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RAJS 506
Orthodox Criticism Tested I
A REPLY
— TO----
FATHER LAMBERT’S
“Tactics of Infidels,”
---- BY-----
CHARLES WATTS
Editor of Secular Thought,
Author of “ History of Freethought," “ Teachings of Secularism Compared -with
Orthodox Christianity“ Evolution and Special Creation," " Secularism;
Constructive a d Destructive," “ Glory of Unbelief' * Saints and
Sinners; Which?" “Bible Morality" Etc., Etc.
TORONTO
SECULAR THOUGHT OFFICE, 31 ADELAIDE STREET EAST*
TWENTY CENTS.
\
��The Critic
of
“TACTICS OF INFIDELS”
CRITICIZED.
For some few years past a certain Father Lambert has devoted
■much of his time to a defense of the Christian religion, mainly by
attacking Col. Ingersoll. Mr. Lambert seems to labour under the
impression that if the Colonel can only be extinguished Chris- »
tianity will necessarily be demonstrated to be true. But the
falsity of a system no more depends upon the assertions of one
man than its truth upon the declarations of another. Christianity
will not stand or fall by the quibbles and sophisms of Mr. Lambert;
so neither will the opposite by the great eloquence of Colonel
Ingersoll. In the following criticism of a book called “ Tactics of
Infidels ”—which appears to have had a very large circulation—
it is not intended to defend either Colonel Ingersoll or Mr. Lacy—
since they are quite able to defend themselves—both of whom are
■made to figure largely in its pages, but simply to show wherein
Mr. Lambert’s reasoning is at fault. We do not care to discuss
men, but only to examine the principles they represent, and the
arguments employed by them to defend their views. It is chari
table to assume that every man is honest in the advocacy of the
opinions he puts forward, unless the contrary be very clearly
proved. It may seem strange to a man brought up under religi
ous influences, and with a strong emotional nature, who has never
read a Freethought work, or listened to a criticism of the evidences
of his faith, that any one should doubt what he holds to be infall
ibly true, but it is no less astounding to one who has freed himself
from the trammels of the orthodox religion that any one can for a
moment believe in the monstrous pretensions of the so-called
Catholic Church. Still so it is, and the sincerity of many such is
■beyond question. In what follows the dialogue form has been
adopted, because Father Lambert seems to prefer that to any
•other ; and to think that it has many advantages, for his side at
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least. His idea is that our teachings are easily disposed of by this;
method, so we will humour him by submitting his own to the same
kind of test.
It is not intended in this criticism to give a thorough and exhaus
tive reply to Father Lambert, but only to glance at some of the
more conspicuous of his fallacies, and to show that, although he
prides himself so greatly on his logic, he occasionally falls into the
most illogical kind of reasoning.
Ingersoll. The universe, according to my idea, is, always was,,
and forever will be * * * It is the one eternal being—the only
thing that ever did, does or can exist.
Lambert. When you say “ according to my idea ” you leave theinference that this theory of an eternal universe never occurred to
the mind of man until your brain acquired its full development..
Of course you do not intend to mislead or deceive ; you simply
meant that your “ idea ” of the universe is, like most of our modern;
plays, adapted from the French or elsewhere. * * * The old
originals, from whom you copy, thought it incumbent on them to
give a reason, or at least a show of reason, for their “ idea.” In.
this enlightened age you do not deem it necessary. It is suffi
cient for you to formulate your “ idea.” To attempt to prove it
would be beneath you. Have you got so far as to believe that
your “ idea ” has the force of an argument, or that the science;
of philosophy must be re-adjusted because you happen to have an
“ idea ?”
Lacy. The words “ according to my idea ” are said to imply
primitive conception; because I say “ I have an idea,” I leave the
inference that no one ever conceived the same idea before !
Lambert. There is a difference between an idea and my idea.
To say you have an idea might cause surprise, but to say it is yours
is to claim orginality for it. If Ingersoll were to claim some of
Edison’s ideas as his, he would be liable to prosecution for infringe
ment of the patent laws. The pantheistic theory of the universe
is too old to be claimed by Ingersoll as his idea. In claiming ithe
carries out his usual method of appropriating the thoughts and
speculations of others without giving credit, for which he deservesthe title of the Philosopher of the Purloined. Of course, one may
get at his meaning, but this verbal hypercritic of Moses should try
to say what he means.
pJZaMs. Is it not something like splitting hairs to thus quibble
about the expression “ according to my idea ?” Surely a man
means nothing more by that phrase than that the thing thus pre
sents itself to his mind. There is no necessary claim in it toorginality. Father Lambert would doubtless say, “ according to
my idea Christ is God,” but surely no man in his senses would.
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suppose that to mean that no one before had had the same idea.
The pretended difference between an idea and my idea is not worth
■discussing, for the former is an abstraction. There is no such
thing as an idea that is not, in reference to some person, his idea,
•and it consequently becomes to him my idea. Originality in ideaa
is rare, and surely a Roman Catholic should be the last person to
make complaint on that score. No doubt the Pantheistic theory
■of the universe is old, but that to a Roman Catholic ought to prove
•a recommendation. And as to Ingersoll, it is admitted that his mean
ing may be got at. Well, then, what more is wanted ? Is it not
somewhat unfair to first accuse the Colonel of purloining ideas and
passing them off as his own, and then to admit that the Colonel’s
Slanguage does not mean that. This is hypercriticism with a ven
geance. And shallow enough, too, it is at that.
Lambert. Ideas are the elements or timbers of a judgment, as the
ibricks are the component parts of a house. As the house is greater
than one of its bricks, so is a judgment, an assent or a faith greater
than any one of the ideas composing it. A judgment is, then,
more than an idea, on the principle that the whole is greater than
any of its parts. Your mistake arises from ignorance of the differ
ence between a judgment and an idea. It is another mistake to
•advance this ignorance as an evidence of modesty.
Watts. The difference between one’s judgment and his idea is
another quibble which savours more of nonsense than of metaphysi
cal reasoning. A distinction of course there is in strictly philosophic
language, but this largely disappears in ordinary conversation.
An idea is a representation of a real thing, and a man’s judgment
regarding that is in truth his idea of it. I read that a certain man
was sentenced to death for a particular crime. I judge that the
sentence was just, that is it was just according to my judgment, that
is that my idea of justice corresponded with the sentence. And when
I say my idea I do not mean that the idea originated with me, but
•that it accords with my conception of the things involved in it.
•<i Faith is an assent to truth on the authority of another,” says
Lambert. But that is not a good definition of faith, in fact it is a
very clumsy one. There may be no authority of another in the
case. Faith is, where it is reasonable, largely based upon experi
ence—not authority, and it is just that authority against which we
protest. I have faith that if I sow seed in the spring, I shall reap
a harvest in the fall; that if I sleep when I am fatigued I shall rise
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refreshed, but to no authority am I indebted for this, but to experi
ence. The experience may not be all mine, but a generalization of
other men’s, but there is no authority. We reject the Father’s
definitions in common with his theology, for the one is the out.
come of the other. A judgment is no doubt largely based upon
an idea, but one may surely be allowed to state the idea in connec
tion with the judgment, without being liable to be misunderstood.
Besides, if it be wrong to say my idea, when the same idea is held,
by other persons, it must be equally wrong to say my judgment
unless in such judgment I stand alone.
Lambert. “ That which is eternal is infinite. It must be infinite,,
because if eternal, it can have nothing to limit it. But that which
is infinite must be infinite in every way. If limited in any way it
would not be infinite. Now, matter is limited. It is composed of
parts, and composition is limitation. Change supposes succession,,
and there can be no succession without a beginning, and therefore
limitation. Thus far we are borne out by reason, experience and
common sense. Then—Matter is limited and therefore finite, and
if finite in anything finite in everything ; and if finite in everything,,
therefore finite in time, and therefore not eternal. The idea of an
eternal, self-existent being is incompatible in every point of view
with our idea of matter. The former is essentially simple, un
changeable, impassible, and one. The latter is composite, change
able, passible and multiple. To assert that matter is eternal is to
assert that all these antagonistic attributes are identical—a privi
lege granted to lunatics only.”
Watts. Infinity we cannot conceive of, it is a mere negation, for
it means the not finite. Now, being a negation, how can it possessthe attributes here ascribed to it, or, in fact, any attributes at all ?'
Sir William Hamilton, one of the greatest metaphysicians of this
age, and an orthodox Christian, has completely pulverized the logic
of Lambert. He shows that what men absurdly call the infinite
is simply the indefinite, and that to talk of the infinite is to use a
word without meaning. Matter is composed of parts, and there
fore limited. What parts ? Can we conceive of a part of matter
which cannot be further divided ? Is it not infinitely divisible ?•
And if so, here is infinity, that is, the infinitely small, ascribed to
d. If it be not infinitely divisible, then we must reach a portion
■sf matter the half of which is equal to the whole, which is an.
absurdity. But the infinite “ is essentially simple, unchangeable^
impassible and one.” This means that it cannot be divided. Sir
William Hamilton has shown the absurdity of this in regard to
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duration. Eternity and infinity are one, for eternity is infinity of
duration. Now, there is an eternity of the past and an eternity of
the future, that is, an Infinite Duration in the past, and an InfiniteDuration in the future, and these are divided by the present; that
is, your supposed Infinity is cut into two parts. And here is the
reductio ad absurdam. Either these two parts are infinite or they
* are finite. If infinite, then there are two infinites succeeding each
other; if finite, then two finites can make an infinite. This is not
my idea, but that of the greatest Scotch metaphysician ; and
Father Lambert can choose which horn of the dilemma he pleases.
The same argument will apply to space. Take another illustra
tion, also from Hamilton. A foot is infinitely divisible, that is, it
is divisible into an infinite number of parts ; a mile is infinitely
divisible. But, as one infinite must be equal to another, therefore
a foot is the same as a mile. All this goes to show that we have
no conception of the infinite and cannot discuss it. When we
speak of it we simply mean the indefinite.
The human soul, says Lambert, is not eternal because it started
at a certain point, but will live forever. Well, that starting point
was a point in duration, and hence duration itself from that period
is not eternal. The human soul, then, is finite ; but, if so, how
can it last forever ? for that is just what the Father argues that
finite things cannot do.
Lambert. The future life of man is not actual and real, but
potential, and will ever remain potential.
Watts. What in the name of reason does this mean ? If man’s
future life be not real, why trouble about it ? What possible
concern can we have with the unreal ? This is really to
teach non-existence, which is assuredly not in harmony with the
theology of the Vatican.
Lambert. To imagine, or rather to conceive an infinite line is to
conceive a line*to whose lineal value nothing can be added, for as
long as an addition to it can be conceived if is not yet infinite. Is
such a line conceived as a reality ? No. Let us see why.
Imagine your infinite line extending through space in opposite
directions—say north and south. Now this so-called infinite line
is not infinite so long as we can conceive it increased by additional
length. Let us now imagine another so-called infinite line of
equal length with the first, and running parallel to it. If we add
the second to the first do we not increase its lineal value ? Most
certainly. Then the first line was not infinite because it admitted
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of addition. Nor are the two together infinite, because we may
imagine another parallel line and another addition and a conse
quent increase of lineal value. We may continue this process for
ever and never exhaust the possibilities—never come to a lineal
value that excludes possible addition. From this you will see that
you cannot conceive, much less imagine, an infinite ltne so
“ readily ” as yo< thought.
Watts. Why, certainly. But what does all this prove but that
Sir William Hamilton is right, and that man can form no idea of
the Infinite, and that every attempt to describe it must end in
hopeless confusion and contradiction. The Father has in this
paragraph completely refuted himself.
Lacy. Space is infinite expansion but nothing more.
Lambert. Expansion of what ? Expansion without something
expanded is a mere fiction of the mind, having no real existence
outside the mind. Expansion is a mode of matter, and without
matter it is a non-entity. As matter is finite its expansion is finite.
Herbert Spencer defines space as “the abstract of all co-exist ences,” and by “the abstract” he tells us he means “ that which
is left behind when the realities are absent.” Now, take away all
reality and what have you left ? No reality, nothing. Then, ac
cording to Spencer’s definition space is no reality. But reality,
real being, is the first essential condition of the infinite, therefore
space, having no reality, no real existence aside from matter, can
not be infinite.
Watts. Space is unquestionably infinite expansion, if you sub
stitute indefinite for infinite. Expansion of what ? Well, we don’t
know. It may be an abstraction, as Spencer supposes, but there
are a hundred different opinions on that subject entertained by the
ablest philosophers. But it is certainly as real as eternity, which
word the Father uses glibly enough. At all events, the conception
of space is as clear as the conception of matter, and clearer than
the conception of God. If space be not infinite, as Lambert says
it is not, then it is limited, and we should be glad to be informed
what limits it, and whether the something that limits it exists
outside of space, which, of course, means nowhere. Is there some
place where there is no space ? If not, space is everywhere, in
other words, infinite. If space be the possibility of extended
things, still there can be no limit to that possibility. But Space
and Time are realities, despite the talk of such small and gabbling
metaphysicians as Father Lambert.
All the talk about the infinite line is just an illustration of Sir
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Wm. Hamilton’s doctrine that no clear conception can be formed
of the infinite, but that any discussion of the subject must be in
volved in paradox and contradiction. The Father should read
Dean Mansell’s Bampton Lectures, a book written from a religious
standpoint, and in defence of Christianity. The Dean makes short
work of the nonsensical talk about the infinite. The argument
about Numbers and Duration go to show the absurdity in which
the whole thing is involved, and to illustrate Hamilton’s position.
What the Father is trying to prove it is difficult to make out. No
addition of finite numbers will make an infinite. Of course not.
Whoever supposed that it would ? But, as no number of finites
-can make an infinite, and as we can only conceive of finites, what
becomes of the talk about the infinite ?
Lambert. The incapacity to conceive how a thing can be done is
no proof that it cannot be done.................... The fact that the how
of an act or process is inconceivable is no proof that it has not a
.how, or that it is impossible.................... It is one thing not to con
ceive a thing and quite another to'conceive a thing to be impos
sible.................... I cannot conceive how God created the world,
but I can conceive no impossibility in the creative act. I cannot
■conceive the nature of matter, but I can conceive no impossibility
in it.
Watts. We do not attempt to explain the how of anything, and
■questions with regard to it are childish. And we are not alone
here. Let the Catholic give us the how of the facts of nature, or
•of his own being. But, he says, there is a difference between not
being able to conceive of a thing and the conceiving of it as im
possible. Why of course! It is only Christians who confound
these. “ I cannot conceive,” says the Father, “how God created
the world, but I can conceive no impossibility in the creative
act.” Well, to me such an act seems impossible. Will Mr.
Lambert explain how to him it does not seem so ? Did God create
the world out of nothing or out of pre-existing materials ? If the
latter, these must have been eternal, or there must have been a
prior creation, to which the same argument would apply. If the
former, was not that an impossibility ? How could an infinite make
a finite, i. e., could an infinite cause produce a finite result ? Is
not this an impossibility ? Or, in truth, how could there be space
or time for the finite when the infinite occupied the whole of both ?
Besides, we have been told that there is no change or succession
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in the infinite. But, if at some point of duration or eternity he
performed an act which commenced or ceased, then he changed in
time, became related to time and consequently to succession.
Why was not creative power displayed before the creation ? In a
word, it must have been eternal, as God is eternal and unchange
able. If the infinite does not change, then from all eternity it must
have been creating worlds, and in that case these worlds would,
themselves be eternal. We would like an explanation of this. I
am not asking for the how, but for an explanation as to the possi
bility of conceiving of such a process. “ Everything,” says L.,
“ is possible that does not involve contradictory attributes.” Very
well. Then here are the contradictory attributes. God is eternal
and unchangeable, yet he put forth a new exertion a few millions
or so of years ago and created worlds, thereby changing his course
of action. “ Change supposes succession and therefore limitation.”
God changed his action, therefore became subject to succession,
ergo limited, that is, not infinite.
True, a thing may exist of which we are unable to form any
conception, but at least it can have no concern for us. What can
we have to do with that of which we can form no conception ?
It is a waste of time even to talk of it. But we know quite as
well as Father Lambert the difference between the failing to con
ceive a thing and the conception of its impossibility. And it is
just this latter that we urge against his theology. But, says the
Father, “ You must have some conception of the creative act, or
you could not assert that it is inconceivable.” Of course, we have
a conception of what Theologians say in reference to the act, and
we declare their statements to be self-contradictory and absurd.
But this is a very different thing to forming a conception of the
act itself. For we declare such an act to be both inconceivable
and contradictory.
Now, the concession that we must think of God with limitations,
as Lambert maintains, shows how impossible it is for us to con
ceive of the infinite at all. It is clear that our conception of God,
according to Lambert, is not correct. But how can he reach, in
thought, a being that transcends all human conception ? Besides,
if we can only conceive of God as limited, and yet he may be
unlimited, what becomes of the argument that matter cannot be
infinite, because we conceive of it as finite. If God, although
only thought of as finite,, and described as such in the Bible, be
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really infinite, the same argument will apply to matter. This
mode of reasoning is suicidal, and cuts its own throat.
Lambert. As to space, we have seen that it is not a real being,
but only a relation between material beings ; that abstracted from
material beings it is nothing ; that it bears somewhat the same
relation to extended or expanded things that form does to matter
or weight to ponderable things. Annihilate extended or expanded
things and form and space and weight will “ fade away like the
shadows which flit before us and are seen no more.”
Watts. Space, then, is nothing at all; in a word, there is no
space. Things therefore exist nowhere, But that which exists
nowhere does not exist at all: ergo, there is nothing in existence.
The Father confounds the filling of space with its annihilation.
Space is not destroyed by being occupied. It is still there, but no
longer empty. To say that where a body is the space is not, is to
say that a thing exists where it is not,—for it surely exists in spaGe,
—which is egregious nonsense. According to this philosophy
things do not exist in space but outside of it, and where that is we
should like to be informed.
Lambert. Christian philosophers tell us that space, in as far as
it is real, is the distances between extended or spaced things, and
can exist only when extended things, exist, just as form can have
no real existence without things formed. Space in this sense is
limited to extended things and therefore cannot be infinite.
Watts.—Then Christian philosophers have taught nonsense, as the
Father himself has in these pages. But who are the philosophers
that have taught this ? Space is just the one thing whose non
existence or even limitation cannot be even conceived. Let the
Father try if he can accomplish this impossible feat. What about
the Ether ? Scientists tell us that this fills all space, so then there
is no space left and space is not. According to Mr. Lambert, to
fill an empty thing is to destroy the thing itself when it is filled,
which is assuredly something new in reasoning.
Ingersoll. To put God back of the universe compels us to admit
that there was a time when nothing existed but God.
Lambert. It compels us to admit nothing of the kind. The
eternal God can place an eternal act. His creative act could
therefore be co-eternal with his being. The end of the act—that
is, creation—could be co-existent with the eternal act, and there
fore eternal. To deny that is to affirm that there could be a mo
ment when the eternal and omnipotent God could not act, which
is contrary to Christian teaching.
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Watts. Here we are told that God ean place a. creative act.
What that means no one can tell. Place it where ? Where it is,
that is, where it took place, or somewhere else. Really, this is
■child’s talk, and not reasoning. God can place anything, but he
must place it somewhere. The Father’s argument, if worth any
thing, is that he can place it no-where, and where that is I presume
even a priest cannot tell. “ His creative act could be co-eternal
with his being.” Well, in that case creation wasjrom all eternity,
hence the created thing was from all eternity, hence matter
was from all eternity, which is just what the Father elsewhere
denies. But to look at this in another light. The Creator
is the cause, the creation was the effect. Is it not a necessity
of thought that the cause must precede the effect ? If not how can
we discover causation at all ? Sequence and antecedence would be
meaningless terms. God created, that is, called into being, the
universe. Then before that occurred there was no universe, which
means nothing existed but God. No, says Lambert, creation is
■eternal. Then the thing made was contemporaneous in existence
with its maker, which is, in fact, to say that it was not made at
•all. To state that a thing is as old as the maker of the thing is
not argument, but downright nonsense, and may serve to bewilder
■children and ignorant Catholics, but assuredly can only be a source
of amusement for educated men.
Lambert. That creation could be co-eternal must be admitted if
we admit that God is eternal and omnipotent, and this we must
admit if we admit his existence. Hence it does not follow that
putting God back of the universe proves that he antedates it.
Lacy. If this be not so, what becomes of the dogma that God
■created matter “ out of nothing ?”
Lambert. If he can create from eternity he "can create “ out of
nothing ” from eternity. The dogma is in no danger.
Lacy. Can you conceive of such a creative act, without a time
■or point in infinite duration when it was performed ? Try it.
Lambert. I cannot conceive when it was performed, for the sim
ple reason that if it be an eternal act it could not, because eternal,
•ever have had a “ when.” Any act of which when can be asserted
is not an eternal act.
Watts. But it is not a question of conceiving of the when but of
the fact so called. And that involves a contradiction in terms.
That which was created was clearly an effect. Now an eternal
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effect is a meaningless expression. You might as well talk of a
square circle. Every effect must have a cause, and the cause must
in the nature of things precede the effect, or it could be no cause
at all. Moreover, I should like the Father to tell us how we can
know of a cause except through its effect. In Nature we see
cause and effect co-related everywhere. But we know nothing and
can know nothing of a supernatural cause.
That transcends
knowledge. Besides, how can a finite effect be produced by an
infinite cause ? This question has been asked before but it comes
in here too. Does the infinite in its effect become finite ? Effect
is probably nothing but transferred force. And an infinite force
cannot in its transference become finite. Hence an Infinite Cause
cannot exist. Let Father Lambert meet this argument.
Lacy. We are told in the Notes that before creation was, time
was not. This as poetry may pass, but as fact it is inconceivable.
Lambert. If it be conceivable, even as poetry, it is conceivable.
Hence your argument from inconceivability falls to the ground, for
that which is conceivable even as poetry is possible, and that which
is possible is conceivable as fact. I must here again repeat that
inconceivability is not the criterion of possibility, and that therefore
our inability to conceive a thing is no evidence that the thing is
impossible. If sceptics could once get this truth injected into their
skulls, they would perhaps use their unmetaphysical catchword less..
Watts. It is not conceivable either as poetry or anything else,,
save perhaps absurdity and nonsense. The so-called truth which
sceptics cannot get “ injected ” (an injection of truth is surely a
new method of administering that article) “ into their skulls ” is no
truth at all but a whimsey wild as any legend in the holy(?) Catho
lic record of marvellous exploits. Inconceivability may not be the
criterion of absolute possibility, but it certainly is of truth as pre
sented to man. And Christians more than any other class of men
use it as such. It is, in fact, their stock argument against what
they are pleased to call infidel notions. How can any one assert
the truth of that which is inconceivable ? Think of a time when
there was no time, a period when yesterday was to-day, and to
morrow the week before last. It is of no use to say that this,
although inconceivable, might possibly be, for that is to use words
without meaning, which is just what this priest does. Words
should represent ideas, but to use words which have no ideas tocorrespond to them is to play fast and loose with language, and to-
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befool men by engaging in a game of battledore and shuttlecock
with phrases.
“ Oh, sense, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.’
Lacy. But if it be true (that before creation was, time was not)
how do we know that it is true ?
Lambert. We know it in this way. Time is the measure of
movement and change in moving and changing things ; it is an
appurtenance of changeable things, and it is evident that an ap
purtenance of a thing cannot exist without the existence of that to
which it appertains. Therefore, without created things, time could
not be. It does not require much profound thinking to see this.
Watts. It certainly does not require much “profound thinking”
to see the absurdity of this. See how adroitly the word “ created ”
is dragged into the conclusion, when it did not appear in the pre
mises. Why may not eternal things be moveable and changeable ?
In fact, are not such conditions essential to all things ? If the
eternal existence—whatever it may be—could not move or change,
then it is clear it could not act. For all action is movement, and
a fortiori change. There can be no action without a movement on
the part of that which acts, and if God does not move, it is as clear
as that two and two make four, that action on his part is impossi
ble. Jesus represents God as working and the Old Testament re
cord of creation is one of activity on the part of Deity. Now work
means change and movement. Nor does the absurd fiction of an
eternal creation remove this difficulty, for the creation of this world
was certainly not from eternity, since we know that in its present
form it had a beginning. The creation of the earth and of the
organic beings upon it involved action, and consequently move
ment, on the part of its creator. As, therefore, there must have
been movement and change to produce that which was not pre
viously existing, or even to alter the form of that which was, there
was movement and change in Deity when such creation took place.
And as God has thus moved and changed, he, too, must be subject
to Time, and consequently Time was eternal. Time and space,
the two great facts in the universe, are not to be shuffled out ofi
existence by the wily—I had almost written silly—sophisms of
this popish priest.
Lacy. We are told that “ God is pure act,’’the source and origin
of all activity and life. How there can be “ pure act,’’ or any other
act, without an actor, is another riddle to which we succumb.
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Lambert. Riddles and conundrums seem to buzz about your brain
like blue-bottle flies about a dead horse. You should try to learn
and comprehend that which you do not know and understand, and
not imbecilely yield to gross ignorance and display it as an evidence
of profundity.
An act is the reduction of a potentiality or possibility to a reality.
Pure act is an act of being which excludes all potentiality. A Being
which is necessarily real, which excludes from its essence everything
that implies imperfection or defect of reality, is pure act. Poten
tiality of any kind always and necessarily implies defect or lack of
reality, because it has always something not yet actuated or real
ized in act. Being, therefore, which is necessarily real, with su
preme and infinite reality, excludes all potentiality. Now God is
necessarily and essentially real. He excludes from his essence
everything that implies imperfection or defect of reality. He is
therefore Pure Act.
Watts. Lord Byron once wrote respecting a contemporary of
his, that he went about “explaining metaphysics to the nation,” and
then added, “ I wish he would explain his explanation.” These
ines are most applicable to Mr. Lambejt. He really does make
“ riddles and conundrums ” buzz about onr ears. It is difficult to
imagine him serious in this jumble o'f words, which he calls logical
argument. An act without an actor. You might as well talk of a
walk without a walker, a stroke without a striker, a kick without a
kicker, a thought without a thinker. A being who acts, performs
an act, but without an actor there can be no act. “ Pure act ” is
pure nonsense, without any adulteration, and such as few men but
a Roman Catholic priest would try to throw dust in men’s eyes by
talking about. Moreover, an act requires not only the actor who
performs it, but also an agent upon which it is performed. What
was the agent in this case ? “ God is pure act.” Then the word
God is a name for an act performed by some other being, who is
higher than God, and somewhere there must be an agent upon
which the act is performed. But such unmitigated absurdity is
hardly worth discussing. And we are to be accused of “gross ig
norance ” and “ imbecility” if we fail to understand this meaning
less jargon. Be it so. Truly that proverb about “ blind leaders
of the blind ” has received a verification in the case of Father
Lambert.
Lambert. The difference between murder and killing is determined
by the intention. If a hunter, intending to kill a deer, kill a man
whom he mistook for a deer, he is not guilty of murder because he
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had not the intention. It will be observed, then, that the moral
nature of an act depends on the nature of the actor, and the good
ness or wickedness of the moral act depends on the intention of
the free moral agent. It is a mistake to suppose that a good act
is a moral one and a bad one is not. Every act of man, good or
bad, done with an intention, is a moral act. We attribute morals,
good and bad, to man alone, because he alone of all the inhabit
ants of the earth is capable of forming an intention and acting from
a motive.
Watts. Man performs thousands of acts with an intention which
are not moral acts. They are neither moral nor immoral, but
simply unmoral. He eats, drinks and sleeps with an intention, but
such acts do not fall within the range of any ethical code in this
world. The regulation of these is, no doubt, subject to moral law,
but the acts themselves per se are neither moral nor the reverse.
A man takes a walk along a country road to relish the scenery, or
sails in a boat on a lake for enjoyment, listens to music, gazes at a
great painting, or reads a poem, all with the intention of amusing
himself, but these are not moral acts. The Father’s notions of
ethics are about as hazy as his philosophical disquisitions.
Lambert. A standard of right, or a measure by which to distin
guish what is right from what is wrong is necessary for man,—
without it all difference between right and wrong, is destroyed.
Men may and do err in the application of this standard, but this
fact does not lessen its value, for the error is not in the standard but
in the application.
Lacy. You say, yes, “ the will of God,” but how do we deter
mine that will ?
Lambert. When a man is called on to act he is obliged as a
moral agent to consider, there and then, whether the act he is
about to do is good or bad. He must determine it by the light of
his knowledge of the will of God. If he does this honestly and to
the best of his ability his act, so far as he is concerned, is good.
He must always follow his conscience and act on his own honest
interpretation of the standard. His knowledge and conception of
it may change but the standard is unchangeable ; because founded
in the will and nature of God. It is man’s duty to act according
to the will of God as far as he knows it or honestly believes he
knows it at the time. His knowledqe of the will of God is the
measure of his merit or demerit.
Watts. The statement that the will of God is the standard of
right and wrong is a gratuitous assumption, a begging of the whole
question. No scintillation of evidence is produced in support of
the assertion. And many very eminent Christians have disagreed
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with it in toto. Dr. Samuel Clarke, a far greater man than Father
Lambert—and, withal, a dignitary of the church—maintained that
the moral law was to be found in the fitness of things. Adam
Smith discovered it in sympathy, and Paley in a sort of utilitari
anism ; whilst, if I mistake not, Cardinal Bellarmine placed it in
the decisions of the Pope of Rome, and held that should the head
of the church decree that acts now considered moral should hence
forth be immoral, and vice versa, the moral law would be changed.
We deny that the will of God has aught to do with the standard of
right and wrong among men, and demand the proof. Let that
be forthcoming.
But, in the next place, where is this will of God recorded ? Surely
if it were to be discovered anywhere it should be in Nature. And
yet no one can gather from natural phenomena, what is right and
what is wrong. For, as Mill has shown, Nature does every day
that which men are imprisoned and hanged for doing. She is, and
can be, no guide in morals. Mr. Lambert will no doubt reply that
the will of God is to be found in the mandates of his churchand
the Protestant will tell you it is in the Bible. But here again we
want the proof, which is not forthcoming.
Moreover, the teachings of both the church and the Bible are so
contradictory that no formulated moral code can be obtained from
either one or the other, or both combined. The church has en
joined repeatedly the performance of acts atrocious in their cha
racter and pernicious in their results, and anathematized and
excommunicated those who had too high a moral nature to perform
them,—whilst the moral code of the Bible is such a heterogeneous
mass of contradictions that there is not wanting a text to justify
any act, however outrageously immoral.
Lambert. Protestants, like Catholics, hold that the will of God
is the standard, and they value the Bible only because they believe
it to be a revelation of that will.
Watts. Exactly, but that only shows how blind they all are.
The will of God, according to one, is in the Bible, and according
to the other, in the church ; and these two are in flagrant oppo
sition to each other. What is the use, therefore, of talking about:
an abstract will of God, which no one can discover, and about which
those who believe in it are at sixes and sevens ? If there be such,
a will it is perfectly useless to man as a guide in life, because na
one knows where it is to be found. And the moral code which
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society recognizes is found neither in the Bible nor in the church,
but based upon the general experience of mankind, as. to what is
best for the happiness of the race. Surely Father Lambert must
be aware of this.
Lacy. The standard of right and wrong, whatever rule may be
professed, is in the mind and heart of man and has varied from age
to age, as he advanced from the barbarism of the past to the com
parative enlightenment of the present.
Lambert. The standard is certainly in the mind of man, for all
peoples in all times have recognized a supreme will as the standard.
Catholics, Protestants and Jews call it the will of God; Pagans
call it the will of the gods—but all recognize a supreme, super
natural will as the standard of right and wrong. You say truly,
then, that it is in the mind of man. But it is not always in his heart,
for men often do what they know to be wrong. This standard has
never varied, though men’s know edge of it may have increased or
diminished, or their application of it may have differed.
Watts. It is assuredly a most astounding statement to make to
say that the standard of right and wrong has never varied. Why
it has never remained the same for a century at a time, and hardly
any two nations think alike about it. Moreover, where is the stan
dard ? What is the use of saying that different people call it the
will of God ? No two of them agree as to what that supposed will
enjoins. Unless the said will of God can be found written some
where in a plain and unmistakeable form, it amounts to nothing
more than “ a will-o-th-wisp.” The Roman Catholics say it is in
the Church, the Protestants in the Bible, the Parsee in the ZendAvesta, the Mohammedan in the Koran, the Hindoo in the Shaster
and Vedas, and the Pagan in none of them. And all these records
of the will of God teach different systems of morality. No doubt
men often do what they know to be wrong, but they also often dd
wrong believing it to be right. When Christians persecuted and
burned each other they did it most conscientiously, believing firmly
that they were obeying the moral law, acting in accordance with
the will of God, and therefore doing right. What has taught us
now that these acts were wrong ? Not the will of God, but the ad
vancement of human knowledge. The Roman Catholic would
think he was doing wrong in eating meat on a Friday, whilst the
Protestant laughs at this as a silly superstition. Where is the will
<of God, then, which both profess to take for their guide ?
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Lacy. Our knowledge of the rules of morality has come to us by
<slow degrees, and is not perfect yet.
Lambert. If so, we cannot say that murder, theft and adultery are
wrong. We must wait for developments ! Some new discovery
may yet prove that vice is virtue and virtue vice, that honesty is a
superstition, decency a prejudice and duty an illusion.
Watts. That is a non sequiter. Because we have not yet attained
to a perfect system of ethics, it does not follow that some questions
in connection with it are not settled. “ Murder, theft,” etc., are
known to be wrong, not because they conflict with some imaginary
■divine will, but because they are prejudicial to the well-being of
society. It would be very difficult, in fact, to prove that “ murder,
theft and adultery ” were contrary to the will of God, for all are
sanctioned in the Bible, and have been defended by the Holy
Catholic Church. That Church has committed murder on a very
large scale, has practised robbery in the confiscation of the pro
perty of heretics, and even Popes have been the fathers of illegiti
mate children, and, in some cases, the very personification of im
purity, lust and uncleanness. Yet these Popes were infallible, and
•the vehicles of the divine will. Is not this the height of absurdity?
Lacy. Christian theology also affirms that there are three Gods,
•co-equal and infinite in every divine attribute, although declaring
that the three are in some inexplicable sense, one.
Lambert. This is the kind of stuff infidel writers feed their credu
lous dupes on. It is difficult to understand how one brought up in
a Christian community, and pretending to know anything about
even the simplest elements of Christianity, could honestly make
■the above statement. ... A Sunday school boy of ten years
■who, after studying the first three chapters of his catechism, should
make such a statement as Mr. Lacy makes, would richly deserve
to be spanked for inattention or pitied for his stupidity....................
“ Christian theology affirms that there are three Gods ! ” The
man who makes such a statement sacrifices all claim to considera
tion as a scholar, or to having the most ordinary knowledge of the
subject he elects to talk about. Yet this is the kind of people who
are most flippant and noisy"ab'but theology, the Bible, and Moses.
They are always as ready, as a self-cocking pistol, to give their.
“ honest ” and ignorant contents. Here is the author of a book,
who undertakes to treat of philosophy, revelation and Christian
theology, and who attributes to Christians a doctrine they not only
do not hold, but which they have m all times conrfmned / And this
ignorant upstart states it as if it were a matter about which there
is no doubt whatever. Can any language be too severe for such an
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offence ? If he be ignorant of the Christian doctrine on this sub
ject he is too ignorant to discuss Christian theology in a cross road
grocery; and if he be not ignorant of the Christian doctrine of the
unity of God, and yet made in cold type the above statement what
are we to think of him ? Does not his statement justify me ’in dis
missing him as too ignorant or too dishonest to deal with in discus
sing the great question at issue ?
Watts. Here is a storm in a teacup. The Father’s holy ire is
like that of an incensed Jove. But he should remember that not
only is abuse not argument, but that, as a rule, it proves the lack,
of argument. To call an opponent ill names, apply to him such
complimentary epithets as “ ignorant upstart,” and rave about
his unfitness for the task he has undertaken, is, no doubt, quite in
keeping with the priestly intolerance of the popish hierarchy, but.
it is not likely to carry conviction to the calm and impartial reader..
The Father should remember the story of the dispute about the
body of Moses, recorded in “ sacred scripture,” between the devil
and an archangel. Verily that archangel would have been silent
had he encountered Father Lambert, and it is even questionablewhether the other disputant would have had much chance with
him. And, after all, what is the matter ? What is all this commo
tion about ?
Lambert. Christian theology affirms that there are not three
Gods, but one God, one divine nature, and that in this one divine
nature there are three persons. The unity is asserted of the divine
nature, tri-unity of the divine persons, and it does not require more
than average brains to understand that nature and personality are
not one and the same thing.
Watts. But personality surely implies a distinct and separate
consciousness. One Bishop, in fact—Sherlock I think—said that
the three persons in the Godhead were “ as distinct as Peter, James
and John.” That either means three Gods, or three persons of
whom each is one-third of a God. Which is it, Father Lambert ?
Don’t try to escape by calling out “ mystery.” There is no mystery
at all, but simply a use of words without meaning, which is thesynonym of nonsense. In fact, the mass of absurdity that has
been written on this question is astounding. Three Gods yet onlyone God.
Lambert. It is inexplicable how one can be one and three at thesame time and in the same sense, but that is precisely what Chris
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tian theology does not affirm. When it affirms unity and trinity or
God it does not affim them in the same sense. It asserts that the
■divine nature is one; the divine persons, three.
Watts. Is that so, friend Lambert ? I must ask you whether
you are not familiar with a mass of nonsense called “ The Creed of
St. Athanasius.” Have you not subscribed to that creed ? Now
what does it say ? “ The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy
Ghost is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God.”
Now, tell me, does not this predicate that they are three and one in
the same sense 1 If not, then words have no meaning. Nothing can be
more clear and plain. And the absurdity is repeated a dozen
times or more in different ways—and always to show that these
existences are three and one in exactly the same sense. Who is
the “ ignorant upstart” now ? The tables are turned, Father, as
any one can see with half an eye.
Ingersoll. He (God) authorized the murder of millions.
Lambert, He never authorized or ordered the murder of anyone
from Abel to Garfield. God is the author and giver of life, and
those He places on this earth He can remove at His will No man
has a right to live one instant longer than his Creator wills him to
remain, be he born or unborn, innocent or guilty. As creatures of
God we are absolutely His and can have no right whatever as
against Him.
Lacy. The proposition embraced in the Father’s comment
raises two questions : ist, Has God a “ right ” to do whatever He
arbitrarily might will with His creature man, moulded in His
image, whom He made a little lower than the angels, and thought
worthy of a crown of glory and honour ? Has He the right, for
instance, to inflict wanton punishment without any moral aim
whatever ?
Lambert. Yes. He has the right to do whatever He wills with
His creature man, first, because being infinitely perfect He wills
rightly and justly, and secondly, because man is His creature. To
suppose God to will unjustly or punish wantonly is to suppose Him
to be imperfect, but you cannot suppose this since you have ad
mitted Him to be perfect. God being infinitely perfect and just
His will is infinitely perfect and just; and an infinitely perfect and
just will has a right to will what .it wills to will. This does not
need demonstration, it follows from the admitted existence of a
perfect Being.
Watts. This bit of Jesuitical sophistry is worthy of a priest. It,
in fact, begs the question in dispute. How are the perfections ot
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any being to be learned but by the acts of such a being ? God is.
assumed to be a perfect being and then all kinds of what, under
other circumstances, would be deemed not only imperfect but very
vile and atrocious acts, ascribed to Him, are said to be perfect
because He performed them. This is logic with a vengeance. The
acts of God prove His perfection, and His perfection makes the
acts perfect. There is, then, no absolute distinction between per
fection and imperfection. A man declares that he has a command
from God to commit murder, and he slays most brutally many of
his fellow men. This is not a crime, because of the assumption
that a perfect being ordained it to be done. But no, the man may
have been a deceiver, or himself deceived, and thus his act not of
God at all. Exactly. And to-day no one would believe his story
about his having received such a command from God. Why, then,
should not the same common sense be used when discussing thepretensions of men who lived in earlier times ? Assume, if you
please, that God is perfect and just. Then it follows, as clear as
that two and two make four, that He could never have commanded
any human being to perform acts which are unjust. But the Bibleascribes such commands to Him. Therefore the Bible is, so far
at all events, false. The atrocious murders and vile licentious acts,,
which are said to have been commanded by God in the Old Tes
tament, were either ordered by Him or they were not. If they
were, then He is unjust; if they were not, the story is untrue. Let
Father Lambert choose which horn of the dilemma he pleases. If
there be a God He has given to man the faculties by which justice
can be distinguished from injustice, benevolence from malignity,,
virtue from vice, and by those faculties the acts ascribed to God
himself must be judged. To believe otherwise is to make thejustice and goodness of God terms without meaning.
Lacy Has He (God) the right to inflict wanton suffering with
out any moral aim whatever ?
Lambert. This is an absurd question. It is as if you should ask,.
Has the perfect Being the right to do wrong ? Has the perfect
Being the right to be imperfect ? A question that supposes im
perfection in the perfect Being involves a contradiction and requires
no answer. God, being perfect, has a right to do as He wills.
Watts. But can He will to do wrong ? If not, then we err when
we ascribe wrong to Him. And that is iust what the Bible does.
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To say that an act which would be wrong in man is right in God,
is to deny that there is any absolute distinction between right and
wrong. Or, if the will of God makes an act right and just, then
there is no meaning in saying that God acts rightly, or justly, and,
moreover, such acts as murder, theft, etc., having been decided to
be right because God commanded them, then it is only right that
men should so regard them. And on this principle the Holy (?)
Catholic Church has acted again and again in the history of the
past, when she resorted to the fire and faggot argument to con
vince heretics. Such sophistical quibbling as this priest indulges
in is pitiable.
Lambert. The difficulty is not in conceiving divine justice, but
in understanding its application. Our ignorance of all the condiditions, circumstances and divine purposes disables us from judg
ing the acts of God in any given case. But, knowing that he is
the perfect Being, we must conclude a priori that his every act is
just, without reference to how it may appear to us whose minds
are rendered impotent by ignorance. To know what justice is and
to discern the justice of a particular act are different things. Man
is capable of the former but not of the latter in all cases, for the
latter depends on conditions of which he is ignorant.
Watts. But what is this but saying that we know nothing at all
about God ? What nonsense to talk of God’s perfections, when
we are unable to judge of what perfection in him would con
sist. We can only judge of any act, whether of a man or a God,
by such faculties as we possess, and if these are useless for the
purpose in the case of God, how absurd it must be to talk of the
justice of God at all. 'If justice in God means something totally
different from justice in man, it is only misleading to say that God
is just. I am told that God is love, but that may, upon this prin
ciple of reasoning, mean something totally different from what I
understand by the term, from its use amongst men; it may in
fact mean the very opposite,—hate. But all this goes to show how
idle it is to talk at all about that which no one can understand.
All the adjectives which Mr. Lambert uses to describe God, may
mean something entirely different to the ideas they convey when
applied to men, and therefore only serve to make “ confusion more
confounded.”
Lacy. If God be God, he is no Nero, no Herod, no Gessler,
but a Father lifting up his children to himself.
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Lambert. This is true, and therefore you and Ingersoll slander
him when you make him out a tyrant.
Watts. 'Why, it is you who make him a tyrant, by declaring
that tyranny is not tyranny when practised by him. Your entire
argument is, in fact, a defence of his tyranny by an endeavour to
show that his most tyrannical acts are right.
Lambert. If it (the Bible) is inspired by God, its pre*cepts and
commands must be just and right, however they may appear to
us. It will not do to say the Book commanded unjust things to
be done, and therefore it is not inspired. This is to beg the ques
tion, for if it be inspired those things which you imagine to be
unjust are not and cannot be unjust.
Watts. Well, but does not the fact that this book commands
unjust acts, or what we should call unjust acts under any other
circumstances, prove that it is not inspired by a just God ? And
if it be inspired, then we ought to take our ideas of justice from its
pages, and completely revolutionize our present ethical code.
But even Father Lambert dares not do this. Acts are com
manded, or said to be commanded, by God in the Old Testament,
which Mr. Lambert, with the fear of the law before his eyes,
dares not to perform in America. He might plead that they
were right because they had been approved of by God. But a
judge—even a Christian judge—would make short work of all such
nonsense, and the Father would soon find himself where he could
write no more books on the “ Tactics of Infidels.”
Lambert. He who has the absolute right to take life cannot be
guilty of murder in taking it ; for murder is. an unjust killing, and
there is no unjust killing in the taking of life by him who has the
absolute right to take it. There is no escape from this reasoning
except by denying the absolute right, and you cannot deny this
but by denying God’s existence ; for on the hypothesis that he
exists, he is creator, and being creator, the absolute right of dominion
over his creatures necessarily follows, * * * to deny this
right is to deny God’s existence.
Lacy. If by absolute dominion he meant to govern without
regard to the principles of justice, written by God’s own finger on
the human heart, we fail to see it.
Lambert. Inasmuch as absolute dominion does not . mean to
govern without regard to the principles of justice, your if is of no
consequence. No one thinks of asserting that the perfect Being
can govern without reference to his own essential attributes, of
which justice is one. When I assert the absolute dominion of God,
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I simply assert that he is accountable to no one but himself, and
that whatever he does, merely because he does it, is beyond human
criticism.
Watts. This begs the whole question. We maintain, as Mr.
.Lambert must know, that the book is not true which ascribes
unjust acts to God. He assumes that God did act as here repre
sented, and then declares the acts recorded to be good, because
they were done by God.
But if our sense of justice is to be considered a guide for
our own conduct, we have the right to criticise, by means of
the same faculty, the actions of others. And when we are
told with one breath that God is good and with the next that
lie is the author of acts at which humanity shudders with
horror, we simply say that no one but a born fool can believe
both statements.
Either God is not good, or else it is fake
to say that he performed, or ordered to be performed, the acts
which are ascribed to Him in the Bible. The only other alterna
tive is to assert that we are incapable of judging of what is just
and right. But that is a more fatal position still to the Christian,
for it involves the fact that we have no guide for our own conduct.
Hence, we ourselves may kill and torture, inflict pain in the most
brutal form, and declare it wise and good to do so. In truth this
is what the Church has done in all ages, and no wonder, with such
pious examples before them ascribed to their God. If we are at
all capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, between
justice and injustice, then we say boldly that such cruel acts as are
ascribed to God in the Bible are most terribly unjust. Nor is it
any answer to say that God did them, for that is to say he has no
sense of justice himself and is not good. We have rights even
against God himself, for, if he exists, it was he who gave us the
faculties by which his own acts are condemned. Our position,
However, is this, that the book which ascribes acts of horror, deeds
of blood and fierce cruelty to God is not true. Father Lambert,
with all the audacious effrontery of his class, assumes the truth of
the record and then proceeds to raise a superstructure of argument
upon the assumption. And this miserable quibbling he calls logical
reasoning.
Lambert. The Hebrew military laws did not abandon captive
women to the insolence and brutality of captors. On the contrary
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they made special provision forbidding the first familiarities of thesoldier with his captives. If you study the 21st chapter of Deuter
onomy, verses 10 to 14, you will learn that the soldier was obliged,
to make the captive his wife.
Watts . But to compel a woman to marry a man whom she
loathed and detested, a foreign invader of her country, the
slaughterer of her kindred and friends, does not mend the matter
much. What was such a marriage but another form of foul
licentiousness ? This explanation leaves the case nearly as bad as
it was before. Compulsory marriage of people who detest each
other, solely for the purpose of gratifying the lust of the man, is
brutal, unjust, and loathsome.
Lambert. As further proof you quote from Numbers: “But all
the women children who have not known man by lying with him,.
keep for yourselves,'1' and add :—
Lacy. Female innocence to be offered on the altar of lust!’
Noble trophies of victory !
Lambert. A Comanche Indian would probably interpret the
verse that way. But what is there in the words to justify the
inference that the captives were devoted to the lusts of the captors ?
The captives were to be adopted into the nation and subsequently
to intermarry with the Jews in accordance with the law of
Deuteronomy quoted above. It is only a libidinous imagination
that can give the words any other interpretation. The United
States government “ keeps for itself ” the children of those Indianswhom it destroys. Are we to infer that those children are to be
offered on the altar of lust ?
Watts. But to charge your opponent with having “ a libidinous,
imagination,” although a very Christian argument, does not get rid
of the difficulty. The text, interpreted by common sense, and not
by theological hocus pocus, clearly means that these young women
were kept alive for purposes of debauchery. Otherwise, why thequalifications stated ? The case of the children of the Indians is
not analogous, for there both sexes are preserved and treated in
, the same way. Here it was the females only, and they of a par
ticular age, and in their virginity. The sophistry of this wily priest
may be able to do much in the form of hood-winking his credulous
dupes, but it is inadequate to the task of explaining away the plain
meaning of this charming and delicious text.
Lacy. In this age does the Father require a writer to prove that
slavery is an evil and polygamy a sin ?
�THE CRITIC OF “TACTICS OF INFIDELS*’ CRITICISED.
2/
Lambert. He does most emphatically require those who reject
revelation to prove the wrong or sinfulness of slavery and poly
gamy. Those who believe in revelation believe they are wrong be
cause they are forbidden. But on what principle do you, who re
ject revelation, believe they are wrong ? Oh, they are slimy and
filthy. There, there, we have had enough of that kind of talk ; it
proves nothing.
Watts. Can anything be conceived of equal to this in reckless
and impudent audacity ? Revelation forbids slavery and polygamy ?
Where ? Let us have chapter and verse. Both are pretty gener
ally referred to in the Bible, and always without a single word of
condemnation. Had any unbeliever made an assertion of this
character, Mr. Lambert, with his excessive politeness, would have
called him a “ liar.” The entire statement is simply truth reversed.
Those who attach no importance to so-called supernatural revela,tion are the men who have always been first and foremost in con
demning polygamy and denouncing slavery, whilst the Christian
Church defended at least one of these monstrous evils up to quite
recent times. Why are they wrong ? Because they sap the founda
tion of all society, and are out of harmony with the best interests
of mankind. That is why, Mr. Lambert, and not because they are
condemned or forbidden by your so-called revelation, which they
most assuredly are not. Such an attempt to hoodwink the ig
norant dupes of a miserable superstition has rarely been witnessed
as is presented in the pages of this cunning priest’s book.
Lambert. The apostles claimed a divine communication and mis
sion. They worked miracles.
La,cy. Here again is a begging of the question by one who was
to grant nothing and take nothing for granted. Here it is assumed
that miracles were wrought, the very statement denied in the con
troversy.
Lambert. There is the same evidence to prove the miracles of
Christ and the apostles that there is to prove the existence and .
acts of Alexander and Csesar, namely, history and tradition. If
we rej( ct the former we must on the same principle reject the latter,
and if we adopt this principle we cut ourselves off comparatively
from all the events and personages of the past. The miracles of
Christ and His apostles are historic facts or events subject to the
same rules of historic criticism that other facts are.
Watts. But it should be borne in mind that this is just what we
deny, and for which we demand and wait for proof. Is there the same
�THE CRITIC OF
TACTICS OF INFIDELS
CRITICISED.
historic evidence of the Christian miracles that there is for the ex
istence and actions of Alexander and Caesar ? If so, it is marvel
lously strange that it is never forthcoming. Why does not this
priest produce it ? We are tolerably familiar with the sort of evi
dence that his Church deals in. It is manufactured for the pur
pose, and is no doubt very conclusive to the poor dupes who are
bamboozled by an objectionable class of ecclesiastical dictators
who preserve their authority and their pay by lording it over their
victims. But rational men, who are not in bondage to the most
iniquitous hierarchy that has ever disgraced the earth, are not to
he fooled in this way. We assert boldly that no such evidence can
be produced, nor such evidence as would satisfy a legal mind and
convince an intelligent jury in a court of justice, even were the
issue the conviction of a prisoner for stealing a brass-headed nail.
But does not Mr. Lambert see that the cases are not at all analo
gous ? In the first place, it is of no great importance whether
Csesar lived or not, or whether Alexander performed the acts
ascribed to him. The question is not a very momentous one.- The
world would not be much affected whatever decision was arrived at
regarding it. But on the belief in the miracles of Jesus our eternal
salvation, it is said, depends, and evidence should therefore be ob
tainable about which no mistake could be made, and which no rea
soning could overturn. And secondly, everyone knows that the
strength of evidence tendered in support of any event should be in
proportion to the commonness or uncommonness of the event it
self. That which would suffice to prove an ordinary event would
be perfectly inadequate to show that an extraordinary one had
taken place. If I am told that such a man as Csesar lived, I have
no reason to doubt it, because there is nothing improbable in the
alleged fact. But if I were informed that he worked miracles, and
* came to life again after he was dead, the highly improbable char
acter of the circumstance would render much strong evidence ne
cessary before I should be convinced. There are stories told in
fact, which no amount of evidence could establish as true. The
testimony of a million men could not prove that which, by the very
nature of things, is impossible. And although I am not saying that
the miracles recorded in the New Testament are impossible, I do
say that they outrage all the laws of probability, and can only,
therefore, be believed on the production of an amount of evidence
�THE CRITIC OF “ TACTICS OF INFIDELS ” CRITICISED.
2q
ten thousand times greater than that which would suffice to show
that Csesar had lived and written the commentaries ascribed to
him, or that Alexander had been a great warrior.
Lucy. The sceptic says, along with miracles we read of witch
craft and demoniacal possessions.
Lambert. And the merchant says, along with gold coin he meets
with counterfeits, but he is not so asinine as to reject all money
on that account. He takes care, however, to test each piece or
note, and rejects the false and accepts the true.
Watts. ' So, so, Father. There is the same difference between
miracles and such cases as those of witchcraft and demoniacal
possession, as between good coin and counterfeit money. Be
it so. But both the Bible and the huge ecclesiastical estab
lishment which you call the church, treat all three with the same
authority. Then, miracles are true, and demoniacal possession
and witchcraft spurious. It is quite refreshing to find a Romish
priest writing like this. It seems after all that there is a good deal
of counterfeit in the Bible and in the Church, which is just what
we have always maintained. Surely this was a slip of the pen on the
part of the priest. Witchcraft spurious ! Yet the Church has
put to death many thousands of persons for practising it. Demo
niacal possession a sham ! Yet the Bible teaches it, and the Church
maintains its truth. Be careful, Lambert, or you will be indicted
for heresy by your own church, and may be compelled, like poor
Gallileo, before any ignorant tribunal of the same hierarchy, to
eat your own words and recant.
Lacy. A crazy man was supposed to be possessed by the devil.
Lambert. Supposed by whom ? Where did you acquire this
piece of information which you impart so gratuitously ? We find
in the Scripture that certain persons were said to be possessed, but
we do not find that crazy men were supposed to be possessed. This
is an inference of your own which is not justified by the premises.
As a matter of fact the Scriptures themselves make a distinction
between demoniac possession and insanity, and recognize the exis
tence of both.
. Watts. The Scriptures “ recognize the existence of both.” Quite
so. Then please, Father Lambert, tell us how you reconcile this
with your former statement, that demoniacal possessions were
spurious and stood in the same relation to miracles that counter
�30
THE CRITIC OF “ TACTICS OF INFIDELS ” CRITICISED.
feit does to genuine coin. We know perfectly well that in the Bible
a distinction is made between insanity and the being possessed by
devils, but we contend that this shows the ignorance of those who
wrote the Bible. No scientific man to day believes in demoniacal
possession, and Christians of education use their utmost endeavours
and the most ingenious and sophistical arguments to explain away
the meaning of those passages in the New Testament, where it is
mentioned. But to be serious, is such childish nonsense worth dis
cussing ? The fact is, Christianity in its orthodox form is obsolete,
and the wretched old wbrn out despotism, called the Church of
Rome, out of place in the midst of modern civilization. It could
only flourish in an age of ignorance, darkness and superstition and
must disappear before the light of science as clouds before the
noonday sun. That any man of intelligence can be found in this
age to defend its audacious pretensions, its absurd dogmas, its
puerile mummeries, its despotic proceedings, its persecuting spirit,
its illiterate and ignorant priesthood, its ridiculous claims, its
false and mischievous teaching, is perfectly astounding. But
so it is. Delusions die hard, and the greater the delusion, some
times the harder the death. Demoniacal possession ! What would
be thought of any man who should talk about that absurdity in a
meeting of men of science ? He would simply be laughed at, and
no one would deem it worth noticing, nor his opinions worthy of
discussion.
Lacy. We hear the Bible called “ God’s Book,” as if it had been
written as a unit.
Lambert. If you heard that you must be in the habit of keeping
•strange company. If you had asked an intelligent Christian for
information on the subject, he would have told you that it was
written by many authors and at long intervals of time; that its
present arrangement, chaptering and versification are a matter of
convenience.
Watts. It is a quibble, and a very poor one at that, to say that
the Bible is acknowledged by Christians to be composed of many
different books which were written by various men at different
time£, therefore, it is not spoken of as “ a unit,” or one. Mr. Lam
bert knows perfectly well that according to Christian belief these
were simply instruments in the hands of God, in fact, vehicles
through whom the divine teaching flowed down to mankind, and
that their own private views are not found at all in what they wrote.
�THE CRITIC OF “ TACTICS OF INFIDELS
CRITICISED.
31
The book had one author and that author was God, the men em
ployed being simply amanuenses, writing down what they were
inspired to put on record. Everywhere, therefore, amongst Chris
tians this volume is spoken of as a unit, under the name of the
Word of God. The teaching in its various parts—in whatever
age written—is believed to be of equal divine authority, and pass
ages from every book are frequently preached from in the pulpit,
and quoted in every-day life as applicable to the affairs of human
existence as we find it at the present time. The Romanist, of course,
puts the authority of his church above the Bible, but no Protestant
will for a moment allow this to be done. With both the Bible is
the word of God, and the latter takes as his motto, “ The Bible,
the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible.” The “ strange com
pany,” therefore, was Christian company. Strange enough, no
-doubt, but Christian still.
Lacy. The Pope is in his own sacred person also infallible.
Lambert. Here as usual in presenting Catholic doctrines you mis
represent. Had you consulted any of the many books which treat
of the decrees of the council of the Vatican you would have learned
that they do not teach that the Pope personally, or as a private
individual, is infallible, but that he is infallible only in his official
■capacity, as supreme head and judge of the church. As a lawyer
you should understand this distinction. You know the decision of
one of our judges given as a private individual, and unofficial, has
no weight in law ; while the same decision given formally in his
public and official capacity, is decisive.
Watts. If anywhere in the world a prize should be given for
quibbling this priest would certainly take it against all comers.
He is surely the champion hair splitter. How adroitly he intro
duces an analogy, which is no analogy at all, and thus throws dust
into the eyes of his readers, and then winds up with a flourish of
trumpets as though he had achieved a great victory over his
antagonist. The Pope is infallible only in his official capacity,
whatever that may mean. He is infallible as head of the church.
.But is he not always head of the church? If yes, then he is
always infallible, if no, who is head of the church when he is not ?
Or is the church sometimes without a head ? There is no analogy
-in the case of the judge dragged in neck and crop. The opinion
of a judge will be just as sound and just as accurate in private as
an public, only if given in the one case it has authority, whilst in
�32
THE CRITIC OF
TACTICS OF INFIDELS ’
CRITICISED.
the other it has not. But infallibility cannot be laid aside then,,
for it is an individual and not an official quality. An infallible
being must be always infallible, no matter where and to what his
infallible power is applied, and if the Pope be really infallible, heis quite as much so when giving orders about his dinner, choosing
his servants, selecting his stockings, or scolding his menials, or
when delivering his decrees ex cathedra in the conclave of Bishops.
To maintain the contrary is to ascribe the infallibility to the chair
in which he sits or to some of his official surroundings, which
would be too absurd even for a Roman Catholic to maintain, which
is saying a great deal.
This infallibility doctine has been the curse of mankind in all
ages where it has been taught. It has deluged the world with
blood, and stopped the onward march of progress by fire and
sword. Superstition is its twin brother, persecution is its offspring,
and cruelty of the most damnable kind the weapon it has ever em
ployed. The Protestant ascribes infallibility to his Bible, and the
Romanist to a common-place old man in the Vatican. We say “ a
plague on both your houses 1 ” Infallibility is not within the reach
of human beings, and they who pretend to have it cannot avoid
arrogating to themselves superiority over their fellows, and treating
better men than themselves as inferiors. The arrogant and often,
impertinent and insolent tone of the author of “ Tactics of Infidels ”
bespeaks the true papist in every line. He is a priest of an infal
lible church, which church is unparalleled for the mischief it has
done in the world by any organization in ancient and modern times,.
It has everywhere championed despotism, ignorance and priestly
intolerance, and has seldom, if ever, been found on the side of free
dom, benevolence, and justice. But its end is near. It is out of har
mony with the institutions of this country, and with the aspirations
of modern thought. When it is gone, the people will breathe more
freely, and feel that a horrible night-mare has been removed.
�
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Text
Its Origin, Nature, and Influence.
By CHARLES WATTS
CONTENTS:
Christianity of Human Origin—Not Original—Indefinite. Impracti.
cable and Contradictory in its Nature—Its Influence Tested by
History and the Admissions of Christian Writers.
Price Fifteen Cents.
SECULAR THOUGHT OFFICE,
Toronto, Ont.
��CHRISTIANITY:
ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND INFLUENCE.
“ To believe without evidence and demonstration is an act of ignorance and
folly.”—Fohiet/.
INTRODUCTION.
The object of this pamphlet is to ascertain as far as possible what
evidence and demonstration, if any, can be reasonably adduced in
favour of the general orthodox claims relative to the Origin, Nature,
and Influence of the Christian religion. In these days of avowed
mental freedom and intellectual research, no apology should be needed
for entering upon such an investigation. Systems or principles
unable to withstand the test of fair examination are destitute of what
should be one of their highest recommendations. Belief without
critical examination has too often perpetuated error and fostered
credulity. If Christianity be fallacious, why should not its fallacy
be made known ? If, however, it be true, its truth will be the more
apparent as its claims are investigated and examined. Dr. Collyer
observes, in his lectures on miracles, that “ he who forbids you to reason
on religious subjects, or to apply your understanding to the investiga
tion of revealed truth, is insulting the character of God, as though his
acts shrunk from scrutiny—is degrading his own powers, which are
best employed when they are in pursuit of such sublime and interesting
subjects.
There are three principal modes of criticising the modern Orthodox
pretensions set forth on behalf of popular Christianity. First, it
is alleged that such pretensions are entirely destitute of truth, and
that they have been of no service whatever to mankind. This view
I cannot thoroughly endorse. Many of the superstitions of the world
have been allied with some fact, and have in their exercise upon the
minds of a portion of their devotees served, for a time no doubt, a useful
purpose. In the second place, certain opponents of Christianity regard
it as being deserving of immediate extinction. This, in my opinion, is.
�CHRISTIANITY----ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
unjust to its adherents, who have as much right to possess what they
hold to be true as we have to entertain views which we believe to be
correct. Theological faiths should be supplanted by intellectual growth,
not crushed by dogmatic force. The third and, to my mind, the most
sensible and fair mode of dealing with Christianity is to regard it as not
being the only system of truth ; as not being of any special origin; as
being not suited to all minds ; as having fulfilled its original purpose,
and as having no claim of absolute domination. This appears to me to
be the true position of Secularism towards popular orthodoxy. Such
a position is based upon the voice of history, the law of mental science,
and the philosophy of true liberty of thought. We should in all our
endeavours seek to gain as far as possible that which is useful unaccom
panied with that which has become useless.
To the impartial student of history and to the keen observer of the
development of the human mind, it is apparent that systems are
frequently deprived of much of their real value through the injudicious
conduct of their expounders and defenders. Such persons are not con
tented to allow their theories to stand upon their own legitimate merits,
but they deem it necessary to add thereto claims which are most extrav
agant, and which have no necessary connection with the systems advo
cated. The result of such a policy is that fictitious surroundings frequently
•obscure the real nature and scope of the principles advocated. This is
particularly the case with subjects of a theological character. The
religious enthusiast, whose emotion too frequently gets the better of his
reason, is apt to indulge in certain delusions until, in time, they appear
to him realities. The Rev. James Cranbrook no doubt recognised this
when, referring to Jesus in the preface of his work, “ The Founders of
Christianity,” (page v.) he observed : “ Our idealizations have invested
him [Christ] with a halo of spiritual glory that, by the intensity of its
brightness, conceals from us the real figure presented in the Gospels.
We see him, not as he is described, but as the ideally perfect man our
.fancies have conceived.”
As with Christ so with Orthodox Christianity. The most wild,
absurd and fallacious pretensions are put forth on its behalf. Instead
af regarding the Christian faith as an outgrowth of the human mind, a
combination of truth and error, born amidst limited knowledge and
unlimited superstition, the majority of Orthodox Christians allege
that their system emanated direct from what is termed a divine
source; that it is unique in its nature, unequalled in its influence for
�CHRISTIANITY—ITS ORIGIN, NATURE. AND INFLUENCE.
3
good and that it really ushered into the world the greatest civi
lization ever known to the human race. These theological extremists
not only ignore all in society that is evil and defective as belonging to
their system, but they credit Christianity with all improvements which
have taken place in modern times. It matters not whether it be a
steam engine, an electric telegraph, a printing press, the telephone, the
extension of political rights, the existence of benevolent and health
restoring institutions, the marked improvement of the physical con
dition of the people, the increased facilities for the education of the
young, the elevating and improved status of women, the promotion of
sobriety and even the lessening of persecution for the rejection of
creeds and dogmas; all these indications of modern progress are
credited to the Christian faith. Moreover, it is said with a grave
absence of modesty and an utter disregard of accuracy, that high-toned
morality, a correct sense of duty, a clear perception of truth and the
cultivation of the loftiest aspirations, are all the result of the advent
of Jesus of Nazareth.
In vain do we remind these reckless claimants that the principal
factors that operated in the establishment of the reforms that now
surround us, were science, education, an extended freedom of the
press, international and commercial intercourse, and the exerciseof mecha
nical genius, allied with mental liberty. These agencies of individual
and national progress did not exist in the palmy days of Church
supremacy, and they have been secured in spite of the unprincipled
and persistent opposition of the ecclesiastical party. Why is it, if
orthodoxy is so potent for good in these directions, that during cen
turies of its absolute reign it failed to give the world those measures
of reform, which have since been won through secular effort? Is it
not a fact that, after a long and fair trial, with everything in its
favour, the Church has proved incapable of securing the correct remedy
for such evils as drunkenness, social injustice and the withholding
from woman her proper position in the body politic ? Organizations
of a secular character have now to be formed to accomplish that which
theology, with all its power, proved itself impotent to achieve. The
Christian is also reminded that truth, benevolence, justice, a noble
sense of right and all the higher virtues that adorn mankind, have
been found, at least, as highly developed among those who are termed,
the men of the world as among those who profess the Christian faith.
�4
CHRISTIANITY—ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
That this is so is plainly admitted even by high dignitaries of the
■Church.
Archbishop Whateley, in his “ Lectures on Political
Economy,” remarks : “ I have said that the object of the Scriptures
is to reveal to us religious and moral truths; but even this, as far as
regards the latter, must be admitted with considerable modification.
God has not revealed to us a system of morality such as would have
been needed for beings who had no other means of distinguishing right
and wrong. On the contrary, the inculcation of virtue, and reproba
tion of vice in Scripture, are in such a tone as seems to pre-suppose a
■natural power or a capacity for acquiring the power to distinguish
them.” And Dr. Chalmers, in concluding his sermon on Morality,
states : “We are put upon a cool exercise of the understanding, and
we cannot close it against the fact that all these feelings [those of
charity and virtue] may exist apart from the love of God, and apart
from the religious principle—that the idea of a God may be expunged
from the heart of man, and yet that heart be still the seat of the
same constitutional impulse as ever—that in reference to the realities
of the unseen, the mind may be a blank, and at the same time there
may be room for the play of kindly emotions.”
It is conceded frankly by the present writer, that what is sup
posed to be understood by the very latitudiriarian term Christianity is not
entirely destitute of truth, and that many of its professors are honest
and sincere workers for the common good. All systems being the
outcome of human aspirations, contain features good and commen
dable, for human nature is not totally depraved. The good and useful
work, however, performed by professing Christians is not the result of
their faith, but rather the necessary consequence of their well-trained
and well-developed organizations. Some natures are too pure to be
influenced in their general conduct by any theology. As it was with
the Romans so it is with the Christians of to-day, their Christianity
rests but slightly upon them.
z
In all our investigations, the desire to arrive at truth should be
paramount. No apprehension should be entertained that the result of
our enquiries may be unfavourable to the claims of any particular
faith, but the one desire and determination should be to accept the
verdict of facts. Feeling ought to yield to argument, and traditional
belief to the force of historical and general accuracy. Suppose, in the
examination of the origin, nature, and influence of Christianity, it
�CHRISTIANITY—ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
5
should be demonstrated that it is not divine, unique and pre-eminently
useful to man, would that deprive it of its intrinsic worth 1 Certainly
not. Truth is valuable regardless of its source. That which is based
upon verities and adapted to meet the requirements of human nature
should be recognized, whether it emanate from Pagan or Christian,
Jew or Gentile, the devout Believer or the honest Sceptic.
ITS ORIGIN.
Professing Christians not only allege that their faith is of divine
'Origin, but they contend that those who question the correctness of
such an allegation are logically compelled to show how it could have
been produced by human means. It will not be difficult to demon
strate that the allegation is utterly groundless, and that the contention
:is evidently unreasonable.
From experience we learn that systems emanate from the human
mind, but the same monitordoes not teach us that systems arise from what
is termed a “divine ” source. Besides, what does this word “divine” really
mean ? Has it ever been adequately defined ? Is it not simply an
■ expression used to represent a notion acquired through orthodox train
ing ? What knowledge do we possess to enable us to distinguish the
“ divine,” supposing it to exist, from the human ? Being ignorant of
anything beyond the natural, is it not presumptuous to ascribe a sys
tem or a principle to that of which we know nothing ? Christians
agree in regarding other religions than their own as being of human
origin ; why. then, should their faith be an exception ? Has Christi
anity anything to recommend it that the many other religious theories
• do not claim ? Miraculous power, sublime teachings, supernatural doc
trines, progressive aspirations, are claimed on behalf of systems dis
tant from Christianity.
Supposing, however, that the human origin of the Christian faith
-could not be satisfactorily established, would it necessarily follow that
its origin was supernatural ? Certainly not. If we question its
“ divine ” claims, we are not, therefore, bound to account for its exis■ tence. To doubt the validity of one theory does not make it a logical
necessity that we should assume the responsibility of inventing
mother. This is particularly so in reference to Christianity. So un
certain is the period when it first appeared in the world, so doubtful
are the records said to obtain in its early history, so corrupted have been
the channels through which that history has been traced, and so
^imperfect and contradictory are its credentials that we now have, that
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CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFUENCE.
it is impossible to judge with sufficient accuracy the precise mode of its
introduction. Hence the presumption of those who profess to have
that knowledge. When Christians ascribe their faith to one cause, and
that cause supernatural, upon them devolves the duty of proving their position. Secularists regard Christianity as being the outgrowth of
the human mind, and consider there is nothing more marvellous in its
origin and progress than pertains to other reliigions. The divine origin
of Buddhism and Mohammedanism is denied by Christians : are they
prepared to give a satisfactory account of the introduction and growth,
of those religions ? Why should Christians demand in regard to their
faith what they are unable to perform in connection with theological
systems to which they are opposed ? The claim of the followers of
Christ on behalf of the origin of their religion is opposed to analogy,
reason and experience. “ It is surely therefore,” observes the Rev.
James Cranbrook, “ an absurdity to say that until we can account for
the origin of Christianity by some other means, seeing it is estab
lished, we are bound to accept it as true, and its advocates are not
bound to adduce any positive evidence in its support. I venture to
lay it down as a canon of both logic and rhetoric, in opposition to the
authority of Archbishop Whately, that every one who makes a posi
tive affirmation is bound to furnish the reasons for such an affirmation
before he demands the belief of others.”
It is a fallacy to suppose that Christianity was an entirely new
system, introduced into the world at one particular date. Great
changes—either of a theological, social, or political character—are not
the sudden product of any one period, but rather the gradual growth
of time. The religious phases that came to the front during the time
Christ is supposed to have lived, were but a further development of a
law that had been manifesting itself in previous ages, and that has
continued to still further unfold itself down to the present time. Prior
to the advent of the Jewish Reformer, a mighty struggle had been going
on between philosophy and superstition, and between polytheism and
monotheism. The polytheistic form of supernaturalism was losing its
hold upon the human mind. Its decay, however, was not in conse
quence of the adoption of Christianity, inasmuch as its decline had
commenced before the new faith had dawned. Lewes, in his “ His
tory of Philosophy,” says that “ the progress of Polytheism to Mono
theism was a continuous development ” This is true. And that-
�CHRISTIANITY---- ITS OSIGIN. NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
7
■development was exceedingly rapid during the struggles of the Greek
philosophy. It was, intimates the above writer, “ Greek philosophy
that opened men’s eyes to human duty.” We have no right, therefore,
to infer that, if Christ had not appeared, Paganism would have
remained the prevailing theology. Instead of Christianity causing its
downfall, as frequently asserted, the Galilean religion really retained
many of the Pagan follies, some of which are to this day practised in
the Christian Church. “ It may with reason be doubted, if the fact is
as often remembered as it should be, that Christianity arose amid the
corruption and decay of the greatest civilization which the human race
had seen amid the death-throes of the ancient world..................... It is
often assumed that this proud heathenism and pagan glory were over
thrown by the meek and unlearned disciples of the Galilean prophet
of God. Nothing can be less true than this assumption . . . The
fall of the Empire, including the loss and ruin of the old phi
losophy and knowledge, was an indispensable condition of the spread
of Christianity. . . . The birth of Christianity being on this
wise, viz.: having taken place in an era of decay and death of art
and philosophy, of knowledge, of wealth, of population, of progress, in
every form ; and the absence of these things having been one of the
•chief negative conditions of its growth and prosperity, we must look
for the sources of its nourishment in another direction than these j not
in knowledge or the eager questioning spirit which leads to knowledge,
■but in the humble spirit which believes and accepts on trust the word .
•of authority; not in regulated industry, which aims at constant increase
and accumulation of wealth; but in the resigned poverty, which,
scorning this world, lays up riches in heaven ; not in political freedom
and popular government which aims at the progressive well-being of
all, but in the stern rigour of arbitrary power, which coerces the
vicious and refractory into a little order during their brief sojourn on
earth. In the decline and fall of Rome, or as it would be better to
say, in the final ruin of ancient civilization, the conditions favourable
to this order of beliefs or doctrines, spontaneously emerged.” (Morris
son’s “Service of Man,” pp. 174-5, 178-9). The fact is “Christianity
was only a slight modification of systems already existing—a modifi
cation determined by the combined action and concentration of all the
divergent lines of thought and feeling. Only ignorance can look upon
it as a something so original, so unique, so different from all that was,
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CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
or ever had been, that nothing but the supposition of supernatural
interference could explain it. Christianity is accounted for by the ten?
dencies of thought in the age in which it was born.”
No one who has carefully and impartially read the histories of the
ancient religions and ethical systems, will contend that the principal
doctrines and moral teachings of the New Testament were known for
the first time in their connection with Christianity. The able Ameri
can writer, Charles B. Waite, M.A., in his “History of the Christian
Religion Religion,” says, “ Many of the more prominent doctrines of
the Christian Religion prevailed among nations of antiquity, hundreds
and in some instances, thousands of years before Christ.” Judge
Strange, in his great work, “ The Sources and Development of Chris
tianity,” shows that nearly all the Christian doctrines—the Atonement,
Trinity, Incarnation, Judgment of the Dead, Immortality, Sacrifice—
were of Egyptian origin, and, therefore, existed long before the time
of Christ. The same able writer, on page 100 of the work mentioned, says : •
“ Christianity, it is thus apparent, was not the result of a special
revelation from above, but the growth of circumstances, and developed
out of the materials, working in a natural manner in the human mind,,
in the place and at the time that the movement occurred.”
In reference to the moral teachings of the New Testament, those
of them capable of being practically carried out were borrowed from
men who lived long anterior to the Christian Era, and who wrote with. out the aid of Christian inspiration. “ To the truths already uttered
in the Athenian prison,” says Mackay, “ Christianity added little or
nothing, except a few symbols which, though well calculated for popu
lar acceptance, are more likely to perplex than to instruct, and oiler
the best opportunity for priestly mystification.” Sir William Jones, in
his tenth discourse before the Asiatic. Society, says “ Christianity has
no need of such aids as many are willing to give it, by asserting that
the wisest men of the world were ignorant of the great maxim, that
we should act in respect to others as we would wish them to act in
respect of ourselves, as the rule is implied in a speech of Lysias,
expressed in distinct phrases by Thales and Pittacus, and I have seen
it word for word in the original of Confucius.” And the Rev. Dr.
George Matheson, in his lecbure on “The Religions of China,” page 84,
observes : “ The glory of Christian morality is that it is not original.”
Thus it is that Christianity is composed of materials born of the human
�CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
9
mind at different periods, and in various countries in the ancient and
modern world.
While it may be difficult to name the exact when and how
Christianity was ushered into the world, it is not difficult to indicate
• circumstances of a human character that in all probability favoured
its introduction.
Orthodox Christianity essentially appeals to the “ poor in spirit; ’’for
the self-reliant it has but little charm. At the time when Christ is
supposed to have lived, the people were longing for the appearance of
some one, either to console them in their misfortunes, or to deliver
them from their state of submission; at a time when one of the most
splendid, though imperfect civilizations the world had ever beheld had
reached its climax. The majority of the subject races under the
Roman Empire were slaves. Many of them who had been brave in
their freedom had become, as the result of their captivity, enervated
and degenerate. The Jews, to whom Christ is said first to have
appeared, had their national spirit nearly crushed out. They had been
for a century under the Roman yoke, and previous to that subjection,
the unfortunate subjects of equally as cruel conquerors. In Christ’s
time the descendants of Abraham had lost all prospect of earthly
success. Embittered by disappointment and wearied by persecution,
they were prepared to accept any change which they thought would
remove them from their unfortunate condition. The Jews were a people
who had been robbed of their independence; whose manhood was
gone, reduced to a state of physical dependency and mental poverty,
they were taught by Christ that this world is not the place of God’s
final government.
While on earth God’s people are persecuted
by way of trial and purification. But consolation is given in the hope
that the “ light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” This was virtually
the language of Christ to a ruined nation and a forlorn people. The
alleged founder of Christianity also urged upon his credulous hearers
that the end of the world was at hand ; that their existence on earth
was nearly over, and, if they accepted his faith, they should not only
have houses and lands during their brief stay here, but happiness and
immortality hereafter. So impressed were the early Christians with
the idea of the speedy destruction of the world, that they disregarded
the duties of this life. “They were dead,” says Gibbon, “to the busi
mess and pleasures of the world.” It must be remembered, moreover,
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CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE’
that the primitive Christians were composed of the ignorant, super
stitious and servile classes of society; persons whom the above teach
ings were just calculated to captivate. Mosheim writes that “ among
the first professors of Christianity there were but few men of learning,
few who had capacity enough to insinuate into the minds of a grossmd ignorant multitude the knowledge of divine things.” It appears
that the early teachers of Christianity were as uneducated as the
“ignorant multitude” to whom they preached.
“We may here
remark,” says the historian just mentioned, “ in general that these
Apostolic Fathers and the other writers, who in the infancy of the
Church employed their pens in the cause of Christianity, were neither
remarkable for their learning nor for their eloquence. On the contrary,
they express the most pious and admirable sentiments in the plainest
and most illiterate style.” The .author of “ The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire ” records that “ the new sect of Christians was
almost entirely composed of the dregs of the populace, of peasants and
mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars and slaves.” Again, notic
ing the reproach that “the Christians allured into their party the
most atrocious criminals,” Gibbon quaintly observes, “ the friends of
Christianity may acknowledge without a blush, that many of the
most eminent saints had been before their baptism the most abandoned
sinners.”
Thus it will be seen that the natural conditions of society two1
thousand years ago were such as . to render possible the reception of
Christianity without the intervention of any alleged supernatural
power. This will appear the more apparent when it is remembered
that at that period Rome was remarkably tolerant to all new religions.
Chambers, in his “History of Rome,” states, “ One good quality they
(the Romans) pre-eminently exhibited; namely, the toleration of other
forms and rituals than their .own, no matter whether exhibited at
home or in the countries they, conquered.” “ Each nation,” says
Mosheim, “ suffered its neighbours to follow their own method of wor^ship, to adore their own Gods, to enjoy their own rites and ceremonies,
■ 'and discovered no sort of displeasure at their diversity of sentiments,
in religious matters. . . . The Romans exercised this toleration in
the amplest manner.” Gibbon also states, “The various modes of wor
ship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by thepeople as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the
magistrate as equally useful.” That the Christians were persecuted by
�CHRISTIANITY—ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
11
the Romans cannot be denied, but the cause of that persecution was
not the mere profession of their faith so much as the fact of their
meeting in secret, and, as it was thought, conspiring against the State.
Renan, in his “ Hilbert Lectures.” says, “ Before Constantine, we
search in vain in Roman law for any enactment against Freethought.”
Remembering these general existing conditions, the means employed
-to introduce Christianity must not be overlooked in considering its
origin, Among such means were those of the promises of earthly
rewards, heavenly joys, and the practising of fraud and deceit. To a
poor and dependent people Jesus said : “There is no man that hath
left house, or bretheTn, or sisters, or father^ or mother, or wife, or
-children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel’s, but he shall receive
an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and
mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world
to come eternal life.” (Mark x. 29, 30.) In fact, “Peter said unto
him [Christ], Behold we have forsaken all, and followed thee ; what
shall we have therefore ? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto
you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the
Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon
twelve thrones, fudging the twelve tribes of Israel”. (Matt. xix. 27,
28.) The first Christian emperor, according to Gibbon, offered bribes
of garments and gold to those who would embrace the Christian faith.
(“ Decline and Fall,” vol. 11, pp. 472, 473.) With such inducements
as these, it would not be difficult, even in “this enlightened age,” to
secure converts to the most absurd faith. To these allurements must
be added the powerful factors, in a period of credulity and unsurpassed
ignorance and fear, of fraud and deceit. Mosheim says it was “ held
as a maxim that it was not only lawful, but praiseworthy to deceive
and even to use the expedient of a lie, in order to advance the cause of
truth and piety ... it cannot be affirmed that even true Chris
tians were entirely innocent and irreproachable in this matter .
they who were desirous of surpassing all others in piety, looked upon
it as lawful, and even laudable, to advance the cause of piety by arti
fice and fraud.” (“Ecclesiastical History,” vol. 1, pp. 55-77). In the
fourth century, Lactantius exclaimed, “ Among those who seek power
and gain there will never be wanting an inclination to forge a lie for
it.” (Middleton’s “Letters from Rome.”) Gregory says, “A little
Jargon is all that is necessary to impose upon the people. The less they
-comprehend, the more they admire.”
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CHRISTIANITY—ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
Another circumstance attending the introduction of Christianity is
that its early adherents retained many of the principal features of the
Buddhists and the Essenes.
Max Muller remarks, “Between the
language of Buddha and his disciples, and the language of Christ and
his apostles there are strange coincidences. Even some of the Buddhist
legends and parables sound as if taken from the New Testament,
though we know that many of them existed before the beginning of
the Christian era.” (“Science of Religion,” p. 113.) Professor Beal
observes, “ The points of agreement between the two are remarkable.
All the evidence we have goes to prove that the teachings of Buddha
were known in the East centuries before Christ.” (“ History of
Buddhism.”) It is worthy of note that the claims now set up on behalf of
Christ are very similar to those which were urged in the interest of
Buddha. Self-assertion, “ I am the light of the world ; ” self-assump
tion, “unequalled in perfection,” being “without sin the possession of
purity and great personal influence are features ascribed to Buddha as
well as to Christ. Thus, as an eminent writer observes, “the history of
Jesus of Nazareth as related in the books of the New Testament, is
simply a copy of that of Buddha, with a mixture of mythology borrowed
from other nations.”
If possible, a more striking resemblance exists between the teachings,
of the Essenes and those of the four gospels. In fact, Dr. Ginsburg
considers there is no doubt that Christ belonged to the sect of theEssenes. The reader is referred to Bunsen’s “Angel Messiah,” and
to Judge Strange’s “ Sources and Development of Christianity ” for
detailed proof in favour of Dr. Ginsburg’s position. We give the
following from Mrs. Besant, as showing how the teachings of Christi
anity correspond with those of the Essenes : “It is to Josephus thatwe must turn for an account of the Essenes; a brief sketch of them
is given in ‘Antiquities of the Jews,’ bk. xviii., chap. 1. He says:
‘ The doctrine of the Essenes is this : That all things are bestascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls, and esteem that
the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for; and when
they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple, they do not
offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own
on which account they are excluded from the common court of the
temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life
better than that of other men; and they entirely addict themselves to
�CHRISTIANITY----ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
13
husbandry.’ They had all things in common, did not marry and kept
no servants, thus none called any master (Matt, xxiii. 8, 10). In the
‘Wars of the Jews,’ bk. ii., chap, viii., Josephus gives us a fuller
account. ‘ There are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The
followers of the first of whom are the Pharisees; of the second the
Sadduces; and the third sect, who pretend to a severer discipline, are
called Essenes. These last are Jews by birth, and seem to have a
greater affection for one another than the other sects [John xiii. 35].
The Essenes reject pleasure as an evil [Matt. xvi. 24], but esteem con
tinence and the conquest over our passions to be virtue. They neglect
wedlock. . . . They do not absolutely deny the fitness of marriage
[Matt. xix. 12, last clause of verse. 1 Cor. vii. 27, 28, 32-35, 37, 38,
40], . . . These men are despisers of riches [Matt. xix. 21,- 53,
24] . . . it is a law among them, that those who come to them
must let what they have be common to the whole order [Acts iv. 3237, v. 1-11]. . . . They also have stewards appointed to take care
of their common affairs [Acts vi. 1-6], ... If any of their sect
come from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it
were their own [Matt. x. 11]. . . . For which reason they carry
nothing with them when they travel into remote parts [Matt. x. 9,
10], . .
As for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary;
for before sunrising they speak not a word about profane matters, but
put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers,
as if they made a supplication for its rising [the Essenes were then sun
worshippers]. ... A priest says grace before meat; and it is
unlawful for anyone to taste of the food before grace be said. The
same priest, when he hath dined, says grace again after meat; and
when they begin, and when they end, they praise God, as he that
bestows their food upon them [Eph. v. 18-20, 1 Cor. x. 3*0, 31, 1 Tim.
iv. 4, 5].
They dispense their anger after a just manner, and
restrain their passion [Eph. iv. 26]. . . . Whatsoever they say
also is firmer than an oath ; but swearing is avoided by them, and
the^ esteem it worse than perjury; for they say, that he who cannot be
believed without swearing by God. is already condemned [Matt. v. 3437].’ ” (“ Freethinker’s Text Book,” part 2, pp. 387-8).
It is a common error existing among orthodox professors, that what
is termed Christianity originated with Christ, eighteen hundred years
ago, in Palestine. The fact is, no date or country can be definitely
�14
CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
fixed as being the time and place of the birth of what is now called
the Christian faith. The elements of which the doctrines and general
teachings of the orthodox Church are composed can be found in works
written long anterior to the Christian era. Even Eusebius, the
“father of ecclesiastical history,” admits that the Christian religion
was not new. He says : “Its principles have not been recently
invented, but were established, we may say, by the Deity, from the
very origin of our race. ... It is evident that the religion
delivered to us is not a new or strange doctrine; but, if the truth
must be spoken, it is the first and only true religion.” Themost, therefore,
that can be said with any degree of accuracy is, that a man, named Jesus,
and his followers perpetuated portions of pre-existing systems under
another name. But even this allegation is, according to some writers,
open to grave doubts. Still, as there is nothing remarkable in the
event, if true, it may be taken, in the present writer’s opinion, as
granted, because it in no way makes the assumption of the “ divine ”
origin of Christianity a necessity.
If the above circumstances fail to satisfy the orthodox believer as to
the human origin of his faith, let him ask himself the question, what
are the difficulties attending his assumption of its “ divine ” origin ?
If this divinity involves all-wisdom, all-power and all-goodness, then
the objections to the assumption that Christianity came from such a
source are strong indeed. (1) Why was its advent so long delayed ?
If it were superior to anything previously existing, and God knowing
this, and yet withholding it from the world until about two thousand
years ago, while having the power to give it at any moment, must
not this delay militate against his all-goodness ?
AVhen Christi
anity did appear, how did its slow progress at first harmonise with
the theory of the infinite power of its reputed author ? And further,
why, when it did advance, was it dependent upon acknowledged human
conditions for its success or otherwise? (3) Why, if its author
were so good, pure, and spotless, was its advent -associated with
fraud, deception, and falsehood? (4) Why, if the Christian system
were supremely true, were heretical writings of the early centuries
destroyed by the special mandate of the Church? (5) Why, when
Christ introduced his system, was it silent upon the three great
evils of his time, namely, poverty, slavery, and mental submission ?
Moreover, how is it that, instead of correcting the errors of his day
�CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
15
—such as belief in the possession of devils, and in the then immediate
end of the world—Christ made the mistake of sharing that belief
himself 1 (6) Finally, is it not remarkable, upon the supposition that
Christianity had for its origin an Infinite Being, that after nearly two
thousand years, it has only been heard of by one third of the human
race ? If God is all-wise, he must know of this limited knowledge;
if he be all-powerful, he could make the knowledge universal • if he
were all-good, it is only reasonable to suppose that he would have done
so. But he has not; we, therefore, arrive at the conclusion that
Christianity, like other religions, was simply the outcome of the human
mind, at a period when ignorance was the rule and knowledge the
exception. Our duty, therefore, should be to value it for whatever
intrinsic value it has, and not to accept it merely on account of an
imaginary supernatural origin.
ITS NATURE.
Orthodox Christianity is thoroughly indefinite, impracticable and
contradictory in its nature. No system was ever less rigid and more
plastic. It has certainly come up to the intimation of St. Paul, “ to
be all things to all men.” Persons of the most contrary dispositions
and the most opposite natures have been its great illustrators, expoun
ders, and living representatives. It has found room for all tempera
ments and for the most diversified classes of believers : the ascetic and
the luxurious enjoyer of life; the man of action and the man of con
templation ; the monk and the king; the philanthropist and the de
stroyer of his race; the iconoclastic hater of all ceremonies, and the
superstitious devotee ; Cromwell and Cowper ; Lyell and Wesley; Luther
and Dr. Pusey; John Miltonand C. H. Spurgeon; Talmageand Beecher ;
Catholics and Protestants ; Quakers and Salvationists; Trinitarians
and Unitarians ; believers in Free Grace and devotees of Predestina
tion. All these and many other similar opposites have found refuge
within the pale of Christianity. But it should be distinctly under
stood that this heterogeneous family is by no means the result of any
all-embracing comprehensiveness in the system of Christ, but rather
the effects of a Theology characterised alike by its indefinite, imprac
ticable, incomplete, and undecisive principles.
It is these peculiar features in Christianity that have deprived it of
a consistent and uniform history, and that have made its influence on
�16
CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
the human mind so conflicting and so destitute of the power of produc
ing uniformity of action or belief. Hence, the varied and contra
dictory phases through which Christianity has passed since its incep
tion. Those who are acquainted with its early history will know that
the faith of Jesus as he preached it, and the faith of the Christians
to-day, are two entirely different things. Even if we accept the alleged
dates of Christian chronology to be historically correct, Christianity
was altered and modified immediately after the death of Christ. The
Christianity of Paul-was widely different from that of his Master. The
character of Christ was submissive and servile ; Paul’s was defiant and
pugnacious. We could no more conceive Christ fighting with wild
beasts at Ephesus, than we could suppose Paul submitting, without
protest or resistance, to those insults and indignities which are alleged
to have been heaped upon Christ. Neither could we for one moment
imagine Paul advising his disciples when anyone smote them on one
cheek, to offer them the other. Paul introduced, by his personal
character, a certain amount of boldness and energy into the Christian
propaganda, and, by the character of his mind, he largely modified the
Christian system. In fact, each successive age has left its mark and
impress upon Christianity. We have had the age of asceticism and
the ceremonial age, when the nightmare of theology cursed the world
with its indifference, its neglect, its mental darkness, and its immoral
corruptions. This unfortunate period was followed by Protestantism
and subsequently by Rationalism, which ushered in the age of reason
and mental activity. This new birth, or rather resuscitation of a
force that had been rendered for a time dormant by the Church, de
prived the faith of its original character, leaving but a little more than
the name to represent the Cross. “ Real Christianity has not ruled
the nations. It is disregarded in law, in equity, in the social adjust
ments, in commercial systems, in regulations concerning land, in the
rules of peace and brotherhood, and, alas, in much of the life of the
churches. . . . English hypocrisy is a tremendous reality; but
English Christianity is very largely a myth, if judged by the standard
of the New Testament.” (“Christian Commonwealth,” May 1, 1884.)
A similar diversity of character and influence is apparent in what
are termed Christian nations. There is no country existing that can
truly be called Christian, that is, where the teachings of the New
Testament are practically and consistently carried out. In all alleged
�CHRISTIANITY—ITS ORIGIN, NATURE ANU INFLUENCE.
17
Christian nations ” the faith differs in its manifestations, presenting
not the emblems of the religion ascribed to Christ, but the impress of
the national customs and characteristics of the people who profess it.
Thus, in Rome, Christianity assumes the form of priestly dominion, in
Spain a blind and stationary faith, in Russia a political engine of
heartless oppression and revolting despotism, in Scotland a gloomy
nightmare, in England an emotional pastime, in America a commercial
commodity, and in Canada a hypocritical, puritanical pretension. In
most of these countries the Christian religion is only a profession of a
shallow garb of respectability, which is composed of custom and a de
sire to gain popular favour. The shadow is there, but the substance
is nowhere to be found. True, these professors attend church on Sun
days, and, to outward appearances, assume an air of solemnity, seek
ing to convey the impression that they are devout worshippers of the
“ Heavenly Father,” and that they have absolute confidence in his
“ Son, as the Saviour of the world.” But what is f^ie conduct of such
■devotees in their daily lives, and in their commercial pursuits' Do
they even attempt to embody in their conduct during the week the
requirements which they endorse as belonging to their faith ? Certainly
not. In their business transactions, practically, money is their God,
and the Almighty dollar is their Redeemer.
The utter impracticability of orthodox Christianity is not only proved
by the indefinite nature of its teachings and the inconsistent conduct
of its professors, but it is clearly demonstrated by the character of its
leading injunctions. Among the more prominent principles taught in
the New Testament are : Asceticism, Disregard of the world, Nonresistance, Reliance on alleged Supernaturalism, Belief in the efficacy
of prayer, and Glorification of poverty. Moreover, many of the more
emphatically expressed injunctions of this book are the very incarna
tion and inculcation of humiliating forbearance and abject suffering.
They teach submission to physical evil, tyranny and oppression. They
inculcate an unprogressive and a retarding spirit; they draw the ener
gies and desires of men from the duties of this life, fixing them on an
uncertain, and, to us, an unknown future. The primary object of
Christ evidently was to teach his followers how to die, rather than to
instruct them how to live. He regarded man as an alien in this world.
Anything like a triumph of moral good over evil by human means ;
■anything like an escape from the pangs of poverty; anything like a
�1<5
CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE,
successful insurrection of right which should produce the dethronement
of might, as being possible on earth, appears not to have crossed the
horizon of the mental vision of Christ. He contemplated suffering,
oppression, and submission in this life, as pre-ordained and inevitable;
and taught those who were persecuted and reviled, that great would be
their reward in heaven. The philosophy of Jesus was contentment
with whatsoever state of life you may be in j for “ "What shall it profit
a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul 1 ” (Mark
viii. 36.) “ My kingdom,” said Christ, “ is not of this world.” (John,
xviii. 36.) In vain, therefore, do we look to his teachings for any prac
tical guidance and support in the stern battle of life. His advice to
those struggling for mere human existence, was “ Seek ye first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [food,,
clothes, etc.] shall be added unto you.” (Matt. vi. 33.) What things
soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye
shall have them.” (Mark xi. 24.) “If two'of you shall agree on
earth as touching^ anything that they shall ask, it shall be done.”
Matt, xviii. 19.) This faith in another life was with him the “one
thing needful, and to it every plan of secular reform, however neces
sary> judicious, and effectual, had to give way. It is clear from the
very nature of these New Testament precepts that all the improve
ments, social and political, scientific and artistic, commercial and.
mechanical, which have been made in the world since the birth of.
Christianity, must have been obtained in spite of it, not because of it;;
they have been wrought by the spirit of Secularism ever struggling,
and in recent times with ever-growing success, against the spirit of
dogmatic religion.
M ith Christ, this life and this world were comparatively of little
importance ; their enjoyments and treasures were, to him, baits and
snares of the Devil. Therefore we read, “ He that loveth his life shall
lose it; and he that hateth his life in this .world shall keep it unto life
.ternal.” (John xii. 25.) And again, “I pray not for the world j but
for them which thou hast given me; for they are mine. . . . They
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John xvii. 9,
16). Therefore he said, “ Take no thought for your life, what ye shall
eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put
on. . . . Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow; for the
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” (Matt. 6 : 25, 34.)
�CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
19 ‘
In vain do we look among any of the professed Christians for any
serious attempt to reduce these teachings into practice. They regulate
neither their public nor their private lives by the injunctions here
set forth. The sayings ascribed to Christ are modified and divested of
their legitimate meaning, in order that they may be made to harmonise
with human feelings. Who could obey that unnatural command given
by Jesus in reply to one who solicited permission to bury his father?—
“ Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.” . Were a person to
adopt this advice to day, he would justly be condemned as being desti
tute of all true natural feeling, and as lacking a due regard for the
tenderest and most sublime affection of human nature. Supposing we
were to adopt the counsel given by Christ, and take no thought for the
morrow, what would become of the advantages of all modern scientific
discoveries ? Clearly it was not by Christian principles that the re
formers of the world were prompted to introduce those useful move
ments, which to-day are so extensively appreciated. Had they loved
not the world, and had they been careful of nothing pertaining there
to, as advised in Scripture, civilization would have received but little
assistance from them. “ Take no thought for your life ! ” If we obeyed
this command, medical science and physiological discoveries would be
utterly useless. In counselling this indifference, Christ showed that
he had much to learn as to the real nature, wants, and duties of man.
Can a consistent Christian rebel against even the most atrocious
tyranny, or fight in even the most righteous cause ? If he be true to
his principles, he must obey the commands, “ Resist not evil,” and
“ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no
power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God. Whoso
ever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God •
and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” Were it
possible to induce men to carry out what is here advised, a weapon
would thereby be placed in the hands of the tyrant, which doubtless
he would use to a terrible extent upon his victims. It is only neces
sary to send forth the priests to teach the commands of Christ to the
unfortunate dupes and slaves of any despot, and if the teachings are
accepted as true and acted upon, they will prove a potent agency
in prolonging despotism, serfdom, and physical coercion. None are
more ready than tyrants to perceive that faith is a stronger prison
than a fortress, and that the Bible is a more effectual assistance than an
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CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
army, in subjugating and enslaving the minds and bodies of their people.
But even if it were practicable to obey these precepts of non-resistance,,
the obedience would, in many cases, be most unmanly and immoral.
Resistance is not revenge; to allow, therefore, all evil to exist with
impunity, is to offer a premium for the greatest wrongs that ever
afflicted mankind. Had George Washington, Hampden, Mazzini, Kos
suth, Garibaldi and other brave reformers been content as the Bibleteaches, to obey the powers that be, and to “ resist not evil,” they would,
never have rebelled against oppression, and fought, as they did, for
social rights and political emancipation. Had they been consistent
orthodox Christians, they would not have produced those glorious revo
lutions, which have dethroned corrupt kings, and secured individual
and national liberty.
Progressive nations have always, in fact if not in theory, based their
political and social policy on principles the very antitheses to those of
the New Testament. Post office savings’ banks, divorce courts, armies,
of defence, are opposed to “ Lay not up for yourselves treasures on
earth.” “ What therefore God has joined together let no man put.
asunder,” and, “ Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn,
to him the other also.” “ Give to him that asketh thee, and from him
that would borrow of thee turn not thou away,” does not harmonisewith our present law, which authorises the policeman to take underhis special care those who are affording an opportunity for this precept
to be put into practice. Besides, such conduct is only fostering that
reckless and mendicant spirit so often recommended by the churches,
but which should be judiciously discountenanced by all noble-minded,
men and women.
Among the general teachings of Christianity which cannot be relied’
upon, are those which encourage and crown with special sanctity
suffering and sorrow. Not only are those who mourn blessed, but we
are told that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain,”
that “those light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work for
us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Christians pro
fess to believe that “ the sufferings of the present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in the future.”
Hence the exclamation, “ For we know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan ear
�CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
21
nestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from
heaven.” Who can rely upon this gloomy estimate of the world and
human life ? To do so would be to blaspheme humanity, and to rejectthe happiness and joy which nature bestows upon her honest and duti
ful children. “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven ” is a sad sentiment. If there be a heaven, it should be the
appropriate possession of the rich in spirit. Abundance, enthusiasm,
and heroism of spirit are the highest conditions of man. Poverty of
spirit is not by any means celestial or to be admired. A man in such
a state is either contemptible or pitiable, and in either case, relief from
it is a consummation devoutly to be wished. To assure people that atthe last day they will have to give an account of every idle word
spoken through life, is not to enhance their pleasure. Need we won
der that some Christians confess to be “ miserable sinners,” if they
honestly believe that their final doom may depend upon words spoken
in the jubilant moments of life.
Until orthodox Christians can prove to us that their principles arecapable of producing uniformity of character; until it is satisfactorily
explained that the precepts, as propounded by Christ, contain the ele
ments of that greatness which has invariably characterised the lives
of eminent statesmen, philosophers, and poets of all ages ; until it can
be shown that the principles as taught in the New Testament are com
patible with progress and human advancement; until the course pur
sued by Christ, when he was on earth, is adopted by his professed
followers of to-day ; until poverty is preferred to riches by the mem
bers of the various churches; until humility has taken the place of
pride ; and self-sacrifice to that of personal gain ; until sincerity and
consistency supplant that hypocrisy and cant, which are now soprominent in the domain of theology ; until peace, love, and harmony
shall reign in “ Christian nations ” instead of war, hatred, and discord;,
until prayer, as a means of help, is in reality preferred to reliance on
secular effort; until the poor are treated as being genuine brothers of
the “ one fold; ” until, in commercial activity and domestic arrange
ments, the affairs of this world are considered as being of sec
ondary importance to the preparation for some other state of existence;
until all these tilings are realities and not mere pretences, orthodox
Christianity must be deemed thoroughly impracticable in its nature,
and incapable of furnishing a code of morals by which all succeeding
�22
CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
generations should be governed, and to which the great intellects of
the world should succumb.
The contradictory nature of orthodox teaching is another of its strik
ing features. The New Testament does not present one definite system,
but fragmentary records of conflicting theological views, which were
numerous during the early Christian era. Not to notice the self-con
tradictory teachings of the first three Evangelists, the gospel ascribed
to St. John is quite antagonistic in its doctrines and precepts to the
synoptic gospels. Hence it is that among different people in different
ages various Christian sects opposed to each other have arisen with
systems of their own, for which they each claim Christian authority.
The belief that Christ was a real existence, was born of a virgin, was
crucified, that he rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven,
is at the present day considered by the orthodox church as being neces
sary to the Christian profession ; but during the first and second cen
turies each of these teachings was rejected by sections of the church.
Many of the fundamental doctrines of the Christianity of the present
age, such as the Trinity, fall of man, original sin, atonement, media
tion and intercession of Christ, are alleged by some theological writers
not to be Christian doctrines at all, having no sanction in the New
Testament; while the orthodox party allege that to believe them is
essential to secure happiness hereafter. So conflicting are the leading
principles of the Christian faith, that they are rendered almost valueless
as rules to regulate general conduct. For instance, it is of no avail to
urge that Christianity is a religion of love, while Christ affirms that
no man can become a disciple unless he hates his own flesh and blood.
Even admitting, as it is sometimes contended, that the word “ hate ”
here means “ love less,” the statement is still objectionable. Can we
really love one of whom we know nothing (whatever we may believe)
more than we love our nearest relatives and dearest friends ? Man’s
highest and purest love should be for his wife and children; he is not
justified in neglecting them for the gratification of any religious en
thusiasm, be it what it may. A religion that exacts the best of our
affections, wars with the noblest aspirations of our nature. In fact, so
difficult is it to comply with Christ’s request upon this point, that good
Christian husbands frequently forego the commands of their master to
gratify the wishes of their wives. Paul judged that this would be the
case; hence he advised Christians to remain single, because “ he that
�CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
23
is married careth for the things of this world, how he may please his
wife.” And it is quite right that he should do so. Christ’s love, like
that of most of his followers, was confined to those who agreed with
his theology. His injunction to his disciples was to despise those who
would not receive them. “Those,” he said,“mineenemies,which would
not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before
me.” Even the woman of Canaan, who asked him for help, was at first
denied, and told, “ it was not meet to take the children’s bread and cast
it to dogs.” And it was not till the woman indirectly acknowledged
her faith that Christ granted her request. Belief, not humanity, called
forth his love. His forgiveness, too, was only for the faithful. “ He
that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of
God.’, Luke 12:9. “ If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as
a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into
the fire and they are burned.” Are these the sentiments of true love
and forgiveness ? Paul emulated his master in this particular ; and
accordingly we read : “ Of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander, whom
I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.”
“ If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have re
ceived, let him be accursed.” “ Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. . . . What part hath he that believeth with an
infidel ? ” Here we have an incentive to that intolerance which has so
frequently prevented men holding different opinions on theological sub-„
jects from associating together.
The doctrines of “pardon for sin,” of the Trinity, and of “ falling
from grace,” are couched in language obscure and contradictory. No
man can believe all, and few men can understand, any portion of what is
taught upon these subjects in the New Testament. A professed holder
of one of the above tenets usually receives a particular impression as to its
meaning, according to the school in which he is trained. Such impres
sions made on the youthful mind are so deep and enduring, that it is
extremely difficult, and in many instances impossible, to erase them in
maturity. Hence, it is nearly useless to point out to one who has been
taught that all sin shall be forgiven, that Christ says that blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven. Luke 12 :10. The Trinita
rian is unable to see the objection to his views in such passages as, “ My
Father is greater than I,” and that there is “ One God and Father of all,,
who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” The Calvinist who.,
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CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
relying on St. John 10 : 28 and Romans 8 : 38, 39, believes that when
man is onoe “converted,” he can never relapse, fails to see that his
opinion is proved to be fallacious by the following : “For if, after they
have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and
overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For
it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteous
ness, than, after they had known it, to turn from the holy command
ment delivered unto them.” 2 Peter 2 : 20, 21.
If it were necessary that any one part of Christian teachings should
be clear, it is that, we presume, which professes to refer to the salva
tion of the human race, but here we find the greatest perplexity. We
read : “There is no other name but that of Christ’s whereby men can
be saved,” Acts 4:12; “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shaltbe saved,” Acts 16:31; “He that believethnot shall be damned,”
Mark 16:16. Here the necessity of belief in Christ is positively en
joined, and in 1 Tim. 2 : 4 it is stated as Christ’s wish that “all men”
should be saved. In the same book, however, we also read : “ For
there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old or
dained to this condemnation,” Jude 4 ; “And for this cause God
shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that
they all might be damned who believed not the truth,” 2 Thess. 2 : 11,12.
But the new Testament admits that belief does not depend upon our
selves, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of
his good pleasure,” Phil. 2 : 13 ; “For by grace are ye saved through
faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God,” Ephes. 2:8;
“ Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing, as of our
selves ; but our sufficiency is of God,” 2 Cor. 3:5. In John 14 : 6 it
is said : “No man cometh unto the Father but by me,” and in chapter
6, verse 44 of the same book Christ exclaims : “ No man can come to
me except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.” It is manifest,
moreover, if the Scriptures be correct, that while God predestinated
some persons to be saved, he adopted means whereby others should be
lost. In replying to certain inquirers, Christ is reported to have said :
“ Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God;
but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables :
That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may
hear, and not understand ; lest at any time they should be converted,
and their sins should be forgiven them.” Mark 4 : 11, 12.
�CHRISTIANITY----ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
25
Equally uncertain are the means prescribed by this faith whereby
salvation is to be obtained. In one place, the New Testament says that
works are necessary (James 2 : 20-25), while it is also recorded : “For
by grace are ye saved, through faith : . . . . not of works, lest any man
should boast,” Ephes. 2 : 8, 9 ; “A man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith,” Gal, 2 : 16 ; “ Therefore by the deeds of the (
law there shall no flesh be justified,” Rom. 3:20 ; “ Where is boasting,
then ? It is excluded. By what law ? Of works ? Nay; but by the
law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith
without the deeds of the law,” Romans 3 : 27, 28 ; “ Not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved
us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost,”
Titus 3:5.
Even what is to be understood by the term “ believe in Christ ” is
not by any means clear. Are we to acknowledge Christ as a man or as
a God? Are we to suppose that the object of his mission was accom
plished in his life, or through his death ? Must we regard his teachings
or his blood as the medium of salvation ? To these questions neither
the New Testament nor Christians have given a definite and uniform
answer. For, while Unitarians allege that the command in the above
passages is sufficiently obeyed by believing in the manhood, life, and
teachings of Christ, the orthodox Christians state that, to avoid damn
ation, mankind must have faith in the divinity, the vicarious death,
and the atoning efficacy of the blood of Christ. The character of
Christ, as given in the New Testament, is thoroughly contradictory.
He could teach men to be merciful, and he could command that those
who would not accept him as the Christ, should be slain before him. He
could advise husbands to love and cleave to their wives, and he could
offer an inducement to break up the ties of domestic affection, lie
could advise children to honour their father and mother,while to others
he could say that, unless they hate their parents, they could not become
his disciples. At one time his advice is to “ resist not evil,” while at
another he authorizes shaking off the dust from the feet as a testimony
against unbelievers. He announces that “ they that take the sword
shall perish with the sword,” and he as emphatically says, “He that
hath no sword, let him sell his garments and buy one.” No sooner
does he state that “blessed are the peacemakers,” than he as earnestly
asserts that he came not to send peace, that his mission was to set a
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CHRISTIANITY----ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
man against his father, and a daughter against her mother. Here are
characters thoroughly antagonistic—which are we to regard as a reliable
representation of the “person of Christ?” Was not the Rev. Dr.
Giles correct in saying, “ The history of Christ is contained in records
which exhibit contradictions that cannot be reconciled, imperfections
that would greatly detract from even admitted human compositions,
and erroneous principles of morality that would hardly have found a
place in the most incomplete systems of the philosophers of Greece and
Rome?”—(“ Christian Records,” preface 7.)
ITS INFLUENCE.
The influence of Christianity upon the world should be estimated
from its special effects upon individual character, as well as from its
general results upon national conduct. Of course, it is not always
right to condemn principles in consequence of the shortcomings of
those who profess to endorse them. The justice of such condemnation
will very much depend upon the nature of the principles themselves
and the claims set up on their behalf. The peculiar feature in connec
tion with Christianity is, that its professed believers have persistently
urged that its influence for good is so unmistakeable, that wherever its
power has been felt beneficial results have necessarily followed. Now;
this claim is not borne out either by the New Testament or by the facts
of history and of personal experience. Of course, it may be frankly
admitted that in the ranks of Christianity there are good men and
women ; it does not, however, follow that their goodness is the result of
their faith. Some persons are so well organized, and their moral training
is so complete, that it is next to impossible to induce them to depart
from the paths of rectitude; while, on the other hand, there are indi
viduals whose organizations are so imperfect, and whose ethical disci
pline has been so neglected, that no amount of theology will make
them good and useful members of society. Doubtless instances can be
cited where characters have been improved through acting in obedience
to the secular portions of the New Testament But the same can be
said, with truth, of the adherents to other religions besides that of
Christianity, and also of those who have been consistent believers in
the great ethical systems of the world. This, however, does not justify
the orthodox claim—that where the Christian faith has obtained, a
panacea has always been found for the weaknesses, the vices, the crimes
and the wrongs that have robbed the world of much of its virtue, its
�CHRISTIANITY----ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
27
purity and its honour. Instead of controlling the actions and regulat
ing the conduct of its professors, Christianity itself has been moulded
and modified by the individual temperaments, the habits, and the
national aspirations of those who were supposed to endorse it. Hence
as it has already been shown, in various countries, all termed Christian’
we find the profession of various and conflicting phases of the same
faith. The fact is, the reforming agencies that have operated in the
elevation of personal character and general actions belong exclusively
to no religious system ; they are the result of human conditions when
under the control of human reason and intellectual culture.
That Christian teachings have not always had the effect ascribed to
them by orthodox professors is evident, both from the New Testament
and the admissions of Christian historians. From the Gospels and
Epistles we learn that among the earliest recipients of the Faith were
those upon whom its influence was impotent either to enable them to
subjugate their evil passions or to inspire within them the love and
practice of truth. “ Contentions,” “ strife,” “ indignation,” and “ fraud,”
we are informed by the “ inspired word,” characterised their actions
towards each other. [See Acts 15 : 39; Luke 22 : 24; Matt. 20 : 24;
1 Cor. 6 : 8 ; 1 Cor. 5:1.] St. Peter, the “ beloved disciple,” was so
little impressed with the teachings of Christ that, it is said, he denied
his own master (Matt. 26 : 70 & 72), and thereby manifested an utterdisregard for truth and fidelity. St. Paul also, despite his Christian
proclivities, could boast, “Being crafty, I caught you with guile,” (2
Cor. 12 : 16). “I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do
you service,” (2 Cor. 11 : 8). Were the Secularists to emulate such
conduct as this to-day, their principles would not be credited with
having a highly beneficial influence upon human conduct.
The records of history agree with the testimony of the New Testa
ment in reference to the non-effect of Christianity in the inspiration
of correct conduct. jMosheim frankly admits that for many centuries
the Christians were guilty of “lying, deceit, artifice, fraud,” and many
other vices. The same Christian writer remarks : “ The interests of
virtue and true religion suffered yet more grievously by two monstrous
errors which were almost universally adopted in this century [cent. 4],
and became a source of innumerable calamities and mischiefs in the
succeeding ages. The first of these maxims was, that it was an act of
virtue to deceive and lie, when by that means the interest of the
Church might be promoted..................... The Church was contaminated
�28
CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE,
with shoals of profligate Christians........................ It cannot be affirmed
that even true Christians were entirely innocent and irreproachable in
this matter.” (See Mosheim’s “ Ecclesiastical History,” vol. I., pp. 55,
77, 102, 193.) Salvian, an eminent pious clergyman of the fifth cen~tury, writes : “ With the exception of a very few who flee from vice,
what is almost every Christian congregation but a sink of vices ? For
you will find in the Church scarcely one who is not either a drunkard,
a glutton, or an adulterer ... or a robber, or a man-slayer, and what
is worse than all, almost all these without limit.” (Miall’s “ Memorials
of early Christianity,” p. 366.) Dr. Cave, in his “ Primitive Christi
anity,” (p. 2), observes : “ If a modest and honest heathen were to
•estimate Christianity by the lives of its professors, he would certainly
proscribe it as the vilest religion in the world.” Dr. Dicks, in his
Philosophy of Religion,” (pp. 366-7), also states : “There is nothing
which so strikingly marks the character of the Christian world in
general as the want of candour, [and the existence of] the spirit of
jealousy. . . . Slander, dishonesty, falsehood and cheating are far
from being uncommon among those who profess to be united in the
bonds of a common Christianity.” Wesley once gave a picture of
^Christian society, which indicates the “ high morality” produced where
“gospel truths ” are disseminated. After stating that “ Bible reading
England ” was guilty of every species of vice, even those that nature
itself abhors, this Christian author thus concludes : “ Such a complica
tion of villainies of every kind considered with all their aggravations,
such a scorn of whatever bears the face of virtue ; such injustice, fraud
and falsehood; above all, such perjury and such a method of law, we
may defy the whole world to produce.” (Sermons, Vol. 12, p. 223.)
Surely, such Christian testimony as this should be damaging evidence
against the theory of the Church, that the “ light of the Gospel ” has
invariably been effectual in securing personal purity and individual
honour.
Neither did the Galilean faith remove the blots that dimmed the
glory of the ancient world. Slavery, infanticide, and brutal, inhuman
sports remained for centuries after the erection of the symbol of the
Cross. It is true, Rome, like every other country, had its vices, but
Christianity failed to remove them. As Lecky observes, “ the golden age
-of Roman law was not Christian, but Pagan.” [“History of European
Morals,” Vol. II., 44.] The gladiatorial shows of Rome had a religious
•origin ; and while some of the grandest pagan writers condemned them,
�CHRISTIANITY---- ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
29
they were not abolished till four hundred years after the commence
ment of the Christian era. And, be it observed, that the immediate
cause of their ultimately being stopped was, that at one of the exhibi
tions, in A.D. 404, a monk was killed. “ His death,” says Becky,
“ led to the final abolition of the games.” (Ibid. 40.) It is a noteworthy
fact that, while the passion for these games existed in Rome, its love
for religious liberty was equally as strong ; and it was this very liberty
that was first destroyed in the Christian Empire. (Ibid. 38.)
Every nation has had its national drawbacks, and Christian coun
tries are no exception to the general rule. Under the very shadow of
the Cross cruelties of the deepest dye have been practised. Bull-fights,
bear and badger hunting, cock fighting, and pigeon-shooting have all
been favourite amusements in Christian lands. Granted that immo
rality stained the history of ancient Rome and classic Greece, so it did
Christian England at the very time when the Church had absolute
authority. What was the state of morals in England during the age
of Henry VIII., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and George IV. ? Was
there ever a period of greater moral depravity and intellectual poverty
than when the Christian Church was paramount and supreme, when
the saints, the bishops, and the priests were guilty of the worst of
crimes, including incest, adultery and concubinage, when 11 sacred in
stitutions,” filled with pious nuns, were converted into brothels and
hotbeds of infanticide? (Ibid. 351.) Greece and Rome, with all their
immorality, will bear comparison with the early ages of Christianity.
If history may be relied upon, Christian England is indebted to Pagan
Rome and classic Greece for the .incentive to much of that morality,
culture, and heroism which give- the prestige to modern society. Upon
this point, Dr. Temple, in his “ Essay on the Education of the World,”
is very clear. “To Rome,” says the Doctor, “we owe the forms of
local government which in England have saved liberty and elsewhere
have mitigated despotism.” ... “ It is in the history of Rome rather
than in the Bible that we find our models of precepts of political duty,
and especially of the duty of patriotism.” ... “To the Greeks we owe
the corrective which conscience needs to borrow from nature.” Take
Rome to»day. That country was once the recognized mistress of the
world, renowned alike for its valour, its learning, and its taste; from
whose forums emanated that eloquence which still shines forth as the
production of a noble and heroic people—Rome, once the depository of
poetry and the cultivator of art, whose grandeur and dignity could
�30
CHRISTIANITY—ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
command the admiration of the world—such was Rome, but, alas ! how
has she fallen ! “ Christianity floated into the Roman Empire on the
wave of credulity that brought with it this long train of oriental super
stitions and legends.
(Lecky, Vol. I. 397.) The result was, she be
came a miserable, down-trodden, priest-ridden country. Her former
glory, dignity and valour departed, and were replaced by a mean and
cowardly terrorism, born of a degrading priestcraft and a cruel theo
logyFor one thousand years Christianity had its trial, with everything in
its favour. The Middle Ages were the brightest era of Christianity.
Then she had no rival. Assisted by kingcraft, she ruled the civilized
world through a thousand years, without one ray of light, without any
great addition to the arts and sciences, and then bequeathed to man
kind a heritage of cruelty, bloodshed and persecution. At this period
of her history there was a great impetus given towards science and
philosophy. Some of the most splendid intellects that ever appeared in
the world, and that might, under more favourable conditions, haveadorned humanity, enlightened society, and helped on progress, ap
peared in those days. But their intellects were stifled and rendered
comparatively useless by the influence of Christianity. Those were
the times when theology was paramount, unrestrained, and un
trammelled j when the blood, the genius, and the chivalry of Europe
were all wasted in the mad and useless crusades, when in one expedi
tion alone, instigated by fanatical priests, no less than 560,000 persons
were sacrificed to the superstition of the Cross. Do we require a proof
of the legitimate effects of orthodox Christianity ? Behold the history
of the seven crusades, which will for ever remain as a lasting monument
of a mind-destroying faith. For nearly two hundred years did the fol
lowers of Christ lay desolate one of the finest and most romantic por
tions of the known world, and laid prostrate thousands of human
beings. Do we wish to know the influence of the orthodox religion ?
Read the history of the Emperor Constantine, who with the sword in.
one hand and the Cross in the other, pursued his slaughtering and re
lentless career. Go to the streets of Paris, when in the fifteenth cen
tury they flowed with the blood of defenceless Protestants, and when.
10,000 innocent persons were massacred by the professed believers in
a meek and lowly Jesus. Visit the valleys of Piedmont, which were
the scene of a most inhuman butchery, when women were suffocated,
by hundreds in confined caves by the bearers of the Cross. Study the
�CHRISTIANITY----ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE.
31
history of the Inquisition, to whose power three millions of lives were
sacrificed in one century. Peruse the records of the actions of King
Henry VIII., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, in whose Christian
reigns hundreds were condemned either to die at the stake or to endure
revolting cruelties in loathsome dungeons, because they differed from
the prevailing faith of those times. These were the effects of Chris
tianity when it had absolute power. Fortunately, in this age of pro
gressive thought, a change has come over the dream of man, and
practical work has taken the place of theoretical faith. In business, in
science, in politics, in philosophy, and partially in education, belief in
theology is not allowed to stand in the way of help for humanity. The
Church has lost the power it once had, and priests no longer command
undisputed sway over the intellect of the human race. Many of the
greatest minds of the nineteenth century have thrown overboard the
orthodox Christian faith, and the enlightened sons of earth will, ere
long, follow the example. The sun has arisen on the tops of the
mountains, heralding the advent of that glorious day when it may be
triumphantly said with Shelley :—
“ Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,
Or the priests of the evil faith ;
They stand on the brink of that raging river
Whose waves they have tainted with death ;
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells ;
Around them it foams, and rages, and swells ;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks, on the surge of eternity.”
•
��
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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English
Dublin Core
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Title
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Christianity : its origin, nature, and influence
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Toronto
Collation: 31 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from KVK.
Creator
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Watts, Charles, 1836-1906
Date
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[18--]
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Secular Thought Office
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity
Free thought
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Christianity : its origin, nature, and influence), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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RA1852
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Christianity
Free Thought
Secularism
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cba29d2cdd582487c10f3eef5a3e952b
PDF Text
Text
Or ^9
gts bearing anb mtaice on otljers.
In
HE
THAT
much
wisdom
INCREASETH
sorrow.”—The Preacher.
is
much
KNOWLEDGE
grief,
and
INCREASETH
��INTRODUCTION.
In having committed the few following
remarks in the form of a pamphlet to the
printer, I have been actuated solely by feelings
of sorrow and regret for certain of my friends,
whose peace of mind I know to have been
disturbed by the unguarded expressions of
others and their condemnatory and cavilling
modes of discussion on Scriptural points and
matters of belief in everyday life.
I do not
add my name, lest I be thought as intruding
into the sacred precincts of the clerical world
and arrogating to myself the duties of the
Priestcraft; but I would say one word of kindly
counsel to my readers : “Discountenance all
religious arguments as emanating from no
good and leading to no result.” Let such
reasonings be conducted by those whose duty
�it be to teach in properly appointed places,
and, I hope, to a discriminating audience, in
the cases of some teaching.
If I may stay the hand of any such an one
I am repaid.
J. E. C.
London, Dec. 1874.
�I am a Layman, possessing little qualifi
cation to goodness or greatness, and, permit
me to tell you at starting, that I lay no further
claim to your attention than the all-absorbing
nature of my subject should command ; but of
late, each and every day as I live—spreading
widely and furiously as some raging element
have I seen with alarm the rapid growth of
freedom of thought and expression on matters
of religion.
Possibly some of you will maintain that
one has a perfect right to ventilate opinions
on any subject whatsoever in this free land of
ours.
On things mundane—yes,—on matters
religious, I protest against it, positively and
absolutely ; and simply because in arguing on
matters of the world and everyday life, as a
�rule, men are honest. With greater or less
verbiage, as the' case may be, they discuss this
and that, and if no end be answered, at any
rate no harm is done; no conclusiou being
arrived at, the mind is free to wander on to
some new channel and find vent there.
But the Free Thinker in religion—how
fares it with him and his audience ? He is not
content to reflect, but must give utterance, and
being probably a disappointed and dissatisfied
man, or for the reputation of originality of
thought, or even again, jealous of some harm
less spirit that seems to be supremely content
to live and move in the simple faith of its
Fathers, boldly attacks and openly avows his
utter disbelief in certain tenets, and is pleased
to take exception to technicalities, classes the
miracles as charming fairy tales, would not
insult his common sense, he tells you, by
accepting this or that as an absolute fact, and
so on.
And this because the fashion of the age
2
�is so, and it is convenient, and his audience is
left to ponder, and perhaps to utter damnation
hereafter, upon words uttered at random and
vainly spoken.
A cowardly line this, and
productive of so little good.
If unable to be,
or feel, orthodox, why unsettle the minds of
those who are content to believe in things
as they are ? You may depend upon it there is
no more cruel act that one can be guilty of
than this.
It is taking away the very ground
from under a man’s feet, and giving him
nothing else to stand upon.
And it is so
doubly hard on the comparatively uneducated
mind.
To the philosopher of any nation
whatsoever, whether his mind be stored with
the trite sayings and stern moralities of
Mencius or Confucius, or versed in the
doctrines of Buddah or Mahommed, or if a
deep thinker and skilled in the wisdom and
inventions of more modern times, to him the
case is not so hard. His mind and thought
are occupied, and the void, in some part,
filled ; but to the uncontrolled, weak, ignorant
�mind, or to the poor dejected spirit, suffering
from disease, or deadly ill, a nature to whom
the entire future is a blank; what is there left
to such an one but religion ? Besides, from
time immemorial, the mind of man has
required something wherein to repose, and
it seems to me that everything in its turn has
worn itself threadbare, and been found vain,
but that highest order of faith and unbounded
trust justly termed the Christianity of the soul.
Mind you, I am not attempting a treatise on
theology, or dealing with matters religious
from a theologian’s point of view, I am merely
attempting, as a man of the world, and one
who has seen and visited nearly every known
quarter of the globe, and held converse with
my fellow creatures everywhere, and tried to
learn something of their belief, to assure you
that, from my experience, only where there is
a simple faith and worship is there real happi
ness.
And what I therefore inveigh against is
the attempted overthrow and subversion of
this simple faith.
4
Shew me a leveller and
�revolutionist—a man who is seeking some new
whim and bone of contention in matters
religious—and I will shew you, as a rule, an
unsatisfactory man, a doubtful friend, an unsafe
companion, and an unhappy mind.
Example has had much to do with all
this, and I take it as sincerely to be regretted
that, as men’s minds have become stored with
learning, and their powers of argument in
creased by deep study, so do their great
abilities seem to have been diverted from
channels which might have led them on to
be greater men and far more useful ’to the
State, in a variety of ways, and taught them
instead to set afloat some startling theories in
Religion. And in many instances this is the
case with men who hold high position and
dignity in the ecclesiastical world. To say the
least, it is not loyal, not honest. An officer
composed of such material may rest assured
he finds no sympathy with his men in the time
of real need and trial; yet these are content
to remain in the orthodox ranks in which they
�have nominally enrolled themselves, and to
which they have subscribed, though their own
conscience must tell them their place is not
there, and they are daily and hourly violating
their charter.
Is it a wonder, then, that while such men
seem doubtful as to the standard into which
their metal should be thrown, that the balance
once set a wavering should be kept in motion
by the so-called disciples of “ society,” who
must need a salve to their conscience and a
loophole out of their difficulty to lead the
comparatively free and easy life of the present
day.
I do not raise the hue and cry of the
Pharisee, and bewail that “Woe is me that am
constrained to dwell in such tents,” for I know
of no pleasanter dwelling than this modern
Kedar, and cannot see why, if one be right
minded, enjoyment may not be had and good
done, side by side.
For amongst those so
termed disciples of Society whose friendshp it
6
�is my privilege to possess, certainly, in several
instances, there could not exist truer spirits.
I would stake my salvation on their integrity
and uprightness; they could not do a mean
or ungenerous act, and up to a certain time of
life their course bid fair to be a prosperous
one, and they were happy.
But—and that terribly significant little
preposition—tout s’est passe, they have had to
take their position in the world, and from that
moment their peace of mind was jeopardised
by the surroundings and adjuncts of the circles
in which they moved. At starting, so to speak,
they were handicappped, because they came
into existence with great license of society
and freedom of thought in matters of religion,
and the very atmosphere they breathed was
tainted with an under current of it, and their
future, without careful watching, may now be
open to doubt, which, remember, may speedily
ripen into despair, and Phaeton once hurled
fell rapidly.
May I not live to witness so
unhappy a descent!
7
�Most probably the original failing was
weakness of disposition; be that as it may,
the other component parts of example and
circumstance have much to do with the ripening
of the disease.
The “mens conscia recti” is a
grand institution, and nature asserting her best
qualities for man’s guidance sweet to’a degree,
but as it is difficult to touch pitch and not be
defiled, and as even to the well-regulated
mind and iron will the research into the veins
of thought opened up by a Renan or Ramee
is fraught with extreme danger, I say avoid it,
and all such premium to license of thought as
double-distilled poison. We live in an educa
tional age and one of enquiry, and the mind,
anxious to have its voids filled, will ever exer
cise itself on abstruse points, and as argues
the ardent disciple of to-day’s school, nothing
is so all-absorbing and important as the one
great question of future existence, why may it
not be lawfully sought out by me, and why
may not vital points and questions which have
hitherto in other matters seemed insurmount
�able, be assailed with equal success in the
religious world ?
My answer is, because the
beginning and the future are and shall be
unrevealed to all practical purposes.
Read as
you may and ponder as you please, but the
“ cogito ergo sum” is the only comprehensive
limit, so to speak, I can arrive at, and the
further one strays from this simple text the
more mystified and hopeless does the task
become I feel convinced.
Then why indulge in vain inquiries which
lead to nought else save heart-burnings, doubt,
and misery ? That conscience which renders
man superior to the perishable beast, if rightly
consulted, will as clearly tell you your duty as
it can possibly be defined, the rest we must
leave to time, avoiding, meanwhile, if weak, all
possible contact with those who may destroy
the even current of thought within us. And it
is here that education comes to the rescue,
and why we should in bounden duty bestow it
on our fellows.
�But if education is to lead by its over
working to scepticism, and thus to the drying
up, as it were, of the Fountain springs of hope,
then it becomes a curse, and we live in an
accursed age.
�1
��
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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
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Title
A name given to the resource
Modern Free Thought: Its bearing and influence on others.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation:
Notes: Inscription on title page: With the author's kindest regards 5 Aug. 75. Introduction signed J.E.C. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Creator
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[Unknown]
Date
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1874
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Free thought
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Modern Free Thought: Its bearing and influence on others.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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CT79
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
-
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PDF Text
Text
GRACE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1876.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON
THINTED BY C. TV. REYNELL, LITTLE TULTENET STREET,
HAYMARKET.
�GRACE.
------ *-----VICTIM to the received system of religious
education, I have suffered considerably for socalled conscience’ sake. Finding nay questions as
irritating to my instructors as their answers were
unsatisfactory to me, I early sank down into the
mould prepared for me, and at nine years old was at
the top of the religious class in a school I attended.
An excellent memory, a distinct utterance, and a
sort of knack of finding out texts with great rapidity,
were points in my favour, and as I soon left
off asking what were called impertinent questions,
it was assumed that the process of thinking had,
by the merciful interference of a superintending
Providence, been checked ere it had developed into
an insurmountable hindrance to salvation. At first
I did not think very much, but I thought a little, and
to some purpose. I learnt a hymn which contained
these lines : “ I thank the goodness and the grace
which on my birth have smiled, and made me in
these Christian days a happy English child. I was
not born, as thousands are, where God was never
known,” etc. I did not sufficiently value my privi
lege of sitting in a close room learning abstruse texts,
and when I looked at the pictures of little negroes in
sugar-plantations I did not pity them at all, but
thought that they had the best of it.
A
�6
Grace.
To check the free expression of thought is an
admirable means towards the desired end—the an
nihilation of thought itself—and had not a counter
influence been at work out of school I should, doubt
less, have become a “ chosen vessel.” As it was, I
went about, as numbers do, under false colours, sup
posed to be very pious, because I had a good verbal
memory, a quiet, old-fashioned manner, and great
digital dexterity in finding out passages in the Bible.
I seemed, of course, like a piece of wax, as all good
children should be, ready to receive any religious
impressions stamped upon me by my teachers. I
was being educated in hypocrisy under the name
of religion. The system was calculated to foster
conceit, and, until a few years ago, I thought I under
stood all that is included in the comprehensive word
grace. I was called a child of grace, I coveted grace,
prayed daily for an increase of it, explained its sup
posed effects to others, pleaded with those who seemed
indifferent to it, and mourned over those who had
fallen from it. My teachers used grace as synonymous
with self-denial, self-control, patience, fortitude, re
signation, etc., and I was accustomed to attribute all
that is elevating to its influence, and all that is
degrading to its absence. But? when a mere child, I
had silently observed the supposed effects of grace in
those who never resorted to the “means ” of it, and
before I had attained maturity, I had, when away
from the restraints of school, indulged in many a
flippant remark as to the inefficacy of grace in those
who seemed indefatigable in their strivings after it.
I was puzzled and disappointed, but not until many
years had elapsed did it occur to me that I had been
deceived, deceived by well-meaning individuals who
were themselves deceived, and who, I have every
reason to suspect, preferred to be deceived, and
would have gone on deceiving others, even if
they had permitted themselves to be undeceived.
�Grace*
7
My spiritual masters and mistresses told me that
grace was “ a supernatural gift freely bestowed upon
me for my sanctification and salvation.” I was early
taught to seem grateful that, while thousands of chil
dren were suffered to live and die in heathen lands,
where grace was unknown, I had been elected by
special favour to be “a member of Christ, a child of
God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.”
I knew that the unbaptized were the devil’s children,
that God hated them, that they could get no grace
because they were not in a “ state of grace,” and that
actions, to all appearance meritorious, were of no avail
at all towards salvation unless they were performed
in “ a state of grace.” I was exhorted to thank God
repeatedly for the grace of baptism and to look upon
the unbaptized with a mixture of pity and horror.
But for “ prevenient grace,” I should, they told me,
yield to the suggestions of my corrupt nature and
tell lies, give blow for blow, steal, cheat, and become
a hardened sinner.
At school I committed to memory a surprising
number of hymns. I knew that grace was “ a charm
ing sound,” that there was “a fountain filled with
blood,’’ and that I deserved “ his holy frown.” But
at an early age grace began to lose ground in my
estimation. At home hymns were not esteemed;
my parents never asked me to repeat them, and
of “ grace ” I never heard, save at school. I
had a playfellow, about my own age, named Bobby.
Bobby’s real father was the devil, but his reputed
father was a respectable and respected Quaker who
lived close to us, a widower, with two attractive
children, whose education was his sole occupation.
Bobby was a gentle, manly, intelligent child, the
peace-maker in all squabbles, and a great favourite
in the play-ground. In the person of this little
Quaker, Satan had succeeded admirably in transform
ing himself into an angel of light, for a superficial
�Grace.
observer might easily have mistaken. Bobby for “ a
member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor
of the kingdom of heaven.” I knew better—I knew
that he was a child of wrath—that God’s holy frown
rested upon him, and that unless God in his infinite
mercy should call him to the font, his portion would
be “everlasting pains, where sinners must with
devils dwell, in darkness, fire, and chains.” Bobby
never was taken to a place of worship; he was
taught no prayers, and knew no hymns. He squinted
abominably, and it was in consequence of that sad
blemish that my childish thoughts were drawn to a
common-sense view of grace. He was taken to an
oculist, and returned with a most disfiguring glass
over one eye, in comparison with which the squint
seemed almost an embellishment. Poor Bobby ! we
laughed at him, pointed at him, danced round him,
squinted at him, and called him “ old goggle-eye !” I
had frequently wondered at the engaging manners and
generous conduct of the devil’s little boy, but on this
occasion he surpassed himself. He turned red, his
lips quivered, the well-known “ ball ” rose in his
throat, but with steady voice he said, “ You have
nearly made me cry ; you do not know how painful
my eye is; the doctor said crying would make it
worse; I promised him I would not cry. See, I
have got a shilling, let us go and spend it and play
at something else.” “I’ll tell father, see if I don’t! ”
said Bobby’s brother, with fraternal indignation, “ and
he shall know how that shilling went.” “Ho, you
will not,” said Bobby, laughing, “ for a tell-tale is
even worse than a teaze ! ” Of course we all de
clared we were only in fun, etc., but I felt keenly
that the children of God had not set the devil’s little
boy a very good example, and I valued my religious
privileges less from that hour. I continued commit
ting many hymns and texts to memory, but I suppose
I had already “fallen from grace,” for though I
�Grace.
9
recited them with my usual accuracy, they interested
me less. I left off begging to be allowed to learn
some particular hymns, and many of my former
favourites faded unregretted from my memory. My
schoolmistress was an Evangelical gentlewoman, and
I was one of her most attentive pupils. Hearing me
say that Bobby could be good without grace, she
looked very grave, and, turning to an assistant
teacher, remarked, “ How amazing it is that parents
suffer their children to associate with the uncon
verted ! ” I repeated her words to my father. Un
like most parents, he spoke very openly, and explained
to me in very simple language that he had never
observed any moral superiority in the baptized, and
that in his own circle of acquaintances he had found
more genial characters among the unbaptized. He
drew my attention to a gentleman who was a con
stant visitor at our house, one who was in great
favour with all the children who knew him, in conse
quence of his imperturbable good humour and amiable
devotion to their little interests. “That man,” said
my father, “was brought up among the Quakers, and
though he is not a Quaker now, has never been bap
tized, and I cannot see in what respect he would
be a better member of society if he had.
The
gentleman in question was a great ally of mine, and
his children were my playmates. It would have
been difficult to find better people than were these
who had taken no pains to cleanse themselves from
their inherited filth, and it is not surprising that,
with such amiable associates, a child under twelve
should lose sight of the inestimable privilege of
“ grace ” and cease to attribute virtuous conduct to
its influence. I gave up caring about grace. I let
it go without a regret, little knowing that a few
years later I should give myself wholly to its sup
posed influence, and suffer exceedingly in mind and
body ere I succeeded in wrenching myself from a
�iO
Grace.
grasp which was crushing my individuality out of
me.
Before my childhood was quite over an incident
occurred which I shall relate, for it made an im
pression, and preserved me from rushing in after life
into certain extremes, towards which my devotional
acquaintances tended.
There was a lumber-room in Bobby’s house ; books,
pictures, ornaments and furniture, which had been
undisturbed since his mother’s death, were heaped
together in dusty confusion. The humour seized
Bobby to sort out the objects and put the room to
rights. He asked me to help him and we set to work.
I caught hold of a mutilated copy of a book called
‘ The Soul on Calvary,’ and my eyes fell upon the
following incredible and revolting passage:—
“ We will here relate the example of a most
heroic patience in sickness and of a most perfect love
of God in the heart. Perhaps it may wound the
delicacy of some ; but many others will have sufficient
greatness of soul to be edified and touched by it. A
person had fallen into a malady equally painful and
humiliating : a great sore was formed, which, in the
course of time, had engendered a quantity of worms.
This person was eaten up alive by them, and suffered
excessive pains ; yet her lively love of God surmounted
the violence of her sufferings to such a degree that
if any of her worms happened to fall, she picked them
up and replaced them in the sore, saying that she was
unwilling to lose any part of the merit of her suffer
ings, and that she considered those worms as so
many precious pearls which might one day adorn her
crown.” From the disgust excited in me by this
horrible statement, I never rallied, though I was sub
sequently thrown into daily contact with people whose
religious fervour would have inclined them to go and
do likewise.
‘ The Soul on Calvary ’ is a cheap book widely
�Grace.
ii
circulated among Roman Catholics, many of whom
would not shrink from putting into practice the wild
and filthy experiments suggested by the perusal of
that and similar fanatical works.
At a boarding-school, to which I was sent "for six
months for change of air, considerable attention was
paid to the religious instruction of the children. I was
slowly regaining my strength, after a long illness, and
was probably more susceptible to what are called spiri
tual influences than I should otherwise have been; more
over, I was at the impressionable age of fourteen, and
of a grave turn of mind. I was soon “full of grace;” that
is to say, I thought and heard of little else; answering
Scripture questions occupied a great portion of my
time, for, being very weak, I was not required to study
much, and it cost me but little trouble to get up all
the hymns, catechisms, texts, collects, etc., with which
I had formerly been somewhat overburdened. I was
soon a great favourite with my teacher, and to “ grow
in grace” once more became the great object of
my life. For a few years I had been neglecting
grace, but had not retrograded morally, and was
not a whit more unruly than my more persevering
companions.
Schooled in grace for the second time, and
thoroughly engrossed with self, I should, I ima
gine, have become very much like the ideal my
teacher had in view. . She tried hard to work upon
the feelings of her pupils, and I have seen a child of
seven years leave the class in tears, and retire sobbing,
at the thought of her ingratitude to her Saviour; and
we were taught to admire the “ workings of grace ”
in her heart, and to deplore our own indifference. Of
practical piety I do not remember hearing. Faith, grace,
hymns, Bible questions and the Church prayers seemed
all in all. We were not encouraged to make clothes for
the poor, or to deny ourselves anything for the sake
of others; for the souls of others we were earnestly
�12
Grace.
enjoined to pray, but of their bodily wants I neverheard. Once, in consequence of illness, I and another'
girl of sixteen were the sole occupants of a room.
I remarked with horror that she did not kneel downbefore getting into bed. “ Why, Emily,” said I,
f‘you have forgotten your prayers.” “You meanthat I have forgotten to kneel down. I never say
prayers, but I kneel down in the big room because of
the others; I do not mind you.” “ But do you not
mind God,” asked I, with sincere surprise. “ No,”
said she, “ God minds me ! ” I was too much grieved^
to notice the drollery of the remark. Presently she*
resumed, “ What do you. suppose becomes of the
sponge-cakes ? ” I knew dozens of them were con
veyed to the boarders through one of the ser
vants, and now I was informed that they were always
devoured during the extempore prayer made every
evening by a teacher; it lasted, with other devotions,
twenty minutes, and as the girls turned to the wall
during prayers the opportunity was favourable to the
enjoyment of soft cakes. Emily’s revelations sad
dened me indescribably. Had she been an unprin
cipled, unruly, low-minded girl, I should have been
relieved, but, like the graceless Bobby of my child
hood, Emily was superior to the other girls in moral
worth; she never copied sums, verbs, &c., from her
neighbour’s slate, and had often surprised me by her
readiness to admit ignorance, to offer an apology, and,
in short, to act as if this so-called grace had taken
firm hold of her ; but she did not care about grace,
she even called it “ a hoax,” and said that all the
religious people she knew were very disagreeable.
Her father had yielded to the wishes of his wife in
sending her to this school, and as she was soon about
to leave it, she spoke, as all girls do under such cir
cumstances, with reckless candour.
Hypocrisy must infect those who are taught so
many solemn and startling confessions, creeds, hymns.
�Grace.
and texts long before they can understand them..
Emily had discontinued her prayers because she did
not assent to the assertions in them. lc As God made
me,” said she, “ he must know me far better than I
know myself, and therefore it seems very silly to pre
tend to inform him. I am not going to say ‘ I have
followed too much the devices and desires of my own
heart,’ because it is not true; if I were to follow
those desires I should be off in the morning, in spite
of my influenza.”
All she said made me feel extremely uncomfortable,
—she had given up grace, and yet seemed thoroughly
good. However, my six months of school life were
fortunately over, and I returned to a home where all
that is estimable was inculcated without any allusion
to hymns, grace, or any other supernatural means of
arriving at the ordinary virtues which should dis
tinguish the members of a civilized community. I
do not think my father had a Bible ; I never saw him
use one, save to look out some disputed text.
Having been forced in his boyhood to read the Bible
exclusively, he made up for it in his manhood by
reading any book except the Bible. Away from the
gracious influences which for a brief season had
surrounded me, shaken somewhat by Emily’s ex
perience, and highly dissatisfied with my own
immature conclusions, I soon grew very lukewarm as
to prayer and other religious practices, and was
actually learning “ to be good and to do good ” with
out having recourse to the supernatural. I was,
however, ill at ease within, for I had been so
thoroughly impressed with the necessity of grace,
that I was quite alarmed to find how easily I had let
it go and how very well I could do without it. I was
afraid of myself knowing, or rather having been
taught, that in me “ dwelt no good thing,” and I was
greatly perplexed to find no unholy tendencies arise
now that grace had Jost its hold on me. I should
�>4
Grace.
have been quite delighted to have been able to detect
some moral retrogression, which I should have been
justified in attributing to a withdrawal of grace.
I ardently wished to believe in the efficacy of prayer
and indeed in all the doctrines I had been
taught in my childhood, but I was losing both
faith and confidence. I pretended I had not lost
either.
I was afraid to think anything out.
About that time I was invited to pass a few
weeks with a lady and gentleman at Sydenham.
Owing to curious circumstances the lady, though a
Protestant, had been educated in a convent, and was
quite familiar with all the tenets of the various
religious sects. She talked, and apparently thought
frequently about piety, grace, resignation, etc., and
said she intended to leave a large portion of her
wealth to those who had grounded her in religion.
She was, as far as I could judge, an essentially worldly
woman, and, owing probably to her wretched health,
of a singularly trying disposition. In her husband
all those virtues, specially intended, where Christian
virtues are named, shone conspicuously, and I shall
never forget my amazement when with the utmost
composure he informed me that he was hostile to
every form of religion, and that, though it grieved
him sorely to thwart his wife, he had absolutely for
bidden her to teach his little nephew, who lived with
them, any creed, catechism or hymn; she gained her
point as to the Lord’s prayer, which the boy repeated
every night in the drawing-room, beginning thus,—
“ Our Father charty neaven.”
Full twenty years have passed since the day when
I discovered that the man whose character I so much
admired, whose forbearance so much amazed me, and
whose abstemiousness bordered upon the marvellous,
was what is called an infidel! Would that I could
meet him now! How readily would I confess to
him that ‘'whereas I was blind, now I see,”—see that
�Grace.
J5
I was the real infidel, faithless to my own secret con
victions, and faithless to the tenets I was supposed
to have embraced. Fettered by formulas, vague
fears, and by a feeling of restraint which for years
prevented me from daring to be myself, I was unable
to assimilate the wholesome ingredients in the sensible
conversation of my infidel friend, who sought to wean
me from useless theological speculations, and en
deavoured to direct my attention to things practical.
I was then and for years afterwards in the position
which Fichte has so clearly described : “ Instructions
were bestowed upon me before I sought them; an
swers were given me before I had put questions;
without examination and without interest I had
allowed everything to take place in my mind. How
then could I persuade myself I possessed any real
knowledge in these matters ? I only knew what
others assert they know, and all I was sure of was
that I had heard this or that upon the subject. What
ever truth they possessed could have been obtained
only by their own reflection, and why should not I by
means of the same reflection discover the like truth
for myself, since I too have a being as well as they ?
How much I have hitherto undervalued and slighted
myself ! ”
My infidel friend was aware that I was by no means
blind to his many good qualities, for I was frequently
present, to my great discomfort, when he was severely
tried, and was forced to acknowledge that he behaved
like a saint.
“ Well, little lady,” said he one day when we were
speaking of grace, “ I hate the very word grace, I
don’t fully understand its meaning, and as lean do very
well without it, I should consider it a superfluity;
but tell me to what you attribute all that strikes you
as good in me, for as I am the only graceless dog you
know, myself must be my subject ? ”
I had repeatedly asked myself that question, and
�i6
Grace.
invariably winced at my own answer. According to
my religious notions he ought to have been conspicu
ous for moral depravity, but according to my common
sense it seemed to me that no amount of grace could
make him a more genial specimen of a moral man
than he was. However, I said that as he had been
baptized and had been taught to pray in his childhood,
he must have received many graces, and that his
avoidance of great sins was due to God’s grace, which
had preserved him from great temptations. He smiled
as he replied : “ I am afraid your surmise will fall to
the ground when you hear that I early gave up my
prayers. I had a great misfortune when quite a little
fellow. I smashed a most expensive and much-valued
old china jar to atoms. My thoughts instantly flew
to the omnipotent and benevolent Being whose eyes
were in every place, and I ran upstairs to my little
cot, by the side of which I knelt, and most earnestly
entreated God to mend the jar and replace it upon the
bracket before my father returned. Down I rushed, fully
expecting to find all as I wished, the fragments gone,
and the jar in its place. At the bottom of the stairs
stood my poor nurse, too agitated to scold me, feeling
that she would get most of the blame, and dreading
the return of ‘ Master.’ Ko words can convey my
bitter disappointment at seeing the fragments where I
had left them. I had prayed with faith and hope;
but there was no new jar upon the bracket, and never
again did I turn with confidence to that omnipotent
and benevolent Being who had not helped me out of
my terrible scrape.”
What good end Providence had in view by throw
ing me into contact with Bobby, Emily, and this
honourable infidel, pious people have never explained
to me. “ To try your faith,” they told me ; but seemed
at fault when I asked if Providence foresaw that I
should lose my faith.
My visit ended, I returned home ill at ease, honestly
�Grace.
!7
doubting, but dishonestly concealing my doubts for
so-called conscience’ sake. It would, I thought, be
awful to become an infidel, and thus expose myself to
the just indignation of my maker; but it did not occur
to me for some years that my insincerity must long
have rendered me odious in the eyes of the searcher of
hearts, the God of truth, and that I had been in jeo
pardy ever since I had dared to use my own judgment
concerning grace and its effects.
In looking over the past I can say, with the utmost
deliberation, that in my case religion was a hindrance
instead of a help, as it is intended to be. While re
calling my past experience I feel sincerely sorry for
myself and for those who, owing to my devout adhe
rence to sundry New Testament injunctions which I
had “ grace” enough to carry out, suffered acutely.
The certainty that but few have sufficient “grace” to
“ go and do likewise,” is a source of satisfaction to
me. Were I not convinced by hardly-earned experi
ence of the futility of prayer, I would pray with great
fervour that the meaning I discerned in Gospel teach
ing might be for ever hidden from their eyes lest they
should become “ converted” and show forth their
faith as I did. By nature frank and fearless, I early
profited by the lessons taught me by my ghostly coun
sellors, and learnt, like multitudes of other young
people, to conceal what passed within, and to be afraid
of my corrupt nature, and of all that emanated there
from. I was afraid of thinking, of using my own
mind, of following my own impulses, in short, of being
myself.
Conscious of insincerity, alarmed at the probable
consequences of sincerity, siding secretly with what
are called dangerous opinions, frightened at my ten
dencies, confessing with my lips what my understand
ing refused to digest, clinging to planks which I felt
could ill bear my weight, I went on praying that
infidels might be brought to the knowledge of the
�Grace.
truth, but never realising the melancholy fact that
I myself was an arch infidel, for I was a dissembler
before God and man ; reciting incredible creeds in the
house of the former, and carefully concealing my real
sentiments from the latter.
After a while, by dint of pious reading, pious
friends, and lonely visits to sundry churches, I shook
off for a season some of my most disturbing doubts,
and, during four or five years “grace” assuredly
triumphed over nature, and, but for the timely inter
ference of common sense, I too might have been dis
covered magnanimously replacing fallen creepers in
their home on my epidermis !
“ Grace” prompted me to despise “the world,” to
keep aloof from my fellow-creatures, to become
odiously unsociable, and, in adhering to what I con
ceived to be the strict line of duty to God, to disregard,
all the little courtesies and concessions to others as
“ Satanic varnish,” deviations from truth, worldly
wisdom, &c. Reproaches or remonstrances had the
effect of making me persevere still more obstinately
in the course I had chosen. I felt like a martyr
“ persecuted for righteousness ” sake, and was su
premely happy in the conviction that an unusual
amount of grace was bestowed upon me. My spiritual
advisers encouraged me in despising all human con
siderations, and in devoting myself exclusively to my
religious duties, assuring me that the world would
certainly hate me as it had hated Christ, but that I
must “ overcome the world.” In short, I acted upon
the conviction that “ the friendship of the world is
enmity with God,” and that unless I came “ out from
among them ” I was no worthy member of a Head
crowned with thorns. I had the sweet approval of
my own conscience, and felt sure that God was on my
side, so did not fear what man might do unto me.
The requirements of the Gospel seemed to me
peremptory and unmistakable, and as long as I re-
�Grace.
*9
mained under the absorbing influence of what is
called “ grace” I did my best to carry them out; but
a change came over me; old doubts assailed me with
fresh vigour; they took firm hold of me, and I could
not shake them off. During those years of religious
zeal I had been undisturbed by misgivings, and had
acted with sincerity. I look back upon them with
mingled amusement and regret, and rejoicing that I
was at length enabled to be as true to my doubts as
I bad been to my folly and fanaticism. Of course it
will be said by many that I had been guilty of absurd
exaggeration, and that true religion does not demand
that we should fly in the face of the world, that it is
possible to continue in “ grace” without sternly
abjuring “ the world,” &c. ; but such a compromise
seemed to me then impossible, and, to be perfectly
candid, I am still of opinion that to yield to the dic
tates of “ grace ” is to become what I was once, but
with my enlarged experience can never be again.
“ Grace,” as understood by the orthodox, had taken
great effect upon me; it had done its work right well,
and rendered me quite unfit for this world, and, there
fore, as I was persuaded, a worthier candidate for the
other. In my exuberant self-satisfaction, I failed to
see that by steady adherence to my favourite Gospel
texts I was daily sinking deeper into that slough of
selfishness, bigotry, and intolerance, in which the
“Lord’s people” are wont to wallow. I knowmany who
are “ full of grace ;” I avoid them, for a “ burnt child
dreads the fire.” Withdrawn from the pernicious
influence of “ grace,” I can now look dispassionately
on my former God-fearing self, and see myself in the
light in which I must have appeared to those who
deplored my “ supernatural ” tendencies, and des
paired of my return to common sense. Released
from the fetters which so tightly bound me, and
which in my blindness I hugged so fondly, I have
now the “ grace ” to see, and the candour to confess,
�20
Grace.
that I was the victim of a degrading delusion. I have
returned to the miserable “ worldlings,” who are onlydoing their duty, and striving to make the best of the
only world of which we have any knowledge, and in
which I hope I may have “ grace ” to lead a rational
life and set a natural example !
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Grace
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 18 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Published anonymously. Author believed to be Annie Besant. "A victim to the received system of religious education, I have suffered considerably of so-called conscience' sake". [Opening sentence]. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
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Besant, Annie Wood
Date
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1876
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Thomas Scott
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Rationalism
Free thought
Education
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Grace), identified by <span><a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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RA1609
CT183
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
Religion
Religious Education
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Text
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE
TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
A FAREWELL ADDRESS.
T is now more than fifteen years since I began the
work, which,—so far as regards the periodical
issue of my publications,—I must now relinquish, in
consequence of continued ill-health and increasing
bodily infirmity.
The spectacle of millions of my fellow-countrymen,
bound hand and foot by metaphysical and priestly
exclusiveness, made so painful an impression upon my
mind that I felt irresistibly impelled to expose dog
matic assumptions and promote free theological in
quiry as the undoubted right of all thoughtful minds.
I
�2
Without under-estimating the formidable difficulties
which clerical prejudice and bigotry might be expected
to interpose in the way of such an enterprise, I
entered upon it single-handed and entirely on my
own responsibility; resolved in a courteous but un
compromising spirit to do my utmost to bring all my
forces to bear upon the errors and superstitions so
degrading to man’s highest nature, and to follow
truth, and truth only, wheresoever it might lead me.
In reviewing the past I contemplate with extreme
satisfaction the remarkable strides which Free
Thought has made in all orthodox sects; but espe
cially in the Church of England. The present agita
tion among a considerable section of the clergy in
favour of Ritualism, which at first sight might be
regarded as a retrograde movement, I look upon as
necessarily transient, and having no influence upon
the highest intellect within the Church. It is but the
last convulsive effort of priestcraft to keep hold of
the mind of the country, which is fast growing dis
satisfied with the arid pastures of ecclesiasticism, and
repairing to the spacious and fertile meadows of
reason and science.
Even at the period when my labours commenced,
intelligent persons interested in the relation of ortho
doxy to the age could not fail to observe that the
artillery of Science and advanced Biblical scholarship
had already been directed against Church dogmas.
Secret doubts and difficulties respecting the doc
trines of Biblical inspiration, the atonement, and
supernaturalism, here and there disquieted both lay
�3
and clerical minds ; but the war was, for the most
part, limited to learned critics in the hostile camps.
The conviction was forced upon me that a series of
pamphlets discussing the vexed questions in a search
ing yet reverent manner would be welcomed by large
numbers of thoughtful inquirers, and stimulate those
who might be desirous of obtaining satisfaction to
the free and independent scrutiny of theories errone
ously held by the churches to be founded on the
“Word of God.”
My first efforts met with a much wider and more
cordial reception than in my highest expectations I
had reason to anticipate.
On the first appearance of my publications, expres
sions of sympathy with my design and offers of co
operation in the work reached me from what seemed
to be the most unlikely quarters, and, for a consider
able period afterwards, able and highly-educated
clergymen forwarded me manuscripts for publication,
containing attacks on the false bulwarks of ecclesiasticism, and expositions of absolute moral verities.
Cultivated and earnest laymen, capable of dealing
with the points at issue, also came forward volun
tarily and contributed useful papers to the series.
While the movement has been under my direction,
essays on every branch of theology have been issued,
illustrating the unhistorical character of many Bible
records, the gradual development of beliefs and cere
monies from Solar and Phallic worship to Christianity,
the Priestly Origin of creeds, and the true inductive
method of investigation. But while destructive criti-
�4
cism has been freely employed against the mythical
element in the Old and New Testament, and the
legendary traditions of the Church, which have been
put forward by the orthodox as facts, there has been
in many of the pamphlets a due recognition of Natu
ral Law and essential Morality as the only solid and
sufficient principles for the government of human
conduct.
It is one of the most striking evidences of the wide
spread scepticism throughout Protestant Christendom
respecting the foundations of religious faith, that
many thousands of persons in all classes of society,
—and in all parts of the world,—lay and clerical,
have applied to me for my pamphlets, notwithstanding
that I have never made use of any other medium of
advertising them than their own contents.
The work in which I have been engaged has brought
me into very extensive correspondence and personal
intimacy with officials and adherents of various
churches, and afforded me special opportunities for
studying current ecclesiastical and theological move
ments, and I am forcibly, impressed with the belief
that there are influences at work which are destined,
sooner or later, to cause the disintegration of all
existing systems of religion that are based on mere
traditional authority, and to emancipate the human
mind from the thraldom of priestcraft in every form.
Experience and observation combine to convince me
that the tendencies of the age point to the ultimate
substitution of the authority of reason for that of
alleged book revelation.
�5
The persuasion gains ground everywhere that
the only true orthodoxy is loyalty to reason, and
the only infidelity which merits censure is dis
loyalty to reason. The exaltation of blind and un
thinking sentiment above calm and clear judgment
constitutes the real offence which the orthodox have
unwittingly branded as the “ sin against the Holy
Ghost.”
. It is no little gratification to me to note how
many clergymen and ministers, now liberated from
the bondage of creeds and detached from the
worse than useless occupation of teaching dogmas,
received their first impulse to free inquiry from the
perusal of my publications. Recent charges delivered
by Archbishops and Bishops unmistakably convey the
impression that they are beginning to tremble for
the Ark of Orthodoxy. The most observant digni
taries of the Church openly confess that it is not
Ritualism so much as Rationalism which they fear.
Nor is their alarm groundless, for the rapid diffusion
of the light of science and criticism will eventually
disclose the hollowness of the pretensions on which
are based the claims of the Christian Scriptures to
the attributes of authenticity, genuineness, and mira
culous inspiration. No leader of theological opinion
affects to deny that the work which, at my own risk,
I have carried on, has been an appreciable factor in
the general movement of Free Thought within the
Church and Nonconformist bodies.
The seed which has been sown, must, in the nature
of things, remain for a time, in some instances, appa
�6
rently unproductive. There is a rapidly increasing
number of Liberal thinkers who continue to occupy
pulpits, and many more who frequent places of wor
ship, that can hardly be expected to sever suddenly
their connexion with their ecclesiastical associations.
There are preachers convinced of the false position
they hold who, from regard to social standing or from
the imperious necessity of earning a living for their
families, persist in doing violence to their intellectual
and moral nature by reiterating creeds and enforc
ing dogmas which they have inwardly renounced.
There are Liberal thinkers in every sphere of
life who keep up a questionable semblance of
evangelical devotion from fear of the social “Mrs.
Grundy,” and in order to avoid injuring the
prospects of their sons and daughters in the walks
of fashion. But over all such untoward agencies the
cause of Freedom of Thought and Freedom of Expres
sion will certainly triumph ; and every anathema of
priests and denunciation by bigots will but tend to
accelerate its progress.
My work has absorbed most of my time and thought
and a considerable portion of my private means from
the outset. At the same time it has been to myself,
as well as to Mrs. Scott, who has throughout ren
dered me unremitted assistance, a source of unspeak
able pleasure. But the work is now done as far as
I am concerned, and has already been followed by
results far surpassing any expectations I may have
ventured to entertain when I began it. I can only
trust that genuine sympathy with the object for
�7
which I have laboured may incite others to redoubled
zeal in the same cause; for many a blow will still have
to be levelled at the fortress of superstition ere it be
finally razed to the ground. To those who have aided
me with able pen and liberal purse I tender my most
hearty and grateful thanks. For the unfailing cour
tesy and assistance ever rendered me in my work by
my printers my sincere acknowledgments are justly
due. It is with the deepest regret that I feel myself
compelled, most reluctantly, to bid my readers
farewell.
While life remains, however, I shall cherish a
watchful interest in the movement which I have
done my best to promote. Nor can I doubt that those
who have derived mental benefit from my labours
will do their utmost to guide others, who are seek
ing the light, towards that simple code of religion
and morals which is comprehended in being good and
doing good, not in hope of reward, not from fear of
punishment, but because it is good.
THOMAS SCOTT.
11 The Terrace, Farquhar Road,
Upper Norwood, London, S.E.,
March, 1877.
C. W. REYNELL, PRINTER, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET, W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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A farewell address
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Scott, Thomas [1808-1878.]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 7 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. "It is now more than fifteen years since I began the work, - so far as regards the periodical issue of my periodicals.- I must now relinquish ... increasing bodily infirmity'. [Opening paragraph]. A reference possibly to Signs of the Times. Signed and dated March 1877.
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Thomas Scott
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[1877]
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G5460
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Free thought
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A farewell address), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
Press
Thomas Scott
-
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Text
THE
from th principle of ^rulljoug^t,
By
Gm
J. Holyoake.
Honour to him, who, self-complete, if lone,
Carves to the grave one pathway all his own;
And heeding nought that men may think or say,
Asks but his soul, if doubtful of the way.
Sib E. L. Bulweb.
[thirteenth thousand.]
LONDON:
AUSTIN & Co., JOHNSON’S COURT, E.C.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
�TO THE READER,
Br those who decry or depreciate Freethought, it is alleged that its principles
are either base and depraving, or loose, weak, poor, and mean; that they take
no hold upon the heart and furnish no guidance, no inspiration to those who
hold them. It is necessary to show that this impression is unfounded. It is
also said by ill-informed partisans of Freethought that when they are delivered
from the slavery of Superstition, and satisfied that the Bible is a human book;
that Theism is unproved and the Future of the Soul uncertain ; that they
have nothing more to learn and nothing more to do. If this were true, Freethought would result in a fruitless self-complacency—better certainly than a
state of terror-ridden superstition—but still rising no higher than a mere doc
*
trine of comfort, fulfilling no condition of a proud and heroic progress. To
some friends, therefore, as well as to all foes, I address these papers. I seek
to show that Secularistic Freethought, apart from all Theology, is self-acting,
self-sustaining, and necessitates the improvement of individual character.
Freethought, ever-fruitful, unfolds new aspects and applications to all who
study it. To some this brief treatise may be suggestive of overlooked duties
which the profession of Freethought implies. Such trust may be ill-founded.
Yet duty is not to be measured by result? alone—the duty which clear con
viction implies, Carlyle has expressed in his noble injunction—“ Cast forth thy
act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working universe; it is a seed of grain,
that cannot die; unnoticed to-day, it will be found flourishing as a banyan
grove, perhaps also as a hemlock forest, after a thousand years.”
G.J.H,
�THE
LOGIC
OF
LIFE.
The French have a saying which has always appeared to me
very instructive. It is s’orienter, which signifies “ to take one’s
bearings;” or, as the late Stanislas Worcell used to paraphrase it
for me, “We must find the East for ourselves.”* To understand
this is the first thing which can do any good to twenty-nine out
of the thirty millions of the inhabitants of Great Britain. About
one million of our population, those who inherit rank or riches,
are born with the East found for them. A great number of the
middle class know how to find that point of the compass very
well; but the great body of the nation, who, as Mr. Bright says,
“ in all countries dwell in cottages;” the workers in mine, factory,
and field; to whom sectarian disputes have denied education;
who have no well-placed connections to clear the way for them;
who must toil and endure penury—to these all ignorance is danger,
all delusion is pernicious, all hope which is not justified on a
survey of their situation, is traitorous. A working man who
intends to advance must see clearly what his own position is.
This knowledge is the first step in the logic of life to him—the
key to any extrication or improvement possible to him. He who
does not know what his social position is, is ignorant; he who
does not want to know it, is imbecile ; he who despairs on account
of it when he does know it, is a coward; he who is content with
it, if it be precarious, is a slave. Contentment with the ill which
is inevitable, is fortitude; contentment where improvement is
possible, is meanness. Therefore, in all cases of adverse destiny
“ it is,” to borrow a phrase of Fielding’s, “ of no use damning the
nature of things the sole question is their possible improvement.
Strive for this without sullenness and with a buoyant heart.
Of means which depend upon the individual, and of which every
person of sagacity, of resolution, and honesty may avail himself, I
name as first, Freethought and its consequents—Truth, Indepen
dence, and Courtesy.
These are familiar words, but the full acceptation they bear ip
* Il nous faut nous orienter nous memes.
�4
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Four Elements distinguished.
not at all familiar. They have hitherto been used in the world
as party words. Freethought has been understood chiefly as
opposed to slavery of mind; Truth as opposed to Falsehood;
Independence as opposed to Tyranny; Courtesy as opposed to
vulgarity of manner. In the stages through which society has
passed, these words, in these senses, were words of battle, and
very influential words too: but they have a more abiding and
fresher significance if we regard them, not as merely indicating
antagonisms, but as expressing sentiments inseparable from a
natural and manly character. In this sense they constitute the
elements of a Logic of Secular Life.
It is of little use that a poor man looks around him unless he
thinks when he looks. He will find that every inch of ground,
every flower of the field, every bird of the air, every spray of the
sea has an owner; but there is one thing at least left him—he
may be master of his own mind ; his intellect at least is in his
own keeping; and it is the first duty of man to maintain dominion
there. It is part of a wise self-defence in a man to own no master,
to brook no control, to obey no command, which contradicts his
own deliberate judgment of the right.
*
Be the interferer priest
or king, society or custom, let him bid them stand aside. Let a
man listen to those who advise ; reverence those who teach;
honour those who think, for they are donors; but let his opinions
he his own and not second-hand. Poverty of means may be caused
by others—poverty of thought is idleness or baseness of our own.
The world, except to the masters of armies, is no longer an oyster
to be opened with a sword—all conquests there by the people re
quire thought. The upward avenues of society are guarded by
the dragons of Privilege and Success. Industry may present
itself, but intellect is its passport. Self-thought, which is the
original name for Freethought, therefore, is the first means of
self-help. He who fails to exercise Freethought is defenceless—
he who relinquishes it is despised, even by those who encourage
his submission or coerce him to it. The destitute at a mine who
fear to gather the golden ore for which they have gone—the thirsty
at a well who fear to drink of the stream for which they are dying
—they who in danger see escape open to them and yet fear to flee
—are types of him who fears to use his own reason when he should.
Freethought is a primary condition of Truth: we can never
know much unless we are free to inquire into all. Freethought
is the instinct of enterprise—it proceeds, Columbus-like, upon an
f It is not intended to say that a man may disregard the alleged
“Will of God,” or a precept of high human authority, upon mere im
pulse, caprice, conceit, or antagonism. Our words are, “ his own de
liberate judgment (or conviction) of the right.” To act contrary to
this would not be to honour or worship God, but to act the hypocrite
knowingly.
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
5
Freethought not an agent of heresy, but of self-defence.
unknown sea to discover new lands. He who sets out knows not
that he may ever return to what he has left behind him, and
those who await his return know not what report of strange
countries he may bring back. The stationaries, the timid, or com
fortable, or component parts of vested interests, always look with
suspicion on the thinker. To-day, or to-morrow—there is no
telling when—he will raise the cry of “ Progress,” and the people
will be setting off, leaving the fixture party behind. The watch
word of the Freethinker is “ Excelsior!” “Higher!” “Forward!”
That of the fettered thinker is ‘ ‘ Lower!” “ Halt!” “ Retrograde!”
“Don’t go too far!” Cl Better to be safe!” The Freethinker is,
however, wiser. He hears the reverberations of Progress in every
footfall of the march of Nature. When the vibration of a social
earthquake is felt, apathy is fatuity. In every wreck of a human
being around us, we witness the falling of some edifice of religious,
social, or political superstition. It is in standing still when all
around is moving, or in going back when all the prudent are
escaping, which constitutes actual danger. If it be “ better to be
safe,” it is better to be a Free Inquirer, whether the object be
personal or public protection. Those who condemn Freethought
as heresy, do not understand that it is self-defence; those who
call it anarchy do not remember that order without progress is
tyranny. But in practising Freethought there may be passion
but not petulance, enthusiasm but not excitement. It must be
patient, persistent, and independent, obviously seeking two things
—truth and deliverance; and the sign of deliverance is indepen
dence, and the grace of independence is courtesy.
But if we claim to take Freethought as a fundamental and com
prehensive principle of action, we must justify the claim. Others
claim also now to act on the same principle, and to be freethinkers.
So much the better if it be so. We desire no exclusiveness here.
We will do injustice to none, but state our own case, and admit
the degree in which others approach to our own rule, and define
and explain what that rule is.
The Roman Catholic even seems to believe in Freethought,
though, as it appears, in a very limited degree, and he never
trusts it as we do. He so fears the independent use of Reason,
that lie only allows the inquirer to use it once, and that is to
light him to the Church; and when he arrives at the door thereof
the Priest meets him, takes the taper of Reason from his hand,
assures him that he will have no further need for that, and the
Priest keeps it henceforth in his possession. Once within the
Church, the Inquirer finds that his reason is never to be had even
on hire ever after. And the Roman Catholic Priest having been
obliged with your soul, soon finds occasion to trouble you for your
body. He cares for you spiritually and temporally, and woe to
that man or that nation whose liberty is in such keeping!
The Evangelical Protestant Priest will, we say it to his credit.
�0
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
The Catholic, Protestant, and Secular conception of Freethinking.
..eave you considerable political liberty; but lie considers every
jnan utterly depraved by natu.re, and he has little more confidence
than his brother of Rome in the results of Freethought. He in«
deed places the Bible before you, and tells you to use your “ pri
*
vate judgment ” upon it; but he places the Devil on the top of it,
and Eternal Perdition at the bottom of it, and hangs up a Creed
before it, and warns you that if you do not go through the Bible
and come to that Creed, that the dark Gentleman at the top will
pay his respects to you, and conduct you to his subterranean
chambers at the bottom. And this is the Protestant idea of Freethought! This is not often said, it is not always seen to amount
to this by those who act so, and this representation of it will be
denied; but to this Protestant Freethought ever resolves itself in
the English Church, and among all the tribes of Evangelical Dis
senters.
Freethought, as the Secularist understands it, differs from the
Roman Catholic and Protestant conception of it. Freethought
from the Secular point of view, is not pride of reason (if that be
*
wrong), it is the use of reason. It is not caprice or wantonness,
or stiflf-neckedness, or wickedness, or rebellion, or enmity against
God. It is the duty of inquiry—it is rebellion against Ignorance—
it is enmity against Error. Freethinking is not “loose thinking,”
as the Rev. Charles Kingsley perversely puts it. It is the quiet,
resolute, and two-sided search for Truth without fear of the Bible,
the Priest, or the Devil—or what in these days is the same thing,
fear of that social intolerance, that tyranny of the majority, which
frightens many people as much. Freethought is sensible, not
sensual; it is fearless wherever error has to be attacked or truth
to be discovered. It proves all things, with Paul; or it proves
them in spite of Paul, if need be; it inquires if the Bible permits,
and it inquires if the Bible forbids. Its inspiration is self-develop
ment ; its object is truth; its reward self-protection; its hope
progress; its spirit is reverent and resolute.
Secular Freethought is the assertion of mental liberty. It is
the beginning of intellectual life and manhood. It is the first
step from mental slavery. It is the indication that a man is
setting up in the world of opinion on his own account. Freethought signifies free trade in intellect. It is the proof that a
man is not a toy or a tool, but that he has something in him. It
is a sign of self-respect and emulation. It implies a sense of res
ponsibility to God on the part of those who are Theists, and to
Conscience, to Truth, and to Society, on the part of him who is
not. And he who seeks to arrest Freethought by penalties, by
opprobrium, or disapproval, is the enemy of his kind, of their
liberty, growth, and development, whatever may be his motives^
base or honest.
___________________________________
* I never could see that the “ pride of reason ” is anything wrong.
To take pride in the noblest endowment of man is a good sign.
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Truth the first consequent of Fireetliought.
Truth is the first issue of Freethought—certainly the first object
that the Freethinker sets before him. The miracles and wonders
of nature and life incite to thought, and to solve with requisite
advantage any mystery, thought must be free. Freethought is
but a means, truth the end. But if we lose sight of the means,
we may never reach the end. People who think for us, some
times do for us. Self-thought is policy as well as duty.
Why do we want Freethought? Plainly for self-protection
and power—and the power is the power of truth. Freethought
is labour and responsibility, irksome and onerous. It is a luxury
to lie down without ideas. One might bless the priest or politician
who would undertake the labour of thinking. The Church of
Rome, or the reign of Despotism and Toryism, is the paradise of
the lazy, the reckless, the sensual, and the supine. Freethought is
intrepidity and duty. It is the instinct of Secular and Political
safety. Freethought is the revolt of manhood, conscience, dili
gence, and the noble thirst for truth.
The definition of Truth given by Samuel Bailey is probably the
simplest and widest that can be found :—“ Truth is a term by
which is implied accuracy of knowledge and of inference.”* The
meaning here is obvious and practical. Let us inquire into the
nature of its legitimate significance. “ I am a lover, utterer, and
observer of the Truth.” How many make this boast! All in
some way think themselves entitled to make it; yet how few un
derstand what is meant by this high profession !
Let a man resolve that he will seek the truth, speak the truth,
and act the truth : what an education lies in that resolve! To
seek the truth implies the power of distinguishing it. It implies
calmness, observation, penetration, and impartiality. The ex
cited discern nothing distinctly; the unobservant miss half of
that which is to be seen; those who lack sagacity are imposed
upon by counterfeits; the partial see only half a truth, and never
know which half. The study of the truth is the study of the Real.
The real, for practical purposes, may be described as that which
we can verify by the senses and enable others to verify, or as that
of which we can furnish to others the conditions of its reproduc
tion ; which may be submitted to the most searching investigation
and experiment. Accuracy of observation is the beginning of
truth. Error is the misapprehension of nature—disaster is mis
taking the way to it. All thoughtful life is a search for the real;
all philosophy is the interpretation of it; all progress is the attain
ment of it; all art is the presentment of it; all science the mastery
of it. Here the question arises, What is the test of the real ?
How do we know that we know it ? For the purposes of ordi
nary certainty about it, we require to be able to identify the thing
we mean; to show it or demonstrate it to others; to challenge
Essay on the Pursuit of Truth, chap, i., p. L
�8
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
The profession of Truth, and what it involves.
their resources to combat it; to dare their judgment upon it; to
give them the means of testing it; to conquer prejudice by its
force and scepticism by its proofs. In fine, in some way or other
to display or explain the immediate causation of phenomena.
Men are never satisfied—never feel beyond the chances of delusion
till then. If any one would see the influence of a simple prin
ciple like that of the search for truth over character, let him reflect
merely on the ordinary processes which common sense and com
mon power may adopt for the acquisition of truth. By observa
tion the materials of thought are collected. When we can identify
facts they become knowledge, which, as Whately was first to
teach, implies truth, proof, and conviction. When knowledge
becomes methodised, and assumes the form of science, it becomes
for the first time power. This, however, occurs late, because
science is the hardest step in attainments. It is popular to talk
of science, but science is not popular. Its strictness, its care, its
patience, its discipline, its caution, its experiments—various, la
borious, and incessant—imply qualities of which the populace,
generally speaking, are deficient. A high state of general culture
must be reached before science can be popular. Thus the pro
fession of “seeking” the truth involves the question of self
education.
Next, the resolution “ to speak” the truth tells advantageously
upon a man’s character—no undertaking is nobler. A man rises
in his own esteem the moment he enters upon it, and in that of
others as soon as he is seen acting up to his profession. Falsehood
is the mark of meanness, cowardice, and slavery the world over. A
lie is the brand of servitude. In every part of the world we in
stinctively despise the race that is weak enough to lie. The mob
are false before they are contemned. Truth is the child of courage
as •well as of honour. The high-spirited alone are habitually
frank. It is weakness to affect singularity, but it is worse than
weakness not to be singular, if the singularity lie in acting out a
conviction of the right. Better even be eccentric than false. It
is sometimes dangerous to dissent from the public, and painful to
dissent from your friends. It is often very expensive to have an
opinion of your own, and avow it; but the partizan of truth must
be content to brave many penalties; and he is badly educated in
his art if he be not apprised of this. He must leave to valetudi
narian moralists to utter timid, base, and comfort-seeking acquiescences, in the hypocrisies of sects and society.
One whose noble words have been an inspiration to the workman
of this age, and who, above all writers, has invested art and industry
with higher purposes than were felt before, tells us that “ there are
some faults slight in the sight of love, slight in the estimate of wis
dom ; but truth forgives no insult and endures no stain. We do not
enough consider this, nor enough dread the slight and continual oc
casions of offenceagainst her. We are too much in the habit oflook-
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
9
Mr. Ruskin’s delineation of the lies which harm.
ing at falsehood in its darkest associations and through the colour of
its worst purposes. That indignation which we profess to feel at
deceit absolute, is indeed only at deceit malicious. We resent
calumny, hypocrisy, and treachery because they harm us, not
because they are untrue. Take the detraction and the mischief
from the untruth, and we are little offended by it; turn it into
praise, and we may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny
nor treachery that does the largest sum of mischief in the world,
they are continually crushed and felt only in being conquered.
But it is the glistening and softly-spoken lie; the amiable fallacy ;
the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician,
the zealous lie of the partizan, the merciful lie of the friend, and
the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mys
tery over humanity, through which any man who pierces, we
thank as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert; happy
in that the thirst for truth still remains with us even when we
have wilfully left the fountains of it.”*
The courage of Truth also implies purity; because the utter
ance of truth implies the power of publicity. Now a man who
undertakes “ to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth ” on all occasions, must take care what he thinks and
what he knows. He must keep watch and ward over his thoughts
and his ears. There is sometimes tragedy in the resolution.
Lucius Junius Brutus had to condemn his own sons; the father
of Jeannie Deans to hang his own daughter. No virtue tries a
man’s soul like incorruptible and uncompromising veracity, nor
tries it so frequently.
Unless truth becomes the very essence of personal character, the
highest appeal of the moralist is without effect. The golden
injunction in Hamlet—
To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man,
implies that man himself must be true, or the response of his
nature will be untrue. The true echo of a false nature will be
false. You can only trust the true.
There is however capacity as well as purity implied in the pur
suit and utterance of truth. He who succeeds must know how to
test a rumour, how to avoid being imposed upon by report. He
must be cautious and wary ; suspicious of the lurking prejudice
which unconsciously distorts; quick to detect omissions in state
ments, and able by preserving measure in his own thoughts, to
repel exaggerations by instinct. He requires to judge look, tone,
language, and logic. He who undertakes to utter only the truth
undertakes not to be imposed upon by the prepossessions, malice,
* John Buskin.
�16
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Exactness the only measure of strength.
incompetence, or sophistry of others; else he becomes a mere
retailer of falsehood second-hand. On his own part also there are
some requirements. The truth-speaker should be master of the
art of explicit statement. He should know the value of terms and
the force of speech. He requires to explain to others not only
what he means, so that they can understand it; but, as Cobbett
puts it, “ so that they cannot possibly misunderstand it,” other wise he misleads them in spite of himself. A truth speaker must
look all round his statements to be sure that there is nothing dis
coloured reflecting a false light; nothing redundant which over
states ; nothing deficient which obscures; nothing ambiguous
which cau leave a doubt. A piece of meaning, properly expressed,
is incapable of being abridged, else it is too long : it is incapable
of being amplified, else it is too brief: the very terms are un
changeable. else they were not well chosen. The perfect expression
of a thought is a work of art, and when perfect is a study and a
delight. We see in Beranger how a studious fitness of expression
was a part of his genius. A man who has judgment to cast, and,
if need be, recast his language, may attain excellence. This suc
cess costs no money; it costs only reflection; and it may be done
at the workshop as well as in the study. If it be worth while
speaking at all, it is worth while speaking to some purpose. He
who strives to do everything well may do little; but that little
will be worth mu eh. It is a great gain to guard against that
voluble feebleness which enervates your own mind, and wastes the
time of others.
Let a man be clear as to what he really knows, and confine
himself to that, and lock round and note the effect of what be is
saying on those who credit his words, and he will often find silence
a virtue and a mercy. We make tragedies every day by our
speech. Some words are like poisoned arrows, and affect fatally
the blood of those pierced by them.
But if the policy of truth has difficulties, it has also advantages,
which ambition itself might covet. A mau whose words are
measured and independent, and can be trusted, makes a place for
himself in the esteem and deference of his contemporaries which
no other qualities can win. All exactness (if I may repeat, for
the sake of illustration here, what I have said elsewhere) imposes
restriction; but exactness is strength. The rustic dancer, who is
the admiration of the village green, hesitates to take a step in the
presence of the dancing master ; the confident instructor of the
private class faulters before the professed grammarian; the singer
who is rapturously applauded at the evening party, cannot be
prevailed upon to utter a note at a concert; the provincial actor,
who nightly “ brought down the house ” in Richard the Third, is
timorous in a rehearsal before Macready, Phelps, or Fechter; the
orator who sets the country on fire, stammers in the House of
Commons, finding that, as Canning said, “the atmosphere in which
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
11
independence a second consequence of Frcethoaght.
the demagogue shrinks to his natural dimensions.” These per
sons, once placed in higher society than their own, are in that light
where their defects can be seen ; and, what is more to the purpose,
where they cannot be hidden. The single step which is right;
the single sentence wThich is correct; the single note which is
perfect; the single passage rendered by the actor with cultivated
success; the shortest speech which has the grace of close sense
and suitable delivery, is a source of more confidence to the indi
vidual, and gives him more power to eommand the applause of
all whose applause is worth having, than all gyrations, display,
screaming, gabble, gesticulation, and declamation, which make up
the bulky acquisitions of the novice, the pretender, or the quack.
The moment we step into the circle of those better informed than
ourselves, we feel our deficiencies, and are suddenly contracted
down to the little that we really know. A man may deceive those
who know less than himself, or the same as himself, but he can
never deceive those who know more. Knowledge once challenged,
pierces instantly through the thickest cloak ingenious ignorance
can put on. Our actual knowledge, whatever it is, is the measure
of our actual power; and to know what that knowledge is, is to
know upon what we can rely. Truth alone is strength. As
*
Shakspere makes Mark Anthony say—
Who tells me true,
Though in the tale lie death,
I hear him as he flattered.
*
Independence is one of the high attributes of character which
the passion for truth begets as the necessity of the enjoyment of
its conquests. Independence is self-direction, self-sustainment,
but not lawlessness. It is freedom from vice, from ignorance and
superstition, from the tyranny of all power and all opinion which
violate reason and nature. It is admitted that independence so
perfect is unattainable in existing society, yet the adequate con
ception of it will assist those who desire to approximate to it.
We must not, however, suppose that there is such a thing as ab
solute independence. Independence is relative only. Man is
dependent on Nature for existence and subsistence; on the ob
servance of the laws of nature and the laws of society, legal,
social, and moral, for they are necessary for his development,
culture, happiness, and security.
Independence, as it is possible to the emulative, is attainable in
two ways; one by abridging our wants to the minimum com-
* Elsewhere I have quoted these lines, to which I am attached; and
the preceding passage occurs in another work, and I have no excuse for
repeating it except its relevance to the argument. In this licence I
follow the example of Archbishop Whately; but what has not been
forgiven in him who has the right of genius to repetition, is infinitely
less likely to be pardoned in me.
�12
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.'
Independence is self-direction and self-sustainment.
patible with wealth, the other by acquiring ample means for the
gratification of the wants we elect to retain. Of course the shortest
way is by the simplification of wants, and most persons have
something to gain by this course.
Government is necessitated by the tendency of men to injustice,
disorder, and excess. A just man capable of self-direction and
self-control, is independent of government in his own case. Rulers
are necessitated by the blind, vicious, and violent. A weak man is
at the mercy of the strong, hence a lover of independence seeks
strength and skill as resources. Intelligent love of independence will
influence personal education in many ways. In point of knowledge
the independent man endeavours to put himself on a level with
those around him, that he may not be imposed upon by the
cunning, nor defeated by the subtle, nor borne down by superiors.
Ignorance is slavery, and he acquires knowledge that he may be
free. He practises economy in the use of hi3 means—he lives
within his income, that he may be above the necessity of extreme
labour, which is serfdom. Aman’s private habits are revised when
he is animated by a spirit of independence. He chooses truth be
cause it is simple and brave, rather than falsehood, which is per
plexing and cowardly. Temperance is not with him an arduous
virtue of self-denial; but is part of that policy by which he pre
serves health, means, liberty, and power. A true freeman will
not be the slave of dress, of stimulants, or of diet, or doctors, or
custom, or opinion, any more than the slave of priests or kings.
To cover a neglect of duty, a loss of time, a defect in work-—to
conceal a petty abstraction or an overcharge—what lies, prevari
cations, and deceptions, employers often detect in the working
class. For what petty and fleeting advantages the independence
of veracity is thoughtlessly sacrificed ! The employer may be
guilty of this as well as the employed. There is often meanness
in the counting-house as well as in the workshop. The tradesman
may overcharge as well as the customer higgle; but this conduct
bears the same mark in each class: it is the badge of the slave
spirit all round.
Again, independence implies self-possession as well as selfrespect. He who is excited is no longer master of himself. He can
neither see his way nor take it if he sees it. Events, real or imagi
nary, are driving him ; he has forfeited self-direction—his liberty
is lost.
Independence also exercises other influences. Independence
must fluctuate unless there be security around. But to attain
this there must be fairness and justice to others, or antagonisms
will arise; well founded, and therefore inveterate, which .will
occupy the passions imperiously, and such stimulated and coerced
occupation is a species of slavery. Independence, therefore, un
derstood as a consistent principle, is a check upon the lawlessness
or excesses of liberty. Liberty is no longer a capricious shout
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
13
The principle of courtesy is the consideration of others,
taken up in irritation and persisted in in antagonism; but is a
manly, positive, persistent, and rational principle, having inspiration
and purpose—influencing personal and public character.
Courtesy is that quality of Freethought which gives to truth
its agreeableness and to independence its grace.
Without
courtesy Freethought may be perverted into wanton aggression,
truth into outrage, independence into rudeness. Conviction of
every kind must be associated with the consideration due to others,
a desire of service and a feeling of kindness to others. Conviction,
service, and kindness to others must be regarded as inseparable.
Separate them and there is danger. “ Conviction” by itself, how
ever sincere, may be ferocity, as was the case with the Puritans;
“ service” alone may become selfishness; “kindness” alone may
become weakness. Free inquiry pursued on the principle of
self-protection is invincible; made an annoyance to others it is
endangered; truth made disagreeable is betrayed; independence
which is inconsiderate of others is insolence. Bluster, objuration,
rudeness, are the crimes which cowardice, ignorance, and selfish
ness commit. If justice and considerateness to others were
widely cultivated, there would be no need of charity in the world.
If a man hate the world, the world can acquit itself by multi
tudinous retaliation. If a man will profess indifference to the
world, he may perish amid the omnipresent apathy he invokes.
But if he would serve the world, or endeavour toserve it, mankind
may not reciprocate the disposition, but such a man alone has
established a claim upon their good offices.
There is one mode of success in the world in which ambition is
itself legitimate, a mode of success available to all, in which there
is little competition; it is the unselfish service of others. The
avenues to this kind of promotion are open always and open to all,
and the porches are never crowded. Thus courtesy is good sense
as well as good feeling. The indispensability of courtesy every one
upon reflection may see. By its own nature independence is un
social. It sets up for itself, acts for itself. It proposes to keep
other persons at a distance. Its principle is to owe nothing to
others, and is therefore under no obligation to oblige them. It is
self-reliant and defiant. Without courtesy independence is re
pulsive. But courtesy practised by the independent wears the air
of chivalry.
Courtesy implies fortitude and justness. Without fortitude to
bear much himself, a person will impose or obtrude on others a
consciousness of his sufferings, at times when it will extinguish
their enjoyment, and in no way relieve his own. It implies a
sense of justness in this way^—No man, unless he is always
judicially wary and inquiring, can determine the guilt of his
neighbour in suspicious cases, and a man always on the judg
ment-seat is a nuisance. A detective dogging you is not au
agreeable follower; a detective friend is a sort of private police
man. Courtesy is trusting and unsuspicious.
�14
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Courtesy is something distinct from etiquette and politeness.
It is to be understood that, by courtesy, I do not mean mere
etiquette, compliments, or conventional politeness, which may co
exist with hypocrisy and hateful selfishness. I do not mean a
ceremony, but a sentiment. By courtesy, I mean service—the
disinterested service of others in thought, speech, and act. I
mean that sentiment which, in the family circle, in company, in
society, in all human intercourse, pauses to ask, “ How can I pro
mote, or avoid impairing, the personal comfort or convenience of
others ?” Courtesy is often shown more by what it does,not dp,
than by what it does. The thoughtless word, the irritating tone,
the vexatious remark, anger, and impatience; observations upon
the appearance or manners of others, which do not affect us, nor
injure us, nor concern us, and which we are not called upon to
correct, and which are part of the proper personal liberty of
others—these are the wanton crimes of social tyrants, from whom
there is no escape. This is misery which all have the power to
inflict, and many inflict it all their lives without appearing to
know it. The simple and considerate omission of these things
would be true courtesy, though no acts of kindness or attention
were added. Courtesy may be known by this—it gives what
your neighbour or your friend cannot ask ; the grace of it con
sists in this—that it volunteers what cannot be exacted. The
poorest man who understands it may distribute around him the
riches of enjoyment. It needs no wealth but that of the,, mind,
and is the sign of a nobler character than wealth itself. Wealth
is but the emblem of refinement; courtesy is the possession of it.
Independence consults its own interests. Courtesy consults that
of others. The difference between etiquette and courtesy may
be seen in this—etiquette lies no deeper than the manners, cour
tesy has its seat in the judgment; one is the creature of the
accredited custom of the hour; the other is a dictate of moral
thoughtfulness. Etiquette is conventionality, courtesy is a con
viction. Mere etiquette begins in politeness and ends in proprie
ties ; it is fair spoken to your face, and may scoff at you, defame
you, and revile you behind your back; while true courtesy denotes,
the spirit; it is honesty as well as kindness; it is the same in
your absence as in your presence. It pays unseen compliments; if it
professes regard, it is a perpetual regard upon which you may count.
Such are some of the obvious significations involved in the fami
liar terms, Freethought, Truth, Independence, and Courtesy. In
pointing them out, I have no doubt laid myself open to the objection
of all who have something to excuse in themselves, and of others
who have not reflected upon the subject; that I set up a standard
so high that ordinary men, despairing of attaining excellence,
will be discouraged from attempting improvement. To such I
answer, that I do not exact perfection; I only give information,
and contend that every man should understand the nature and
purport of his own profession, for no one is likely ever to advance
unless he is made clearly conscious of what it is that he ought, in
�THE LOGIC O? LIFE.
15
The principles of a Secular Logic of Life.
consistency, to attempt. If he does mean what his words imply,
he will not object to be judged by them. If he does not mean
that, let him choose other terms which express what he does
mean, and no longer dilute high words with weak meanings.
The reason why great words grow pale in the memory of men,
and tame in their influence, is because their high significance is
not insisted upon. I hold that it may be no reproach that a man
does not excel ; but it is a reproach if he never strives after
excellence, and does not even know in what it consists. But
how can any one be expected to strive after it, unless it be shown
to him ? The majority of men do not do their duty, because they
have never been clearly shown what their duty is.
I sum up the Logic of Life in four inter-dependent things,
easy to remember, essential to practise, and which I endeavour
explicity to insist upon—namely, Freethought Truth, Indepen
dence, Courtesy.
Freethought is self-instruction and self-defence. Truth is
guidance, discipline, and mastery. Independence is self-direction
and security. Courtesy is tenderness and courage, and a perpetual
letter of recommendation, which each may provide for himself,
everybody respect. These are personal qualities that must under
lie all manly character: they are as inseparable from, and as
essential to, excellence, as temperance to health, as exercise to
growth, as air and food to life. These are qualities which ought
to exist in all conditions, and which are possible in the lowest.
The points which I have enumerated comprise a Logic of Life
which can be self-acquired, and is, therefore, as possible to him
who graduates in a workshop—to whom the priceless advantages
of learning are unknown—as to him who graduates in a college.
In the school of experience to which all the world go, every
scholar may be proficient, who has the sagacity to observe and
the patience to think. Of course a man may know with advantage
more than the four things I have enumerated, but he ought not to
know less ; and he will be able to conduct his life with intelligence
and dignity if he knows as much.
Of the connection of these views with the future little need be
said. He who lives a life of truth and service is always fitted to
die. If a religion of reason exists, it is one in which priests, have
no monopoly of interest, and God no sectarian partialities—it is
one in which work is worship, and good intent the .passport to sal
vation.
This is not an argument against Christianism. It is one inde
pendent of it. It dpes not question the pretensions of Christianity,
it advances others. Christianity may even indulge in an exagge
rated estimate of its powers and influences. Nothing is here said
to the contrary. Undoubtedly Christianity is a Logic of Life to
those who accept it. This argument is addressed to those who do
not, Christianity may claim to appeal to noble passions, and to
�1ft
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
The relation of the whole argument to Christianity.
inspire lofty hopes, but it cannot deny that there are other prin
ciples, other appeals, other guidance independently of it.
An intrepid, two-sided Freethought is hardly the growth of
Christian soil. It is one thing to tolerate inquiry, it is quite a dif
ferent thing to inculcate inquiry as a duty. Secularism regards
the love of truth as native to the heart of man—as an instinct of
human nature—as deeper than Christianity—as the austere power
of character which bends all influences before it: which exists in
dependently, acts independently, and acts for ever. The simple
precept, seek the truth, respect the truth, speak the truth, and live
the truth, is one without which no character can be perfect; and
*
it is one which will make a character for a man though he never
read a line of theology, never listened to a single sermon, never
entered the portals of a church.
Mental independence can scarcely be said to be cultivated by
Christianity. All Evangelical religion is the wail of helplessness.
It teaches that self-reliance, that iron string to which all noble
pagan hearts have vibrated, in all ages of the world, is mere sinful
self-sufficiency. Yet an intelligent sentiment of Independence,
which trusts the right, works for the right, which guards and holds
it, is a lion precept, considerate, equitable, impassable.
It would be well wrere I wrong in maintaining that courtesy is an
independent Secular sentiment. Unfortunately popular Christianity
recognises no sincerity, no good intention in opponents. It keeps
no terms with unbelievers. An outrage upon them it regards as
faithfulness to Christ. It still denies them social recognition and
civil rights.
• >
It is necessary, therefore, to find other ground of inspiration
and guidance, and such Secular Freethought furnishes. There iff
reason to maintain that soon after a man makes the simple pro
fession of Freethought, and understands all that that implies, and
acts up to it, he becomes another person, that his whole character
changes, and his whole mind begins to grew, and never ends till
death.
' The Principle of Freethought, with its consequents of Truth,
of Independence, of Courtesy, is capable of influence for good
where Theology is detrimental or powerless. I do not say, nor
assume (my argument does not require it), that there is no light
or guidance elsewhere; but I do say what is sufficient for the
purpose, and what I maintain is—that there is light and guidance
here ; that the light of Nature is neither dim nor flickering, but
bright and steady: that those who accuse Secularism of being
merely negative; who allege that it pulls down and does not build
up; that its instinct is to destroy, and that it has no capacity for
construction ; that it points out what is wrong and never what is
right; that it finds fault, and never commits itself to the respond
sibility of indicating what should be or might be; accuse Secu
larism without knowledge or accuse it in suite of it.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The logic of life, reduced from the principle of freethought
Creator
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Holyoake, G.J.
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Thirteenth thousand edition. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Austin & Co.
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1870
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G4959
N311
N312
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Free thought
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Text
Language
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English
Free Thought
Life
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NATIONALSECULAR society
INGERSOLLISM
DEFENDED AGAINST
ARCHDEACON FARRAR.
G. W. FOOTE.
Price Twopence.
LONDON:
R. FORDER, 23 STONECUTTER STREET, E.0.
1892.
�i
�£ 2-4-^ O
INGERSOLLISM AND DR. FARRAR.
What a swarm of Christian apologists flutter round Colonel
Ingersoll 1 He is a perfect nobody; he has no learning, and
no brains to speak of; nothing he says is new, and it has all
been answered before; in brief, he is a smart pretender, a
showy shallow-pate, and every sensible Christian should
leave him alone. But somehow they cannot leave him alone
He requires no answer, but they will answer him. He is
not worth a thought, but they shower their articles upon
him. Meanwhile the Colonel smiles that great, genial smile
of his, and never loses his temper for a minute. He knows
his own strength, and the strength of his cause, and he knows
the meaning of all this pious blague.
Judge Black tilted at Ingersoll, and would not try a
second round. Then came Dr. Field, then Mr. Gladstone,
then Cardinal Manning, then Dr. Abbott and some smaller
fry, and now comes Archdeacon Farrar with “A Few Words
on Colonel Ingersoll ” in the North American Review. Dr.
Farrar is a prolix gentleman, with a style like a dictionary
with the diarrhoea, and his “few words” extend to fifteen
pages. All he has to say could have been put into a third of
the space. On Mr. Gladstone’s admission, Colonel Ingersoll
“ writes with a rare and enviable brilliancy.” Archdeacon
Farrar writes effeminately, with a vehemence that simulates
strength, and a glare that apes magnificence. He revels in
big adjectives and grandiose sentences, and is a striking
specimen of literary flatulence.
This is not a complimentary description, but the Arch
deacon has invited it. To prove the invitation we quote his
opening sentence. “ Although the views of Colonel Inger
soll,” he says, “ lie immeasurably apart from my own, he will
not find in this paper a word of invective or discourtesy.”
�( 4: )
Now this sentence is loose in style and false in statement.
“ Although ” implies that invective and discourtesy might
well be expected by anyone who differs from Dr. Farrar.
“Immeasurably” is nonsense, for Colonel Ingersoll and Dr.
Farrar both have definite views, and the difference between
them is easily ascertained. “ Discourtesy,” at least, is infe
licitous. Dr. Farrar speaks of Colonel Ingersoll’s “ enormous
arrogance of assumption ” ; of his looking down “ from the
whole height of his own inferiority ”; of thousands of intel
lects that, compared with his, are “ as Dhawalaghari to a
molehill.” Here is “ courtesy ” for you I But this is not all.
With his customary extravagance of language, the Arch
deacon speaks of “ those myriads of students of Holy Writ,
who probably know ten thousand times more of the Scriptures
than Colonel Ingersoll.” What delightful good breeding!
It seems that the Christians have so long enjoyed the right
of “ immeasurably ” abusing Freethinkers, that they fancy
themselves quite polite when they are impudent enough to
invite a kicking.
Let us now see what Dr. Farrar’s “ few words ” amount to.
He accuses Ingersoll of asserting] instead of arguing, of
indulging in “ the unlimited enunciation of immense gene
ralities,” of “ tossing aside the deepest and most permanent
convictions of mankind as though they were too absurd even
to need an answer,” and generally of putting forth arguments
which have been killed by the theologians, and really ought
to feel that they are dead, and to get decently buried. Dr.
Farrar evidently regards Ingersoll aS a sceptical Banquo
who indecently haunts the supper-room of the theological
Macbeth.
But when he condescends to details the Archdeacon cuts a
sorry figure. He takes some of Ingersoll’s “ immense gene
ralities ” and tries to explode them, with shocking results to
himself. Here is number one.
I. The same rules or laws of probability must govern in
religious questions as in others.
This would have been regarded by the great Bishop Butler
as an axiom. But Dr. Farrar is not a Bishop Butler, so he
calls it “ an exceedingly dubious and disputable assertion.”
Revelation appeals to man’s spirit, and - Colonel Ingersoll
�ignores that “ sphere of being.” He is therefore like a blind
man arguing about colors, or a deaf man arguing about
music. In other words, Dr. Farrar cannot prove the truth of
his religion. He knows it intuitively, by means of a high
faculty which Ingersoll does not possess, or only in an
atrophied state. But this piece of fatuous impudence is far
from convincing. Besides, Dr. Farrar is shrewd enough to
see that the sceptic may reply, “ Very well, then, what is the
use of your talking to me ?” Consequently he falls back
upon the contention that the evidences of Christianity are
“ largely historical.” But instead of adducing these evi
dences, and firmly defending them, he flies back immediately
to his special faculty. “ Men of science tell us,” he says,
“ that there are ultra-violet rays of light invisible to the
naked eye. Supposing that such rays can never be made
apprehensible to our individual senses, are we therefore
justified in a categorical denial that such rays exist ?’*
Certainly not. Those ultra-violet rays of light can be
demonstrated. They are apprehensible, though not to the
naked eye. The analogy, therefore, is perfectly fallacious.
Nor would anyone but a hopelessly incapable logician have
adduced such a mat a propos illustration. Dr. Farrar is
affirming the existence of a spiritual faculty as common as
sight, and whose absence is as rare as blindness, and he
adduces an instance of a fact which is only known to
specialists.
II. There is no subject—and can be none—concerning
which any human being is obliged to believe without evi
dence.
This proposition of Ingersoll’s is indisputable. Dr. Farrar
allows its truth'. But he says it “ insinuates that Christianity
is believed without evidence, and this is “ outrageous and
historically absurd.” We will not discuss “ outrageous,” but
we venture to say that “ historically absurd ” is a great
absurdity. Nothing is clearer than that the mass of man
kind, whether Christian or heathen, do believe without
evidence. Their religion is simply a matter of education,
and their faith depends on the geographical accident of their
birth. Dr. Farrar may deny this, but every man of sense
knows it is true.
�( 6 )
We will not follow Dr. Farrar’s tali talk about “ the divine
beauty of Christianity,” the “unparalleled and transcendent
loveliness ” of Christ, and the “proved adaptation ” (heaven
save the mark!) of Christianity “ to the needs of every branch
of the human race.” All this is professional verbiage. It is
like the cry of “ fresh fish!” in the streets, and is perfectly
useless in discussion with Freethinkers.
III. Neither is there any intelligent being who can, by any
possibility, be flattered by the exercise of ignorant credulity.
Dr. Farrar cannot deny this, but again he complains of
insinuation. What right has Colonel Ingersoll to stigmatise
as ignorant credulity “ that inspired, inspiring,” etc., etc. ?
IV. The man who, without prejudice, reads and understands
the Old and New T estaments will cease to be an orthodox
Christian.
Dr. Farrar flies into a passion over this proposition, though
the Catholic Church has always acted upon it, and tried to
keep the Bible out of the people’s hands. He also flies off on
the question of “ what is an orthodox Christian ?” Colonel
Ingersoll, he says, would probably include under the word
orthodox “ a great many views which many Christians have
held, but which are in no sense a part of Christian faith, nor
in any way essential to it.” But who constituted Dr. Farrar
the supreme authority on this question ? Colonel Ingersoll
judges for himself. He follows the sensible plan of taking
the Bible as the Christian’s standard. After that he takes
the accepted and published doctrines of the great Christian
Churches. He is not bound to discuss the particular views
of Dr. Farrar. Indeed, it is ludicrous that at this time of
day, nearly two thousand yearB after Christ, *a discussion on
Christianity should be stopped to settle what Christianity is.
V. The intelligent man who investigates the religion of any
country without fear and without prejudice will not and cannot
be a believer.
Ingersoll’s opinion may be unpalatable to Christians,
though they would endorse it with regard to every religion
but their own. His language, however, is perfectly courteous.
Having to convey such an opinion, he could not have chosen
less irritating words. But this moderation is lost on Dr.
�( 7 )
Farrar, who bursts into a characteristic storm of sound and
fury.
“ Argal, every believer in. any religion is either an incompetent idiot
[did you ever know a competent idiot?] or a coward with a dash of pre
judice ! If Colonel Ingersoll really takes in the meaning implied in his
own words [really!], I should think that he would have [grammar!!]
recoiled before the exorbitant and unparalleled hardihood of thus brand
ing with fatuity, with craven timidity, or with indolent inability to
resist a bias, the majority of mankind, as well as the brightest of human
intellects. Surely no human being can be taken in by the show of self
confidence involved in such assertions as this ! It is as useless to combat
their unsupported obstreperousness as it is to argue with a man who
bawls out a proposition in very loud tones [could he bawl in soft tones ?]
and thumps the table to emphasise his own infallibility. We have but to
glance at the luminous path in the firmament of human greatness to see
thousands of names of men whose intellect was, in comparison with the
Colonel’s, as Dhawalaghari to a molehill, who have yet studied each his
own form of religion with infinitely [infinitely ?] greater power than he
has done, and have set to their seal that God is true.”
Hallelujah! But after all this sputter the question remains
where it was. Dr. Farrar is too fond of “words, words,
words,” and like Gratiano he can “ talk an infinite deal of
nothing.” He would do well to study Ingersoll for a month
or two, and prune the nauseous luxuriance of his own style.
Dr. Farrar gives a curious list of these gentlemen -who have
given God a certificate. It includes Charlemagne, who had
such a fine notion of “ evidence ” that he offered the Saxons
the choice of baptism or instant death, and so converted them
at the rate of twenty thousand a day. It includes Shake
speare, whose irreligion is a byword among the commentators.
It also includes Dr. Lightfoot and Dr. Westcott, two highlyfeed dignitaries of the Church. Among the scientific names
is that of Faraday, who “ had the Christian faith of a child,”
which is a very happy description, foi’ Faraday deliberately
refused to submit his faith to any test of reason. Dr. Farrar
mentions Darwin, Huxley and Tyndall as “ exceptions.” But
they cease to be exceptions when the names of Haeckel,
Buchner, Clifford, Maudsley, Galton, and a score of others
are added. Among the poets, Tennyson and Browning may
be called believers, but Swinburne, Morris, and Meredith are
not; and in France the foremost living poet, Leconte de
Lisle, is a pronounced Atheist. Sir William Hamilton was a
�( 8 )
believer, but John Stuart Mill was not. Dr. Gardiner, the
historian of England, is a believer, but Grote, the greater
historian of Greece, was an Atheist. After all, however, this
bandying of big names is perfectly idle. Propositions must
ultimately rest on their evidence. What is the use of discus
sion if we are not to judge for ourselves ?
Not only does Dr. Farrar give us a scratch list of eminent
believers—as though every creed and every form of scep
ticism did not boast its eminent men—but he gives another
list of assailants of Christianity, and declares that it has
survived their attacks, as it will survive every assault that
can be made upon it. It survived “ the flashing wit of
Lucian,” which, by the way, never flashed upon the ignorant
dupes who were gathered into the early Christian fold. It
survived “the haughty mysticism of Porphyry.” Yes, but
how ? By burning his books, and decreeing the penalty of
death against everyone who should be found in possession of
his damnable writings. It survived “ the battering eloquence
and keen criticism of Celsus.” Yes, but how ? By destroying
■his writings, so that not a single copy remained, and all that
can be known of them is the extracts quoted in the answer
of Origen. Then there are Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, Voltaire, Diderot, Strauss and Renan
—and “ what have they effected ?”
This is what they have effected. They have broken the
spirit of intolerance, and made it possible for honest thinkers
to express their opinions. They have crippled the power of
priests, tamed their pride, and compelled them to argue with
heretics instead of robbing and murdering them. They have
leavened Christian superstition with human reason, and made
educated Christians ashamed of the grosser aspects of their
faith. They have driven Dr. Farrar himself to juggle with
the words of Scripture in order to get rid of the infamous
doctrine of everlasting torture. They have compelled the
apologists of Christianity to alter their theory of Inspiration,
to discriminate between better and worse in the Bible, and to
practise all kinds of subtle Bhifts in order to patch up a
hollow treaty between religion and science. They have
loosened the Church’s grasp on the mind of the child, and
very largely secularised both private and public life, which
�were once under the domination of priestcraft. They have
made millions of Freethinkers in Christendom, shaken the
faith of the very worshippers in their pews, and helped to
create that ever growing indifference to religion, which is a
theme of wailing at Church Congresses, and bids fair to
absorb all the sects of theology, as the desert absorbs water
or the ocean a fleet of sinking ships.
What have they effected ? Dr. Farrar’s article furnishes
an answer. Fifty years ago what dignitary of the Church
would have replied to an “ infidel ” except with anathemas
and the terrors of the law ? Now the proudest of them rush
to cross swords with Colonel Ingersoll, and, although they
do it with a wry face, they shake hands with him before
beginning the combat. Fifty years ago what “ infidel,” if he
openly avowed his infidelity, had the remotest chance of
occupying any public post? Now Mr. John Morley is Mr.
Gladstone’s first lieutenant, and Mr. Bradlaugh himself was
marked out as a member of the next Liberal administration.
All this may be “ nothing ” to Dr. Farrar, but it is much to
Freethinkers, and they need not argue who has the best
reason to be satisfied.
Dr. Farrar proceeds to tackle Ingersoll’s agnosticism. In
doing so he explains why he introduces the word “ infidel.”
He does not desire “ to create an unfair prejudice.” Why
then does he use the word at all ? Certainly he is incorrect
in saying that “ the word has always been understood to
mean one who does not believe in the existence of God.”
“ Infidel ” was first used by the Christians as a name for the
Mohammedans. It was afterwards applied to the unbelievers
at home. The Deists of last century were called infidels. Vol
taire and Thomas Paine are arch-infidels, and both believed
in the existence of God. Johnson defines “ infidel ” as “ an
unbeliever, a miscreant, a pagan ; one who rejects Chris
tianity.” Bailey as “ a Heathen, or one who believes nothing
of the Christian religion.” A similar definition is given
in Richardson’s great dictionary. It is clear that Dr. Farrar’s
etymology is no improvement on his manners. He covers a
bad fault with a worse excuse. We are ready, however, to
make allowance for him. His mind is naturally loose, and
he is rather the slave than the master of his words. In the
�( 10 )
very next paragraph he says that “ our beliefs are surrounded
by immense and innumerable perplexities,” forgetting that
if they are immense they cannot be innumerable, and if they
are innumerable they cannot be immense.
Ingersoll’s arguments against theology are reduced by Dr.
Farrar under four heads : “ first, the difficulty of conceiving
the nature of God; secondly, the existence of evil; thirdly,
the impossibility of miracles; and fourthly, the asserted
errors and imperfections of the Bible.”
“ Is it possible,” asks Ingersoll, “ for the human mind to
conceive of an infinite personality ?” Dr. Farrar replies,
“ Why, certainly it is ; for human minds innumerable have
done so.” But have they? Dr. Farrar knows they have not.
He knows they cannot. Otherwise he would not argue that
we are bound to believe in the existence of things which are
inconceivable.
“ Can the human mind imagine a beginningless being ?”
asks Ingersoll. Dr. Farrar evades the question. He gives
us another dissertation on conceivability. He asks whether
Ingersoll believes “ there is such a thing as space,” and
presently calls it “ an entity.” We venture to say that Inger
soll believes in nothing of the kind. You may call space “ a
thing,” but it is only indefinite extension, as time is indefinite
succession. The metaphysical difficulty arises when we try
to use the word infinite in a positive sense. Then we are
brought face to face with antinomies because we are trying
to transcend the limits of our faculties. Still, it is absurd to
affirm that “ space is quite as impossible to conceive as God.”
We know extension by experience, and increasing it ad
infinitum is rather an exercise in transcendent geometry
than in practical reason. But what experience have we of
God ? Is it not easier to conceive that to be unlimited of
which we have knowledge than that of which we have no
knowledge at all ? And if God be considered as a personality
—without which he is not God—is it possible to combine in
finitude and personality in the same conception ? Dr. Farrar
affirms that it is. We say it is not, and we appeal to the
judgment of every man who will try to think accurately.
With regard to the existence of evil, all Dr. Farrar can
say is that it is a mystery. Now a mystery, in theology, is
�( u )
simply a contradiction between fact and theory, and arguing
from mystery is only justifying a particular contradiction by
a general contradiction. Dr. Farrar must also be exceedingly
simple to imagine that it is any reply to Ingersoll to appeal
to St. Paul. Nor is it permissible to argue from the assumed
“ restoration of all things ” which is to take place in the
future, unless conjecture and argument are the same thing,
in which case it is idle to discuss at all, for every time the
Christian is beaten he has only to start a fresh assumption.
It is foolish, likewise, to complain that the argument from
evil is an old one, and that there is “ nothing new in the
reiterated objection,” for there is nothing new in the reiter
ated reply, and the objection remains unanswered. The
Catholic theologian would address Dr. Farrar in the same
futile fashion. He would reply to objections against Transubstantiation, for instance, that they are musty with age
and have been answered again and again.
Dr. Farrar finally sees he has a pool’ case and resigns the
argument. After trying to explain away a great deal of the
world’s evil by saying it is “ transitory,” which is question
able; or “phantasmal,” which is a mockery; he ends by
throwing up the sponge altogether. He admits he has “ no
compact logical solution of the problem,” and cries out in
despair that the theologians “ are not called upon to construct
theodicaaas.” But that is precisely what they are called upon
to do, and if they cannot do it they should have the modesty
to be silent. It is their function to “ justify the ways of God
to men.” Let them perform it, or confess they cannot, and
retire from their pretentious business.
But we must be just to Dr. Farrar. He does supply two
arguments, not for God’s goodness, but for God’s existence.
The first is “ the starry heavens above.” Did they come by
chance ?■—as though God and chance were the only possible
alternatives, or as though chance were anything but contin
gency arising from human ignorance!
“ The starry heavens above.” “ It is all very well, gentlemen, but who
made these?’ asked the young Napoleon, pointing to the stars of heaven,
as he sat with the French savans on the deck of the vessel which was
carrying him to Egypt, after they had proved to their satisfaction that
there is no Grod. To most minds it is a question finally decisive.
�(12)
Colonel Ingersoll must smile at this childish logic. No
doubt to most minds it is finally decisive. Who made the
world or the stars? is a pertinent question to those who have
been taught that they were made. It is an idle question to
anyone with a moderate acquaintance with astronomy. On
that subject the French savans were better informed than
Napoleon.
Dr. Farrar is erroneous in supposing that the Atheist or
Agnostic is bound to “ account for the existence of matter
and force.” Accounting for them can only mean explaining
how they began, and the Atheist or Agnostic is not aware
that they had a beginning. The “ source of life ” is a question
that biology must solve. Until it does, the “ infidel ” waits
for information. No light is shed upon the problem by
supernatural explanations. Still less is the “infidel” called
upon to account for “ the freedom of the will.”' He knows of
no such freedom as Dr. Farrar means by this phrase. As
for “ the obvious design which runs through the whole of
nature,” it is so obvious that Charles Darwin wrote, “ the
longer I live the less I can see proof of design.”
The second of the two things that are “ ample to prove
the being of a God ” is “ the moral law within.” Dr. Farrar
asserts that Conscience “ is the voice of God within us.”
But assertion is not proof. Colonel Ingersoll would reply
that Conscience is the voice of human experience. No student
of evolution would admit Dr. Farrar’s assertion. The origin
and development of morality are seen by evolutionists to be
perfectly natural. It is futile to make assertions which your
opponent contradicts. Argument must rest upon admitted
facts. Dr. Farrar strikes an attitude, makes dogmatic state
ments, draws out the conclusion he has put into them, and
calls that discussion. He has yet to learn the rudiments of
debate. The methods of the pulpit may do for a pious
romance called the Life of Christ, but they are out of place
in a discussion with Colonel Ingersoll.
Misled by his fondness for preaching, Dr. Farrai* has for
gotten two of the four heads under which he reduced Colonel
Ingersoll’s arguments. He says nothing about “ the impos
sibility of miracles ” or “ the errors and imperfections of the
Bible.” But these are the very points that demanded his
�( 13 )
attention. The existence of God, and the problem of evil,
belong to what is called Natural Religion. Dr. Farrai’ is A
champion of Revealed Religion. He is not a Deist but a
Christian. He should therefore have defended the Bible.
His omission to do so may be owing to prudence or negli
gence. He has given us fifteen pages of “ A Few Words on
Colonel Ingersoll.” We should rejoice to see a “ Fewer Words
on Dr. Farrar ”
ARCHDEACON FARRAR’S SEVEN SILLY
QUESTIONS.
“ Archdeacon Farrar’s Seven Questions ” is the title of
a paragraph in the current number of The Young Man,
a paper which is proving the certitude of Christian truth,
after nearly two thousand years of preaching, by carrying
on a symposium on “What is it to be a Christian?” We
have interpolated the word “ Silly,” which is quite accurate,
and for which we owe Dr. Farrar no apology, since he
does not shrink from applying the description of “ stupendous
nonsense ” to the belief of his opponents.
Our method of criticism shall be honest. We shall give
the whole of the paragraph, and then answer the seven
silly questions seriatim.
“If you meet with an Atheist, do not let him entangle you into
the discussion of side issues. As to many points which he raisesyou must make the Rabbi’s answer: ‘I do not know.’ But ask him
these seven questions : 1. Ask him, What did matter come from ? Can
a dead thing create itself ? 2. Ask him, Where did motion come from ?
3. Ask him, Where life came from save the finger tip of Omnipotence ?
4. Ask him, Whence came the exquisite order and design in nature?
If one told you that millions of printers’ types should fortuitously
shape themselves into the divine comedy of Dante, or the plays of
Shakespeare, would you not think him a madman ? 5. Ask him, Whence
�( 14 )
came consciousness ? 6. Ask him, Who gave you free will ? 7. Ask
him, Whence came conscience ? He who says there is no God, in
the face of these questions, talks simply stupendous nonsense.”
These questions, be it observed, are put with great
deliberation. With regard to many points, not one o"
which is specified, Dr. Farrar admits that he can only
say “ I do not know.” But on these particular points
he is cocksure. His mind is not troubled with a scintillation
of doubt. He has no hesitation in saying that those who
differ from him are guilty of “ stupendous nonsense.” It
is a matter for regret, however, that he did not answer
the questions himself. By so doing he would have saved
Christian young men the trouble of hunting up an Atheist,
good at answering queries, in order to get the conundrums
solved; while, as the case now stands, the Christian young
men may go on for ever with a search as weary as that
of Diogenes, unless they happen to light on this number
of the Freethinker.
First (a) Question (we leave out “ Silly ” to avoid
repetition) : What did matter come from 7—First prove
that matter ever came, and we will then discuss what (or
where) it came from. Matter exists, and for all that anyone
knows to the contrary, it always existed. Its beginning
to be and its ceasing to be are alike inconceivable. The
question is like the old catch query, “ When did you leave
off beating your father ? ” the proper answer to which is,
“ When did I begin to beat my father ? ”
First (6) Question: Can a dead .thing create itself?—
The question is paradoxical. “Create itself” is a selfcontradiction. Creation, however defined, is an act, and
an act implies an actor. To create, a thing must first exist;
and self-creation is therefore an absurdity. The question
is consequently meaningless.
Second Question : Where did motion come from ?—Another
nonsensical question. Motion does not “come” as a special
change. Motion is universal and incessant. Molecular
movement is constantly going on even in what appear stable
masses. The presumption is that this was always so in the
past, and will be always so in the future.
Third Question : Where did life come from save the finger
�( "15 )
*
U,„
tip of Omnipotence ?—Why not the big toe of Omnipotence ?
Life is not an entity, but a condition. Its coming from any
where is therefore nonsensical. A living thing might “ come,”
because its position in space can be changed. Then arise
fresh difficulties. Can any man conceive the finger of an
infinite being, or form a mental picture of life, as a some
thing, flowing from the tip of that finger ? The question of
the origin of life pertains to the science of biology. When
biology answers it, as it has answered other perplexed ques
tions, Dr. Farrar will be enlightened. Meanwhile his
ignorance is no excuse for his dogmatism.
Fourth (a) Question : Whence came the exquisite order and
design in nature?—This is tautology. Design in nature
includes order in nature. And the question invites a Scotch
reply. Is there design in nature? No one disputes that
there is adaptation, but this is explained by Natural Selection.
The fit, that is the adapted, survives. But the unfit is produced in greater abundance than the fit. Theologians look
at the result and blink the process. Darwin, who studied
both, said, “ Where one would most expect design, namely,
in the structure of a sentient being, the more I think the less
I can see proof of design.” Dr. Farrar must catch his hare
before he cooks it. He must prove design before he requires
the Atheist to explain it. Perhaps he will begin with idiots,
cripples, deaf mutes, fleas, bugs, lice, eczema, cancers, tumors,
and tapeworms.
Fourth (6) Question: Could millions of printers' types
fortuitously shape themselves into the works of Dante or
Shakespeare ?—No, nor even into the works of Dr. Farrar.
But who evei’ said they could? Why not ask Atheists
whether the moon could be made of green cheese? Dr.
Farrar is no doubt alluding to what is called Chance. But
Atheists do not recognise chance as a cause. Chance is
contingency, and contingency is ignorance. The term
denotes a condition of our minds, not an operation of external
nature.
Fifth Question : Whence came consciousness ?—This is a
very silly or a very fraudulent question. Putting the
problem in this way insinuates a theological answer. Con
sciousness, like life, is not an entity, and did not come from
�( 16 )
anywhere. The only proper question is, What is tw\J
of consciousness ? This is an extremely difficult and in
problem. It will be solved, if at all, by the Darwi/s of
physio-psychology, not by the Farrars of the pulpit. The
worthy Archdeacon and the Christian young men must wait
until their betters have explained the development of con
sciousness. The supposition that they understand it is simply
ludicrous. Nor is any theory to be built on the bog of their
ignorance.
Sixth Question : Who gave you free will ?—Ay, who ? Has
man a free will, in the metaphysical sense of the words?
Martin Luther replied in the negative. He would have
laughed, or snorted, at Dr. Farrar’s question. Atheists are
all with Martin Luther on this point; although, of course,
they reject his theory that Clod and theDevjl are always con
tending for the rulership of the human will. They hold that
the will is determined by natural causes, like everything else
in the universe. To ask an Atheist, therefore, who gave him
free will, is asking him who gave him what he does not possess.
Seventh Question : Whence came conscience ?—This, agaim
is stupidly expressed. Conscience did not “ come ” from any
where. Further, before the Atheist answers Dr. Farrar’s
question, even in an amended form, he requires a definition.
What is meant by Conscience ? If it means the perception of
right and wrong, it is an intellectual faculty, which varies m
individuals and societies, some having greater discrimination
than others. If it means the recognition of distinct, settled
categories of right and wrong, it depends on social and
religious training. In a high state of civilisation these
categories approximate to the laws of social welfare and
disease; in a low state of civilisation they are fantastic and
fearfully distorted by superstition. There is hardly a single
vice that has not been practised as a virtue under a religious
sanction. Finally, if conscience means the feeling of obliga
tion, the sense of “ I ought,” it is a product of social evolu
tion. It is necessarily generated among gregarious beings,
and 'in the course of time Natural Selection weeds out the
individuals in whom it is lacking or deficient. Social types
of feeling survive, and the‘anti-social perish. And this is the
whole “ mystery ” of conscience.
�
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Ingersollism defended against Archdeacon Farrar
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
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Notes: Reply to Archdeacon Farrar's article A few words on Colonel Ingersoll, published in the North American Review. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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R. Forder
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1892
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Free thought
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Frederick William Farrar
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Robert Green Ingersoll
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6
INFIDEL
FOOTE.
Idle Tales of Dying Horrors.
—CAffiLYEE.
PUBLISHING
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
��NATIONAL SEOUL' ' —'THIY
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
BY
G. W. FOOTE.
■>
“ Idle Tales of Dying Horrors."
—Carlyle.
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1886.
�LONDON:
FEINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
----------- f-----------
Infidel death-beds have been a fertile theme of pulpit elo
quence.
The priests of Christianity often inform their
congregations that Faith is an excellent soft pillow, and
Reason a horrible hard bolster, for the dying head. Freethought, they say, is all very well in the days of our health
and strength, when we are buoyed up by the pride of carnal
intellect; but ah! how poor a thing it is when health and
strength fail us, when, deserted by our self-sufficiency, we
need the support of a stronger power. In that extremity the
proud Freethinker turns to Jesus Christ, renounces his wicked
scepticism, implores pardon of the Savior he has despised,
and shudders at the awful scenes that await him in the next
world should the hour of forgiveness be past.
Pictorial art has been pressed into the service of this plea
for religion, and in such orthodox periodicals as the British
Workman, to say nothing of the horde of pious inventions
which are circulated as tracts, expiring sceptics have been
portrayed in agonies of terror, gnashing their teeth, wringing
their hands, rolling their eyes, and exhibiting every sign of
despair.
One minister of the gospel, the Rev. Erskine Neale, has not
thought it beneath his dignity to compose an extensive series
of these holy frauds, under the title of Closing Scenes. This *
work was, at one time, very popular and influential; but its
specious character having been exposed, it has fallen into
disrepute, or at least into neglect.
The real answer to these arguments, if they may be called
SBich, is to be found in the body of the present work. I have
narrated in a brief space, and from the best authorities, the
“ closing scenes ” in the lives of many eminent Freethinkers
during the last three centuries. They are not anonymous
persons without an address, who cannot be located in time or
space, and who simply serve “to point a moral or adorn a
tale.” Their names are in most cases historical, and in some
�4
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
cases familiar to fame; great poets, philosophers, historians,
and wits, of deathless memory, who cannot be withdrawn
from the history of our race without robbing it of much of its
dignity and splendor.
In some instances I have prefaced the story of their deaths
with a short, and in others with a lengthy, record of their
lives. The ordinary reader cannot be expected to possess a
complete acquaintance with the career and achievements of
every great soldier of progress; and I have therefore-; con
sidered it prudent to afford such information as might be
deemed necessary to a proper appreciation of the character,
the greatness, and the renown, of the subjects of my sketches.
When the hero of the story has been the object of calumny
or misrepresentation, when his death has been falsely related,
and simple facts have been woven into a tissue of lying ab
surdity, I have not been content with a bare narration of the
truth ; I have carried the war into the enemy’s camp, and
refuted their mischievous libels.
One of our greatest living thinkers entertains “ the belief
that the English mind, not readily swayed by rhetoric, moves
freely under the pressure of facts.”* I may therefore venture
to hope that the facts I have recorded will have their proper
effect on the reader’s mind. Yet it may not be impolitic to
examine the orthodox argument as to death-bed repentances.
Carlyle, in his Essay on Voltaire, utters a potent warning
against anything of the kind.
“ Surely the parting agonies of a fellow-mortal, when the spirit
of oui- brother, rapt in the whirlwinds and thick ghastly vapors of
death, clutches blindly for help, and no help is there, are not the
scenes where a wise faith would seek to exult, when it can no longer
hope to alleviate ! For the rest, to touch farther on those their idle
tales of dying horrors, remorse, and the like ; to write of such, to
believe them, or disbelieve them, or in anywise discuss them, were
but a continuation of the same ineptitude. He who, after the imper
turbable exit of so many Cartouches and Thurtells, in every age of
the world, can continue to regard the manner of a man’s death as a
test of his religious orthodoxy, may boast himself impregnable to
merely terrestrial logic. ”f
There is a great deal of truth in this vigorous passage. I
fancy, however, that some of the dupes of priestcraft are not
absolutely impregnable to terrestrial logic, and I discuss the
* Dr. E. B. Tylor: Preface to second edition of Primitive Culture.
t Essays, Vol. II., p. 161 (People's edition).
�INTBODUCTION.
5
subject for their sakes, even at the risk of being held guilty
of “ineptitude.”
____
Throughout the world, the religion of mankind is determined
by the geographical accident of their birth. In England men
grow up Protestants-; in Italy, Catholics ; in Russia, Greek
Christians ; in Turkey, Mohammedans ; in India, Brahmans ; >
in China, Buddhists or Confucians. What they are taught
in their childhood, they believe in their manhood; and they
die in the faith in which they have lived.
Here and there a few men think for themselves. If they
discard the faith in which they have been educated, they are
never free from its influence. It meets them at every turn,
and is constantly, by a thousand ties drawing them back to
the orthodox fold. The stronger resist this attraction, the
weaker succumb to it. Between them is the average man,
whose tendency will depend on several things. If he is iso
lated, or finds but few sympathisers, he may revert to the
ranks of faith ; if he finds many of the same opinion with
himself, he will probably display more fortitude. Even
Freethinkers are gregarious, and in the worst as well as the
best sense of the words, the saying of Novalis is true—“ My
F
11
1
''
”’
jther.”
Lut m all cases ot reversion, the sceptic invariably returns
to the creed of his own country. What does this prove ?
Simply the power of our environment, and the force of early
training. When “ infidels ” are few, and their relatives are
orthodox, what could be more natural than what is called “ a
death-bed recantation ?” Their minds are enfeebled by dis
ease, or the near approach of death; they are surrounded by
persons who continually urge them to be reconciled to the
popular faith ; and is it astonishing if they sometimes yield to
these solicitations ? Is it wonderful if, when all grows dim,
and the priestly carrion-crow of the death-chamber mouths his
perfunctory shibboleths, that the weak brain should become
dazed, and the poor tongue mutter a faint response ?
Should the dying man be old, there is still less reason for
surprise. Old age yearns back to the cradle, and as Dante
Rossetti says—
“ Life all past
Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,
Clearest where furthest off.”
The “recantation” of old men, if it occurs, is easily under
�6
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
stood. Having been brought up in a particular religion, their
earliest and tenderest memories may be connected with it;
and when they lie down to die they may mechanically recur
to it, just as they may forget whole years of their maturity,
and vividly remember the scenes of their childhood. Those
who have read Thackeray’s exquisitely faithful and pathetic
narrative of the death of old Col. Newcome, will remember
that as the evening chapel bell tolled its last note, he smiled,
lifted his head a little, and cried “ Adsum 1”—the. boy’s answer
when the names were called at school.
Cases of recantation, if they were ever common, which
does not appear to be true, are now exceedingly rare ; so rare,
indeed, that they are never heard of except in anonymous
tracts, which are evidently concocted for the glory of God,
rather than the edification of Man. Sceptics are at present
numbered by thousands, and they can nearly always secure
at their bedsides the presence of friends who share their un
belief. Every week, the Freethought journals report quietly,
and as a matter of course, the peaceful end of “ infidels ”
who, having lived without hypocrisy, have died without fear^.
They are frequently buried by theirTieterodox friends, and
never a week passes without the Secular Burial Service, or
some other appropriate words, being read by sceptics over a
sceptic’s grave.
. Christian ministers know this. They usually confine
themselves, therefore, to the death-bed stories of Paine and
Voltaire, which have been again and again refuted. Little,
if anything, is said about the eminent Freethinkers who
have died in the present generation. The priests must wait
half a century before they can hope to defame them wiih
success. Our cry to these pious sutlers is “ Hands off 1”
Refute the arguments of Freethinkers, if you can ; but do
not obtrude your disgusting presence in the death chamber,
or vent your malignity over their tombs.
Supposing, however, that every Freethinker turned Chris
tian on his death-bed. It is a tremendous stretch of fancy,
but I make it for the sake of argument. What does it prove ?
Nothing, as I said before, but the force of our surroundings
and early training. It is a common saying among Jews,
when they hear of a Christian proselyte, “ Ah, wait till he
comes to die !” As a matter of fact, converted Jews generally
die in the faith of their race; and the same is alleged as to
�INTRODUCTION.
7
the native converts that are made by our missionaries in
India.
Heine has a pregnant passage on this point. Referring to
Joseph Schelling, who was “an apostate to his own thought,”
who “ deserted the altar he had himself consecrated,” and
“ returned to the crypts of the past,” Heine rebukes the “ old
believers ” who cried Kyrie eleison in honor of such a con
version. “ That,” he says, “ proves nothing for their doctrine.
It only proves that man turns to religion when he is old and
fatigued, when his physical and mental force has left him,
when he can no longer enjoy nor reason. So many Free
thinkers are converted on their death-beds ! . . . But at least
do not boast of them. These legendary conversions belong
at best to pathology, and are a poor evidence for your cause.
After all, they only prove this, that it was impossible for you
to convert those Freethinkers while they were healthy in
body and mind.”*
Renan has some excellent words on the same subject in his
delightful volume of autobiography. After expressing a
rooted preference for a sudden death, he continues : “ I should
be grieved to go through one of those periods of feebleness,
in which the man who has possessed strength and virtue is
only the shadow and ruins of himself, and often, to the great
joy of fools, occupies himself in demolishing the life he has
laboriously built up. Such an old age is the worst gift the
gods can bestow on man. If such a fate is reserved for me,
I protest in advance against the fatuities that a softened
brajp iiMiy-.TXLa.kft thr say or sign. It is Renan souncHrTheart
and head, such as I am now, and not Renan half destroyed
by death, and no longer himself, as I shall be if I decompose
gradually, that I wish people to listen to and believe.”f
To find the best passage on this topic in our own literature
we must go back to the seventeenth century, and to Selden’s
Table Talk, a volume in which Coleridge found “ more
weighty bullion sense ” than he “ ever found in the same
number of pages of any uninspired writer.” Selden lived in a
less mealy-mouthed age than ours, and what I am going to
quote smacks of the blunt old times; but it is too good to
miss, and all readers who are not prudish will thank me for
citing it. “ For a priest,” says Selden, “ to turn a man
* De L'Allemagne, Vol. I., p. 174.
JU
(M-
f Souvenirs D'Enfance et de Jeunesse, p. 377.
�8
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
when he lies a dying, is just like one that hath a long time
solicited a woman, and cannot obtain his end; at length he
makes her drunk, and so lies with her.” It is a curious thing
that the writer of these words helped to draw up the West
minster Confession of Faith.
For my own part, while I have known many Freethinkers
who were stedfast to their principles in death, I have never
known a single case of recantation, The fact is, Christians
are utterly mistaken on this subject, It is quite intelligible
that those who believe in a vengeful God, and an everlasting
hell, should tremble on “the brink of eternity ” ; and it is
natural that they should ascribe to others the same trepida
tion. But a moment’s reflection must convince them that this
is fallacious. The only terror in death is the apprehension
of what lies beyond it, and that emotion is impossible to a
sincere disbeliever. Of course the orthodox may ask “ But
is there a sincere disbeliever ?” To which I can only reply,
like Diderot, by asking “ Is there a sincere Christian ?”
Professor Tyndall, while repudiating Atheism himself, has
borne testimony to the earnestness of others who embrace it.
“ I haygjinown.some of the most pronounced among them,” he
* C-says, “not only in lHeT5uFm"3feath-—seen them approaching
with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a hang
man’s whip, with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as
mindful of their duties, and as faithful in the discharge of
them, as if their eternal future depended on their latest deeds.”*
Lord Bacon said “ I do not believe that any man fears to
be dead, but only the stroke of death.” True, and the
physical suffering, and the pang of separation, are the same
for all. Yet the end of life is as natural as its beginning,
and the true philosophy of existence is nobly expressed in
the lofty sentence of Spinoza, “A free man thinks less of
nothing than of death.”
~
“ So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”!
Fortnightly Review, November, 1S77.
t Bryant, Thanatopsis.
�LORD AMBERLEY.
Viscount Amberley, the eldest son of the late Earl Russell,
and the author of a very heretical work entitled an Analysis
of Religious Belief, lived and died a Freethinker. His will,
stipulating that his son should be educated by a Sceptical
friend, was set aside by Earl Russell; the law of England
being such, that Freethinkers are denied the parental rights
which are enjoyed by their Christian neighbors.
Lady
Frances Russell, who signs with her initials the Preface to
Lord Amberley’s book, which was published after his death,
writes : “ Ere the pages now given to the public had left the
press, the hand that had written them was cold, the heart—
of which few could know the loving depths—had ceased to
beat, the far-ranging mind was for ever still, the fervent
spirit was at rest. Let this be remembered by those who
read, and add solemnity to the solemn purpose of the book.”
LORD BOLINGBROKE.
Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was born in 1672
at Battersea, where he also died on December 12, 1751. His
life was a stormy one, and on the fall of the Tory ministry,
of which he was a distinguished member, he was impeached
by the Whig parliament under the leadership of Sir Robert
Walpole. It was merely a party prosecution, and although
Bolingbroke was attainted of high treason, he did not lose a
friend or forfeit the respect of honest men. Swift and Pope
held him in the highest esteem; they corresponded with him
throughout their lives, and it was from Bolingbroke that Pope
derived the principles of the Essay on Man. That Bolingbroke’s
abilities were of the highest order cannot be gainsaid. His
political writings are masterpieces of learning, eloquence, and
wit, the style is sinewy and graceful, and in the greatest heat
of controversy he never ceases to be a gentleman. His philo
sophical writings were published after his death by his literary
executor, David Mallet, whom Johnson described as “a beggarly
Scotchman ’’who was “ left half-a-crown ” to fire off a blunder
�10
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
bus, which his patron had charged, against “ religion and moral
ity.” Johnson’s opinion on suchasubject is, however, of trifling
importance. He hated Scotchmen and Infidels, and he told
Boswell that Voltaire and Rousseau deserved transportation
more than any of the scoundrels who were tried at the Old
Bailey.
Bolingbroke’s philosophical writings show him to have been
a Deist. He believed in God but he rejected Revelation. His
views are advanced and supported with erudition, eloquence,
and masterly irony. The approach of death, which was pre
ceded by the excruciating disease of cancer in the cheek, did
not produce the least change in his convictions. According
to Goldsmith, ‘ ‘ He was consonant with himself to the last;
and those principles which he had all along avowed, he con
firmed with his dying breath, having given orders that none
of the clergy should be permitted to trouble him in his last
moments.”*
GIORDANO BRUNO.
This glorious martyr of Freethought did not die in a
quiet chamber, tended by loving hands. He was literally
“ butchered to make a Roman holiday.” When the assassins of
“ the bloody faith ” kindled the fire which burnt out his
splendid life, he was no decrepit man, nor had the finger of
Death touched his cheek with a pallid hue. The blood
coursed actively through his veins, and a dauntless spirit
shone in his noble eyes. It might have been Bruno that
Shelley had in mind when he wrote those thrilling lines in
Queen Mab :
“ I was an infant when my mother went
To see an Atheist burned. She took me there:
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile,
The multitude was gazing silently;
And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth:
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon;
His death-pang rent my heart! The insensate mob
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.”
Giordano Bruno was born at Nola, near Naples, in 1548,
Life of Lord Bolingbroke; Works, Vol, IV, p. 248. Edition: Tegg, 1835.
�GIORDANO BRUNO.
11
ten years after the death of Copernicus, and ten years before
the birth of Bacon. At the age of fifteen he became a novice
in the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore, and after his
year’s novitiate expired he took the monastic vows. Study
ing deeply, he became heretical, and an act of accusation was
drawn up against the boy of sixteen. Eight years later he
was threatened with another trial for heresy. A third pro
cess was more be to dreaded, and in his twenty-eighth year
Bruno fled from his persecutors. He visited Borne, Noli,
Venice, Turin and Padua. At Milan he made the acquain
tance of Sir Philip Sidney. After teaching for some time in
th® university, he went to Chambery, but the ignorance and
bigotry of its monks were too great for his patience. He
next visited Geneva, but although John Calvin was dead, his
dark spirit still remained, and only flight preserved Bruno
from the fate of Servetus. Through Lyons he passed to
Toulouse, where he was elected Public Lecturer to the
University. In 1579 he went to Paris. The streets were still
foul with the blood of the Bartholomew massacres, but Bruno
declined a professorship at the Sorbonne, a condition of which
Was attending mass. Henry the Third, however, made him
Lecturer Extraordinary to the University. Paris at length
became too hot to hold him, and he went to London, where
he lodged with the French ambassador. His evenings were
mostly spent with Sir Philip Sidney, Fulke Greville, Dyer,
and Hervey. So great was his fame that he was invited to
read at the University of Oxford, where he also held a public
debate with its orthodox professors on the Copernican
astronomy. Leaving London in 1584, he returned to Paris,
and there also he publicly disputed with the Sorbonne. His
safety being once more threatened, he went to Marburg, and
thence to Wittenburg, where he taught for two years. At
Helenstadt he was excommunicated by Boetius. Bepairing
to Frankfort, he made the acquaintance of a Venetian noble
man, who lured him to Venice and betrayed him to the
Inquisition. Among the charges against him at his trial were
these : “ He is not only a heretic, but an heresiarch. He has
Witten works in which he highly lauds the Queen of England
and other heretical monarchs. HeThas written divers things'
touching religion, which are contrary to the faith.” The
Venetian Council transferred him to Borne, where he languished
for seven years in a pestiferous dungeon, and was repeatedly
�12
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
tortured, according to the hellish code of the Inquisition.
At length, on February 10, 1600, he was led out to the
■church of Santa Maria, and sentenced to be burnt alive, or,
as_the Holy Church hypocritically phrased it, to be punished
'~77as mercifully as possible, and without effusion of blood.”
Haughtily raising his head, he exclaimed : “ You are more
afraid to pronounce my sentence than I to receive it.” He
was allowed a week’s grace for recantation, but without avail;
and on the 17th of February, 1600, he was burnt to death
on the Field of Flowers. To the last he was brave and
'defiant; he contemptuously pushed aside the crucifix they
presented him to kiss; and, as one of his enemies said, he
died without a plaint or a groan.
Such heroism stirs the blood more than the sound of a
trumpet. Bruno stood at the stake in solitary and awful
grandeur. There was not a friendly face in the vast crowd
around him. It was one man against the world. Surely the
knight of Liberty, the champion of Freethought, who lived
such a life and died such a death, without hope of reward on
earth or in heaven, sustained only by his indomitable man
hood, is worthy to be accounted the supreme martyr of all
time. He towers above the less disinterested martyrs of
Faith like a colossus ; the proudest of them might walk under
him without bending.
HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.
The author of the famous History of Civilisation believed in
God and immortality, but he rej ected all the special tenets of
Christianity. He died at Damascus on May 29, 1862. His
incoherent utterances in the fever that carried him off showed
that his mind was still dwelling on the uncompleted purpose
of his life. “Oh my book,” he exclaimed, “ my book, I
shall never finish my book I ” * His end, however, was quite
peaceful. His biographer says : “ He had a very quiet night,
with intervals of consciousness ; but at six in the morning a
sudden and very marked change for the worse became but
too fearfully evident; and at a quarter past ten he quietly
breathed his last, with merely a wave of the hand.” f
* Pilgrim Memories, by J. Stuart Glennie, p. 508.
t Life and Writings of Henry Thomas Buckle, by A. Huth; Vol. II. 252.
�LORD BYRON.
LORD
13
BYRON.
No one can read Byron’s poems attentively without seeing
that he was not a Christian, and this view is amply corrobo
rated by his private letters, notably the very explicit one to
Hobhouse, which has only been recently published. Even
the poet’s first and chief biographer, Moore, was con
strained to admit that “ Lord Byron was, to the last, a
sceptic.”
Byron was born at Hoiles Street, London, on January 22,
1788. His life was remarkably eventful for a poet, but its
history is so easily accessible, and so well known, that we need
not summarise it here. His death occurred at Missolonghi
on April 19, 1824. Greece was then struggling for indepen
dence, and Byron devoted his life and fortune to her cause.
His sentiments on this subject are expressed with power and
dignity in the lines written at Missolonghi on his thirty-sixth
birthday. The faults of his life were many, but they were
redeemed by the glory of his death.
Exposure, which his declining health was unfitted to bear,
brought on a fever, and the soldier-poet of freedom died with
out proper attendance, far from those he loved. He conversed
a good deal at first with his friend Parry, who records that
“ he spoke of death with great composure.” The day before
he expired, when his friends and attendants wept round his
bed at the thought of losing him, he looked at one of them
steadily, and said, half smiling, “ Oh questa e una bella
scena 1”—Oh what a fine scene ! After a fit of delirium, he
called his faithful servant Fletcher, who offered to bring pen
and paper to take down his words. “ Oh no,” he replied,
“ there is no time. Go to my sister—tell her—go to Lady
Byron—you will see her, and say------ .” Here his voice be
came indistinct. For nearly twenty minutes he muttered to
himself, but only a woi;d now and then could be distinguished
He then said, “ Now, I have told you all.” Fletcher replied
that he had not understood a word. “ Not understand me ?”
exclaimed Byron, with a look of the utmost distress, “ what a
pity !—then it is too late ; all is over.” He tried to utter a
few more words, but none were intelligible except “my sister
—my child.” After the doctors had given him a sleeping
draught, he muttered “ Poor Greece !—poor town !—my poor
servants !—my hour is come !—I do not care for death—but
�14
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
why did I not go home ?—There are things that make the
world dear to me : for the rest I am content to die.” He
spoke also of Greece, saying “ I have given her my time, my
means, my health—and now I give her my life! what could I
do more ?” About six o’clock in the evening he said “ Now
I shall go to sleep.” He then fell into the slumber from
which he never woke. At a quarter past six on the following
day, he opened his eye3 and immediately shut them again.
The physicians felt his pulse—he was dead.
*
His work was done. As Mr. Swinburne wrote in 1865,
“ k little space was allowed him to show at least an heroic
purpose, and attest a high design; then, with all things un
finished before him and behind, he fell asleep after many
troubles and triumphs. Few can have ever gone wearier to
the grave ; none with less fear.”f The pious guardians of
Westminster Abbey denied him sepulture in its holy precincts,
but he found a grave at Hucknall, and “ after life’s fitful fever
he sleeps well.”
RICHARD CARLILE.
Richard Carlile was born at Ashburton, in Devonshire, on
December 8, 1790. His whole life was spent in advocating
Freethought and Republicanism, and in resisting the Blas
phemy laws. His total imprisonments for the freedom of
the press amounted to nine years and four months. Thir
teen days before his death he penned these words : ‘ The
enemy with whom I have to grapple is one with 'who m no
peace can be made. Idolatry will not parley ; superstition
will not treat on covenant. They must be uprooted for
public and individual safety.” Carlile died on February 10,
1843. He was attended in his last illness by Dr. Thomas
Lawrence, the author of the once famous Lectures on Man.
Wishing to be useful in death as in life, Carlile devoted his
body to dissection. His wish was complied with by the
family, and the post-mortem examination was recorded in
the Lancet. The burial took place at Kensal Green Cemetary, where a clergyman insisted on reading the Church
Service over his remains. “ His eldest son Richard,” says
Mr. Holyoake, “ who represented his sentiments as well as
* Byrons Life and Letters by Thomas Moore, pp. £84—688.
t Fieface (p. 28, to a Selection from Byron's poems, 1865.
�WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD.
15
his name, very properly protested against the proceedings, as
an outrage upon the principles of his father and the wishes
of the family. Of course the remonstrance was disre
garded, and Richard, his brothers, and their friends, left
the ground.”* After their departure, the clergyman called
the great hater of priests his “ dear departed brother,” and
declared that the rank Materialist had died “ in the sure and
certain hope of a glorious resurrection.”
WILLIAM KING-DON CLIFFORD.
Professor Clifford died all too early of consumption on
March 3, 1879. He was one of the gentlest and most amiable
of men, and the centre of a large circle of distinguished
friends. His great ability was beyond dispute ; in the higher
mathematics he enjoyed a European reputation. Nor was his
courage less, for he never concealed his heresy, but rather
proclaimed it from the housetops. A Freethinker to the
heart’s core, he “utterly dismissed from his thoughts, as
being unprofitable or worse, all speculations on a future or
unseen world ” ; and “as never man loved life more, so never
man feared death less.”' He fulfilled, continues Mr. Pollock,
“ well and truly the great saying of Spinoza, often in his
mind and on his lips : Homo liber de nulla re minus quam
de mortc cogitat. [A free man thinks less of nothing than
of death.J’t Clifford faced the inevitable with the utmost
calmness.
“ Foi’ a week he had known that it might come at any moment, and
looked to it stedfastly. So calmly had he received the warning which
conveyed this knowledge that it seemed at the instant as if he did not
understand it. . . . He gave careful and exact directions as to the
disposal of his works. . . . More than this, his interest in the outer
world, his affection for his friends and his pleasure in their pleasures,
did not desert him to the very last. He still followed the course of
events, and asked for public news on the morning of his death, so
strongly did he hold fast his part in the common weal and in active
social life.”J
Clifford was a great loss to “ the good old cause.” He was
a most valiant soldier of progress, cut off before a tithe of
his work was accomplished.
* Life and Character of Richard Carlile, by G. J. Holyoake.
t Lectures and Essays, by Professor Clifford. Pollock’s Introduction, p. 25.
t Ibid, p. 26.
�16
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
ANTHONY COLLINS.
Anthony Collins was one of the chief English Freethinkers
of the eighteenth century. Professor Fraser calls him “ this
remarkable man,”* Swift refers to him as a leading sceptic
of that age. He was a barrister, born of a good Essex family
in 1676, and dying on Dec. 13, 1729. Locke, whose own cha
racter was manly and simple, was charmed by him. “ He
praised his love of truth and moral courage,” says Professor
Fraser, “ as superior to almost any other he had ever known,
and by his will he made him one of his executors.”* Yet
f bigotry was then so_ rampant, that Bishop Berkeley, who,|
7 according to Pope, had every—virtue under heaven,|
| actually said in the Guardian that the author of AT(
j Discourse, on Freethinking—“ deserved—io—he—deniecL the_>
common benefits of air and water.” Collins afterwards
engaged in controversy with the clergy, wrote against
priestcraft, and debated with Dr. Samuel Clarke “ about
necessity and the moral nature of man, stating the argu
ments against human freedom with a logical force unsur
passed by any necessitarian.”j" With respect to Collins’s con
troversy on “ the soul,” Professor. Huxley. says : “I do not
think anyone can read the letters which passed between
Clarke and Collins, without - admitting that Collins, who
writes with wonderful power and closeness of reasoning, has
by far the best of the argument, so far as the possible materiality of the soul goes ; and that in this battle the Goliath
of Freethinking overcame the champion of what was con
sidered Orthodoxy.’’^ According to Berkeley, Collins had
announced “ that he was able to demonstrate the impossibility of God’s existence,” but this is probably the exaggera
tion of an opponent. We may be sure, however, that he was
a very thorough sceptic with regard to Christianity. His
death is thus referred to in the Biographia Britannica
“Notwithstanding all the reproaches cast upon Mr. Collins as an
enemy to all religion, impartiality obliges us to remark, what is said,
and generally believed to be true, upon his death-bed he declared
‘ That, as he had always endea vored to the best of his abilities, to serve
his God, his king, and his country, so he was persuaded he was going
to the place which God had designed for those who love him ’: to
which he added that ‘ The catholic religion is to love God, and to love
* Berkeley, by A. O. Fraser, LL.D., p. 99.
t Critiques and Addresses, p. 324.
t Ibid, p. 99.
�17
CONDORCET.
man’; and he advised such as were about him to have a constant
regard to these principles.”
There is probably a good deal apocryphal in this passage,
but it is worthy of notice that nothing is said about any
dread of death. Another memorable fact is that Collins left
his library to an opponent, Dr. Sykes. It was large and
curious, and always open to men of letters. Collins was so
earnest a seeker for truth, and so candid a controversialist,
that he often furnished his antagonists with books to confute
himself.
CONDOBCET.
Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas, Marquis de Condorcet, was
born at Bibemont in Picardy, in 1743. As early as 1764 he
composed a work on the integral calculus. In 1773 he was
appointed perpetual secretary of the French Academy. He
was an intense admirer of Voltaire, and wrote a life of that
great man.
At the commencement of the Bevolution he
ardently embraced the popular cause. In 1791 he represented
Paris in the Legislative Assembly, of which he was imme
diately elected secretary. It was on his motion that, in the
following year, all orders of nobility were abolished. Elected
by the Aisne department to the new Assembly of 1792, he
was named a member of the Constitutional Committee, which
also included Danton and Thomas Paine. After the execu
tion of Louis XVI., he was opposed to the excesses of the
extreme party. Always showing the courage of his convic
tions, he soon became the victim of proscription. “ He cared
as little for his life,” says Mr. Morley, “ as Danton or St. Just
cared for theirs. Instead of coming down among the men of
the Plain or the frogs of the Marsh, he withstood the Mountain
to its face.” While hiding from those who thirsted for his
blood, and burdened with anxiety as to the fate of his wife
and child, he wrote, without a single book to refer to, his novel
and profound Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Proges de
I’Esprit Humain. Mr. Morley says that “Among the many
wonders of an epoch of portents this feat of intellectual
abstraction is not the least amazing.” Despite the odious law
that whoever gave refuge to a proscribed person should suffer
death, Condorcet was, offered shelter by a noble-hearted womam.
. who said “ If you are outside the law, we are not outside
humanity.” But he would not bring peril upon her house
B
�J8
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
and he went forth to his doom. Arrested at Clamart-sousMeudon, he was conducted to prison at Bourg-la-Reine.
Wounded in the foot, and exhausted with fatigue and priva
tion, he was flung into a miserable cell. It was the 27th of
March, 1794. “On the morrow,” says Mr. Morley, “when
the gaolers came to see him, they found him stretched upon
the ground, dead and stark. So he perished—of hunger and
weariness, say some; of poison ever carried by him in a ring,
say others.”* The Abbe Morellet, in his narrative of the
death of Condorcet (Memoires, ch. xxiv.), says that the poison
was a mixture of stramonium and opium, but he adds that
the surgeon described the death as due to apoplexy. In any
case Condorcet died like a hero, refusing to save his life at
the cost of another’s danger.
ROBERT COOPER.
Robert Cooper was secretary to Robert Owen and editor of
the London Investigator. His lectures on the Bible and the
Immortality of the Soul still enjoy a regular sale, as well as
his Holy Scriptures Analysed. He was a thorough-going
Materialist, and he never wavered in this philosophy. He died
on May 3, 1868. The National Reformer of July 26, 1868,
contains a note written by Cooper shortly before his death.
“ At a moment when the hand of death is suspended over me, my
theological opinions remain unchanged; months of deep and silent
cogitation, under the pressure of long suffering, have confirmed rather
than modified them. I calmly await therefore all risk attached to
these convictions. Conscious that, if mistaken, I have always been
sincere, I apprehend no disabilities for impressions I cannot resist.”
It may be added that Robert Cooper was no relation to
Thomas Cooper.
DANTON.
Danton, called by Carlyle the Titan of the Revolution, and
certainly its greatest figure after Mirabeau, was guillotined on
April 5, 1794. He was only thirty-five, but he had made a
name that will live as long as the history of France. With
all his faults, says Carlyle, “ he was a Man ; fiery-real, from
the great fire-bosom of Nature herself.” Some of his phrases
are like pyramids, standing sublime above the drifting
MUcellantei.
Y.j John Morley. Vol. I., p. 75.
�DALTON.
19
sand of human speech. It was he who advised “ daring, and
still daring, and ever daring.” It was he who cried “ The
coalesced kings of Europe threaten us, and as our gage of
battle we fling before them the head of a king.” It was he
who exclaimed, in a rapture of patriotism, “Let my name be
blighted, so that France be free.” And what a saying was
that, when his friends urged him to flee from the Terror,
“ One does not carry his country with him at the sole of his
shoe!”
Danton would not flee. “ They dare not ” arrest him, he
said ; but he was soon a prisoner in the Luxembourg. “ What
is your name and abode ?” they asked him at the tribunal.
“ My name is Danton,” he answered, “ a name tolerably known
in the Revolution : my abode will soon be Annihilation ; but
I shall live in the Pantheon of History.” Replying to his
infamous Indictment, his magnificent voice “reverberates
with the roar of a lion in the toils.” The President rings his
bell, enjoining calmness, says Carlyle, in a vehement manner.
“ What is it to thee how I defend myself ?” cries Danton;
“ the right of dooming me is thine always. The voice of a
man speaking for his honor and life may well drown the
jingling of thy bell!”
Under sentence of death he preserved, as Jules Claretie
says, that virile energy and superb sarcasm which were the
basis of his character. Fabre d’Eglantine being disquieted
about his unfinished comedy, Danton exclaimed “Des vers ! Des
vers ! Dans huit jours tu en feras plus que tu ne voudras !”• Then
he added nobly, “We have finished our task, let us sleep.”
Thus the time passed in prison.
On the way to the guillotine Danton bore himself proudly.
Poor Camille Desmoulins struggled and writhed in the cart,
which was surrounded by a howling mob. “ Calm, my
friend,” said Danton, “heed not that vile canaille.” Herault
de Sechelles, whose turn it was to die first, tried to embrace his
friend, but the executioners prevented him. “ Fools,” said
Danton, “you cannot prevent our heads from meeting in the
basket.” At the foot of the scaffold the thought of home
flashed through his mind. “ 0 my wife,” he exclaimed, “ my
well-beloved, I shall never see thee more then !” But recover
ing himself, he said “Danton, no weakness!” Looking the
executioner in the face, he cried with his great voice, “ You
will show my head to the crowd; it is worth showing ; you
�20
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
don’t see the like in these days.” The next minute that
head, the one that might have guided France best, was severed
from his body by the knife of the guillotine. What a man
this Danton was ! With his Herculean form, his huge black
head, his mighty voice, his passionate nature, his fiery cour
age, his strong sense, his poignant wit, his geniality, and his
freedom from cant, he was a splendid and unique figure. An
Atheist, _hg__ perished in. trying to arrestbloodshed. Eobespiere, the Deist^ continued the bloodshed till it drowned him.
The two men were as diverse in nature as in creed, and Danton
killed by Eobespierre, as Courtois said, was Pyrrhus killed by a
woman!
[The reader may consult Carlyle's French Revolution, Book vi.,
ch. ii.; and Jules Claretie’s Camille Desmoulins et les Dantonistes, ch. vi.,
DENIS DIDEEOT.
Earely has the world seen a more fecund mind than
Diderot’s. Voltaire called him Pantophile, for everything
came within the sphere of his mental activity. The twenty
volumes of his collected writings contain the germ-ideas of
nearly all the best thought of our age, and his anticipations
of Darwinism are nothing less than extraordinary. He had
not Voltaire’s lightning wit and supreme grace of style, nor
Eousseau’s passionate and subtle eloquence; but he was
superior to either of them in depth and solidity, and he was
surprisingly ahead of his time, not simply in his treatment
of religion, but also in his view of social and political prob
lems. His historical monument is the great Encyclopcedia.
For twenty years he labored on this colossal enterprise,
assisted by the best heads in France, but harassed and
thwarted by the government and the clergy. The work is
out of date now, but it inaugurated an era : in Mr. Morley’s
words, “ it rallied all that was then best in France round
the standard of light and social hope.” Diderot tasted im
prisonment in 1749, and many times afterwards his liberty
was menaced. Nothing, however, could intimidate or divert
him from his task ; and he never quailed when the ferocious
beast of persecution, having tasted the blood of meaner
victims, turned an evil and ravenous eye on him.
Carlyle’s brilliant essay on Diderot is ludicrously unjust.
The Scotch puritan was quite unable to judge the French
�DENIS DIDEROT.
21
atheist. A greater than Carlyle wrote: “ Diderotis Diderot,
a peculiar individuality; whoever holds him or his doings
cheaply is a Philistine, and the name of them is legion.”
Goethe’s dictum outweighs that of his disciple.
Diderot’s character, no less than his genius, was misunder
stood by Carlyle. His materialism and atheism were in
tolerable to a Calvinist steeped in pantheism ; and his freedom
of life, which might be pardoned or excused in a Scotch
poet, was disgusting in a French philosopher. Let not the
reader be biassed by Carlyle’s splenetic utterances on Diderot,
but turn to more sympathetic and impartial judges.
Born at Langres in 1713, Diderot died at Paris 1784. His
life was long, active and fruitful. His personal appearance
is described by Mr. Morley :—“ His admirers declared his
head to be the ideal head of an Aristotle or a Plato. His
brow was wide, lofty, open, gently rounded. The arch of
the eyebrow was full of delicacy ; the nose of masculine
beauty; the habitual expression of the eyes kindly and
sympathetic, but as he grew heated in talk, they sparkled
like fire ; the curves of the mouth bespoke an interesting
mixture of finesse, grace, and geniality. His bearing was
nonchalant enough, but there was naturally in the carriage
of his head, especially when he talked with action, much
dignity, energy and nobleness.”*
His conversational powers were great, and showed the
fertility of his genius. “When I recall Diderot,” wrote
Meister, “ the immense variety of his ideas, the amazing mul
tiplicity of his knowledge, the rapid flight, the warmth, the
impetuous tumult of his imagination, all the charm and all
the disorder of his conversation, I venture to liken his cha
racter to nature herself, exactly as he used to conceive her—
rich, fertile, abounding in germs of every sort, gentle and
fierce, simple and majestic, worthy and sublime, but without
any dominating principle, without a master and without a
God.”
Diderot was recklessly prodigal of his ideas, flinging them
without hesitation or reticence among his friends. He was
equally generous in other respects, and friendship was of the
essence of his life. “ He,” wrote Marmontel in his Memoirs,
“ he who was one of the. most enlightened men of the century,
* Diderot and the Encyclopaedists. By John Morley, Vol. I., pp. 39-40.
�22
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
was also one of the most amiable ; and in everything that
touched moral goodness, when he spoke of it freely, I cannot
express the charm of his eloquence. His whole soul was in
his eyes and on his lips; never did a countenance better
depict the goodness of the heart.”
*
Chequered as Diderot’s life had been, his closing years were
full of peace and comfort. Superstition was mortally wounded,
the Church was terrified, and it was clear that the change the
philosophers had worked for was at hand. As Mr. Morley
says, “ the press literally teemed with pamphlets, treatises,
poems, histories, all shouting from the house-tops open
destruction to beliefs which fifty years before were actively
protected against so much as a whisper in the closet. Every
form of literary art was seized and turned into an instru
ment in the remorseless attack on L’Infame.” Diderot rejoiced
at all this, as largely the fruit of his own labors. He was
held in general esteem by the party of progress throughout
Europe. Catherine the Great’s generosity secured him a
steady income, which he had never derived from his literary
labors. His townsmen of Langres placed his bust among the
worthies in the town hall. More than a hundred years later
a national statue of Diderot was unveiled at his native place,
and the balance of subscriptions was devoted to publishing a
popular selection of his works. Truly did this great Atheist
say, looking forward to the atoning future, “ Posterity is for
the philosopher what the other world is for the devout.
In the spring of 1784 Diderot was attacked by what he felt
was his last illness. Dropsy set in, and in a few months the
end came. A fortnight before his death he was removed
from the upper floor in the Rue Taranne, which he had occu
pied for thirty years, to palatial rooms provided for him by
the Czarina in the Rue de Richelieu. Growing weaker every
day, he was still alert in mind.
“He did all he could to cheer the people around him, and amused
himself and them by arranging his pictures and his books. In the
evening, to the last, he found strength to converse on science and
philosophy to the friends who were eager as ever for the last gleanings
of his prolific intellect. In the last conversation that his daughter
heard him carry on, his last words were the pregnant aphorism that
the first step towardsphilosophy is incredulity^^
“ Orf the evening of the 30th of July, 1784 he sat down to table, and
at the end of the meal took an apricot. His wife, with kind solicitude,
remonstrated. Mais quel diable de mal veux-tu que cela me fasse 1 fHow
�DENIS DIDEROT.
23
the deuce can that hurt me ?] he said, and ate the apricot. Then he
rested his elbow on the table, trifling with some sweetmeats. His
wife asked him a question ; on receiving no answer, she looked up and
saw that he was dead. He had died as the Greek poets say that men
died in the golden age—they passed away as if mastered by sleep’'
*
Grimm gives a slightly different account of Diderot’s death,
omitting the apricot, and stating that his words to his wife
were, “ It is long since I have eaten with so much relish.”!
With respect to the funeral, Grimm says that the cure of
St. Eoch, in whose parish he died, had scruples at first about
burying him, on account of his sceptical reputation and the
doctrines expounded in his writings ; but the priest’s scruples
were overcome, partly by a present of “ fifteen or eighteen
thousand livres.”
According to Mr. Morley, an effort was made to convert
Diderot, or at least to wring from him something like a
retractation.
“ The priest of Saint Sulpice, the centre of the philosophic quarter,
came to visit him two or three times a week, hoping to achieve at least
the semblance of a conversion. Diderot did not encourage conversation
on theology, but when pressed he did not refuse it. One day when
they found, as two men of sense will always find, that they had ample
common ground in matters of morality and good works, the priest
ventured to hint that an exposition of such excellent maxims, accom
panied by a slight retractation of Diderot’s previous works, would have
a good effect on the world. ‘ I dare say it would, monsieur le cure,
but confess that I should be acting an impudent lie.’ And no word of
retractation was ever made.”J
If judging men by the company they keep is a safe rule, we need
have no doubt as to the sentiments which Diderot entertained
to the end. Grimm tells us that on the morning of the very
day he died “ he conversed for a long time and with the
greatest freedom with his friend the Baron D’Holbach,” the
famous author of the System of Nature, compared with
whom, says Mr. Morley, “ the most eager Nescient or Denier
to be found in the ranks of the assailants of theology in our
own day is timorous and moderate.” These men were the
two most earnest Atheists of their generation. Both were
genial, benevolent, and conspicuously generous. D’Holbach
_was learned, eloquent, and trenchant; and Diderot, inTlbnrtff-s——_
opinion, was the greatest genius of the eighteenth century.
* Morley, Vol. II., pp. 259, 260.
t Quoted, from the Revue Retrospective in Assfeat's complete edition of Diderot.
j Morley, Vol. II., p. 258.
�24
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
GEORGE ELIOT.
Marian Evans, afterwards Mrs. Lewes, and finally Mrs.
Cross, was one of the greatest writers of the third quarter of
this century. The noble works of fiction she published under
the pseudonym of George Eliot are known to all. Her earliest
writing was done for the IFesYmmsfer Tfm’ew, a magazine of
marked sceptical tendency. Her inclination to Freethought
is further shown by her translation of Strauss’s famous Life
of Jesus and Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity the latter,
being the work of a profound Atheist. George Eliot was, to
some extent, a disciple of Comte, and reckoned a member of
the Society of Positivists. Mr. Myers tells us that in the last
conversation he had with her at Cambridge, they talked of
God, Immortality and Duty, and she gravely remarked how
hypothetical was the first, how improbable was the second,
and how sternly real the last. Whenever in her novels she
speaks in the first person she breathes the same sentiment.
Her biography has been written by her second husband, who
says that “ her long illness in the autumn had left her no
power to rally. She passed away about ten o’clock at night
on the 22nd of December, 1880. She died, as she would
herself have chosen to die, without protracted pain, and with
every faculty brightly vigorous.”* Her body lies in the next
grave to that of George Henry Lewes at Highgate Cemetery ;
her spirit, the product of her life, has, in her own words,
joined “ the choir invisible, whose music is the gladness of
the world.”
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
Frederick the Great, the finest soldier of his age, the
maker of Prussia, and therefore the founder of modern
Germany, was born in January, 1712. His life forms the
theme of Carlyle’s masterpiece. Notoriously a disbeliever in
Christianity, as his writings and correspondence attest, he
loved to surround himself with Freethinkers, the most con
spicuous of whom was Voltaire. When the great French
heretic died, Frederick pronounced his eulogium before the
Berlin Academy, denouncing “the imbecile priests,” and
declaring that “ The best destiny they can look for is that
Zife and Letters of George Eliot, by J. W. Cross, Vol. III., p. 439.
�LEON GAMBETTA,
25
they and their vile artifices will remain forever buried in the
darkness. o£ oblivion,, while the fame of Voltaire .will., in.er.eaae__
from age., toage, and transmit his name to immortality.” , , ,
When the old king was on his death-bed, one of his
subjects, solicitous about his immortal soul, sent him a letter
full of pious advice. “Let this,” he said, “be answered
•civilly ; the intention of the writer is good.” Shortly after,
on August 17, 1786, Frederick died in his own fashion.
Carlyle says:
“For the most part he was unconscious, never more than half
conscious. As the wall clock above his head struck eleven, he asked :
‘ What o’clock ?’ ‘ Eleven,’ answered they. ‘ At four,’ murmured he,
I will rise.’ One of his dogs sat on its stool near him ; about mid
night he noticed it shivering for cold : ‘ Throw a quilt over it,’ said or
beckoned he ; that, I think, was his last completely conscious utter
ance. Afterwards, in a severe choking fit, getting at last rid of the
phlegm, he said, La montagne est passe, nous irons mieux—We are on
the hill, we shall go bettei’ now.’ ”*
Better it was. The pain was over, and the brave old king,
who had wrestled with all Europe and thrown it, succumbed
quietly to the inevitable defeat which awaits us all.
LEON GAMBETTA.
Gambetta was the greatest French orator and statesman
of his age. He was one of those splendid and potent figures
who redeem nations from commonplace. To him, more than
to any other man, the present Republic owes its existence.
He played deeply for it in the great game of life and
death after Sedan, and by his titanic -organisation of the
national defence he made it impossible for Louis Napoleon
to reseat himself on the throne with the aid of German
bayonets. Again, in 1877, he saved the Republic he loved
so well from the monarchical conspirators. He defeated their
base attempt to subvert a nation’s liberties, but the struggle
sapped his enormous vitality, which had already been im
paired by the terrible labors of his Dictatorship. He died
at the early age of forty-four, having exhausted his strength
in fighting for freedom. Scarcely a dark thread was left in
the leonine mane of black hair, and the beard matched the
whiteness of.his shroud.
France mourned like one man at the hero’s death. The
Frederick the Great, Vol. VI., p. 694; edition, 1869.
�26
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
people gave him a funeral that eclipsed the obsequies of
r
I
kings. He was carried to his grave by a million citizens.
Yet in the whole of that vast throng, as Mr. Frederic
Harrison remarked, “ there was no emblem of Christ, no priest
of God, not one mutter of heaven, no hollow appeal to the
mockery of the resurrection, no thought but for the great
human loss and human sorrow. It was the first time in the
history of Europe that a foremost man had been laid to rest
/ by a nation in grief, without priest or church, prayer or
hymn.”
Like almost every eminent Republican, Gambetta was a
Freethinker. As Mr. Frederic Harrison says, “ he systemati
cally and formally repudiated any kind of acceptance of
theology.” During his lifetime he never entered a church,
even when attending a marriage or a funeral, but stopped
short at the door, and let who would go inside and listen to
the mummery of the priest. In his own expressive words,
he declined to be “rocked asleep by the myths of childish^
religions.’’. He professed himself an admirer And^a'disciple
of Voltaire—Vadmirateur et le disciple de Voltaire. Every
member of his ministry was a Freethinker, and one of them,
the eminent scientist Paul Bert, a militant Atheist. Speaking
at a public meeting not long before his death, Gambetta
called Comte the greatest thinker of this century ; that Comte
who proposed to “ reorganise society, without God and with
out king, by the systematic cultus of humanity.”
When John Stuart Mill died, a Christian journal, which
died itself a few weeks after, declared he had gone to hell,
and wished all his friends and disciples would follow him.
Several pious prints expressed similar sentiments with regard
to Gambetta. Passing by the English papers, let us look at a
few French ones. The Due de Broglie’s organ, naturally
anxious to insult the statesman who had so signally beaten
him, said that “ he died suddenly after hurling defiance at
God.” The Pays, edited by that pious bully, Paul de Cassagnac, said—“He dies, -poisoned by his own blood. He
set himself up against God. He has fallen. It is fearful.
Bat it is just.” The Catholic Univers said “While he was
recruiting his strength and meditating fresh assaults upon
the Church, and promising himself victory, the tlivine Son
of the Carpenter was preparing his coffin.”
These tasty exhibitions of Christian charity show that
�LEON GAMBETTA.
27
Gambetta lived and died a Freethinker. Yet the sillier sort
of Christians have not scrupled to insinuate and even argue
that he was secretly a believer.
One asinine priest, M.
Feuillet des Conches, formerly Vicar of Notre Dame des
Victoires, and then honorary Chamberlain to the Pope, stated
in the London Times that, about two years before his death,
Gambetta came to his church with a brace of big wax tapers
which he offered in memory of his mother. He also added
that the great orator knelt before the Virgin, dipped his finger
in holy water, and made the sign of the cross. Was there
ever a more absurd story ?
Gambetta was a remarkable
looking man, and extremely well known. He could not have
entered a church unobserved, and had he done so, the story
would have gone round Paris the next day.
Yet nobody
heard of it till after his death. Either the priest mistook
some portly dark man for Gambetta, or he was guilty of a
pious fraud.
According to another story, Gambetta said “ I am lost ”
when the doctors told him he could not recover. But the
phrase Je suis perdu has no theological significance. Nothing
is more misleading than a literal translation. Gambetta
simply meant “It is all over then.” This monstrous per
version of a simple phrase could only have arisen from sheer
malice or gross ignorance of French.
While lying on his death-bed Gambetta listened to Rabelais,
Moliere, and other favorite but not very pious authors, read
aloud by a young student who adored him. Almost his last
words, as recorded in the Tinies, were these—“Well, I have
suffered so much,, it will be a^deliverance/’ The words are
calm, collected, and truthful. There is no rant and no quail
ing. It is the natural language of a strong man confronting
Death after long agony. Shortly after he breathed his last.
The deliverance had come. Still lay the mighty heart and
the fertile brain that had spent themselves for France, and
the silence was only broken by the sobs of dear friends who
would have died to save him. No priest administered “ the
consolations of religion,” and he expressly ordered that he
should be buried without religious rites. His great heroic
genius was superior to the creeds, seeing through them and
over them. He lived and died a Freethinker, like nearly all
the great men since Mirabeau and Danton who have built
up the freedom and glory of France.
�.28
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
ISAAC GENDRE,
The controversy over the death of this Swiss Freethinker
was summarised in the London Echo of July 29, 1881.
“A second case of death-bed conversion of an eminent Liberal to
Roman Catholicism, suggested probably by that of thp great French
philologist Littre, has passed the round of the Swiss papers. A few
days ago the veteran leader of the Freiburg Liberals, M. Isaac Gendre,
died. The Ami du Peuple, the organ of the Freiburg Ultramontanes,
immediately set afloat the sensational news that when HL Gendre
found that his last hour was approaching, he sent his brother to fetch
n priest, in order that the last sacraments might be administered to
him, and the evil which he had done during his life by his persistent
Liberalism might be atoned by bis repentance at the eleventh hour.
This brother, M. Alexandre Gendre, now writes to the papei’ stating
that there is not one word of truth in this story. What possible
benefit can any Church derive from the invention of such tales ?
Doubtless there is a credulous residuum which believes that there
must be ‘ some truth ’ in anything which has once appeared in print.’’
It might be added that many people readily believe what
pleases them, and that a lie which has a good start is very
hard to run down.
EDWARD GIBBON.
Edward Gibbon, the greatest of modern historians, was
born at Putney, near London, on April 27, 1737. His
monumental work, the Decline and Fall of the Homan Empire,
which Carlyle called “ the splendid bridge from the old world
to the new,” is universally known and admired. To have
your name mentioned by Gibbon, said Thackeray, is like
having it written on the dome of St. Peter’s which is seen by
pilgrims from all parts of the earth. Twenty years of his
life were devoted to his colossal History, which incidentally
•conveys his opinion of many problems. His views on Chris
tianity are indicated in his famous fifteenth chapter, which
is a masterpiece of grave and temperate irony. When
Gibbon wrote that “ it was not in this world that the primitive
Christians were desirous of making themselves either agree
able or useful,” every sensible reader understood his meaning.
The polite sneer rankled in the breasts of the clergy, who
replied with declamation and insult. Their answers, how
ever, are forgotten, while his merciless sarcasms live on, and
help to undermine the Church in every fresh generation.
Gibbon did not long survive the completion of his great
�GOETHE.
29
work. The last volumes of the Decline and Fall were pub
lished on M4y 8, 1788, and he died on January 14, 1794.
His malady was dropsy. After being twice tapped in
November, he removed to the house of his devoted friend,
Lord Sheffield. A week before he expired he was obliged,
for the sake of the highest medical attendance, to return to
his lodgings in St. James’s Street, London. The following
account of his last moments was written by Lord Sheffield :
“ During the evening he complained much of his stomach, and of a
feeling of nausea. Soon after nine he took his opium draught and
went to bed. About ten he complained of much pain, and desired that
warm napkins might be applied to his stomach.’ He almost inces
santly expressed a sense of pain till about four o’clock in the morning,
when he said he found his stomach much easier. About seven the
servant asked whether he should send for Mr. Farquhar [the doctor].
He answered, No ; that he was as well as the day before. At about
half-past eight he got out of bed, and said he was ‘ plus adroit ’ than
he had been for three months past, and got into bed again without
assistance, better than usual. About nine he said he would rise. The
servant, however, persuaded him to remain in bed till Mr. Farquhar,
who was expected at eleven, should come. Till about that hour he
spoke with great facility. Mr. Farquhar came at the time appointed,,
and he was then visibly dying. When the valet-de-chambr'e returned,
after attending Mr. Farquhar out of the room, Mr. Gibbon said,
‘ Pourquoi est ce que vous me quittez ?’ [Why do you leave me ?]
This was about half-past eleven. At twelve he drank some brandy
and water from a teapot, and desired his favorite servant to stay with
him. These were the last words he pronounced articulately. To the
last he preserved his senses ; and when he could no longer speak, his
servant having asked a question, he made a sign to show that he
understood him. He was quite tranquil, and did not stir, his eyes half
shut. About a quarter before one he ceased to breathe. The valetde-chambre observed that he did not, at any time, evince the least
sign of alarm or apprehension of death.”
Mr. James Cotter Morison, in his admirable monograph on
Gibbon, which forms a volume of Macmillan’s “ English Men
of Letters ” series, quotes the whole of this passage from
Lord Sheffield with the exception of the last sentence. It
is not easy to decide whether Mr. Morison thought the sen
tence trivial, or hesitated to affront his readers’ susceptibilities.
In our opinion the words we have italicised are the most im
portant in the extract, and should not have been withheld.
GOETHE.
The greatest of German poets died at a ripe old age on
March 22, 1832. He was a Pantheist after the manner of
�30
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Spinoza, and his countrymen called him the “ great pagan.”
In one of his epigrams he expresses hatred of four things—
garlic, onions, bugs, and the cross. Heine, in his De I'Allentrigne, notices Goethe’s “ vigorous heathen nature,” and his
“ militant antipathy to Christianity.” His English biographer
thus describes his last moments :
“His speech was becoming less and less distinct. The last words
audible were: More light.' The final darkness grew apace, and he
whose eternal longing had been for more Light, gave a parting cry for
it, as he was passing under the shadow of death. He continued to
express himself by signs, drawing letters with his forefinger in the
air, while he had strength, and finally as life ebbed away drawing
figures slowly on the shawl which covered his legs. At half-past
twelve he composed himself in the corner of the chair. The watcher
placed a finger on her lips to intimate that he was asleep. If sleep
it was, it was a sleep in which a great life glided from the world.”*
Let us add that infinite nonsense, from which even Lewes
was obviously not free, has been talked and written about
Goethe’s cry “ More light.” His meaning was of course
purely physical. The eyesight naturally fails in death, all
things grow dim, and the demand for “more light” is
common enough at such times.
HENRY HETHERINGTON.
Henry Hetherington, one of the heroes of “ the free press,”
was born at Compton Street, Soho, London, in 1792. He
very early became an ardent reformer. In 1830 the Gov
ernment obtained three convictions against him for publishing
the Poor Man’s Guardian, and he was lodged for six months
in Clerkenwell gaol. At the end of 1832 he was again im
prisoned there for six months, his treatment being most
cruel. An opening, called a window, but without a pane of
glass, let in the rain and snow by day and night. In 1841
__ he was a third time incarcerated in the Queen’s Bench prison
for four months. This time his crime was “ blasphemy,” in
other words, publishing Haslam’s Petters to the Clergy. He
died on August 24, 1849, in his fifty-seventh year, leaving
behind him his “ Last Will and Testament,” from which we
take the following extracts :
“ As life is uncertain, it behoves every one to make preparations
for death; I deem it therefore a duty incumbent on me, ere I quit
this life, to express in writing, for the satisfaction and guidance of
Life of Goethe, by G. H. Lewes, p. 559.
�HENRY HETHERINGTON.
31
•esteemed friends, my feelings and opinions in reference to our com
mon principles. I adopt this course that no mistake or misapprehen
sion may arise through the false reports of those who officiously and
«
obtrusively obtain access to the death-beds of avowed infidels to
priestcraft and superstition; and who, by their annoying importuni
ties, labor to extort from an opponent, whose intellect is already worn
out and subdued by protracted physical suffering, some trifling ad
mission, that they may blazon it forth to the world as a Death-bed
Confession, and a triumph of Christianity over infidelity.
“ In the first place, then, I calmly and deliberately declare that I
4© not believe in the popular notion of the existence of an Almighty,
All-Wise and Benevolent God—possessing intelligence, and conscious
of his own operations ; because these attributes involve such a mass
of absurdities and contradictions, so much cruelty and injustice on
his part to the poor and destitute portion of his creatures—that, in my
opinion, no rational reflecting mind can, after disinterested investiga
tion, give credence to the existence of such a Being. 2nd. I believe
death to be an eternal sleep—that I shall never live again in this
world, or another, with a consciousness that I am the same identical
person that once lived, performed the duties, and exercised the func
tions of a human being. 3rd. I consider priestcraft and superstition._____
the greatest_obstacle to human improvement and happiness. During
' mf life I have, to the best of my ability, sincerely'anastrenubusly ex
posed and opposed them, and die with a firm conviction that Truth,
Justice, and Liberty will never be permanently established on earth
till every vestige of priestcraft and superstition shall be utterly de
stroyed. 4th. I have ever considered that the only religion useful to
man consists exclusively of the practice of morality, and in the mutual
interchange of kind actions. In such a religion there is no room for
priests—and when I see them interfering at our births, marriages,
and deaths, pretending to conduct us safely through this state of
being to another and happier world, any disinterested person of the
least shrewdness and discernmentmust perceive that their sole aim
js to stultify the minds of the people by theirincohipi-ehensTbre 4oc=------- Ti-ines,' that theymayYhre more eiteef ua Uv fleece the poor deludecTsheep
who listen to their empty babblings and mystifications. 5th. As I have
lived so I die, a determined opponent to their nefarious and plundering
system. I wish my friends, therefore, to deposit my remains in un
consecrated ground, and trust they will allow no priest, or clergyman
of any denomination, to interfere in any way whatever at my
funeral. My earnest desire is, that no relation or friend shall wear
black or any kind of mourning, as I consider it contrary to our
rational principles to indicate respect for a departed friend by com
plying with a hypocritical custom. 6th. I wish those who respect
me, and who have labored in our common cause, to attend my re
mains to their last resting-place, not so much in consideration of
the individual, as to do honor to our just, benevolent and rational
principles. I hope all true Rationalists will leave pompous disp ays
to the tools of priestcraft and superstition.”
Hetherington wrote this Testament nearly two years before
his death, but he signed it with a firm hand three days before
�82
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
he breathed his last, in the presence of Thomas Cooper, who
left it at the Reasoner office for “ the inspection of the curious
or sceptical.” Thomas Cooper is now a Christian, but he
cannot repudiate what he printed at the time, or destroy his
“ personal testimony,” as he called it, to the consistency with
which Hetherington died in the principles of Freethought.
THOMAS HOBBES.
The philosopher of Malmesbury, as he is often called, was
one of the clearest and boldest thinkers that ever lived. His
theological proclivities are well expressed in his witty aphorism
that superstition is religion out of fashion, and religion super
stition in fashion. Although a courageous thinker, Hobbes
was physically timid. This fact is explained by the circum
stances of his birth. In the spring of 1588 all England was
alarmed at the news that the mighty Spanish Armada had
set sail for the purpose of deposing Queen Elizabeth, bringing
the country under a foreign yoke, and re-establishing the
power of the papacy. In sheer fright, the wife of the vicar
of Westport, now part of Malmesbury, gave premature birth
to her second son on Good Friday, the 5 th of April. This
seven months’ child used to say, in later life, that his
mother brought forth himself and a twin brother Fear. He
was delicate and nervous all his days. Yet through strict
temperance he reached the great age of ninety-one, dying on
the 4th of December, 1679.
This parson’s son was destined to be hated by the clergy
for his heresy. The Great fire of 1666, following the Great
Plague of the previous year, excited popular superstition, and
to appease the wrath of God, a new Bill was introduced in
Parliament against Atheism and profaneness. The Committee
to which the Bill was entrusted were empowered to “ receive
information touching ” heretical books, and Hobbes’s Levia
than was mentioned “ in particular.” The old philosopher,
then verging on eighty, was naturally alarmed. Bold as he
was in thought, his inherited physical timidity shrank from
the prospect of the prison, the scaffold, or the stake. He
made a show of conformity, and according to Bishop Kennet,
who is not an irreproachable witness, he partook of the
sacrament. It was said by some, however, that he acted
thus in compliance with the wishes of the Devonshire family,
�THOMAS HOBBES.
*
33
who were his protectors, and whose private chapel he attended.
A noticeable fact was that he always went out before the
sermon, and when asked his reason, he answered that “ they
could teach him nothing but what he knew.” He spoke of
th® chaplain, Dr. Jasper Mayne, as “ a very silly fellow.”
Hated by the clergy, and especially by the bishops ; owing
hig liberty and perhaps his life to powerful patrons ; fearing
that some fanatic might take the parsons’ hints and play the
part of an assassin ; Hobbes is said to have kept a lighted
candle in his bedroom. The fact, if it be such, is not men
tioned in Professor Croom Robertson’s exhaustive biography.
*
It is perhaps a bit of pious gossip. But were the story
authentic, it would not show that Hobbes had any super
natural fears. He was more apprehensive of assassins than
of ghosts and devils. Being very old, too, and his life pre
carious, he might well desire a light in his bedroom in case of
accident or sudden sickness. The story is too trivial to de
serve further notice. Orthodoxy must be hard pushed to
dilate on so simple a thing as this.
According to one Christian tract, which is scarcely worth
mention, although extensively circulated, Hobbes when
dying said “he was about to take a leap in the dark.”
Every dying man might say the same with equal truth. Yet
the story seems fictitious. I can discover no trace of it in
any early authority.
Hobbes does not appear to have troubled himself about
death. Bishop Kennet relates that only “ the winter before
he died he made a warm greatcoat, which he said must last
him three years, and then he. would have such another.”
Even so late as August, 1676, four months before his decease,
he was “ writing somewhat ” for his publisher to “ print in
English.” About the middle of October he had an attack of
strangury, and “ Wood and Kennet both have it that, on
Bearing the trouble was past cure, he exclaimed, ‘ I shall be
glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world at.’
This story was picked up thirty years after Hobbes’s death,
and is probably apocryphal. If the philosopher said anything
©f the kind, he doubtless meant that, being very old, and
without wife, child, or relative to care for him, he would be
glad to find a shelter for his last moments, and to expire in
* Hobbes. By George Croom Robertson. Blackwood and Sons; 1886.
t Robertson, p. 203.
C
�34
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
comfort and peace. At the end of November his right side
was paralysed, and he lost his speech. He “ lingered in a
somnolent state ” for several days, says Professor Robertson,
and “ then his life quietly went out.”
Bishop Kennet was absurd enough to hint that Hobbes’s
“ lying some days in a silent stupefaction, did seem owing to
his mind, more than his body.”* An old man of ninety-one
suffers a paralytic stroke, loses his speech, sinks into unconsciouness, and quietly expires. What could be more natural ?
Yet the Bishop, belonging to an order which always scents a
brimstone flavor round the heretic’s death-bed, must explain
this stupor and inanition by supposing that the moribund
philosopher was in a fit of despair. We have only to add
that Bishop Kennet was not present at Hobbes’s death. His
theory is, therefore, only a professional surmise; and we may
be sure that the wish was father to the thought.
AUSTIN HOLYOAKE.
This stedfast Freethinker was a younger brother of George
Jacob Holyoake. He was of a singularly modest and amiable
nature, and although he left many friends he left not a
single enemy. He was entirely devoted to the Freethought
cause, and satisfied to work hard behind the scenes whilfi
more popular figures took the credit and profit. His assiduity
in the publishing business at Fleet Street, which was osten
sibly managed by his better-known and more fortunate
brother, induced a witty friend to call him “ Jacob’s ladder.”
Afterwards he threw in his lot with Charles Bradlaugh, then
the redoubtable “Iconoclast,” and became the printer and
in part sub-editor of the National lieformer, to whose columns
he was a frequent and welcome contributor. He died on
April 10, 1874, and was interred at Highgate Cemetery, his
funeral being largely attended by the London Freethinkers,
including C. Bradlaugh, C. Watts, G. W. Foote, James Thomson,
and G. J. Holyoake. The malady that carried him off was
consumption; he was conscious almost to the last; and his
only regret in dying, at the comparatively early age of forty
seven, was that he could no longer fight the battle of freedom,
nor protect the youth of his little son and daughter.
* Afemoin of the Cavendiih Family, p, 108.
�VICTOR HUGO.
35
Two days before his death, Austin Holyoake dictated his
last thoughts on religion, which were written down by his
devoted wife, and printed in the National Reformer of April
19, 1874. Part of this document is filled with his mental
history. In the remainder he reiterates his disbelief in the
cardinal doctrines of Christianity. The following extracts are
interesting and pertinent:
“ Christians constantly tell Freethinkers that their principles of
‘ negation,’ as they term them, may do very well for health ; but when
the hour of sickness and approaching death arrives they utterly break
down, and the hope of a ! blessed immortality ’ can alone give con
solation. In my own case I have been anxious to test the truth of
this assertion, and have therefore deferred till the latest moment I
think it prudent to dictate these few lines.
“ To desire eternal bliss is no proof that we shall ever attain it;
and it has long seemed to me absurd to believe in that which we wish
for, however ardently. I regard all forms of Christianity as founded
in selfishness. It is the expectation held out of bliss through all
eternity, in return for the profession of faith in Christ and him cruci
fied, that induces the erection of temples of worship in all Chris
tian lands. Remove the extravagant promise, and you will hear very
little of the Christian religion.
“ As I have stated before, my mind being free from any doubts on
these bewildering matters of speculation, I have experienced
for twenty years the most perfect mental repose ; and now I find that
the near approach of death, the ‘ grim King of Terrors,’ gives me not
the slightest alarm. I have suffered, and am suffering, most
intensely both by night and day; but this has not produced the least
symptom of change of opinion. No amount of bodily torture can
alter a mental conviction. Those who, under pain, say they see the
error of their previous belief, had never thought out the subject for
themselves.”
These are words of transparent sincerity; not a phrase is
strained, not a line aims at effect. Beading them, we feel
in presence of an earnest man bravely confronting death, con
sciously sustained by his convictions, and serenely bidding the
world farewell.
VICTOR HUGO.
The greatest French poet of this century, perhaps the
greatest French poet of all time, was a fervent Theist,
reverencing the prophet of Nazareth as a man, and holding that
“ the divine tear” of Jesus and “ the human smile” of
Voltaire “compose the sweetness of the present civilisation.”
But he was perfectly free from the trammels of' creeds, and
he hated priestcraft, like despotism, with a perfect hatred.
�36
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
In one of his striking later poems, Religion et les Religions, he
derides and denounces the tenets and pretensions of Chris
tianity. The Devil, he says to the clergy, is only the monkey
of superstition ; your Hell is an outrage on Humanity and a
blasphemy against God ; and when you tell me that your
deity made you in his own image, I reply that he must be
very ugly.
As a man, as well as a writer, there was something magni
ficently grandiose about him. Subtract him from the nine
teenth century, and you rob it of much of its glory. For
nineteen years on a lonely channel island, an exile from the
land of his birth and his love, he nursed the conscience of
humanity within his mighty heart, brandishing the lightnings
and thunders of chastisement over the heads of the political
brigands who were stifling a nation, and prophesying their
certain doom. When it came, after Sedan, he returned to
Paris, and for fifteen years he was idolised by its people.
There was great mourning at his death, and “ all Paris ”
attended his funeral.' But true to the simplicity of his life,
he ordered that his body should lie in a common coffin, which
contrasted vividly with the splendid procession. France
buried him, as she did Gambetta; he was laid to rest in the
Church of St. Genevieve, re-secularised as the Pantheon for
the occasion ; and the interment took place without any
religious rites.
Hugo’s great oration on Voltaire, in 1878, roused the ire
of the Bishop of Orleans, who reprimanded him in a public
letter. The freethinking poet sent a crushing reply :
“ France had to pass an ordeal. France was free. A man traitor
ously seized her in the night, threw her down, and garroted her. If a
people could be killed, that man had slain France. He made her dead
enough for him to reign over her. He began his reign, since it was a
reign, with perjury, lying in wait, and massacre. He continued it by
oppression, by tyranny, by despotism, by an unspeakable parody of
religion and justice. He was monstrous and little. The Te Deum,
Magnificat, Salvum fac, Gloria tibi, were sung for him. Who sang
them ? Ask yourself. The law delivered the people up to him. The
church delivered God up to him. Under that man sank down right,
honor, country; he had beneath his feet oath, equity, probity, the glory
of the flag, the dignity of men, the liberty of citizens. That man’s
.prosperity disconcerted the human conscience. It lasted nineteen
years. During that time you were in a palace. I was in exile. I pity
you, sir.”
Despite this terrible rebuff to Bishop Dupanloup, another
�DAVID HUME.
37
priest, Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, had the temerity
and bad taste to obtrude himself when Victor Hugo lay dying
in 1885. Being born on February 26, 1802, he was in his
eighty-fourth year, and expiring naturally of old age. Had
the rites of the Church been performed on him in such cir
cumstances, it would have been an insufferable farce. Yet
the Archbishop wrote to Madame Lockroy, offering to bring
personally “ the succor and consolation so much needed in
these cruel ordeals.” Monsieur Lockroy at once replied as
follows:
“ Madame Lockroy, who cannot leave the bedside of her father-in?
law, begs me to thank you for the sentiments which you have ex
pressed with so much eloquence and kindness. As regards M. Victor
Hugo, he has again said within the last few days, that he had no wish
during his illness to be attended by a priest of any persuasion. We
should be wanting in our duty if we did not respect his resolution.”*
Hugo’s death-chamber was thus unprofaned by the presence
of a priest. He expired in peace, surrounded by the beings
he loved. According to the Times correspondent in Paris,
“ Almost his last words, addressed to his granddaughter,
were, ‘ Adieu, Jeanne, adieu!’ And his last movement of
consciousness was to clasp his grandson’s hand.”
The
hero-poet bade his charming grandchildren adieu ; but the
world will not bid them adieu, any more than him, for he
has immortalised them in his imperishable A’Art d’etre Grandpere, every page of which is scented with the deathless per
fume of adorable love.
DAVID HUME.
Professor Huxley ventures to call David Hume “ the most
acute thinker of the eighteenth century, even though it pro
duced Kant.”t Hume’s greatness is no less clearly acknow
ledged by Joseph De Maistre, the foremost champion of the
Papacy in our own century. “ I believe,” he says, “ that
taking all into account, the eighteenth century, so fertile in
this respect, has not produced a single enemy of religion who
can be compared with him. His cold venom is far more
dangerous than the foaming rage of Voltaire. If ever, among
men who have heard the gospel preached, there has existed a
veritable Atheist (which I will not undertake to decide) it is
he.”J Allowing for the personal animosity in his estimate
* London Times, May 23, 1885: Paris Correspondent’s letter,
t Lay Sermons, p. 141.
J Lettres sur V Inquisition, pp. 147, 148.
�38
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
of Hume, De Maistre is as accurate as Huxley. The immor
tal Essays attest both his penetration and his scepticism ; the
one on Miracles being a perpetual stumbling-block to Christian
apologists. With superb irony, Hume closes that portentous
discourse with a reprimand of “ those dangerous friends or
disguised enemies to the Christian Religion, who have under
taken to defend it by the principles of human reason.” He
reminds them that “our most holy religion is founded on
faith, not on reason” He remarks that Christianity was “ not
only attended by miracles, but even at this day cannot be
believed by any reasonable person without one.” For
“whoever is moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious
of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all
the principles of his understanding, and gives him a deter
mination to believe what is most contrary to custom and ex
perience.”
Hume was bom at Edinburgh on April 26, 1711. His life
was the uneventful one of a literary man. Besides his Essays,
he published a History of England, which was the first serious
effort in that direction. Judged by the standard of our day
it is inadequate ; but it abounds in philosophical reflections of
the highest order, and its style is nearly perfect. Gibbon,
who was a good judge of style, had an unbounded admiration
for Hume’s “ careless inimitable beauties.”
Fortune, however, was not so kind to him as fame. At the
age of forty, his frugal habits had enabled him to save no
more than £1,000. He reckoned his income at £50 a year,
but his wants were few, his spirit was cheerful, and there
were few prizes in the lottery of life for which he would have
made an exchange. In 1775 his health began to fail.
Knowing that his disorder (hemorrhage of the bowels) would
prove fatal, he made his will, and wrote My Own Life, the
conclusion of which, says Huxley, “ is one of the most cheer
ful, simple and dignified leave-takings of life and all its con
cerns, extant.” He died on August 25, 1776, and was buried
a few days later on the eastern slope of Calton Hill, Edinburgh,
his body being “ attended by a great concourse of people, who
seem to have anticipated for it the fate appropriate to wizards
and necromancers.”*
Dr. Adam Smith, the great author of the Wealth of Nations,
Ilume, by Professor Huxley, p. 43.
�M. LITTRE.
39
was one of Hume’s most intimate friends. He tells us that
Hume went to London in April, 1776, and soon after his re
turn he “ gave up all hope of recovery, but submitted with
the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect complacency
and resignation.” His cheerfulness was so great that many
people could not believe he was dying. ft Mr. Hume’s mag
nanimity and firmness were such,” says Adam Smith, “ that
his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded nothing
in talking and writing to him as a dying man, and that, so
far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased
and flattered by it.” His chief thought in relation to the
possible prolongation of his life, which his friends hoped,
although he told them their hopes were groundless, was that
he would “ have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of
some of the prevailing systems of superstition.” On August 8,
Adam Smith went to Kirkcaldy, leaving Hume in a very
weak state but still very cheerful. On August 28, he received
the following letter from Dr. Black, the physician, announcing
the philosopher’s death.
“ Edinburgh, Monday, Aug. 26,1776. Dear Sir, Yesterday, about
four o’clock, afternoon, Mr. Hume expired. The near approach of
his death became evident in the night between Thursday and Friday,
when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened him so much,
that he could no longer rise out of his bed. He continued to the last
perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings of distress. He
never dropped the smallest expression of impatience; but when he
had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it with
affection and tenderness. I thought it improper to write to bring you
over, especially as I heard that he had dictated a letter to you, desiring
you not to come. When he became weak it cost him an effort to speak,
and he died in such a happy composure of mind that nothing could
exceed it.”
“Thus,” says Adam Smith, “died our most excellent and
never to be forgotten friend. . . . Upon the whole, I have
always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death
as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and
virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will
permit.”*
M. LITTRE.
This great French Positivist died in 1882 at the ripe age
of eighty-one. M. Littre was one of the foremost writers in
* Letter to William Strahan, dated November 9, 1776, and usually prefixed to
Hume’s History of England.
�40
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
France. His monumental “ Dictionary of the French Lan
guage ” is the greatest work of its kind in the world. As a
scholar and a philosopher his eminence was universally recog
nised. His character was so pure and sweet that a Catholic
lady called him “ a saint who does not believe in God.”
Although not rich, his purse was ever open to the claims of
parity. He was one who “did good by stealth,” and his
benefactions were conferred without respect to creed. A
Freethinker himself, he patronised the Catholic orphanage near
his residence, and took a keen interest in the welfare of its
inmates. He was an honor to France, to the world, and to
the Humanity which he loved and served instead of God.
M. Littre’s wife was an ardent Catholic, yet she was
allowed to follow her own religious inclinations without the
least interference. The great Freethinker valued liberty of
conscience above all other rights, and what he claimed for
himself he conceded to others. He scorned to exercise autho
rity even in the domestic circle, where so much tyranny is
practised.
His wife, however, was less scrupulous. After
enjoying for so many years the benefit of his steadfast tolera
tion, she took advantage of her position to exclude his friends
from his death-bed, to have him baptised in his last moments,
and to secure his burial in consecrated ground with pious
rites. Not satisfied with this, she even allowed it to be under
stood that her husband had recanted his heresy and died in
the bosom of the Church. The Abbe Huvelin, her confessor,
who frequently visited M. Littre during his last illness, assisted
her in the fraud.
There was naturally a disturbance at M. Littre’s funeral.
As the Standard correspondent wrote, his friends and dis
ciples were “ very angry at this recantation in extremis, and
claimed that dishonest priestcraft took advantage of the dark
ness cast over that clear intellect by the mist of approaching
death to perform the rites of the Church over his semi
inanimate body.” While the body was laid out in Catholic
fashion, with crucifixes, candles, and priests telling their
beads, Dr. Galopin advanced to the foot of the coffin and
spoke as follows :—
“ Master, you used to call me your son, and you loved me. I remain
your disciple and your defender. I come, in the name of Positive
*
Philosophy, to claim the rights of universal Freemasonry. A deception
has been practised upon us, to try and steal you from thinking
�M. LITTRE.
41
humanity. But the future will judge your enemies and ours. Master
we will revenge you by making our children read your books.;"
At the grave M. Wyrouboff, editor of the Comtist review,
La Philosophic Positive, founded by M. Littre, delivered a
brief address to the Freethinkers who remained, which con
cluded thus—
“ Littre proved by his example that it is possible for a man to
possess a noble and generous heart, and at the same time espouse a
doctrine which admits nothing beyond what is positively real and
which prevents any recantation. And gentlemen, in spite of deceptive
appearances, Littre died as he had lived, without contradictions or weak
ness. All those who knew that calm and serene mind—and I was of
the number of those who did—are well aware that it was irrevocably
closed to the ‘ unknowable,’ and that it was thoroughly prepared to
meet courageously the irresistible laws of nature. And now sleep in
peace, proud and noble thinker ! You will not have the eternity of a
world to come, which you never expected ; but you leave behind you
your country that you strove honestly to serve, the Republic which
you always loved, a generation of disciples who will remain faithful
to you; and last, but not least, you leave your thoughts and your
virtues to the whole world. Social immortality, the only beneficent
and fecund immortality, commences for you to-day.”
M. Wyrouboff has since amply proved his statements.
The English press creditably rejected the story of M.
Littre’s recantation. The Daily News sneered at it, the
Times described it as absurd, the Standard said it looked untrue. But the Morning Advertiser was still more outspoken.
It said:—
s‘ There can hardly be a doubt that M. Littre died ■ a steadfast ad
herent to the principles he so powerfully advocated during his laborious
and distinguished life. The Church may claim, as our Paris corres
pondent, in his interesting note on the subject, tells us she is already
claiming, the death-bed conversion of the great unbeliever, who for
the last thirty-five years was one of her most active and formidable
enemies. She has attempted to take the same posthumous revenge
on Voltaire, on Paine, and on many others, who were described by
Roman Catholic writers as calling in the last dreadful hour for the
Spiritual support they held up to ridicule in the confidence of health
and. the presumption of their intellect.”
In the Paris Gaulois there appeared a letter from the Abbe
Huvelin, written very ambiguously, and obviously intended to
mislead. But one fact stands out clear. This priest was
only admitted to visit M. Littre as a friend, and he was not
allowed to baptise him. The Archbishop of Paris also, in
his official organ, La Semaine Religieuse, admitted that “he
received the sacrament of baptism on the morning of the very
�42
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
day of his death, not from the hands of the priest, who had not
yet arrived, but from those of Madame Littrg.” The Arch
bishop, however, insists that he “ received the ordinance in
perfect consciousness and with his own full consent.” Now
as M. Littre was eighty-one years old, as he had been for
twelve months languishing with a feeble hold on life, during
which time he was often in a state of stupor, and as this was
the very morning of his death, I leave the reader to estimate
the value of what the Archbishop calls “ perfect consciousness
and full consent.” If any consent was given by the dying
Freethinker, it was only to gratify his wife and daughter, and
at the last moment when he had no will to resist; for if he
had been more compliant they would certainly have baptised
him before. Submission in these circumstances counts for
nothing ; and in any case there is forceful truth in M. Littre’s
words, written in 1879 in his “Conservation, Revolution, et
Positivisme”—a whole life passed without any observance of
religious rites must outweigh the single final act.”
Unfortunately for the clericals, there exists a document
which may be considered M. Littrd’s last confession. It is an
article written for the Comtist review a year before his death,
entitled, “ Pour la Derniere Fois ”—For the Last Time.
While writing it he knew that his end was not far off. “ For
many months,” he’says, “my sufferings have prostrated me
with dreadful persistence. . . Every evening when I have
to be put to bed, my pains are exasperated, and often I have
not the strength to stifle cries which are grievous to me and
grievous to those who tend me.” After the article was com
pleted his malady increased. Fearing the worst, he wrote to
his friend, M. Caubet, as follows :—
“ Last Saturday I swooned away for a long time. It is for that
reason I send you, a little prematurely, my article for the Review.
If 1 live, I will correct the proofs as usual. If I die, let it be printed
and published in the Review as a posthumous article. It will be a
last trouble which I venture to give you. The reader must do his
best to follow the manuscript faithfully.”
If I live—If I die ! These are the words of one in the
shadow of Death.
Let us see what M. Littre’s last confession is. I translate
two passages from the article. Referring to Charles Greville,
he says:
“ I feel nothing of what he experienced. Like him, I find it im
�HARRIET MARTINEAU.
43
possible to accept the theory of the world which Catholicism prescribes
*
to all true believers; but I do not regret being without such doctrines,,
and I cannot discover in myself any wish to return to them.”
And he concludes the article with these words :
“ Positive Philosophy, which has so supported me since my thirtieth
year, and which, in giving me an ideal, a craving for progress, the
vision of history and care for humanity, has preserved me from being
a simple negationist, accompanies me faithfully in these last trials.
The questions it solves in its own way, the rules it prescribes by virtue
of its principle, the beliefs it discountenances in the name of our igno
rance of everything absolute ; of these I have in the preceding pages
made an examination, which I conclude with the supreme word of the
commencement: for the last time.”
So much for the lying story of M. Littre’s recantation. In
the words of M. Wyrouboff, although his corpse was accom
panied to the grave by priests and believers, his name will go
down to future generations as that of one who was to the end
servant to science and an enemy to superstition.”
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
This gifted woman died on May 27, 1876, after a long
a®d useful life, filled with literary labor in the cause of
progress. On April 19, less than six weeks before her death,
she wrote her last letter to Mr. H. G. Atkinson, from which
the following is taken.
“ I cannot think of any future as at all probable, except the ‘ annihila
tion’from which some people recoil with so much horror. I find
myself here in the universe—I know not how, whence, or why. I see
everything in the universe go out and disappear, and I see no reason
for supposing that it is an actual and entire death. And for my part,
I have no objection to such an extinction. I well remember the passion
with which W. E. Forster said to me ‘ I had rathei- be damned than
annihilated.’ If he once felt five minutes’ damnation, he would be
thankful for extinction in preference. The truth is, I care little about
it any way. Now that the event draws near, and that I see how fully
my household expectmy death pretty soon, the universe opens so widely
before my view, and I see the old notions of death, and scenes to follow
so merely human—so impossible to be true, when one glances through
the range of science,—that I see nothing to be done but to wait, without
fear or hope or ignorant prejudice, for the expiration of life. I have
no wish for future experience, nor have I any fear of it. Under the
weariness of illness I long to be asleep.”f
These are the words of a brave woman, who met Death
• To a Frenchman, Catholicism and Christianity mean one and the same thing
t Autobiography of Hariiet Mart/neaw, Vol. Ill, p. 454; edition 1877.
�44
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
with the same fortitude as she exhibited in the presence of
the defenders of slavery in the United States.
JOHN STUART MELL.
Mill was born in Rodney Street, Pentonville, London, on
May 20, 1806, and he died at Avignon on May 8, 1873. Not
withstanding the unguarded admissions in the one of his
three Essays on Religion which he never prepared for the
press, it is certain that he lived and died a Freethinker. His
father educated him without theology, and he never really
imbibed any afterwards. Professor Bain, his intimate friend
and his biographer, tells us that “ he absented himself during
his whole life from religious services,” and that “ in every
thing characteristic of the creed of Christendom he was a
thorough-going negationist. He admitted neither its truth
nor its utility.”* Mr. John Morley also, in his admirably
written account of the last day he spent with Mill,! says that
he looked forward to a general growth of the Religion of
Humanity. There is no extant record of Mill’s last moments,
but there has never been any pretence that he recanted or
showed the least alarm. One Christian journal, which died
itself soon after, declared its opinion that his soul was burn
ing in hell, and expressed a pious wish that his disciples
would soon follow him. We may therefore conclude that
Mill died a Freethinker as he had always lived.
MIRABEAU.
Gabriel Honore Riquetti, son and heir of the Marquis de
Mirabeau, was born on March 9, 1749. He came of a wild
strong stock, and was a magnificent “ enormous ” fellow at
his birth, the head being especially great. The turbulent
life of the man has been graphically told by Carlyle in his
Essays and in the French Revolution. Faults he had many,
but not that of insincerity ; with all his failings, he was a
•gigantic mass of veracious humanity. “ Moralities not a few,”
says Carlyle, “ must shriek condemnatory over this Mirabeau ;
the Morality by which he could be judged has not yet got
uttered in the speech of men.”
John Stuart Mill, by Alexander Bain, pp. 139,140.
t Miscellanies, Vol. III.
�MIRABEAU.
45
Mirabeau’s work in the National Assembly belongs to
history. It was mighty and splendid, but it cannot be recited
here. His life burned away during those fateful months,
the incessant labor and excitement almost passing credibility.
“ If I had not lived with him,” says Dumont, “ I never
should have known what a man can make of one day, what
things may be placed within the interval of twelve hours.
A day for this man was more than a week or a month is for
others.” One day his secretary said to him “ Monsieur le
Comte what you require is impossible.” Whereupon Mira
beau started from his chair, with the memorable ejaculation,
“ Impossible ! Never name to me that blockhead of a word ”
—Ne me elites jamais ce bete de mot.
But the Titan of the Revolution was exhausted before his
task was done. In January, 1791, he sat as President of theAssembly with his neck bandaged after the application of
leeches. At parting he said to Dumont “ I am dying, my
friend ; dying as by slow fire.” On the 27th of March he
stood in the tribune for the last time. Four days later he
was on his death-bed. Crowds beset the street, anxious but
silent, and stopping all traffic so that their hero might not
be disturbed. A bulletin was issued every three hours.
“ On Saturday the second day of April,” says Carlyle, “ Mira
beau feels that the last of the Days has risen for him ; that
on this day he has to depart and be no more. His death is
Titanic, as his life has been! Lit up, for the last time, in the
glare of the coming dissolution, the mind of the man is all
glowing and burning; utters itself in sayings, such as men
long remember. He longs to live, yet acquiesces in death,
argues not with the inexorable. *
Gazing out on the Spring sun, Mirabeau said, Si ce n’est
pas Id Dieu, cest du moins son cousin germain—If that is not
God, it is at least his cousin german. It was the great utter
ance of an eighteenth-century Pagan, looking across the
mists of Christian superstition to the saner nature-worship of
antiquity.
Power of speech gone, Mirabeau made signs for paper and
pen, and wrote the word Dormir “ To sleep.” Cabanis, the
great physician, who stood beside him, pretended not to
understand this passionate request for opium. Thereupon,
* French Revolution Vol. II., p. 120.
�46
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
writes the doctor, “ he made a sign for the pen and paper to
be brought to him again, and wrote,-‘Do you think
that Death is dangerous ?’—Seeing that I did not comply
with his demand, he wrote again,-' . . . How can you
leave your friend on the wheel, perhaps for days ?’ ” Oabanis
and Dr. Petit decided to give him a sedative. While it was
sent for “the pains became atrocious.” Recovering speech a
little under the torture, he turned to M. de la Marek, saying,
“ You deceive me.” “ No,” replied his friend, “ we are not
deceiving you, the remedy is coming, we all saw it ordered.”
“ Ah, the doctors, the doctors !” he muttered. Then, turn
ing to Oabanis, with a look of mingled anger and tenderness,
he said, “ Were you not my doctor and my friend ? Did you
not promise to spare me the agonies of such a death ? Do
you wish me to expire with a regret that I trusted you ?”
“ Those words,” says Cabanis, “ the last that he uttered,
ring incessantly in my ears. He turned over on the right
side with a convulsive movement, and at half-past eight in
the morning he expired in our arms.”* Dr. Petit, standing
at the foot of the bed, said “ His sufferings are ended.”
“ So dies,” writes Carlyle, “ a gigantic Heathen and Titan ;
stumbling blindly, undismayed, down to his rest.”
Mirabeau was an Atheist, and he was buried as became his
philosophy and his greatness. The Assembly decreed a
Public Funeral; there was a procession a league in length,
and the very roofs, trees, and lamp-posts, were covered with
people. The Church of Sainte-Genevieve was turned into a
Pantheon for the Great Men of the Fatherland, Aux Grands
Hommes la Patrie reconnaissante. It was midnight ere the
ceremonies ended, and the mightiest man in France was left
in the darkness and silence to his long repose. Of him, more
than most men, it might well have been said, “ After life’s
fitful fever he sleeps well.” Dormir “ To sleep,” he wrote
in his dying agony. Death had no terror for him ; it was
only the ringing down of the curtain at the end of the drama.
From the womb of Nature he sprang, and like a tired child
he fell asleep at last on her bosom.
ROBERT OWEN.
Robert Owen, whose name was once a terror to the clergy
* Journal de la Maladieet de la Mort d'Honors—Gabriel Mirabeau. Paris, 1791;
p. 263.
�ROBERT OWEN.
47
and the privileged classes, was born at Newtown, Mont
gomeryshire, on May 14, 1771. In his youth he noticed the
inconsistency of professing Christians, and on studying the
various religions of the world, as he tells us in his Auto
biography, he found that “ one and all had emanated from
the same source, and their varieties from the same false
imaginations of our early ancestors.” We have no space to
narrate his long life, his remarkable prosperity in cotton
spinning, his experiments in the education of children, his
disputes with the clergy, and his efforts at social reform,
to which he devoted his time and wealth, with sin
gular disinterestedness and simplicity. At one time his in
fluence even with the upper classes was remarkable, but he
seriously impaired it in 1817, by honestly stating, at a great
meeting at the City of London Tavern, that it was useless
to hope for real reform while people were besotted by “ the
gross errors that have been combined with the fundamental
notions of every religion.” After many more years of labor
for the cause he loved, Owen quietly passed away on No
vember 17, 1858, at the great age of eighty-eight. His last
hours are described in the following letter by his son, Robert
Dale Owen, which appeared in the newspapers of the time,
and is preserved in Mr. G. J. Holyoake’s Last Days of Robert
Owen.
“ Newtown, November 17, 1858. My dear father passed away this
morning, at a quarter before seven, and passed away as gently and
quietly as if he had fallen asleep. There was not the least struggle,
not a contraction of a limb, of a muscle, not an expression of pain on
his face. His breathing gradually became slower and slower, until at
last it ceased so imperceptibly, that, even as I held his hand, I could
scarcely tell the moment when he no longer breathed. His last words
distinctly pronounced about twenty minutes before his death, were
‘Relief has come.’ About half an hour before he said ‘Very easy
and comfortable.’ ”
Owen’s remains were interred in the churchyard of St.
Mary’s, Newtown, and as the law then stood, the minister
had a right, which he exercised, of reading the Church of
England burial service over the heretic’s coffin, and the Free
thinkers who stood round the grave had to bear the mockery
as quietly as possible. In Owen’s case, as in Carlile’s, the
Church appropriated the heretic’s corpse. Even Darwin’s
body rests in Westminster Abbey, and that is all of him the
' Church can boast.
�48
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
THOMAS PAINE.
George Washington has been called the hero of American
Independence, but Thomas Paine shares with him the honor.
The sword of the one, and the pen of the other, were both
necessary in the conflict which prepared the ground for
building the liepublic of the United States. While the
farmer-general fought with unabated hope in the darkest
hours of misfortune, the soldier-author wrote the stirring
appeals which kindled and sustained enthusiasm in the sacred
cause of liberty. Common Sense was the precursor of the
Declaration of Independence. The Rights of Man, subse
quently written and published in England, advocated the
same principles where they were equally required. Replied
to by Government in a prosecution for treason, it brought
the author so near to the gallows that he was only saved by
flight. Learning afterwards that the Rights of Man can
never be realised while the people are deluded and degraded
by priestcraft and superstition, Paine attacked Christianity
in The Age of Reason. That vigorous, logical, and witty
volume has converted thousands of Christians to Freethought.
It was answered by bishops, denounced by the clergy, and
prosecuted for blasphemy. But it was eagerly read in fields
and workshops ; brave men fought round it as a standard of
freedom; and before the battle ended the face of society was
changed.
Thomas Paine was bom at Thetford, in Norfolk, on January
29, 1736. His scepticism began at the early age of eight,
when he was shocked by a sermon on the Atonement, which
represented God as killing his own son when he could not
revenge himself in any other way. Becoming acquainted
with Dr. Franklin in London, Paine took his advice and emi
grated to America in the autumn of 1774. A few months
later his Common Sense announced the advent of a masterly
writer. More than a hundred thousand copies were sold, yet
Paine lost money by the pamphlet, for he issued it, like all
his other writings, at the lowest price that promised to cover
expenses. Congress, in 1777, appointed him Secretary to the
Committee for Foreign Affairs. Eight years later it granted
him three thousand dollars on account of his “ early, un
solicited, and continued labors in explaining the principles of
the late Revolution.” In the same year the State of Pen-
�49
THOMAS PAINE.
sylvania presented liim with £500, and the State of New York
gave him three hundred acres of valuable land.
Returning to England in 1787, Paine devoted his abilities
to engineering. He invented the arched iron bridge, and the
first structure of that kind in the world, the cast-iron bridge
over the Wear at Sunderland, was made from his model. Yet
he appeals to have derived no more profit from this than
from his writings.
Burke’s Reflections appeared in 1790. Paine lost no time
in replying, and his Rights of Man was sold by the hundred
thousand. The Government tried to suppress the work by
bribery; and that failing, a prosecution was begun. Paine’s
defence was conducted by Erskine, but the jury returned a
verdict of Guilty “ without the trouble of deliberation.” The
intended victim of despotism was, however, beyond its reach.
He had been elected by the departments of Calais and Ver
sailles to sit in the National Assembly. A splendid reception
awaited him at Calais, and his journey to Paris was marked by
popular demonstrations. At the trial of Louis XVI., he spoke
and voted for banishment instead of execution. He was one of
the Committee appointed to frame the Constitution of 1793,
but in the close of that year, having become obnoxious to
the Terrorists, he was deprived of his seat as “a foreigner,”
and imprisoned in the Luxembourg for no better reason. At
the time of his arrest he had written the first part of the
Age of Reason. While in prison he composed the second
part, and as he expected every day to be guillotined, it was
penned in the very presence of Death.
Liberated on the fall of Robespierre, Paine returned to
America; not, however, without great difficulty, for the British
cruisers were ordered to intercept him. From 1802 till his
death he wrote and published many pamphlets on religious
and other topics, including the third part of the Age of Reason.
His last years were full of pain, caused by an abscess in the
side, which was brought on by his imprisonment in Paris.
He expired, after intense suffering, on June 8, 1809, placidly
and without a struggle.
*
Paine’s last hours were disturbed by pious visitors who
wished to save his immortal soul from the wrath of God.
One afternoon a very old lady, dressed in a large scarlet-hooded
* Life of Thomas Paine. By Olio Rickman.
1819. P. 187.
D
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INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
cloak, knocked at the door and inquired for Thomas Paine. Mr
Jarvis, with whom Mr. Paine resided, told her he was asleep. ‘ I am
very sorry,’ she said, ‘ for that, for I want to see him particularly.’
Thinking it a pity to make an old woman call twice, Mr. Jarvis took
her into Mr.'Paine’s bedroom and awoke him. He rose upon one elbow;
then, with an expression of eye that made the old woman stagger back
a step or two, he asked ‘ What do you want ?’ ‘ Is your name Paine ?’
‘ Yes.’ ‘ Well then, I come from Almighty God to tell you, that if you
do not repent of your sins, and believe in our blessed Savior Jesus
Christ, you will be damned and—’ 1 Poh, poh, it is not true; you were
not sent with any such impertinent message: Jarvis make her go
away—pshaw! he would not send such a foolish ugly old woman
about his messages : go away, go back, shut the door.’”*
Two weeks before his death, his conversion was attempted
by two Christian ministers, the Bev. Mr. Milledollar and the
Bev. Mr. Cunningham.
“ The latter gentleman said, ‘ Mr. Paine, we visit you as friends and
neighbors : you have now a full view of death, you cannot live long,
and whoever does not believe in Jesus Christ will assuredly be
damned.’ ‘ Let me,’ said Mr. Paine, 1 have none of your popish stuff;
get away with you, good morning, good morning.’ The Rev. Mr.
Milledollar attempted to address him, but he was interrupted in the
same language. When they were gone he said to Mrs. Hedden, his
housekeeper, ‘ do not let them come here again; they intrude upon
me.’ They soon renewed their visit, but Mrs. Hedden told them they
could not be admitted, and that she thought the attempt useless, for
God did not change his mind, she was sure no human power could.”f
Another of these busybodies was the Bev. Mr. Hargrove,
a Swedenborgian or New Jerusalemite minister. This gentle
man told Paine that his sect had found the key for interpreting
the Scriptures, which had been lost for four thousand years.
“ Then,” said Paine, “ it must have been very rusty.”
Even his medical attendant did not scruple to assist in this
pious enterprise. Dr. Manley’s letter to Cheetham, one of
Paine’s biographers, says that he visited the dying sceptic at
midnight, June 5-6, two days before he expired. After
tormenting him with many questions, to which he made
no answer, Dr. Manley proceeded as follows :
“ Mr. Paine, you have not answered my questions : will you answer
them ? Allow me to ask again, do you believe, or—let me qualify
the question—do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God ? After a pause of some minutes he answered, ‘ I have no wish,
to believe on that subject.’ I then left him, and know not whether he
afterwards spoke to any person on the subject.”
Hickman, pp. 182—18;.
t Rickman, p. 184.
�THOMAS PAINE.
51
Sherwin confirms this statement. He prints a letter from
Mr. Clark, who spoke to Dr. Manley on the subject. “ I
asked him plainly,” says Mr. Clark, “ did Mr. Paine recant
his religious sentiments ? I would thank you for an explicit
answer, sir. He said, ‘No he did not.'' ”*
Mr. Willet Hicks, a Quaker gentleman who frequently
called on Paine in his last illness, as a friend and not as a
soul-snatcher, bears similar testimony. “ In some serious
conversation I had with him a short time before his death,”
said Mr. Hicks, “he said his sentiments respecting the
Christian religion were precisely the same as they were
when he wrote the Age of Reason.'f
Lastly, we have the testimony of Cheetham himself, who
was compelled to apologise for libelling Paine during his life,
and whose biography of the great sceptic is a continuous
libel. Even Oheetham is bound to admit that Paine “ died
as he had lived, an enemy to the Christian religion.”
Notwithstanding this striking harmony of evidence as to
Paine’s dying in the principles of Freethought, the story of
his “recantation” gradually developed, until at last it was
told to the children in Sunday-schools, and even published
by the Religious Tract Society. Nay, it is being circulated to
this very day, as no less true than the gospel itself, although
it was triumphantly exposed by William Oobbett over sixty
years ago. “ This is nota question of religion,” said Cobbett,
“ it is a question of moral truth. Whether Mr. Paine’s
opinions were correct or erroneous, has nothing to do with
this matter.”
Cobbett investigated the libel on Paine on the very spot
where it originated. Getting to the bottom of the matter,
he found that the source of the mischief was Mary Hinsdale,
who had formerly been a servant to Mr. Willet Hicks. This
gentleman sent Paine many little delicacies in his last illness,
and Mary Hinsdale conveyed them. According to her story,
Paine made a recantation in her presence, and assured her
that if ever the Devil had an agent on earth, he who wrote
the Age of Reason was undoubtedly that person: When she
was hunted out by Oobbett, however, “ she shuffled, she evaded,
she affected not to understand,” and finally said she had “no
recollection of any person or thing she saw at Thomas Paine’s
* Sherwin’s Life of Paine, p 225.
t Cheetham’s Life of Paine, p. 152.
�52
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
house.” Cobbett’s summary of the whole matter commends
itself to every sensible reader.
“ This is, I think, a pretty good instance of the lengths to which
hypocrisy will go. The whole story, as far as it relates to recantation,
. . is a lie from beginning to end. Mr. Paine declares in his last Will,
that he retains all his publicly expressed opinions as to religion. His
executors, and many other gentlemen of undoubted veracity, had the
same declaration from his dying lips. Mr. Willet Hieks visited hiifc to
nearly the last. This gentleman says that there was no change
of opinion intimated to him; and will any man believe that Paine
would have withheld from Mr. Hieks that which he was so forward to
communicate to Mr. Hicks's servant girl?”*
I have already said that the first part of the Age of Reason
was entrusted to Joel Barlow when Paine was imprisoned at
Paris, and the second part was written in gaol in the very
presence of Death. Dr. Bond, an English surgeon, who was
by no means friendly to Paine’s opinions, visited him in the
Luxembourg, and gave the following testimony :
“ Mr. Paine, while hourly expecting to die, read to me 'parts of his
Age of Reason; and every night when I left him to be separately
locked up, and expected not to see him alive in the morning, he always
expressed his firm belief in the principles of that book, and begged I
would tell the world such were his dying opinions.”!
Surely when a work was written in such circumstances, it
is absurd to charge the author with recanting his opinions
through fear of death. Citing once more the words of his
enemy Cheetham, it is incontestible that Thomas Paine “ died
as he had lived, an enemy to the Christian religion.”
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
This glorious poet of Atheism and Republicanism was born
at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, on August 4, 1792.
His whole life was a daring defiance of the tyranny of Custom.
In 1811, when less than nineteen, he was expelled from Oxford •
University for writing The Necessity of Atheism. After writing
Queen Mob and several political pamphlets, -besides visiting
Ireland to assist the cause of reform in that unhappy island,
he was deprived of the guardianship of his two children by
Lord Chancellor Eldon on account of his heresy. Leaving
England, he went to Italy, where his principal poems were
composed with remarkable rapidity during the few years of
life left him. His death occurred on July 8, 1822. He was
Republican, February 13, 1824, Vol. IX., p. 221.
+ Hickman p. 194.
�PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
53
barely thirty, yet he had made for himself a deathless fame
as the greatest lyrical poet in English literature.
Shelley was drowned in a small yacht off Leghorn. The
only other occupants of the boat were his friend Williams
and a sailor lad, both of whom shared his fate. The squall
which submerged them was too swift to allow of their taking
proper measures for their safety. Shelley’s body was re
covered. In one pocket was a volume of JEschylus, in the
other a copy of Keats’s poems, doubled back as if hastily
thrust away. He had evidently been reading “ Isabella ” and
“Lamia,” and the waves cut short his reading for ever. It
was an ideal end, although so premature ; for Shelley was
fascinated by the sea, and always expressed a preference for
death by drowning. His remains were cremated on the sea
coast, in presence of Leigh Hunt, Trelawney, and Byron.
Trelawney snatched the heart from the flames, and it is still
preserved by Sir Percy Shelley. The ashes were coffered,
and soon after buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome,
close by the old cemetery, where Keats was interred—a beau
tiful open space, covered in summer with violets and daisies,
of which Shelley himself had written “ It might make one in
love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet
a place.” Trelawney planted six young cypresses and four
laurels. On the tomb-stone was inscribed a Latin epitaph by
Leigh Hunt, to which Trelawney added three lines from
Shakespeare’s Tempest, one of Shelley’s favorite plays.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
cor CORDIUM
Natus iv. Aug. MDOCXCII
Obit vii. Jul. MDCOOXXII
“ Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”
And there at Rome, shadowed by cypress and laurel,
covered with sweet flowers, and surrounded by the crumbling
ruins of a dead empire, rests the heart of hearts.
Shelley’s Atheism cannot be seriously disputed, and Tre
lawney makes a memorable protest against the foolish and
futile attempts to explain it away.
“ The principal fault I have to find is that the Shelleyan writers
being Christians themselves, seem to think that a man of geniuo
cannot be an Atheist, and so they strain their own faculties to disprovs
�54
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
what Shelley asserted from the very earliest stage of his career to the
last day of his life. He ignored all religions as superstitions. ... A
clergyman wrote in the visitors’ book at the Mer de Glace, Chamotmi,
something to the following effect: ‘No one can view this sublime
scene, and deny the existence of God.’ Under which Shelley, using a
Greek phrase, wrote ‘ P. B. Shelley, Atheist,’ thereby proclaiming his
opinion to all the world. And he never regretted having done so.”*
Trelawny’s words should be printed on the forefront of
Shelley’s works, so that it might never be forgotten that “ the
poet of poets and purest of men ” was an Atheist.
BENEDICT SPINOZA.
Benedict Spinoza (Baruch Despinosa) was born at Amster
dam on November 24, 1632. Hi^ father was one of the
Jewish fugitives from Spain who settled in the Netherlands
to escape the dreaded Inquisition. With a delicate constitu
tion, and a mind more prone to study than amusement, the
boy Spinoza gave himself to learning and meditation. He
was soon compelled to break away from the belief of his
family and his teachers ; and, after many vain admonitions,
he was at length excommunicated.
His anathema was
pronounced in the synagogue on July 27, 1656. It was a
frightful formula, cursing him by day and night, waking and
sleeping, sitting and standing, and prohibiting every Jew from
holding any communication with him, or approaching him
within a distance of four cubits. Of course it involved his
exile from home, and soon afterwards he narrowly escaped a
fanatic’s dagger.
The rest of Spinoza’s life was almost entirely that of a
scholar. He earned a scanty livelihood by polishing lenses,
but his physical wants were few, and he subsisted on a few
pence per day. His writings are such as the world will not
willingly let die, and his Ethics places him on the loftiest
heights of philosophy, where his equals and companions may
be counted on the fingers of a single hand. Through Goethe
and Heine, he has exercised a potent influence on German,
and therefore on European thought. His subtle Pantheism
identifies God with Nature, and denies to deity all the attri
butes of personality.
His personal appearance is described by Colerus, the Dutch
pastor, who some years after his death gathered all the inRecords of Byron and Shelley, Vol. I., pp. 243-245
�BENEDICT SPINOZA.
55
formation about him that could be procured. He was of
middle height and slenderly built; with regular features, a
broad and high forehead, large dark lustrous eyes, full dark
eyebrows, and long curling hair of the same hue. His
character was’worthy of his intellect. He made no enemies
except by his opinions. “Even bitter opponents,” as Mr.
Martineau says, “ could not but own that he was singularly
blameless and unexacting, kindly and disinterested. Children,
young men, servants, all who stood to him in any relation of
dependence, seem to have felt the charm of his affability and
sweetness of temper.”*
Spinoza was lodging, at the time of his death, with a poor
Dutch family at the Hague. They appear to have regarded
him with veneration, and to have given him every attention.
But the climate was too rigorous for his Southern tempera
ment.
!! The strict and sober regimen which was recommended by frugality
Was not unsuited to his delicate constitution: but, in spite of it, his
emaciation increased ; and, though he made no change in his habits,
he became so far aware of his decline as on Sunday, the 20th of Feb
ruary, 1677, to send for his medical friend Meyer from Amsterdam.
That afternoon Van der Spijck and his wife had been to church, in
preparation for the Shrovetide communion next day: and on their
return at 4 p.m., Spinoza had come downstairs and, whilst smoking
his pipe, talked with them long about the sermon. He went early to
bed; but was up again next morning (apparently before the arrival of
Meyer), in time to come down and converse with his host and hostess
before they went to church. The timely appearance of the physician
enabled her to leave over the fire a fowl to be boiled for a basin of
broth. This, as well as some of the bird itself, Spinoza took with a
relish, on their return from church about midday. There was nothing
to prevent the Van der Spijcks from going to the afternoon service.
But on coming out of the church they were met by the startling news
that at 3 p.m. Spinoza had died; no one being with him but his
physician. ”f
Mr. Martineau hints that perhaps “the philosopher and
the physician had arranged together and carried out a method
of euthanasia,” but as he admits that “ there is no tittle of evi
dence for such a thing,” it is difficult to understand why he
makes such a gratuitous suggestion.
Pious people, who judged every philosopher to be an
Atheist, reported that Spinoza had cried out several times in
dying “ Oh God, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner 1 ”
* 4 Study of Spinoza. By Dr. James Martineau, p. 104.
t Ibid, pp. 101 102
�56
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Colerus investigated this story and found it an invention.
Dr. Meyer was the only person with Spinoza when he died,
so that it was impossible for the scandal-mongers to have
heard his last words. Besides, his hostess denied the truth
of all such statements, adding that “ what persuaded her of
the contrary was that, since he began to fail, he had always
shown in his sufferings a stoical fortitude.”*
DAVID FREDERICK STRAUSS.
Strauss’s Life of Jesus once excited universal controversy
in the Christian world, and the author’s name was opprobrious
in orthodox circles. So important was the work, that it was
translated into French by Littre and into English by George
Eliot. Subsequently, Strauss published a still more heterodox
book, The Old Faith and the New, in which he asserts that
“if we would speak as honest, upright men, we must acknow
ledge we are no longer Christians,” and strenuously repudiates
all the dogmas of theology as founded on ignorance and super
stition.
This eminent German Freethinker died in the spring of
1874, of cancer in the stomach, one of the most excruciating
disorders.
“But in these very sufferings the mental greatness and moral
strength of the sufferer proclaimed their most glorious victory. He
was fully aware of his condition. With unshaken firmness he adhered
o the convictions which he had openly acknowledged in his last
work [The Old Faith and the IVew] and he never for a moment retpented having written them. But with these convictions he met
death with such repose and with such unclouded serenity of mind,
that it was impossible to leave his sick room without the impression
of a moral sanctity which we all the more surely receive from great
ness of soul and mastery of mind over matter, the stronger are the
hindrances in the surmounting of which it is manifested.”!
Strauss left directions for bis funeral. He expressly for
bade all participation of the Church in the ceremony, but on
the day of his interment a sum of money was to be given to
the poor. “On February 10 [1874] therefore,” says his bio
grapher, “ he was buried without ringing of bells or the pre
sence of a clergyman, but in the most suitable manner, and
amid the lively sympathy of all, far and near.”
* La Vie de Spinoza, par Oolerus: Saisset’s CEuvres de Spinoza, Vol. II.. p. xxxvii.
t Edward Zdier, David Frederick Strauss in his Life andWritings, p. 148.
�JOHN TOLAND.
57
JOHN TOLAND.
Toland was one of the first to call himself a Freethinker.
He was born at Redcastle, near Londonderry, in Ireland, on
November 30, 1670 ; and he died at Putney on March 11,
1722. His famous work Christianity not Mysterious was
brought before Parliament, condemned as heretical, and
ordered to be burnt by the common hangman.
One
member proposed that the author himself should be
burnt; and as Thomas Aitkenhead had been hung at Edin
burgh for blasphemy in the previous year, it is obvious that
Toland incurred great danger in publishing his views.
Among other writings, Toland’s Letters to Serena achieved
distinction. They were translated into French by the famous
Baron D’Holbach, and Lange, in Tris great History of Materi
alism, says that “ The second letter handles the kernel of the
whole question of Materialism.” Lange also says that
“ Toland is one of those benevolent beings who exhibit to us
a great character in the complete harmony of all the sides of
human existence.”
For some years before his death, Toland lived in obscure
lodgings with a carpenter at Putney. His health was broken,
and his circumstances were poor. His last illness was pain
ful, but he bore it with great fortitude. According to one
of his most intimate friends, he looked earnestly at those in
the room a few minutes before breathing his last, and on
being asked if he wanted anything, he answered “ I want
nothing but death.” His biographer, Des Maizeaux, says
that “ he looked upon death without the least perturbation
of mind, bidding farewell to those that were about him, and
telling them he was going to sleep.”
LUCILIO VANINI.
Lucilio Vanini was born at Taurisano, near Naples, in
1584 or 1585. He studied theology, philosophy, physics,
astronomy, medicine, and civil and ecclesiastical law. At
Padua he became a doctor of canon and civil law, and was
ordained a priest.
Resolving to .visit the academies of
Europe, he travelled through France, England, Holland, and
Germany. According to Fathers Mersenne and Garasse, he
formed a project of promulgating Atheism over the whole of
Europe. The same priests allege that he had fifty thousand
�58
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Atheistic followers at Paris ! One of his books was con
demned to the flames by the Sorbonne. Vanini himself met
eventually with the same fate. Tried at Toulouse for heresy,
he was condemned as an Atheist, and sentenced to the stake.
At the trial he protested his belief in God, and defended the
existence of Deity with the flimsiest arguments; so flimsy,
indeed, that one can scarcely read them, without suspecting
that he was pouring irony on his judges. They ordered him
to .have his tongue cut out before being burnt alive. It is
said that he afterwards confessed, took the communion, and
declared himself ready to subscribe the tenets of the Church.
But if he did so, he certainly recovered his natural dignity
when he had to face the worst. Le Mercure Franqais, which
cannot be suspected of partiality towards him, reports that
“ he died with as much constancy, patience, and fortitude as
any other man ever seen ; for setting forth from the Conciergerie joyful and elate, he pronounced in Italian these
words—‘Come, let us die cheerfully like a philosopher!’”
There is a report that, on seeing the pile, he cried out “ Ah,
my God !’ ” On which a bystander said, “ You believe in
God, then.” “No,” he retorted, “it’s a fashion of speaking.”
Father Garasse says that he uttered many other notable
blasphemies, refused to ask forgiveness of God, or of the
king, and died furious and defiant. So obstinate was he,
. that pincers had to be employed to pluck out his tongue.
President Gramond, author of the History of France Under
Louis XIII., writes: “I saw him in the tumbril as they led
him to execution, mocking the Cordelier who had been sent
to exhort him to repentance, and insulting our Savior by
these impious words, ‘ He sweated with fear and weakness,
_ . and L I die undaunted.”’ ... _
Vanini’s martyrdom took place at Toulouse on February
19, 1619. He was only thirty-four, an age, as Camille Des
moulins said, “ fatal to revolutionists.”
[The reader may consult M. X. Rousselot’s (Euvres Philosophique
de Vanini, Avec une Notice sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages. Paris, 1842].
VOLNEY.
The author of the famous Ruins of Empires was a great
traveller, and his visits to Oriental countries were described
so graphically and philosophically, that Gibbon wished he
�VOLTAIRE.
59
miglit go over the whole world and record his experiences for
the delight and edification of mankind. I have not been
able to ascertain how he died, but I have tracked for exposure
a very foolish story about his “ cowardice ” in a storm in
America, which is still circulated in pious tracts. It is said
that he threw himself on the deck of the vessel, crying in
agony, “Oh, my God, my God !” “There is a God, then,
Monsieur Volney?” said one of the passengers. “Oh, yes,”
he exclaimed, “ there is ! there is ! Lord save me 1” When
the vessel arrived safely in port, says the story, he “ returned
to his Atheistical sentiments.” I have traced this nonsense
back to the Tract Magazine for July, 1832, where it appearsvery much amplified, and in many respects different. It
appears in a still different form in the eighth volume of the
Evangelical Magazine. Beyond that it is lost in obscurity.
The story is an evident concoction ; it bears every appearance
of being “ worked up ” for the pious public ; and it could not
be credited for a moment by any one acquainted with Volney’s
life and writings.
VOLTAIRE.
Francois Marie Arouet, generally known by the name of
Voltaire, was born at Chatenay on February 20, 1694. He
died at Paris on May 30, 1778. To write his life during
those eighty-three years would be to give the intellectual his
tory of Europe.
While Voltaire was living at Ferney in 1768, he gave a
curious exhibition of that diabolical sportiveness which was a
strong element in his character. On Easter Sunday he took
his secretary Wagniere with him to commune at the village
church, and also “ to lecture a little those scoundrels who
steal continually.” Apprised of Voltaire’s sermon on theft,
the Bishop of Anneci rebuked him, and finally “ forbade
everycurate, priest, and monk of his diocese to confess, absolve
or give the communion to the seigneur of Ferney, without his
express orders, under pain of interdiction.” With a wicked
light in his eyes, Voltaire said he would commune in spite of
the Bishop; nay, that the ceremony should be gone through
in his chamber. Then ensued an exquisite comedy, which
shakes one’s sides even as described by the stolid Wagniere.
Feigning a deadly sickness, Voltaire took to his bed. The-
�€0
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
surgeon, who found his pulse was excellent, was bamboozled
into certifying that he was in danger of death. Then the
priest was summoned to administer the last consolation. The
poor devil at first objected, but Voltaire threatened him with
legal proceedings for refusing to bring the sacrament to a
dying man, who had never been excommunicated. This was
accompanied with a grave declaration that M. de Voltaire
“had never ceased to respect and to practise the Catholic
religion.” Eventually the priest came “half dead with
fear.” Voltaire demanded absolution at once, but the
Capuchin pulled out of his pocket a profession of faith, drawn
up by the Bishop, which Voltaire was required to sign. Then
the comedy deepened. Voltaire kept demanding absolution,
and the distracted priest kept presenting the document for
his signature. At last the L or d of Ferney had his way. The
priest gave him the wafer, and Voltaire declared, “Having
my God in my mouth,” that he forgave his enemies. Directly
he left the room, Voltaire leapt briskly out of bed, where a
minute before he seemed unable to move. “I have had a
little trouble,” he said to Wagniere, “with this comical
genius of a Capuchin ; but that was only for amusement, and
to accomplish a good purp ose. Let us take a turn in the
garden. I told you I would be confessed and commune in my
bed, in spite of M. Biord.”*
Voltaire treated Christianity so lightly that he confessed
and took the sacrament for a joke. Is it wonderful if he
did the same thing on his death-bed to secure the decent
burial of his corpse ? He r em embered his own bitter sorrow
and indignation, which he expressed in burning verse, when
the remains of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur were refused
sepulture because she died outside the pale of the Church.
Fearing similar treatment himself, he arranged to cheat the
Church again. By the agenc y of his nephew, the Abbe Mignot,
the Abbe Gautier was brought to his bedside, and according
to Condorcet he “confessed Voltaire, receiving from him a
profession of faith, by which he declared that he died
in the Catholic religion, wherein he was bom.”t This
story is generally credited, but its truth is by no means in
disputable : for in the Abbe Gautier’s declaration to the
Prior of the Abbey of Scellieres, where Voltaire’s remains
Parton’s Life of Voltaire, Vol. IL. pp. 410—415.
Condorcet's Vie de Voltaire, p. 144.
�VOLTAIRE.
61
were interred, he says that when he vis’ited M. de Voltaire,
he found him “ unfit to be confessed.”
The curate of St. Sulpice was annoyed at being forestalled
by the Abbe Gautier, and as Voltaire was his parishioner,
he demanded “ a detailed profession of faith and a disavowal
of all heretical doctrines.” He paid the dying Freethinker
many unwelcome visits, in the vain hope of obtaining a full
recantation, which would be a fine feather in his hat. The
last of these visits is thus described by Wagniere, who was
an eyewitness to the scene. I take Carlyle’s translation :
“ Two days before that mournful death, M. l’Abbe Mignot, his
nephew, went to seek the Cure of St. Sulpice and the Abbe Gauthier,
and brought them into his uncle’s sick room : who, on being informed
that the Abbe Gautier was there, ‘ Ah'; well!’ said he, ‘ give him my
compliments and my thanks.’ The Abbe'spoke some words to him,
exhorting him to patience. The Cure of St. Sulpice then came forward,
having announced himself, and asked of M. de Voltaire, elevating his
voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ ? The
sick man pushed one of his hands against the Cure'’s calotte (coif),
shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side, ‘Let
me die in peace (Laissez-moi mourir en paix).’ The Cure seemingly
considered his person soiled, and his coif dishonored, by the touch of
the philosopher. He made the sick-nurse give him a little brushing,
and then went out with the Abbe Gautier.”*
A. further proof that Voltaire made no real recantation lies
in the fact that the Bishop of Troyes sent a peremptory dis
patch to the Prior of Scellieres, which lay in his diocese,
forbidding him to inter the heretic’s remains. The dispatch,
however, arrived too late, and Voltaire’s ashes remained there
until 1791, when they were removed to Paris and placed in
the- Pantheon, by order of the N ational Assembly.
Voltaire’s last moments are re corded by Wagniere. I again
take Carlyle’s translation.
“ He expired about a quarter past eleven at night, with the most
perfect tranquility, after having suffered the ciuelest pains, in conse
quence of those fatal drugs, which his o wn imprudence, and especially
that of the persons who should have looked to it, made him swallow.
Ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his
valet-de-chambre, who was watching him; pressed it, and said,
1 Adieu, mon cher Morand, je me meurs'-—‘Adieu, my dear Morand, I
am gone.’ These are the last words uttered by M. de Voltaire.”f
Such are the facts of Voltaire’s decease. He made no re
cantation, he refused to utter or sign a confession of faith,
* Carlyle's Essays, Vol. II. (People’s Edition), p. 161.
t Carlyle, Vol. II. p. 160.
�€2
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
but with, the connivance of his nephew, the Abbe Mignot, he
tricked the Church *nto granting him a decent burial, not
i
choosing to be flung into a ditch or buried like a dog. His
heresy was never seriously questioned at the time, and the
clergy actually clamored for the expulsion of the Prior who
had allowed his body to be interred in a church vault.
*
Many years afterwards the priests pretended that Voltaire
died raving.
They declared that Marshal Richelieu was
horrified by the scene and obliged to leave the chamber.
From France the pious concoction spread to England, until it
was exposed by Sir Charles Morgan, who published the
following extracts from a letter by Dr. Burard, who, as
assistant physician, was^constantly about Voltaire in his last
moments :
“ I feel happy in being able, while paying homage to truth, to
destroy the effects of the lying sto ries which have been told respecting
the last moments of Mons, de Vol taire. I was, by office, one of those
who were appointed to watch the whole progress of his illness, with
M. M. Tronchin, Lorry, and Try, his medical attendants. I never left
him for an instant during his last moments, and I can certify that we
invariably observed in him the sa me strength of character, though his
disease was necessarily attended with horrible pain. (Here follow the
details of his case.) We positive ly forbade him to speak in order to
prevent the increase of a spitting o f blood, with which he was attacked ;
still he continued to communicate with us by means of little cards, on
which he wrote his questions ; we replied to him verbally, and if he
was not satisfied, he always ma de his observations to us in writing.
He therefore retained his facult ies up to the last moment, and the
fooleries which have been attr ibuted to him are deserving of the
greatest contempt. It could not even be said that such or such person
had related any circumstance of his death, as being witness to it; for
at the last, admission to his chamber was forbidden to any person.
Those who came, to obtain intelligence respecting the patient, waited
in the saloon, and other apartments at hand. The proposition, there
fore, which has been put in the mouth of Marshal Richelieu is as
unfounded as the rest.”
(Signed) “ Bubabd.”
“ Paris, April 3rd, 1819.” f
Another slander appears to emanate from the Abbe
Barruel, who was so well infor med about Voltaire that he
calls him “the dying Atheist,” when, as all the world knows,
he was a Deist.
“ In his last illness he sent for Dr. Tronchin. When the Doctor
came, he found Voltaire in the greatest agony, exclaiming with the
utmost horror—‘ I am abandoned by God and man.’ He then said,
4 Doctor, I will give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me
* Parton, Vol. II., p. 615.
t Philosophy of Moralf, by Sir Charles Morgan.
�JAMES WATSON.
63
six months’ life.’ The Doctor answered, ‘ Sir, you cannot live six
weeks.’ Voltaire replied, ‘ Then I shall go to hell, and you will go with
me !’ and soon after expired.”
When the clergy are reduced to manufacture such con
temptible rubbish as this, they, must indeed be in great
straits. It is flatly contradicted by the evidence of every
contemporary of Voltaire.
My readers will, I think, be fully satisfied that Voltaire
neither recanted nor died raving, but remained a sceptic to
the last; passing away quietly, at a ripe old age, to “ the un
discovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns,”
and leaving behind him a name that brightens the track of
time.
JAMES WATSON.
James Watson was one of the bravest heroes in the struggle
for a free press. He was one of Richard Carlile’s shopmen,
and took his share of imprisonment when the Government
tried to suppress Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason and
several other Freethought publications. In fighting for the
unstamped press, he was again imprisoned in 1833. As a
publisher he was notorious for his editions of Paine, Mirabaud, Volney, Shelley and Owen. He died on November 29,
1874, aged seventy-five, “passing away in his sleep, without
a struggle, without a sigh.’’*
JOHN WATTS.
John Watts was at one time sub-editor of the Reasoner,
and afterwards, for an interval, editor of the National Reformer.
He was the author of several publications, including Half
Hours ivith Freethinkers in collaboration with Charles Bradlauc^^^I death took place on October 31, 1866, and the
His
] account of it was written by Dr. George Sexton,
ished in the National Reformer of the following week.
SO
|out half-past seven in the evening he breathed his last, so
gentlymat although I had one of his hands in mine, and his brother
the other in his, the moment of his death passed almost unobserved
by either of us. No groan, no sigh, no pang indicated his departure.
He died as a candle goes out when burned to the socket.”
George Sexton has since turned Christian, at least by
profession; but, after what he has written of the last
moments of John Watts, he can scarcely pretend that unIh^ievers have any fear of death.
James Watson, by W. J. Linton, p. 86.
�64
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
WOOLSTON.
Thomas Woolston was born at Northampton in 1669, and
he died at London in 1733. He was educated at Sidney
College, Cambridge, taking Jp.is M.A. degree, and being elected
a fellow. Afterwards he was deprived of his fellowship for
heresy. Entering into holy orders, he closely studied divinity,
and gained a reputation for scholarship, as well as for
sobriety and benevolence. His profound knowledge of
ecclesiastical history gave him a contempt for the Fathers,
in attacking whom he reflected on the modern clergy. He
maintained that miracles were incredible, and that all the
supernatural stories of the New Testament must be regarded
as figurative. For this he was prosecuted on a charge of
blasphemy and profaneness, but the action dropped through
the honorable intervention of Whiston. Subsequently he
published Six Discourses on Miracles, which were dedicated
to six bishops. In these the Church was assailed in homely
language, and her doctrines were mercilessly ridiculed.
Thirty thousand copies are said to have been sold. A fresh
prosecution for blasphemy was commenced, the AttorneyGeneral declaring the Discourses to be “the most blas
phemous book that ever was published in any age whatever.”
Woolston ably defended himself, but he was found guilty,
and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of £100.
Being too poor to pay the fine, Christian charity detained
him permanently in the King’s Bench Prison. With a noblejw
jjourage he refused to purchase his jelease by promising to
refrain from promulgating his views, and prison fever at length
released him from his misery. The following account of his
last moments is taken from the Daily Coura^. Don, thlay,
January 29, 1733
« On Saturday night, about nine o’clock, died Mr.
T
athor
of the ‘ Discourses on our Savior’s Miracles,’ in the si.x,
a year
of his age. About five minutes before he died he uttered tnese words :
This is?a struggle which all men must go through, and which I bear
not only with patience but'willingness.’ Upon which he closed his
eyes, and shut his lips, with a seeming design to compose his face
with decency, without the help of a friend’s hand, and then he
expired.” .
<
Without the help ofa friend's hand ! Helpless and friendlesj^
pent in a prison cell, the brave old man faced Death in
tary grandeur, yielding, for the first and last time, tci—
lord of all.
��BIBLE CONTRADICTIONS.
ARRANGED IN PARALLEL COLUMNS.
.Being Part I, of a
BIBLE HANDBOOK FOR FREETHINKERS & INQUIRING CHRISTIANS.
EDITED BY
G. W. Foote & W. P. Ball.
With a SPECIAL INTRODUCTION by G. W. FOOWS.
“ It is the,most painstaking work of the kind we have Jet seen.”—
Seculai Review.
“ A convenient and useful arrangement.”—Monro's Ironclad Age.
“ It is questionable whether a more effective impression could be
made on an ordinary Christian than by getting him to go through
this little handbook. . . . The collection has the merit of giving in
abundance the contradictions not only of the letter but of the spirit.
The antitheses are always precise and forcible.”—Our Corner
----- 0----In Paper Wrapper, FOURPENCE.
BIBLE
ABSURDITIES.
Being Part II. of “ The Bible Handbook,”
EDITED BY
G.
W.
FOOTE
and
B^LLige whatever''''
found guilty,
fcfme of £100.
■\y detained
~
—■
c
ztth a noble
him permanently in
*> —o
/promising to
.Qpurage he refused to purchase
z& fever at length
refrain from promulgating his view
nXg account of his
released him from his misery. Th |
last moments is taken from the JO ft, | (ur^C- 'Vtion, tday,
^pp&elieu
January 29, 1733 :—
-, -AyBURART ,
Containing all the chief absurd!/
tion, conveniently and strikinglid
(^headlines, giving the point of <
“ On Saturday night, about nine o’clocS^med Mr.
i
Jthor
n year
of the ‘ Discourses on our Savior’s Miracles,’ in the Si.\,
of his age. About five minutes before he died he uttered these words:
This is a struggle which all men must go through, and which I bear
not only with patience but'willingness.’ Upon which he closed his
eyes, and shut his lips, with a seeming design to compose his face
with decency, without the help of a friend’s hand, and then he
expired.” .
<
Without the help of a friend’s hand ! Helpless and friendles^ A
pent in a prison cell, the brave old man faced Death in p f f
tary grandeur, yielding, for the first and last time, tc-—
lord of all.
e
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Infidel death-beds
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 64 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Publisher's advertisements on back cover. Annotations in pencil, red crayon and red ink. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Progressive Publishing Company
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1886
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N245
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Free thought
Death
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Infidel death-beds), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Freethinkers-Biography
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NSS
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Proceedings of the third annual meeting of the Free Religious Association, held in Boston May 26 and 27, 1870
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Free Religious Association
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Place of publication: Boston, Mass.
Collation: 121, [1] p. ; 23 cm.
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John Wilson and Son
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1870
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G5173
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Free thought
Religion
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Conway Tracts
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Freedom of Religion
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Text
THE “EDINBURGH REVIEW
AND DR. STRAUSS.
BY
G. WHEELWRIGHT.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1873.
Price Threepence,
��THE “EDINBURGH REVIEW” AND
DR.
STRAUSS.
EAR SIR,—I want to call your attention to an
article in the last Edinburgh upon Dr. Strauss’
Confession of Faith, for it seems to me to have
a special importance at the present moment, when
there is so much of uncertainty and insecurity in
Church matters.
D
“It is not that the thing is rich or rare,
The only wonder is how it got there.”
It purports to he a critique upon “The Old Faith
and the New,” and were this all, I should have had
little to say about it. A scrimmage between the
Edinburgh and the great Arch-Heretic would not be
very edifying; though in truth the writer goes into it
with a will and something more. Never, I should
think, has the Doctor been so savagely pommelled.
His critic gives him no rest. It recalls the Flaming
Tinman in L’avengro,—“ he knocked him down, and he
knocked him up again, he knocked him into the hedge,
and he knocked him out of it ”—words however break
no bones, and doubtless the Professor will live to
make sport some other day.
The most noteworthy part of the article lies near
the end of it, where the question occurs, “ Why is
apostacy from Christianity being so lightly treated in
our day 1 ” Has any new weapon qf assault been ex
cogitated—any weak place in the Christian armour
discovered ? To this the Reviewer confidently
�4
The “ Edinburgh Review ”
answers, none. We are as we ever were—heart-whole
as a biscuit—sound to the very core—the universal
reign of law, and the unhistorical nature of the Gospels
notwithstanding. The true answer to the former is
to remember that ££ stability of purpose is a standing
characteristic of the highest minds/’ and that miracle
is nothing else than the ££ outcrop of some previously
unknown law,’ while the untenableness of the second
is shewn in ££ the general reception of the Gospels in
the early part of the second centuryj thus allowing
no time for fictitious accounts of our Lord’s life and
death to gain currency or circulation.”
These two questions then being settled to his entire
satisfaction, the writer proceeds to enquire “ what,
under present circumstances, is the duty of men of
sense and of a true loyalty to Christ and His religion.”
Imprimis, ££to remember that the future unity and
efficiency of the Church entirely depend on the exer
cise of such prudence and charity among Christians as
shall combine together the various elements that create
a true Catholicity,” which nobody can deny—££ and
then in the next place, it appears to him that
there are three points to which the attention of all
students, and especially of the clergy, ought at the
present time to be carefully directed.”
These three points are—well, what do you guess ?
I defy any man in his sober senses (without the aid
of some special Theological intuition or faculty) to
read me my riddle. The first, then, is to get rid in
toto and at once of that troublesome book, yclept the
Old Testament, to shelve it now and for ever. “ Why
should Christian churchmen think it necessary to
burden their cause, and to hamper every movement
of their strategy, by undertaking the perfectly gratuit
ous task of making Gentile Christianity responsible
for the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures ?
We are not Jews/’ (certainly not, if you count noses.)
“ and there is no reason in the world why we should
�and Dr. Strauss.
5
be weighted with this burden of understanding and
defending, at all risks, the Jewish Scriptures. It is
a burden that was never laid upon us either by Christ,
or by His Apostles. Our German race, in particular,
as a matter of simple fact, was not trained by them.
They were not our ‘ schoolmasters to lead us to Christ.’
We affirm, what appears to us to be a simple historical
fact, viz. : that the Jewish Scriptures do not belong
to us, and that we are in no way responsible for them.
It was not by the Old Testament that the Gentile
nations were trained; it was not by the Mosaic law
that our heathen forefathers were prepared for the
reception of Christ. It was by quite another agency.
It was by that magnificent Book of God, in which we
have read ever since, and are reading to this day, the
ever-opening revelations of His wisdom and His
power. It is the realm of Nature, which is our own
proper inheritance. It is physical science which has
hitherto led us—why should it not lead us still?—
through Nature up to Nature’s God. We earnestly
trust, therefore, that the mistake of burdening our
Christian cause with needless anxieties and absolutely
unprofitable controversies, relating to the Old Testa
ment Scriptures, may gradually be made to cease;
and that the clergy will read to us their invaluable
lections from the Old Testament, at no very distant
day, without either calling upon us, or troubling them
selves, to solve the innumerable problems which they
raise. Why should we go out of our way to deprive
ourselves of that precious ‘ liberty,’ from the law and
from the Old Testament—‘ wherewith Christ has made
us free.’ ”
Now what does all this mean? Suppose this notice
able advice had been given by yourself or by
any of your compeers, what would or rather what
would not have been said of it ? Doubtless, the ship
of the Church is labouring heavily in the very trough
of the sea, well-nigh water-logged, and the Edinburgh
�6
The “ Edinburgh Review ”
Plimsoll steps forward and tells us that she is top
hampered, deck-loaded to a dangerous degree. Over
board, then, with all that lumber, and she will float
like a duck once more, or, in plain words, when a
person comes troubling you with questions as to
Mosaic cosmogony, universal deluge, Pentateuchal
Theories, sun stationary, sun retrograde, food pur
veying ravens, and the like legendary matters, as the
Reviewer styles it, bid him begone and take his
queries and his crude impertinencies to those whom
they concern—Moses ben Toledoth, or the first Old Clo’
he may come across—to them belong these ancient
oracles “ which are the religious lesson books of a
different race from our own, and the sole remaining
relics of a national literature with whose very
language our own has hardly anything whatever in
common.” Verily, if this be not a hoisting of the
engineer with his own petard, may I die a Dean 1
Por of all the words of ill savour in the nostrils of
the u unco-gude,” that of Legend stands pre-eminent.
How often has it been cast in the teeth of free
thinkers that they are an infidel and impious genera
tion, turning the word of God into myths and fables,
and yet here you have a champion of the Paith
quietly shelving the Old Book for the legendary
matter contained in it, its unprofitable controversies,
its insoluble problems, whereas Jesus enforced these
very legends, these idle tales, when he quoted Lot’s
wife, Moses at the Bush, the cities of the Plain,
Elias’ first coming, Jonah and the Ninevites, &c.
“ But John P. Robinson, he
Says they didn’t know everything down in Judee.”
Startling as this is, point the second takes us a step
further. “ Is it right,” he asks, “ is it truthful, is it
any longer possible—in the face of all that is now known
upon like subjects—to pretend that legendary matter
has not intruded itself into the New Testament, as
well as into the Old? It is now universally granted
�and Dr. Strauss.
7
by all competent critics, that the three synoptical
Gospels are simply written notes of the oral teaching
of the apostolic age. Now, even in what may be called
‘ regular histories ’ a certain play of the imagination is
unavoidable. Indeed, without it any history would
sink at once to the level of a chronicle or an almanac.
But in an oral history, used during many years for pur
poses of religious emotion and edification, some slight
admixture of this plastic and poetic element appears
to be absolutely inevitable.” And more to the like
effect.
We are now brought to the third and last point.
Hitherto, it must be granted, the writer has been frank
and free beyond his kind. Seldom is orthodoxy so can
did and outspoken. He takes up his parable, and
what do we find written therein, ‘ Legend here, legend
there, legend everywhere.’ What more can he say ?
What more is wanted ? But is not this the voice of
Jacob ? the very words of that old rogue Free Thought.
‘ Fas est et ab hoste doceri ’ quoth the Beviewer. And
now one would think there was nothing to be done
but to shake hands all round, cry we are all miserable
sinners, forget and forgive, and live in unity to our
lives’ end. “ Patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards,
and I will shew you the veriest hanky-panky trick that
ever was played upon board.” So far the writer is clear
and unmistakeable, it is the speech of Free Thought from
orthodox lips ; but now a change comes over the
spirit of his dream, he begins to chide his rash out
spoken ways. May he not be going too far ? is there
no terra firma, nothing for the feet to rest upon ? is all
mist and haze? does the heavy cloud of doubt and uncer
tainty hang over all alike? is all tainted with suspicion’s
cruel breath ? nothing stable and secure ? there must,
there shall be,—and once more he takes up his parable,
but in how different a strain. “ The last point which
appears to us to be of incalculable importance for all
students of theology to bear in mind at the present
�8
The il Edinburgh Review”
day, is this: The absolute necessity of candidly
accepting as • fact ’ whatever can honestly he shewn to
be such. One feels at a loss to understand, e.g., how
any men, calling themselves votaries of science, can
pretend to set aside, with a contemptuous smile,
‘ facts ’ of such singular interest, and reposing on such
an extraordinary accumulation of evidence, as those on
which Christianity is built. (Legend, you see, has quite
dropt out of sight.) They may not hitherto have been
quite rightly explained, they may not yet have been
wholly divested of their graceful drapery of fancy,
they may not be, so to say, extra-natural, though they
may be super-natural events, transcending, that is, the
ordinary and accustomed routine of nature.” Then he
girds at the men of science for their mistakes, rash
assumptions and inability to see an inch beyond their
nose, and finally settles down upon the Resurrection of
Christ from the dead, as a plain historical fact, in these
words “the historical proof that accumulates around
that one point is so overwhelmingly conclusive, that
no honest and really scientific mind, we are bold to say,
can escape the conviction that it really happened: If
unbelievers would condescend to explain to us (1),
How St. Paul’s four great Epistles and the Apocalypse
(which they all acknowledge to be genuine) can, under
any other hypothesis, have come to be written ; (2),
How the terrified and scattered apostles, can, on any
other rational supposition, have suddenly recovered
their courage and their hopes; and (3), how, if the
basis and key-stone of her whole teaching be a gross
imposture or delusion, the Christian church can conceiv
ably have grasped, with such a wonderful and perma
nent force, the reins which govern the human will, and
have kept for centuries in the highway of progress the
otherwise wild and wasteful powers of the human
intelligence; then, and not till then, will we consent to
abandon the keep and citadel of the Christian Faith.”
Is there not a proverb warning against putting all
�and Dr. Strauss.
9
our eggs into one basket? Can the writer be serious in his
assertion that St. Paul’s four great Epistles, the revi
val of the disciples’ hope and the churches’ grasp upon
the reins that govern the human will, have their basis
in nothing but the ‘ fact ’ of Christ’s Resurrection.
Would not a belief in it have done just as well 1
Specially so, when this belief was always accompanied
in the minds of the apostles by another—to them equally
certain, equally incontrovertible—viz., the speedy
return-coming of Christ; yet where is the latter now ?
I grant fully that these two beliefs formed the wou ffrw,
from which Christianity moved the world ; and like
wise that without a future, “human life itself with all its
hopes and aspirations would be an imposture.” I fail
however to see the logic of the following sentence, “ If
the possibility of our Lord’s resurrection be once fairly
conceded, as it must be conceded by those who admit
the immortality of the soul, then the cause of Christi
anity is as good as won.” But I have no wish to hargufy, specially with so smart a writer as this Reviewer.
One word before I quit this part of the subject. The
next time he plays Jack on both sides, and holds a brief
for both plaintiff and defendant alike, let him drop
his mask and appear before the world in propria persona.
We shall then know how to class him. If his heart
is in his cause, he will never shrink from putting his
name thereto, whether that be well known or not at all.
And now, how seems it to you, the appearance of this
article in the pages of the “ Edinburgh 1” To me it is
as if the “ Quarterly ” took to patronizing John Bright,
and the “Record” to fraternizing with Messrs Holyoake
and Bradlaugh. What does it mean ? for me judice it is
the work of no prentice hand ; the pen that trans
cribed it has done yeoman’s service ere now. I am
hugely mistaken if there were not great thoughts of
heart in Paternoster Row before that article was de
cided upon. Is it a feather thrown up to shew which
way the wind is blowing ? Surely there must be more
�IO
The “Edinburgh Review ”
behind. The Edinburgh is not celebrated for its
Coups de Theatre, its surprises a la Napoleon III. It
seldom travels far out of its accustomed groove. In
the whole course of its long career, I doubt if any
other article can be mentioned, so isolated, so clearly
beside its wonted walk and conversation as this ; for
it is nothing less than a wilful, deliberate attack upon
what the Religious world in England holds most dear,
its beloved Bibliolatry, its worship of the letter in
every jot and tittle. It is the red rag flaunted in the
bull’s face—enough to make Dean Alford, that most
cautious of commentators, move uneasily in his
grave. To call a spade, a spade—to tell Truth and
shame the devil ; these are new maxims in theo
logical warfare, and mark the altered spirit of the times.
What then can have provoked this startling escapade ?
It is not so much the weight of the blow that stuns
one, as its coming from so unexpected a quarter, from
a hand whilom so friendly. Et tu, Brute / no envious
Casca made this rent or vented the bitter taunt that
the Church’s title-deeds are a mass of idle tales, the
time-honoured writings she so venerates not worth
defending, a burden not a support. Legend, in short.
111 thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word ”—the outside world has long made up its mind upon the
matter; but what can have wrung it from that stubborn
breast, or so pricked the heart of dull unbending ortho
doxy that it should now come and chant its Palinodia in
the ears of all, unasked, uncalled for 1 what has rent
the veil from eyes that have long blinked in the blaze
of a light that men were everywhere welcoming and
rejoicing in ? Can they ever close again ? Will it
meet with its usual self-satisfied sneer the Truth when
it appears not in the writings of the Tubingen school
or of English Free thought, but in the respectable
pages of the Old Blue and Buff ? Shades of Sydney
Smith, Jeffrey and Horner ! that the nursling of
Whiggism should so belie its ancient fame, as to turn
�and Dr. Strauss.
11
traitor, and hang out the white flag, ere three
quarters of a century have passed over its honoured
head ?
“ Point de boucles, Monsieur, tout est perdu ! ” the
Edinburgh dallying with rationalism is no less ominous.
1 To your tents, 0 Israel ’—for war is at hand. The
Reviewer quotes Bunsen’s well known words, that a
religious war is impending, and may soon he upon us,
and yet the Church heeds not the tramp of mustering
hosts, ‘ nor the low wail that bodes the coming storm.’
As proud as in the days of Laud, she will not yield an
inch or make the slightest change demanded of her.
“ 1 sit a queen,” she saith,“ and shall see no sorrow.”
Surely this is to mistake porcine obstinacy for manly
firmness, to shut the eyes and say, I see naught.
What is asked of her ? What the demand made each
year in tones louder and more menacing than the last ?
What, but that she should adapt her tone and her
teaching to the altered state of the times in which she
finds herself, that she should descend from the pinnacle
on which her pride has placed her, lay aside her mys
terious pretensions, her mumming tones, her priestly
gabardine and mock sanctimoniousness, and preach to
her fellow men in words that should reach their hearts,
and raise them from the littleness, the carking cares
and concerns of this world to some thought of the
eternal and the invisible, that spirit-land which all
dream of and yearn after, fascinating even to those
grimy myriads who six days out of seven moil and toil
in the dust and mire of earth and its sadly stern
belongings. To do this rightly she must free herself
from the swaddling clothes of a dead past, which serve
but to impede her utterance and check the full use of
her powers—that act of a false and impossible uni
formity—those Thirty-nine articles, the spawn of an
unhappy compromise, which narrow living minds
within the soul-enslaving fetters of a bygone gener
ation, cruel as the Tyrrhenian tyrant ‘ contemptor
�I2
The “Edinburgh Review”
Divflm Mezentius. Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora
vivis.’ These are our festering sores, this the heavy
load that is hearing down and fast sinking the Church
in the yawning depth that threatens shortly to engulph
her. Do this and she would find recruits among the
most highly educated the most deeply thinking minds
of the rising generation and of others yet to come.
To neglect this, is to spurn an opportunity that may
never occur again. It may be that the Sibyl is offering
the book for the last time. If she still set her face
against reform and refuse to strip herself of the garb
and surroundings of a past age, there are rude hands
ready to do it for her.
What a future—what a glorious vocation is in store
for the Church, if only she could see it—nothing less
than to lead the van in that fierce strife which is draw
ing each day nearer and nearer—not the petty war of
rival sects, of this and that doxy, but between the
unchristian, worldly spirit which is gradually leaven
ing men’s minds, finding its expression in those
sad, scornful words: “ Let us eat and drink, for to
morrow we die; ” and the wisdom that is from above,
which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be
entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partial
ity, without hypocrisy. This is the tribulation that
awaits the Future—the fire that shall try every man’s
work what it is— as yet it slumbers, gathering force—
it is but in its cradle, as it were. Would that some
infant Hercules was there to strangle it. Increased
prosperity, the wealth that each year is pouring into
our laps, the upward movement of the lower strata
upon which the State reposes, the general spread of
education and intelligence, the crude speculations of
men who have only just begun to use their reasoning
powers, and forbear not to criticise all things in heaven
and earth in the most approved fashion of modern
Positivism—“ fools that rush in where angels fear to
tread.” All mark the advent of that materialism which
�and Dr. Strauss.
J3
is now informing and moulding society, that love of
the carnal and earthy, that care only for what can be
realized and appreciated by the bodily senses, the loath
some disrespect for everything that brings not money
in its train, the mammon-worship and glorification of
success, no matter how obtained, the impatience of all
but worldly gains and gratifications, the contempt for
the meek and poor in heart who shrink from trumpet
ing their own wares, and putting a false value upon
their works. “These be thy gods, 0 Israel?” the idols
of the hearth in many a fair English household. “As
in the sweetest bud the eating canker dwells,” so lurks
this danger in the jewelled cup of our greatness ; the
more to be dreaded that it does not openly renounce
its allegiance to God, whom it professes to know, while
in works it denies Him, being abominable, disobedient,
to every good work reprobate.
I ask the judgment of any sober man if herein I
exaggerate, or aught set down in malice. The hand
goes slowly round the dial, pointing ever to the same
old figures —the spirit of selfish pride and superstition,
that has overturned nation after nation, that never
slumbers or sleeps, never lets its victim go when
once encircled in its folds. Was it ever so deeply
engrained in our hearts as now ? and who should be
the first to oppose the fiend, to throw themselves into
the struggle with all utter self-negation and forgetful
ness—but those who owe all they most prize to Jesus
of Hazara, whose commission they execute, in whose
ranks they fight ? These are the very men who are
squabbling about days, and observances, and vestments,
and the like, who would, if they could, stifle the very
breath of Free Thought, and throw us back into the
mediaeval past of superstition and subservience to the
power of Sir Priest who rules over men’s hearts, only
to fill them with the twin demons of bigotry and
spiritual pride. “ It is a sight to make angels weep,”
�14
The “Edinburgh Review.”
but it is the old tale, the Jews tearing and rending each
other, and Rome thundering at the gates.
May a wiser heart be ours ; the church of God in
this land might become a power for good such as the
world never yet saw; embracing in a loving fold the
hearts of thousands and tens of thousands who now
never worship at all; yet turn a wistful look to the
churches of their ancestors, and their green hillocky
graves. Years of mutual neglect and coldness have
ripened into distrust and dislike.
“ They stand apart, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs that have been rent asunder,
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor rain, nor thunder
Can ever do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.”
She might be the spiritual friend and comforter of a
race which has never been surpassed for solidity and
thoughtfulness, for mental and bodily energy in all their
forms—that still loves and worships God, still respects
religion, still asks for guidance and support. But
when it finds its natural leaders vain and busied about
things that it looks upon as trifles or something
worse, when it sees them turning a deaf ear to
warning or remonstrance, blind to the light that shines
all around them, fiercely opposed to truths which others
have long recognised, caring only for that which lies
within their own magic circle, distrustful of every
thing in the shape of change or progress, can it be
wondered at that men are turning to other leaders;
that, sick of the strife of tongues, and the weary jargon
of ecclesiastical disputes, they are ready to cry a
plague upon both your houses—to follow any Jeroboam
who shall set up his calves at Dan and Bethel, and
spurn the altar at Jerusalem ?—Yours truly,
G. WHEELWRIGHT.
Thomas Scott, Esq.
10«/t Dec. 1873.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The "Edinburgh Review" and Dr. Strauss
Creator
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Wheelwright, G.
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A letter concerning an article by G.H. Curteis in the Edinburgh Review 138 (October 1873) p. 536-539 commenting on "Der alte und der neue Glaube" by David F. Strauss. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
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1873
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CT118
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Christianity
Free thought
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The "Edinburgh Review" and Dr. Strauss</span><span>), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Christianity-Controversial Literature
Conway Tracts
David Friedrich Strauss
Edinburgh Review
Free Thought