of a laugh that shakes the rafters. So I will relin
quish my design of becoming an angel by imitating
David, and thereby some Uriah and some Joab will
escape murder and some Bathsheba dishonour.
Lord, how Croke does hit off heaven with only a few
spasms of his voice—the best voice going at wild rant
and mad tapsalteerie. Perhaps “ the loveliest seraphs
there would smile yet more sweetly” if I could get
beside them to tell them tales of heroic W allace instead
of stories about timid Jesus. By my halidome, I should
like to strut up the golden street—although I should
much rather stand up to the hurdies in Scottish heather
—and fling the strains of my mountain harp into the
ears of the belles of heaven. If they have blood in their
veins, I should send it tingling to the tips of their toes
and their wings. I should make the lyre of Caledonia
weep and moan and thunder and dirl till the harps that
hung on the willows by the streams of Babel would be
broken up and cast away.
Dr. Croke’s heaven, which is intended to be so attrac
tive to good Catholics and Land-Leaguers, does not
tempt me. I do not feel at all attracted to a great
ogre of a God, sitting on “ his throne of state on high,”
while “ millions and hundreds of millions of angels,
brighter far than the sun, and infinitely more beautiful
than the moon,” stand around him as “ sentinels.”
“ Sentinels,” indeed ! Surely these millions of angels
might be better employed. Millions of these celestial
monsters with wings, but whose tails are never men
tioned, stand “sentinel,” like the big horsemen at White
hall. Before I can be got to be really enamoured of
heaven, I should like to know how its flying monsters
get along without tails. A tail is to a bird what a rudder
is to a ship. I should like to be assured, before I consent
to go to heaven, that an angel can steer its course
accurately without a tail. I do not wish to go there and
incur the risk of some great, flying idiot coming dashing
up against me and knocking the teeth out of my head,
with a “Beg your pardon, Sir—pure accident; had
�IO
ADDENDA.
intended to fly to that there rafter 1” Besides, if these
angels are “ brighter far than the sun/’ I could not look
upon their splendour; so I should shortly be blind as
well as toothless.
In spite of the tremendous effulgence of Dr. Croke’s
angels, I observe that heaven is “lit up with lamps.”
Seeing that, in brilliance, every angel must be equal to
at least fifty sperm candles, I fail to see the use of the
lamps ; and I fear, as a canny Scot, I should demur
at the holy extravagance and the divine waste of paraffin.
At all events, fitting heaven up with lamps does not, as
far as I am concerned, add to its charms. There you
sit, pen in hand, all silent as death ■ and you in obstetric
t roes with one of your biggest thoughts, when crack
goes the glass chimney of the said lamp, and, in your
state of concentrated intensity, nearly startles your life
out. Besides, lamps are constantly getting upset, and,
if I were to upset one upon Sarah’s skirts or Rahab’s
polonaise, the effects might disconcert all heaven.
Besides, in trimming the wick, I usually burn my fingers,
and when I burn my fingers I usually swear ; and a good,
rattling malediction might tempt some outraged seraph
to throw me over heaven’s battlements into' the other
place, hurling the lamp after me.
But, O Bishop of Cashel, can all these millions
of angels find nothing better to do than to “stand
sentinel ” ? It may be all glory and brilliance with
;
but there are lanes and alleys with us where it is all
misery and gloom. The sties of Seven Dials are filled
with guilt and misery; over the fever slums of White
chapel falls the Shadow of Death.
Where are the
hundreds of millions of angels? From the dens of
Want and Stench and Disease rises the cry of Humanity;
but that cry reaches not the ears of the angels. Un
moved, they stand sentinel round their ogre God. Not
one angel breaks away from the phalanx to help the
gallant soul beaten down in life’s struggle, to drive away
want and shame from the home of the widow, to give
shelter to the destitute and bread to the fatherless.
The father which art in heaven ” cannot spare one
angel out of his hundreds of millions to visit his children
in mercy, and allay the gnawings of hunger and the pain
�THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN.
11
of the heart that aches in misery. The music of every
harp, the sheen of every wing, is wanted “ for his own
glory.” No angel can be spared to stand between the
maiden and the deceiver. No angel can be sent for a
moment to kiss the desperately-parted lips and smooth
down the wildly-dishevelled hair of her, the lost and
ruined, as she mounts the parapet of the bridge to leap
from the street and Shame into the river and Death.
No angel comes down with the lightning in his hand to
strike the rich man dead as, by dint of his gold, from
the pale arms of Famine he forces the embraces of
Love.
A hundred thousand men, in uniform, are struggling
in yonder valley. A chorus goes to hell of the yells
of madness, the groans of anguish, and the screams of
agony. The gulf of smoke is torn by torrents and bursts
of fire, and shaken by louder than the thunders of
God. Weary with slaughter, his feet entangled in his
brother’s entrails, the powder-blackened madman falls.
He clutches at the red grass and the heaps of reeking
butchery, and gurgles and gasps and drowns in his
brother’s blood. And the horror and the agony are not
all here. Circling away into the busy towns, the quiet
villages, the corn fields, and the apple orchards of other
lands, extends the tide of misery and woe. Far away
from the field of carnage, hunger overtakes the orphan
child. The aged mother has lost her son, and the
young girl her lover. Over hundreds of leagues of the
world rises the voice of mourning and lamentation and
woe. Damn the heartless god that required all his idle
angels when his children down here went mad 1 Out of
the vast multitude, could he spare not a single one to
stand between these two hosts, and stay that hurricane
of lead; not one to stop these levelled bayonets and
that crunch of steel—that grinding of the bloody wheels
of the mills of Death ?
Is this God—this omnipotent fiend who could make
us, his poor children on earth here, holy and happy, and
will not ? Then let me, his son, flee from such a father
to the uttermost rim of the universe. Is this heaven,
where immortals stand as a retinue of sentinels, unmoved
by the tears of man’s misery and the cries of human
�12
ADDENDA.
pain ? Is this heaven—the happiest sphere we are to
enter when the gate of the grave closes behind us ? Then
proclaim it from the housetops that there is no heaven,
that all that is is a universal hell, and that man is the
plaything of an inscrutable fiend.
When will gushing gospel-mongers learn that, in spite
of its “loveliest seraphs” smiling as sweetly as they can
be made to do in Bishop Croke’s pious rhetoric, heaven
is not good enough for nineteenth-century men and
women. It did ■well enough as a more or less delirious
day-dream for centuries that are no more, for those who
have Jain in the grave so long that it would require
chemical analysis to distinguish the marrow of thefemorbone from the rust of the coffin-nail.
Shades of the dead, whose essence, in a sublime
panontism, has gone to feed the tissues of the universe,
we mean no disrespect to you when we reject your heaven.
It is upon the mountain,formed by the bonesofa departed
world, we stand, in order to see further than that departed
world ever saw. It is not the cerebration inside our indivi
dual skull, but the fact of our standing upon a more than
Tamerlane pyramid of skulls, that throws our vision
further down the vista of Mystery. The former coral
zoophytes laid their deposits on the sea-bed and under the
wave; on their deposits we place ours, thanks to them,
not in the dark like theirs, but up in the light, where the
sun shines, where the clouds roll and unroll, where the
wind blows and the billows thunder and s ing. We are
no longer away down among heavens and hells, the rocks
and algae of the ocean’s floor, but up in the light, where
the sea-birds scream, where the blue smoke from our
hearth melts away calmly over the deep green of the
trees, where the waters are wooed by olive boughs and
kissed by riparian myrtles, and flowers fling the glory of
their fragrance over the lake of the atoll.
Away with your heaven and other submarine night
mares of the world before sunrise. All hail a new
heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness !
Emerged at length from the deep, we are religious, but
our religion has burst asunder the fetters of your
theology; we are pious, but we visit your temples with
fire and desolation ; we are worshipful, but we urge on the
car of Progress over the shattered fragments of your gods.
�CHIVALRY.
13
CHIVALRY.
They knelt ’fore the altar’s gilded rail,
The beautiful and the brave,
In the dim old abbey down in the vale,
O’er high-born dust in the grave.
And martyr holy and tortured saint
Were limned on the glorious pane,
And the sunbeams threw on the carvings quaint
A golden and crimson stain.
And the organ peal shook the dead in their grave,
And the incense smoke died away
Down the dim-lit chancel and solemn nave
Where the dead in their marble lay.
The orange wreath in the morning’s breath,
And the warrior’s nodding plume,
In the hoary cloister smiled at Death
And the warp and the weft of Doom.
And the noblest blood in the land was there—
The chivalrous sword and mail;
And the naked breasts of the Norman fair
Throbbed around that altar’s rail.
And the father leant on his battle brand,
And the mother dropped a tear,
And De Wilton’s Edith laid her hand
In the gauntlet of De Vere.
And the bridal ring and the muttered words,
And the gems and the plumes of pride,
And the whispers low, and the clank of swords,
And De Wilton’s girl was a bride.
*
*
*
*
Heir to wide lands, she bore him a son
On a sweet and a silent day :
Where the breach was won, and lost, and won,
De Wilton was far away.
�14
addenda.
And he wore her glove by his mangled plume
And her kiss on his lip still lay,
1
nd his blade flashed dread as the bolt of Doom
From the morn till the noon of day.
Wherever raved wildest the storm of blades,
And the red rain bloodiest fell
Wherever thickest the troops of shades
Were hurled to the realms of Hell
°e Vere’s blue flag with his Edith’s hair
Waved in the reeling van,
And rose and fell, ’mid groan and yell,
In the chaos of horse and man.
It sank at last in the hurricane
That raged round the knights of De Vere
And the world span round his reeling brain ’
Laid bare by a foeman’s spear.
Hearts rained out blood, helms glinted fire
Mid the death groan and hurraa •
An^ kn,ghthood’s pride toiled, tugged, and died
Wheie the spangled banner lay.
For Edith s hair on that broidered soy
Lay trampled in dust and gore;
And Rudolph had sworn to bear it with joy
bo her bower or return no more.
He sprang with a shout from the reeling sod
A gash on his helmless brow,
Raised his red hand aloft to God,
And hissed his dauntless vow :
“Ye saints,” quoth he, “this soy’s my shroud,
Or I bear it to Edith again !”■_
_
BUA.^ld
tbe burst of the thunder-cloud,
Or the dash of the roaring main,
The foe swept on ten thousand strong
O’er Rudolph’s wounded ten;
&
quakes, the mountain shakes
Neath the tramp of armed men.
And vassal thralls with husky cheer
Rush o’er the banner fair,
�CHIVALRY.
15
The blazoned scutcheon of De Vere
And Edith’s golden hair.
Firm faced the host the glorious ten
For Edith, God, and Home—
Swung the angry sea of ten thousand men—
Dashed the battle’s bloody foam.
*
*
*
*
His horse lay on the carnage ground,
Upon that flag of woe ;
His mangled vassals lay around,
And Rudolph lay below,
’Mid battered helm and shivered lance,
And corslet, helm, and glave;
And all the wrecks of War’s wild dance
When waltzing to the grave.
*
*
*
*
Sighed o’er the field the young morn’s breath :
The foemen found him there,
His pale lips pressed in ghastly death
To Edith’s crimsoned hair.
They laid him down by the side of her bed,
The monks who his body bore;
His eyes had the glare of the eyes of the dead,
His armour was dyed in gore.
A friar essayed the ladye to cheer
Jn the mournful tidings of ill;
But the faithful heart of the bride of De Vere
Ever, forever was still.
Though the babe still lay on the high, white breast
That milk to its dear lips gave,—Years laid him again on that bosom to rest,
When he fell in the ranks of the brave. ’
*
*
*
*
She followed her lord to the halls of God
Ere that sorrowful day was done;
For her lord had died on the trampled sod :
To a corpse she had borne her son.
�i6
ADDENDA.
Now the sire and the dame and their gallant boy
All rest ’neath the marble there,
And over them waves the banner of soy,
With Edith’s blood-stained hair.
And swords have clashed to the valiant tale,
And the voice of the minstrel sung,
How fair were the maids, how deadly the blades,
When the heart of the world was young !
price Twopence.
Every Thursday.
THE
SECULAR
REVIEW:
A JOURNAL OF AGNOSTICISM.
EDITED BY SALADIN.
Order of your Newsagent, or send direct to the Publishers—W.
Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, London. E.C.
HISTORICAL PAMPHLETS.
A Reply to Cardinal Manning, by Saladin ...
...
The Crusades, by Saladin
...
...
...
The Covenanters, by Saladin
...
...
...
Christian Persecution, by Saladin ...
...
...
The Flagellants, by Saladin
...
...
...
The Iconoclasts, by Saladin
...
...
...
The Inquisition, Part I., by Saladin
...
...
The Inquisition, Part II., by Saladin
...
...
The Dancers, Shakers, and Jumpers, Part I., by Saladin
The Dancers, Shakers, and Jumpers, Part II., bySaladin
The Persecution of the Jews, Part I., by Saladin
...
The Persecution of the Jews, Part II., by Saladin
...
01
o 1
o x
o x
o x
o x
0 I
o 1
o 1
o 1
01
01
London : W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Religious education" : a letter to Cardinal Manning
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 3 v. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Ross's reply to a sermon preached by Cardinal Manning on 26 September, 1885. Includes bibliographical references. "by Saladin" [title page]. Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N595
N596
N597
Subject
The topic of the resource
Education
Religion
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work ("Religious education" : a letter to Cardinal Manning), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Henry Edward Manning
NSS
Religious Education
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2a8d0fae4244abb1d5734b7dd38f7665.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=VJv166Jpz9786-%7EHv5Zao6WQNH674C%7Eh%7EUOp7TGWEhIw-GFpiL4e8Y88zqGX6EWwWYt5T0tMixePIvncpqiqKa5%7Erv4qqiWhSrpsBrxZ6SxPlna7jQHplIKf7ab8lxI0WyX8Mdlnp0HzwS2112S1e9VVL8w5ePBfj9uY7uQz-HzxSHnhyVm674g3%7EfMGvzoaH9TxJH1YlUYe1LeFjuvZ76Opz3ONoPXOBVT1c7AOJ5EL3FQR%7ESEw0aCBa3xzvUW8a7jOi22a9gxDU6aBu41aY6lPmDovYf0CQb7bPE67tpsrhQSUGm8l860CheECtN93Y6yaRd0jGuuz%7EYrHF79IXA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
e07bb5e7c92a4275b9a900dec74c5e6b
PDF Text
Text
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY,
COMPRISING
The Agonies of Hanging.
By One who was Cut Down from the Gallows.
LONDON:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON STREET, E.C.
��(isogo
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY,
COMPRISING
THE AGONIES OF HANGING.
It has been my fortune to meet with some of the
strangest characters that ever trod this planet. I myself,
I admit, am not over-like Mr. John Smith, nonconfor
mist and cheesemonger, and like draws to like. I have
been more than once pronounced daft; and, be that as
it may, I feel certain that during my lifetime more than
one daft person has had my friendship. As I make a
retrospect it occurs to me that, upon the whole, the
daftest person that was ever enrolled on my list of friends
was Major F------, who had been twelve years in the
East India Company’s service, and who belonged to an
old county family. I was a big boy at school when
Major F------first took notice of me. It was the Annual
Examination, and he and several other persons of influ
ence were present, along with a contingent of the local
clergy. I had distinguished myself by reading my theme,
a wild, weird, Monk Lewis composition, full of dream and
lightning and gloom and phantasy. It was certainly as
unlike anything else that any other boy in the school
could produce as it is possible to imagine. Some of
the pupils could beat me at mere feats of commonplace
drudgery; but they had all the leaden-footed mediocrity
of the farmers and country parsons into which they
�4
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
ultimately vegetated. My command of language and
flight of imagination took Major F——’s breath away.
He was heard muttering to himself: “This is a devil of
-a boy! I must do something for him. May I be
jiggered if I don’t!” And the masters and my classfellows congratulated me; for the Major was known to
be a man of his word, and to be both loyal and liberal
to those to whom he felt attracted.
Only a few days after the school examination a report
.spread like wild-fire through the district that the Major
had hanged himself 1 Throwing aside my FEschylus
and Dunbar’s Greek Lexicon, I hurried off to the resi
dence of my prospective patron. He was reported to
be dying, and for me to gain access to his chamber was
exceedingly difficult. The principal obstacle was his
daughter, Julia, who stood in the passage that led to his
room and positively refused me entrance thereto. I
.attempted to crush past her, but she got hold of my ear
and pulled it to the length of ear that is worn by an ass,
but by no other of God’s creatures. I was young, with
a frame unknit, and with bones that were little more
than cartilage; and this Julia was a perfect Amazon in
physical strength. Howbeit, her mental prowess was as
small as her personal vanity was inordinate.
“ I know you,” sneered she; “ you are the school
brat who wrote the ode to Aggie------ ’s ankle!”
As she pronounced the word “ ankle ” she gave her
skirts an opportune sweep, which revealed both her own
ankles and a trifle more. I took the hint.
“Yes,” quoth I, in a tone of well-simulated admira
tion. “ But now that I have seen your ankle I repent
me bitterly that I ever wrote a line upon Aggie------’s.”
“Will you write upon mine now ?”
“ Yes.”
“ Quite sure ?”
'“Yes.”
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
5
“You will write prettily ?”
“Yes.”
“You are a dear 1”
And with this tender exclamation she seized me in
her arms and inflicted a loud, smacking kiss upon my
forehead, and then gave me a push that nearly sent
me abruptly and head foremost into the chamber where
her father lay dying.
Thus, by a skilful blend of blandishment and impu
dence, I succeeded in being shown into the room
where the Major lay. He was in bed. He raised
himself up on his elbow and, staring at me, politely
asked, “Who the deuce are you?” Then, steadying
his gaze, a gleam of delight shone in his wild, mad eye,
and he murmured, “Oh, it’s Wully Ross.” Next,
putting his hand under his pillow, he drew out a few
sheets of sermon-paper, all written over with his strong,
determined handwriting, bold as a cavalry charge and
straight as a sword.
“Thank you, Major F------,” said I. “What am I to1
do with this ?”
There was no answer. The Major was dead.
And now, after the lapse of many years, I put that
MS. of his into the hands of the printer, with a trust
that the manes of the writer may not disapprove.
MAJOR F-------- ’s MS.
My studies have been so peculiar that I may be
excused for digressing for a moment to show whence
and how I inherited the bias for the dreamy, the
mystical, and esoteric. The bias is not hereditary. My
mother’s milk was not full of inspirations and visions. It
was thus she became the wife of my prospective father,
who, unlike myself, was, by all competent authorities,
believed to have had a slate off his upper storey.
The night was dark and stormy, and my future father,
�6
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
who was then about twenty-two, was returning alone
from a military review when he got benighted and lost.
The rain splashed furiously, “ the wind blew as ’twad
blawn its last,” and only glares and flashes of lightning
lit up ever and anon the Cimmerian gloom.
“ The gods have doomed and damned me,” quoth my
father; “ I will lie down on the moor and perish !” But,
at the moment, a faint gleam, as if from a distant glow
worm, shimmered through the blackness; and, clenching
his teeth and his fists, he who was destined to be my
male parent toiled on desperately in the direction of the
light. At the light he arrived, after much scrambling
through the bushes and not a few tumbles into the
ditches. The light proceeded from a large oriel window
in an old-fashioned country house with picturesque
facades and romantic gables, which now, in a lull and
hush of the storm, shone out with dim grandeur in the
sheen of the waning moon. Through the gauzy curtajns
and the glass flowed the waves of instrumental music
and the sound of the measured footfalls of the dance.
It was evident that something was being enacted within
in the way of mirth and revelry.
My prospective father knocked at the front door.
The door was opened by a half-drunken footman carry
ing a lamp, who, observing that he who had knocked
was a dejected-looking youth, drenched with rain and
bedabbled with mire, politely advised him to “ go to
blazes,” and at once slammed the door in his face. The
door was, however, immediately re-opened, and an old
white-haired gentleman, with a wild, wandering eye,
asked decisively, but not unkindly :
“Well, what do you want ?”
My prospective father told his tale, and impressively
asked for the favour of a lodging till morning.
“ This is my second daughter’s wedding night,” quoth
the old gentleman, “and every bed in the house is occu
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
7
pied, as the guests who have not already gone will stay
over night.”
“ I am utterly tired out, and would gladly sleep on a
sofa, a hearth-rug, or anyhow and anywhere,” urged my
prospective male parent.
“ There is only one spare bed, and I do not care to
send you to that,” rejoined the old gentleman moodily,
and with a strange light in his eye.
“ Pray, sir, have no misgivings about its not being
soft in feathers and luxuriant in drapery; I am too tired
to be critical,” urged my prospective parent.
“You know not what you ask,” responded the old
gentleman. Then, sinking his voice to a solemn
whisper—'‘''The room is haunted/”
His would-be guest laughed a derisive laugh, and
replied: “ Kind sir, show me into the room, and I will
put up with the haunting.”
To the room he was shown—a room handsome, taste
ful, and even opulent.
“ Haunted indeed,” soliloquised he; and, divesting
himself of his torn and sodden garments, he extinguished
the candle, placed his loaded pistol under the bolster,
and was soon fast asleep. Two hours later a hand was
placed upon his brow, coldly and firmly, and under the
mysterious pressure thereof he awoke. He sat up in
bewilderment, not unalloyed with a vague terror. A
white and ghostly figure loomed by the bedside, softly and
hazily limned against the opposite wall, upon which,
through the spars of the Venetian blind, fell the last rays
of the waning moon or the first beams of the rising sun.
My prospective father recollected that he had been
apprised that the chamber was haunted.
“ Some knavish trick,” murmured he grimly. “ By
God, I will make a real ghost of this sham ghost,
or may I ------and he thrust his hand under the
bolster to grasp his pistol. Then he recollected that the
�8
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
report of fire-arms ringing through the house in that
stilly hour would create intense alarm, and his rash act
would be a poor return for the hospitality which had
been accorded him. Still, determined that he would
unmask the ghost, he leapt from his couch and seized
the vague, white semblance vigorously in his arms. The
figure fell supinely to the floor, and shriek after shriek
rang hysterically through the chamber and echoed and
re-echoed through the halls and corridors outside,
“What, in the name of all the saints, has happened
now?” exclaimed my future father, as the shrieking
form lay before him on the carpet, dimly, almost in
visibly. Another minute, and the chamber-door burst
open, and the grey-haired gentleman, in his night-gown
and slippers, with a lighted candle in his left hand and
a cocked pistol in his right, entered excitedly. He
glanced at the figure prostrate on the floor, and then at
his guest. “ My daughter—scoundrel 1” was his laconic
exclamation, and he presented the muzzle of his weapon
to my future father’s head. Then he dashed the pistol
on the floor, and cried bitterly, “ Devil, was it for this I
sheltered you in my house! My daughter 1 my daughter 1”
Quite suddenly he left the room, leaving the candle
burning on the floor beside the prostrate lady. In the
light of this candle the youth beheld her. He beheld
her and was vanquished. Her loveliness, as she
lay there in the loose white drapery of the night, with
the wealth of her rich brown hair falling over the lily
whiteness of her bosom, sinking and rising in its con
vulsive breathing, was too much for the man for whom
was reserved the distinction of being my father. The
free sweeping symmetry of these arms had enthralled
him. That bosom, that might have put that of Aphrodite
to shame, made him love’s willing slave, and the tangles
of that heavenly hair, which the flicker of the candle
now flung into raven blackness, now touched into ruddy
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
9
gold, had forged the fetters of a bondage that made the
young cadet forever and forever the thrall of the lady
who lay at his feet. “ Thine, thine,” he murmured ;
“ come life, come death, thine, only thine.”
Suddenly the chamber door again burst open, and the
old gentleman re-entered, still arrayed in his slippers and
dressing gown. With him he brought a clergyman with
his black coat on and his white choker, but with bare
legs, and his unsocked feet stuck into a pair of unlaced
boots. In his right hand he carried a Bible. He
appeared more than half drunk, and, having been suddenly
and abruptly summoned from his bed, he seemed dazed
and only half awake. At his side walked a servant maid
with bare neck and feet, and arrayed in a hurriedlydonned and solitary petticoat. The maid applied a
small bottle of smelling salts to the nostrils of the
prostrate lady, and baptised her brow and breast and
hair with the contents of the water bottle.
The old gentleman was livid with rage. “ Sir,” said
he sternly, “ it pains me beyond expression that I have
to give my girl in marriage to a blackguard ; but, since
things are as they are, I feel constrained to try to make
the best of an infernally bad bargain. You have dis
honoured the girl and her family. This parson will wed
you to her, here—here on the very scene of your diabolical
crime, or, by heavens, I will blow your brains out if I
hang for it to-morrow from the highest tree on my
estate.”
The young gentleman who was destined to be my
father did not prefer even the ghost of an objection to
being united for life to her who had already, even in her
mute unconsciousness, quite vanquished him. The lady
at length stood up, utterly dazed. The parson performed
the nuptial ceremony, and the father and the maid
servant were witnesses. The bride’s father lifted his
pistol from the floor and soliloquised :
�IO
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
“ My second daughter was married yesterday, and my
eldest to-day. My second was married to an earl’s son ;
my eldest and most beautiful is married to—oh, damn
it all 1” and he raised his pistol and fired point
blank at the wash-stand, shattering the basin and ewer
to shivers. This was too much for the excited nerves
of the bride. She shrieked, and fell into the bride
groom’s arms in a swoon, from which she was recovered
with difficulty.
The day after the marriage the mystery of the haunted
chamber was solved, the riddle read. Matilda Clinton
had been a confirmed somnambulist, without any one
having suspected the fact; and the chamber which was
reputed to be haunted had evidently been the goal of her
nocturnal wanderings. To her dying day she remained
“ beautiful exceedinglybut to her dying day the
villagers set her down as “ cracked,” so disastrous had
been the effects of awakening her in that room under
the circumstances which I have just narrated. My
father, too, was reputed to be “ cracked,” and the great
wonder is—a wonder that occasionally overwhelms me
—that, under the circumstances, I should be the posses
sor of mental gifts of an exceptional order, and of a
genius to which neither of my parents could lay any
valid claim. However, a man’s history commences
before he is born; and, having ventured to give so much
of my own hereditary biography, I proceed to my
narrative.
MAJOR F-------- AT HIS STUDIES.
I have frequently been induced to contemplate in
theory the physiology and psychology of “ Hanging by
the neck till dead,” and also some of the more salient
points in the more salient exigencies of human life and
destiny. The results have occasionally been, to the un
initiated, impregnated with burlesque and eccentricity,
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
II
as the inductions of all experimental philosophers in the
occult sciences must necessarily be. However, I have
succeeded, to my own satisfaction, in establishing that
the Rosicrucian theory is correct, and that heaven, earth,
and hell are severally playing their role on the land, the
water, and the welkin. We are roaring, “ Cash—no
abatement!” the angels are chanting “ Hallelujah !” and
the damned are yelling, “ Oh, dear me !”—all mixed up
together upon the same arena here. It is literally, and
not figuratively, that we have each our good and evil
spirits concerning themselves in the colouring of our
destinies. They are not perceptible to the material, but
they are to the psychal, man. Consequently, it is pre
sumable that the determining of the number of good or
evil spirits we may have is much in our own hands.
If we can win the good graces of every one around us,
supposing they amount to a few hundreds, the strong
probability is that some of them will pass before us
through that transformation scene vulgarly called “dying,”
and then we can depend upon their good offices. It is
presumable that they cannot be friendly to those who
offended them when they were as yet sealed up in the
anatomical soul-envelope ; nor perhaps with any who,
subsequent to the transformation scene vulgarly called
'“ dying,” may grow potatoes, or make bricks out of the
said soul-envelope lately warm and perambulating about
invested in a hat, a pair of boots, or perhaps a pair of
petticoats.
Nor is this state of matters strictly confined to that
order of animals called human. I apprehend there is
danger from the malevolent spirit of a murdered beetle.
Life is life—the same mysterious afflatus, whether it
animate Benjamin Disraeli or a cockroach; but in
Disraeli it operates through a more high-strung deve
lopment of nervous organism. What we so pompously
designate “ soul ” is only “life” thrilling through finer
�12
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
nervous fibres than are possessed by a beetle or a cock
roach, or any of the intermediate links between them
and the homo sapiens of Linnaeus. How else can it be ?
Shall I who write deny the cockroach immortality, its
chance for the felicity of heaven or the torment of hell,
because its nervous organisation is defective compared
with mine? It may have a very noble and elevated
soul, without material to work with or through. Take
my so-called soul from me and infuse it into the cock
roach, and it would be an ordinary cockroach still; and,
if I were to have its soul in return, I should simply be the
living, breathing, scribbling, fighting creature that I am.
How the idea originated that the life of man alone has a
monopoly for immortality baffles the conception. It
must be maintained, too, in the face of most awkward
contingencies.
In pursuit of my studies in psychology, only a few
months ago I procured a pauper just on the point of
shuffling off this mortal coil. As I was defective in
experimental apparatus bearing upon the peculiar modus
operandi in which I was about to experiment, I
ordered at the brass-founder’s a brass cylinder, twelve
feet long by twelve feet in diameter. The cylinder
was hollow; but the walls were several feet thick, of solid
brass. On one end of the cylinder was a square of glass
of five feet in thickness, through which was visible the
interior of the cylinder. This square of glass was a
door, which, at pleasure, could be opened, and again
secured with screws of immense strength. This was the
only opening into the cylinder.
As soon as the physician informed me that the pauper
could not survive over half-an-hour I had him placed
inside the cylinder, and the hyaline door strongly secured
with screws. I pressed my face to the glass, and, with
breathless anxiety, watched what was going on inside.
The pauper was a sickly yellow, and a cold, oily perspira
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
13
tion glistened upon his deeply-corrugated forehead. One
of his brown and toil-hardened hands held a convulsive
grasp of the dirty blanket in which he was wrapped. A
portion of his hirsute and muscular breast was visible
where two of the buttons of his faded blue stripe shirt
were open in front. That breast heaved a long, long
heave. Oh, God, would it ever fall ? Aye, it must. For
there was a low mortal rattling audible through the five
feet of solid glass—the death-rattle—and the old pauper
could not live long now. I confess I felt somewhat
terrified—not at the mere phenomenon called death, for
I had witnessed it a thousand times on the field of battle,
the hospital, and elsewhere; but, then, there was plenty
of scope for the soul to fly heavenward, or wherever it
might be labelled for; but, now, in the brass cylinder
—close, air-tight—good Christ! A hundred-weight of
gunpowder would hardly burst the “ everlasting brass ” of
old Horace in which the pauper was expiring ! What
if the disembodied spirit should burst it with a fearful
explosion, and blow me to atoms ! But, from the time
I was a cornet at sweet seventeen, I had sought the
bubble reputation in the cannon’s mouth, and at the
dear coral mouth of Miranda; and I resolved not to
turn upon my heel now to save my head in anticipation
of the explosive character of a pauper’s soul.
The cylinder was secured to prevent its flying up into the
air by appending to it several cables with heavy anchors.
The uncertainty of what the results would instantly be
became absolutely harrowing. The dark-coloured and
hairy breast, visible through the faded, striped shirt, fell
at last. I looked with a rivetted gaze : would it ever rise
again ? The yellow, oily appearance of the complexion
faded away into a ghastly white; not that lily whiteness
which is lovely, not that snowy whiteness which is beau
tiful ; but that horrible whiteness which is death-like.
The baked lips were dry and shrivelled up, revealing the
�14
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
pale gums and the grinning teeth, worn away in front by
the common clay pipes which the man had smoked for
forty years. His grey beard bristled grimly, and the
forlorn lock of hair which time had left upon his temples.
The eyes were wide open, and stared upward, as though
they would stare through the worlds and the ages. Then
the death-rattle ceased, the breast under the faded, striped
shirt rose no more, the eyes glazed, the jaw fell, and the
pauper was a clod of the earth he, grub-like, had toiled
and moiled in so long.
I saw no spirit make its escape; but I knew that it
was in the man in the cylinder no more. I knew I had
him there soul and body, although the two had dissolved
partnership. I could not tell whether the elements of
felicity or vice versct were in the brazen prison, but I
knew that I had therein the two constituent parts of an
animal, even a human one, and those two constituent
parts no longer in functional conjunction. For the
cylinder had not exploded, nor had I experienced the
slightest concussion. If that soul were now reaping the
rewards of the deeds done in the flesh, then the interior
of that cylinder must be a portion of heaven, or, rather,
there is no heaven or no hell, except what the soul
contains in itself—a disembodied soul qtia a disem
bodied soul. Re-united with the body in ultra-sepulchral
life, the economy must of necessity be essentially dif
ferent.
I had clearly got heaven or hell inside that cylinder ;
but the business was to find out which. The matter
could, however, be determined by finding out what kind
of life the pauper had led. From the conduct of his
life I should be able to infer whether he had merited a
harp in his hands in heaven or a gridiron under his hips
in hell. So I went round the parish inquiring of all
who had known this pauper as to what sort of a person
he had been. I heard no good of him. There was a
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
15
chalk up against him at the public-house. He had
fractured three of his wife’s ribs and broken his motherin-law’s thumb. He had, furthermore, not partaken of
the holy sacrament for three years; he had pulled the
half of his mother’s hair out, and had attempted to blow
up his father with gunpowder; he gave up reading his
Bible, and had refused to take tracts; and it was in
sinuated that he had actually poached and taken the
name of the Lord his God in vain. So, of course, I
had no doubt that he was in hell, and that consequently
hell was inside the brass cylinder behind my coach-house.
There are several reasons (too obvious to warrant my
occupying space with them here) for supposing that dis
embodied spirits are, with qualifications, subject to the
restraints of matter. A sound anatomical organisation
can contain a spirit; but it sooner or later escapes from a
defective and impaired organisation. If we could have
a guarantee against bodily malady, we would have a
guarantee against death. Never yet did the soul escape
from man but through some flaw in the physical organism.
There was no flaw or mode of egress in the cylinder,
consequently the soul must be there. If the cylinder
had been organised, the internal spirit might have ani
mated it. If a robin swallow a spider which expires in
the gizzard, it is presumable that the vital principle of the
spider goes to augment that already animating the
animal organism of the robin—a strange, but somewhat
feasible phase of metempsychosis. With a conviction of
the truth of this principle, when I am oppressed with
lassitude, lowness of spirits, and nervous prostration, I
am in the habit of swallowing a live frog, which, expiring
in my internal arrangements, its life goes to auxiliarate
mine, and the experiment seldom fails to inspire me with
healthful and exuberant spirits. At my instance, several
of my friends have also tried the experiment, and pro
nounce it a most decided biocrene.
�16
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
Further, in corroboration of the principle of spirit
being imprisoned in matter, St. Peter writes of Christ:
“ Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the
spirit, by which also he went and preached to the spirits
in prison.” This is the preposterous “ He descended
into hell ” of the creed explained by the indefinite, “ that
is remained in the state of the dead and under the power
of death,” which may mean anything or nothing. Who
were the “ spirits in prison ” which Christ preached to
after His “ being put to death in the flesh ” ? It is not
on record that, after His resurrection, he preached to
any, if we except the expounding of the Scriptures to the
two men journeying to the village of Emmaus, and the
admonition to the eleven whom He found gathered
together at Jerusalem. They cannot certainly be meant
by the expression, “ spirits in prison.” The “ preaching ”
must then refer to the interval in which the body of
Jesus lay in the rock-hewn sepulchre. But it seems
quite obvious who are meant by the “ spirits in prison.”
St. Peter distinctly designates, at least, a portion of them.
His words are : “ He went and preached to the spirits in
prison, which some time were disobedient when once
the long-suffering of God awaited in the days of Noah,
when the ark was preparing,” etc. Since Scripture never
once intimates, and the very Apostles’ Creed itself vacillates
on the subject of the descent into hell, and perhaps the
ascent into heaven on that awful occasion has never been
yet contended for, the spirit of Jesus must have remained
in the material world to preach to the spirits of the ante
diluvians whom St. Peter expressly mentions. Neither
am I aware that it has ever been contended for that
there is more in the universe than matter and spirit;
and since spirits are in prison, a spirit imprisoned in a
spirit seems more untenable and enigmatical than a spirit
imprisoned in matter. Hence it appears that, during the
three days of his interment, the disembodied spirit of
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
17
Christ, “ ekeruxen,” assembled together the spirits of the
dead, “ phulake,” under watch or guard—that is, as we
have seen, in this material world—till the resurrection
day again unites the body with the spirit, and man,
psychological and physiological, becomes subject to an
essentially different economy.
Reasoning in this manner, I set about experimenting
further upon the pauper in the cylinder. Ocular proof
of the presence of a spirit can be arrived at only under
peculiar circumstances. Man is seldom conscious of the
maximum of his own physical force till some imminent
emergency calls it forth ; and it is even so with the capa
bilities of his spirit. One on the point of drowning will
lay a grasp upon an object, the strength and tenacity of
which, in ordinary circumstances, he might regard as
absolutely superhuman. So is it in abnormal conditions
of the soul. It puts forth energies for the exertion of
which the ordinary senses do not afford a competent
medium. It grasps at more than the material eyes and
ears have been constructed to convey to it—views into
the realm of shades, sounds from the shores of the
Eternal. By a week’s morbid contemplation upon the
most revolting developments of human depravity and
crime, and the most deep and awful mysteries of exist
ence, I fitted myself to become aware of the presence of
the soul in the cylinder by another process than that of
ratiocination. Having schooled myself at the solemn
hour of midnight, through the darkness and the thunder
of the storm, arrayed in a long white sheet, I glided
along in the direction of the cylinder. I carried in my
right hand a half-rotten splinter of fir, which had formed
part of the bottom of a murderer’s coffin. It was deeply
saturated with the putrid grease of his viscera, and,
being ignited, burned fiercely in the tremendous might
of the storm. I brandished the red fire wildly around
my head, and it threw a weird, wild radiance upon the
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
dim outline of the tombstones, the black and terrible
rocks, and the rank hemlocks as they were crushed
beneath my hurrying feet.
Where on fields of fire hiss rains of blood,
I go ! I go I I go !
A gore-bubble on the infernal flood,
Io ! Io ! Io 1
Ten thousand grave-worms wriggle here,
And on their backs I ride,
In a long black coffin, grim and drear,
And my skull on its dexter side—
Nail’d with a nail through the bare white skull
To the coffin’s dexter side !
Io ! Io 1 Io !
And I shout Io 1 on the slimy shore,
’Neath the palls of the ages unfurl’d ;
And the worms go with me round evermore,
In the weird rolling round of the world !
Oh, the damned stench of my rotted brains !
Oh, the crawling that ceases, oh never !
Of worms, horrid worms, o’er my thighs, in my veins,
Of worms, horrid worms, in my eyes, in my reins,
And the burnings forever and ever !
Ride helter-skelter down to hell,
’Neath the Banner of Darkness unfurl’d !
Ring—ring my death-toll on Destiny’s bell,
In the weird rolling round of the world !
Io ! Io ! Io !
To the waist in eternal burnings I go !
I kept waving the horrible torch round my head, and, in
a voice high, husky, terrible, and unearthly, chanted the
dithyramb which I have just transcribed. I reached
the cylinder. I crushed a skull which I carried down
into the soft earth opposite the glass door, and stuck a
lighted candle into each eyeless socket. By this light,
which I managed to shelter from the wind, I ventured to
look into the interior, where the mortal remains of the
pauper lay. He was there, cold and rigid, just as I had
left him—ghastly, ghastly 1—with his hand still grasping
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
I?
a handful of the miserable blanket, in which lay his poor
remains............. The voice of God shouted in the black
heaven. The foundations of the earth reeled under the
tremendous roll of the thunder. The rain splashed
down in the darkness, and extinguished the two candles
that burned in the sockets of the skull............ A black
cloud lay on the eastern, a blacker cloud on the western
horizon, and the devil himself—I knew him at a glance
—leapt from the one cloud to the other with a yell to
which the thunder was a mere whisper. In his leap
across the world, by a blow of his club foot he knocked
the planet Mars out of the solar system, and gave the
moon a switch with his tail which nearly blotted that
satellite from the face of the heavens forever. I stag
gered forward, half suffocated with the fumes of brim
stone. Something struck me on the head which sent
stars flying out of my eyes three times in succession,
and by the light of those stars I beheld my hands and
found that they had become as large as frying-pansand were dripping with blood........... Yes, the spirit
was there, inside the cylinder. But it was a fearful
ordeal: I would not pass through it again to be lord of
a thousand worlds. The spirit was there ; but I had
better say no more, aided only by a human vocabulary
and the limited capacities of a human brain. When
there is no blood in my arm, and my skull is filled with
cold clay, I shall write it.
My next study in psychology was my endeavouring to
obtain a glimpse of what was going on behind the eternal
curtain through the medium of strangulation—“ hanging
by the neck till dead.”
I, perhaps somewhat unwarrantably, took it for granted
that the portal of the Future opens gradually in propor
tion as the soul succeeds in disengaging itself from the
body in the hour of death; and, consequently, in the
agonies of dissolution I might have some degree Oi
�20
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
insight into the arcana of the Future. Accordingly, I
gave instructions that a gallows should be erected on
the lawn in front of my residence.
To keep touch with the otherworld, I had the scaffold
constructed from the more or less rotten boards of
exhumed coffins; and I had a canopy erected over the
noose mounted with the blackest and heaviest of hearse
plumes. When the south wind swept up the lawn it
waved these sombre plumes with most sepulchral effect:
I was seized with a befitting sensation of shudder and
nausea; and, in spite of the fragrance of the birch, the
narcissus, and the rhododendron, the air was heavy
with stench, which seemed to proceed from the marrow
growing putrid in my own bones. Considering the
nature of the study in wffiich I was engaged, this was as
it should be. One adjunct, however, was still wanting
—the rope. In order to have all things as far as pos
sible appropriate, I determined to have this rope made
of a murderer’s entrails. At the town of D------they
had just hanged a miscreant who had done to death his
own mother. You have no idea what difficulty I had
with the authorities in obtaining this scoundrel’s, to me,
exceedingly valuable viscera. However, by the dint of
persistency, diplomacy, and hard cash, I managed to
have him exhumed from amid the earth and quicklime
where he lay under the flag-stones of the gaol floor.
Then, at midnight, I had him carried by three ticket-ofleave men to the haunted thorn in L------moss. By my
command, to this thorn they secured the lower extremity
of his intestinal canal, and carried him round and round
the tree till the whole length of his intestines was coiled
round the thorn, as you have seen an anchor-chain
coiled round the capstan. While they carried the
wretch round and round the tree I whistled the “ Dead
March in Saulbut I had to whistle till I was
utterly out of breath. It seemed to me that the scoun
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
21
drel’s intestinal canal must have been at least ten miles
long.
The next trouble was to get some one to tan and
prepare the ten miles of viscera, preparatory to spinning
them into the rope with which I was to hang myself. With
the whole concern on my back in a fisher’s creel, I called
upon the local chemist at two o’clock in the morning,
and, ringing him up, I threw down the basket before
him, and explained to him what I wanted him to do.
That chemist was an utter ass, without a scintilla of the
heroic self-sacrifice that is indispensable in him who
would dare to travel on the path of scientific investiga
tion. First he threatened to have me locked up as a
lunatic; next, looking into the basket of viscera, he
swore he would have me arrested on the suspicion of
murder. I took out my cheque book and wrote three
figures; and, in the chemist’s eyes, I became at once
sane and innocent, and, taking the basket and its contents
on his back, he descended into the cellar, assuring me
that what I wanted done was not only aesthetic, but
highly rational.
The murderer’s intestines made as much tough, cat
gut-looking cord as would have rigged a sloop of war.
I cut off twelve feet, sufficient to hang me. But, after I
had run on a beautiful noose, and had got the cord
properly fixed to the gallows’ beam, the next business
was to test its strength. I was over eleven stone : what
if, under my weight, the cord should give way ? I
remembered that my wife was rather over twelve stone.
I determined to see if it would bear her. If it would
bear her, it would bear me.
I found my wife even more intractable than the
chemist. Not all my blandishments could induce her
to allow the noose to be placed over her head.
“Miranda,” said I at length, “I conjure you by the
moon'that looked down through the quivering leaves of
�22
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
the aspen under which we sat as boy and girl forty-five
years ago, when first I ventured to whisper to you of
love—by that moon I conjure you to humour your
Harold now.” She let her head sink upon my bosom
as she sobbed forth: “ Harold, Harold darling, tie me
up by the feet?'
Good! The noose round the ankles would do as
well as the noose round the neck, as far as the mere
testing of the strength of the cord was concerned. I
took off my braces and knotted them round her skirts,
that there might be no unseemly garmental disarrange
ment as my darling danced from the gut with her heels
to the sky. I put the noose over her ankles and
launched her into the air. Round she gyrated in three
glorious whirls, and the cord brake not. Hurrah ! I
took her down. She was black in the face and speech
less. “ A swoon,” muttered I; and I took her up in
my arms and ran off with her to the fish-pond, into
which I plunged her. It occurred to me that that would
put her all right; but, in my absorption in my transcen
dental studies, it did not occur to me to wait and fish
her out of the water. However, the butler, assisted, as
I understand, by a policeman, did so; and she was
clean dead for the space of three hours, though she is
now more or less alive again. But I am digressing into
a subsidiary and trifling matter.
Some whisperings of my design got abroad into the
surrounding districts with marvellous rapidity, and for
days bands of roughs, such as go to witness public exe
cutions, might be observed hanging about the avenue
gate and the preserves. I was painfully apprehensive,
however, that the proposed experiment would not partake
of the character of amusement to myself individually,
and I resolved that it should not become so to the
public. My wife implored me, as I valued her love and
the love of God, to desist from what she in her sim
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
23
plicity was pleased to call “ a mad and ludicrous pro
ject.” But her entreaties and remonstrances were of no
avail in moving me from undertaking at all hazards an
enterprise for the promotion of science and in the sacred
cause of truth. My only marriageable daughter threat
ened to make off with the ostler, or do some other
horrible thing, if I would persist in disgracing and
making the family ridiculous by what she called exhibi
tions of “ crazy eccentricity.” I dismissed the ostler, and
locked her up in the spirit-cellar. In short, I gave the
whole household to understand that I was not a man to
be trifled with, and that, although I was thoroughly do
mesticated and a little uxorious, yet my connubial and
paternal obligations were secondary to those I owed to
the pursuit of science and the elucidation of truth. I
took to the gallows with me the key of the cellar in
which my daughter was confined. I had a settee with
the softest of cushions drawn up into the recess of the
drawing-room window, that, reclining there, my wife
might, if she chose, witness the scene to be enacted. I
arose rather before my accustomed hour—ten o’clock—
and partook heartily, with her, of our matutinal meal,
and ordered a cup of coffee and a slice of buttered toast
to be taken down to Julia in the cellar. Then I returned
to the seclusion of my study, and, to while away the
hour till the clock struck twelve, I set myself to sketch
ing with a crayon several monsters I found scattered
through the Revelation of St. John. I intend shortly
to put the Revelation cartoons into the hands of the
engraver. I was specially struck by the “ great red
dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven
crowns upon his heads.”* I drew this dragon with all
the skill I possessed as an imaginative limner; but, as
he did not look red, according to St. John, he did not
" Rev. xxii. 3.
�24-
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
appear formidable. So I resolved he should be red,
according to the Scriptures; and I accordingly threw off
my coat, rolled up my left shirt sleeve, cut my arm with
my pen-knife, and, dipping a tooth-brush in the blood,
I therewith reddened the dragon. The “ four beasts ”
were next honoured by my attentions as an artist. “ And
the four beasts had each of them six wings about him;
and they were full of eyes within.”* I managed pretty
well with the six wings a-piece, which was twenty-four
wings in all; but to draw or paint the “ eyes within,”
and yet make them visible, called for a supreme effort
of ingenuity. I thought first of printing under the
picture :
m
“foitljin/’ ob nf nnw latuiuf
But it occurred to me that some might doubt my word
and question whether indeed the eyes were there at all.
Utterly non-plussed as to how to get the eyes painted
“within” these four apocalyptic beasts and yet visible,
I, in a prayerful spirit, read the fifth chapter of Daniel,
and how to represent the internal eyes flashed upon me
like a revelation. In each beast I, with a bodkin, punc
tured seven holes through the paper—that is, twenty
eight holes in all. As the paper lies flat on the table
these twenty-eight eyes are not over-distinct. They
show to the greatest advantage when you take the paper
into a dark room, hold it up vertically, and get some
one to stand behind it and to strike a match all of a
sudden. Each of the twenty-eight eyes then becomes
distinctly visible, and a small gleam of light is emitted
from each. Of course, under the circumstances, you
see nothing but the eyes—you cannot see the beasts;
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
25
but you know the beasts are there; and it is too much,
in the mystery of divine things, to presume to try to be
able to see both the four beasts and their twenty-eight
eyes ‘‘'within” at one and the same time. I am, no
doubt, an amazingly able man. When I quite recover
from the hanging I shall saw away one side of my skull,
in order that I may see my mental machinery at work.
Having completed my apocalyptic drawings, I fell
down on my knees and preferred the following prayer to
Heaven :—
Omniscient Power, whose dominion extends alike over
the worlds of Mind and Matter, sustain me in the pur
suit of Knowledge, even to a comparative disregard of
the life which Thou gavest me. I thank Thee, O Lord,
for the rooted impression that true intelligence is a
synonym for Religion and Virtue, and Ignorance only
another name for Depravity and Sin. And I would
humbly desire to thank Thee for that boldness by which
I can disregard the derision and sneers of vulgar and
narrow prejudices, and for that originality of conception
which ranges afar into undiscovered lands, spurning the
hackneyed and beaten pathways of experiment and
thought. I thank Thee that Thou hast given me no
reverence for social landmarks, however time-honoured,
unless they have been placed there true to the theodolyte of Reason and the geometry of Truth—not that
I love what is time-honoured less, but that I love
Truth more. Give me none of the arrogance but
all of the humility of Philosophy, and enable me to feel
that, to whatever degree I may be able to dispel the
mists which brood around the presence of the Eternal,
I am still immeasureably far from grasping the immensity
of knowledge which, perhaps to the exclusion of the
archangel, it may be Thine own special prerogative to
know. Enable the wrorld to feel, O Lord, that all
�26
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
knowledge is generically divine, and that strenuous
toiling towards its attainment is the only pursuit worthy
of the lofty and sacred destinies of man as a defaced
specimen of Thy noblest handiwork. Pardon all my
frailties and shortcomings, and-----Here I heard the old clock in the dining-room begin
ning to strike twelve ; so, muttering “ Amen,” I drew
on my gloves, lifted my hat and cane, and with a fear
less heart and a steady step I strode downstairs to the
gallows.
Tony, the footman, acted as executioner, and not
another individual of the household was allowed to be
present, under pain of my most severe displeasure.
Tony, with evidences of the most terrible reluctance,
put the noose over my head, and I was swung into the
empty air. A white silk handkerchief which I carried
in the outside pocket of my coat was to be drawn out
by me as a signal that the hanging process had become
absolutely unendurable, and then Tony was at once to
cut the rope by which I was suspended. The instant I
felt the trap-door give way under my feet the sensation
became utterly indescribable, and I thrust my hand
into my pocket to pull out the handkerchief, when I
discovered—oh, heaven and earth !—that I had left it
where I had thrown off my dressing-gown.
I could not speak a word, if on it had hung the event
of my soul’s salvation. Every sin of mine—of thought,
wTord, and deed—blazed before me in characters of fire,
and from amid the lurid blazonry the meek, calm face
of my mother, who had been thirty years in the grave,
looked upon me with unutterable tenderness and love.
Then the earth gave way, and I was hurled down head
long into the unfathomable darkness. In my descent I
•was dashed against revolving and tremendous worlds,
with rivers of blood rolling into oceans of fire. Portions
�STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
27
of my agonised frame stuck to every fearful world against
which I was driven, whereupon they seemed to become
part of myself, and their oceans of blood lashed the
shores in darkness and thunder in sympathy with my
torture, which, increasing with an inconceivable rapidity,
already amounted to ten thousand times beyond what
mortals can conceive to be the agonies of ten thousand
hells. I became unconscious of my material identity,
and had only a mysterious existence as a spirit of
suffering infused through the worlds—boundless,
limitless, and horrible embodiments of darkness and
death—the condensed breathings from the yells of the
damned. The myriad world-shadows rolled into one
mass with a diameter of millions and millions of
miles, and my suffering soul writhed through the
minutest part of the mass in the fires of unutterable
agony. The amalgamated planets became identified
with my brain. Then innumerable gigantic forms of
shadow shot through it arrows of red fire, and it reeled
millions of miles away through the darkness and horrors
of immensity in the wild madness of ever-increasing
torture. Anon it seemed that, after the lapse of many
thousand years, all the thunder-peals since the creation
of the world combined in one tremendous roar, the
skull of the tortured brain was split, and the boundless
world-shadow of agony rolled down—down into vacuity
and nothingness !
I understand that Tony had discovered that I had
not the handkerchief, and instantly cut the rope of the
gallows. I am yet in bed, severely indisposed; but I
hope soon to be able to subject the agonies I suffered
to the ordeal of scientific and philosophical analysis.
Meanwhile I am nearly perishing for a draught of water;
but all the servants have, without their wages, gone off
in terror. My wife is with me in bed. She never
�2S
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.
speaks, but only stares at me wildly, and falls into one
fit of hysterics after another. I am told Julia has
effected her escape from the cellar, and has gone off,
heaven knows where 1
�APPENDIX.
LETTER FROM MAJOR F----- ’s DAUGHTER, JULIA.
Sir,—A friend of mine has sent me copies of your horribly
wicked and abominable journal, in which I see that you have dared
to publish, disfigured by the grossest exaggerations and most fearful
absurdities, the manuscript which, to my eternal regret, my poor
dead father so mistakenly entrusted to your care. You know per
fectly well that I never, never, never showed you my ankles, and
never asked you to write your foolish verses about them, which were
just suited to the fast and silly young hoydens who were taken in
by your ranting and raving about “ knights and fair ladies,” which
is a habit I see you have by no means lost as you have grown older,
but not apparently wiser, except that you have added wickedness to
foolishness by blaspheming Jehovah and ridiculing His holy Book,
for which you will certainly suffer hereafter in the fire that is not
quenched and the worm that dieth not.
As for your abominable calumny that I threatened to run away
with the ostler, I can only put it down to the fact that I once re
fused to run away with you, and that you are now trying to punish
my maidenly modesty by mean spite and wicked lying. Let me
remind you, Sir, if you have conveniently forgotten it, that at the
time of my poor father’s untimely decease I was engaged to a deacon
of the Established Church, who has since become a humble but
ardent minister of that Word which you are so continually reviling
to your eternal damnation, and whose name I have now the happi
ness of bearing as his loved and loving wife. You are a wicked,
unprincipled man to divulge in your lying paper family secrets and
matters which should always remain sacred to the privacy of the
hearth ; and God will judge you for it, seeing that my husband
cannot so forget his character as a man of God (what you irreve
rently call a “ beetle ”) as to horse-whip you as you deserve in this
world. But wait till the next.
i I admit that my dear papa was considered to be a little eccentric ;
but that he ever suffocated a poor pauper in a brass thing, or hung
my sainted mother up by the heels with such a hideous rope, is
�30
APPENDIX.
as wickedly untrue as that he tried to commit suicide, as you have
so unscrupulously said he did. The manuscript, which I sometimes
suspect you stole from under his dying pillow, was simply an
account of some dreadful dreams he had one night after going to
have supper with the man of God and my husband, who distinctly
remembers the occasion, because he helped to bring poor papa
home after being taken seriously ill as he was about half-past eleven.
I remember myself how frightened I was by his cries after he got to
sleep, poor dear.
If you are not ashamed of what you have done, a Day will come
when you will be—I mean the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord,
when, if you do not repent and be saved, you and all who write
and read your horrible paper will be burned up with chaff and fire
unquenchable.—Yours indignantly,
Julia Heywood (nee Fraser).
[I publish the foregoing that the public may have an idea of the
refined and delicate character of the daughter of Major F----- . I
would have corrected her prosody and set her shambling sentences
on their feet; but I do not care to run the risk of placing a document
before the world which she can assert is ‘ ‘ disfigured by the grossest
exaggerations.” In reply to her charge, I can only say with Pilate,
“What I have written, I have written,” and, moreover, every word
I have written is true. I have several more MSS. from the pen of
the lady’s late father, one particularly on a “School Thrashing
Machine,” which he claimed to have invented, which I had thought
to suppress out of deference for the Julia I knew of old, but which
I now feel inclined to publish out of lack of deference for the sweettempered and soft-spoken parson’s wife into which this Julia seems
to have developed. Moreover, a certain delicacy restrains me from
being more explicit when I say that I have a large bundle of loveletters tied together with a silk ribbon of now faded green, and that
the perusal of these letters would astonish the Rev. Mr. Heywood.
—Saladin.]
�
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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Studies in psychology : comprising the agonies of hanging, by one who was cut down from the gallows; based upon a MS. in the possession of Saladin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 30 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Stamp on front cover and elsewhere: Bishopsgate Institute. Reference Library. Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Date of publication from KVK (OCLC WorldCat). Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1894]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N598
Subject
The topic of the resource
Capital punishment
Ethics
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Studies in psychology : comprising the agonies of hanging, by one who was cut down from the gallows; based upon a MS. in the possession of Saladin), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Hanging
NSS