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THE PROVINCE OE PRAYER.
BY
W. E. B.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��THE PROVINCE OF PRAYER.
HE important controversy upon the efficacy of prayer
that has recently occupied the attention of some
of our most thoughtful writers and readers has not re
sulted in any approach towards a settlement of the vexed
question. Nor could any definite verdict easily be given
by the most impartial of judges who should undertake
to sum up the arguments on either side as they have
been placed before us. The discussion is like a battle,
of which the sphere of operations is too large to allow
a spectator to ascertain the effect of the various move
ments. An attempt was indeed made at the outset to
narrow the basis of the controversy, but it was unsuc
cessful. The proposition of a practical test of the value
of one particular kind of prayer, i.e., prayer for the sick,
was at once rejected with horror and indignation by the
so-called religious world. If the challenge had been
accepted by the advocates of prayer for the sick, and
one ward of a hospital had been selected for the special
supplications of believers, with a view to prove statisti
cally that prayer is answered, it is extremely improbable
that the result would have been acknowledged to be
conclusive by either party. Supposing that in the
ward selected the recoveries had not been above the
average of recoveries in other wards, the orthodox
would have declared that the result only showed that
God had defeated the infamous attempt of the faithless
to gauge His mercies. It would further have been
urged that the patients in the other wards had been
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prayed for with equal earnestness, and perhaps with
special earnestness, by those who could not bear the
thought that any sick people should sutler from the
lack of prayers for their recovery. If, on the other
. hand, the result had been a larger per centage of re
coveries in the selected ward, those who deny the
efficacy of prayer for the sick would either have de
clared that such a result was accidental, or-that it was
owing, not to any supernatural influences, but entirely
to the extraordinary attention and exertions of doctors
and nurses, stimulated by a superstitious belief that
their efforts, thus specially assisted by prayer, were
sure to be successful. Now, as hardly any one denies
this last-mentioned indirect effect of prayer upon peojole
who believe in its efficacy, no victory could have been
claimed. A result at least as conclusive might be
shown in favour of the blindest fatalism, as it is well
known that soldiers whose religion teaches them to be
lieve that whatever danger they may be in, they cannot
be killed before their appointed time, fight with a des
perate courage that often ensures them the victory, '
when without so unreasonable a ' belief they would
have been defeated. It is further to be observed, that
this indirect efficacy of prayer for the sick is in inverse
proportion to the practical belief of the doctors and
nurses in God’s unaided action upon the patient, and
in direct proportion to their practical faith in their own
exertions. Thus the Peculiar' People, the only con
sistent believers in the supernatural efficacy of prayer
for the sick, trust entirely to the Divine action; and
many lives are lost that human care and skill would
have saved. Strange to say, these devout people are
almost universally condemned by the orthodox, and are
even punished by the law of the land for having too
strong a faith in the efficacy of prayer. Those who,
less consistently, but more reasonably, adopt the prin
ciple of trusting in Providence and keeping their
powder dry, admit that God answers prayer for the
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sick only by blessing the “ means ” employed. It is,
of course, for them to prove that He would not equally
bless the means if they had not prayed at all. There
does not exist a tittle of evidence to show that it would
not be so ; and the opponents of prayer for the sick
have reasonable ground for maintaining that, other things
being equal, such prayer does not produce the slightest
effect. That is to say, if doctors and nurses, who
neither pray themselves nor trust in the prayers of
others, make equal efforts for the recovery of their
patients with doctors and nurses who both pray them
selves and trust in the prayers of others, the results will
be equal. The only difference is, that the faith of the
former is exercised in favour of the scientific remedies
and 'careful attention that are known to promote the
recovery of the sick, whilst the faith of the latter is
ostensibly, if not practically, directed towards some occult
influence, of which we know absolutely nothing. Simi
larly with the patients themselves: if their hopes are
raised by faith in the efficacy of prayer, their chance of
recovery is improved; but if their hopes were equally
raised by faith in the efficacy of medicinal remedies
and careful nursing, their chance of recovery would be
improved to an equal extent.
Those who only maintain the indirect effects of prayer
for the sick must, if they are honest and logical, admit
the correctness of the above argument. They may, in
deed, urge that it will be a long time before people
generally are sufficiently educated to admit of the sub
stitution of scientific faith for faith in the supernatural
—an argument closely resembling the very common
protest against disturbing a religious faith, although
demonstrably false, because its defenders believe it to
be edifying. By such side issues inquirers are con
stantly being diverted from the consideration of simple
questions of truth or falsity. In the present instance,
* no one desires to destroy the faith that gives hope to
the patient and stimulates the energies of the doctors
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and nurses, without giving an ample equivalent; and it
is surely better that faith should rest directly upon the
actual aids to recovery than upon a delusion that acts
only through them.
But there is more to be said upon this alleged indi
rectly beneficial effect of prayer for the sick. It is
admitted that in some instances faith in the efficacy of
prayer may, in the way indicated, promote the recovery
of the patients; but it is doubtful whether, on the
whole, it is not more mischievous than useful. It is
obvious that the persons whose energies are supposed
to be stimulated by the faith have not the indirect
theory in view, but believe in some heavenly influence
that.works in a way distinct from the natural action of
medicines and attentions. To whatever extent, then,
they trust in that external influence, is it not probable
that to a corresponding extent they lack reliance upon
the real means of cure ? May not a nurse, for instance,
worn out by constant watching, be inclined to persuade
herself that prayer will take the place of unremitting
attention to some extent, and to relax her watchfulness
accordingly? 'Would she not, at any rate, more cer
tainly be stimulated to do her utmost if she felt
convinced that the patient’s life depended entirely
upon her unremitting attention, than if she trusted
partially to the influence of prayer ?
When the members of the deputation that waited
upon Lord Palmerston, to ask for a day to he set apart
for national prayer for the removal of the cholera, were
told that, they had better mind their drains, the advice
was considered by most religious people to be impious.
And, doubtless, even from the standpoint of those who
only trust to the indirect effects of prayer, the advice
was bad;, for what could better stimulate the exertions
of physicians and nurses, and the hopes of patients,
than a special day of national prayer ? Yet on the
same ground as is above taken, it is fairly to be argued
that a national prayer, and the faith in its efficacy,
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would to some extent divert the attention of the
people from the real means of assuaging the ravages of
cholera, and preventing its outbreak in fresh places.
But those who protest against disturbing the faith
in the efficacy of prayer for the sick, on the ground
of its indirect influence, compose but a very small
minority of the defenders of such prayers. A large
majority of religious people in this country believe,
with the Archbishop of York, that in the case
of the recovery of the Prince of Wales a miracle
was worked by God in answer to the prayers of
the nation. It is needless- to waste time in pointing
out in detail the mischievous effects of such a super
stition. They are sufficiently indicated in the case of
the Peculiar People, who rely entirely upon a faith
which others profess, but only partially trust to.
Unfortunately a certain amount of encouragement has
been given to the superstition by one who has done
much to dissipate it.
Professor Tyndall, in the
Contemporary Review for October, has made the fol
lowing strange admission :—“ The theory that the
system of nature is under the control of a Being who
changes phenomena in compliance with the prayers of
men, is, in my opinion, a perfectly legitimate one. It
may, of course, be rendered futile by being associated
with conceptions which contradict it; bub such con
ceptions form no necessary part of the theory. It is a
matter of experience that an earthly father, who is at
the same time both wise and tender, listens to the.
requests of his children, and, if they do not ask amiss,
takes pleasure in granting their requests. We know
also that this compliance extends to the alteration,
within certain limits, of the current of events upon earth.
With this suggestion offered by our experience, it is
no departure from scientific method to place behind
natural phenomena a universal Father, who, in answer
to the prayers of his children, alters the currents of
those phenomena.” A strange admission, truly, for
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Professor Tyndall to make, affirming, as it does in
effect, the a priori reasonableness of the theory of the
Peculiar People themselves ! For what is an altera
tion in the currents of phenomena but a miracle ?
And if we are told by one of the highest of pur
scientific authorities that there is nothing inherently
unreasonable in the belief that the Divine Being will
work miracles in answer to prayer, is it to be wondered
at that the unscientific world should firmly believe in
the theory ? It is true that Professor Tyndall goes on
to explain that, “ without verification, a theoretic con
ception is a mere figment of the intellect;” and that
“the region of theory, both in science and theology,
lies behind the world of the senses ; but the veri
fication of theory lies in the sensible world. To check
the theory, we have simply to compare the deductions
from it with the facts of observation. If the deduc
tions be in accordance with the facts, we accept the
theory : if in opposition, the theory is given up.”
But this is just what the religious world will not do—
compare their deductions with the facts of observation.
These deductions are to them a sacred faith based on
supernatural revelation, to put which to the test of
scientific inquiry would, in their opinion, be a mani
festation of impious doubt; and when they are told by
one of the most distinguished of our men of science
that there is nothing unreasonable in the theory that
the grand order of the universe is liable to disturbance
at the instigation of ignorant, foolish, shortsighted
mortals, they cannot fail to feel strengthened in their
faith. Science owes no allegiance to Religion ; and it
is time that the old rule of fashion, which has so long
induced scientific explorers to preface their revelations
with a deferential bow and a “By your leave, ma’am,”
to the reigning Theology of the period, should be
broken through. With the greatest respect for Pro
fessor Tyndall, I all the more regret that he has made
an admission which I cannot help regarding as an
amiable little offering in the Temple of Rim mon.
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The admirable article from the proposer of the
hospital test, that also appeared in the Contemporary
Review for October, amply sustains the dignity of
Science. The following fine passage well represents
the true devoutness of the scientific mind :—“ There is
no influence so soothing, none so reconciling to the
chequered conditions of life, as consciousness of the
absolute stability of the rock on which the physicist
takes his stand; who, knowing the intelligent order
that pervades the universe, believes in it, and, with
true filial piety, would never suggest a petition for a
change in the Great Will as touching any childish
whim of his own. I cannot express my repugnance at
the 'notion that supreme intelligence and wisdom can
be influenced by the suggestion of any human mind,
however great. It is thus that we may breathe the
true spirit of communion with the Unseen, here realise
a sense of dependence upon that which is too great to
be moved, and gladly cherish submission to the only
mastership found to be unchanging and sufficing.
Here the physicist fears no catastrophe—regards
calmly all that happens, whatever it may be, as the
outcome of the forces that exist. His work, and the
work of all men-—the only work that satisfies and
endures—is the finding and maintaining of truth so
far as he knows it, freely giving equal licence to every
other man to do the same. Comparing, as we do at
this moment, our observations and experience, and in
the clash of thought evoking truth, victory for which
ever side matters not to him, since it surely will in the
end be for the side of truth. For the future he has no
anxiety : the supreme order in which he has a place
and work cannot fail to provide, and he submits, with
out suggesting limits or a definition to the plan he
never could have devised and cannot compass—too
glad to believe that all such order is not to be influenced
by human interference.”
The same writer ably enlarges upon the recognised
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fact that the province of prayer has contracted with the
advance of knowledge. He places the phenomena of
the universe in two classes : class 1 consisting of those
for which, or for the alteration of which, prayer would
he considered useless, and class 2 of those concerning
which prayer is considered to be availing, and he points
out how, since the early ages of human existence, class
1 has become larger as knowledge has advanced, and
class 2 has lost what class 1 has gained. As uncertain
ties are changed by investigation into certainties, men
by general consent cease to pray about them. Thus we
see that the phenomena with which the exact sciences
have to do, are generally held to be out of the province
of prayer, whilst events of the sequence of which our
ignorance renders us less certain are held to be within
that province. ' For instance, no rational and educated
person would think of praying that the sun should
always be visible in England, whilst, on the other
hand, we have recently had prayers for fine weather
offered up in our churches for several Sundays. If
we knew as much about meteorology as we know
about astronomy, no educated man would be guilty
of such absurdity. Similarly it is to be observed that
if the laws which govern the progress of disease under
given conditions were, as perhaps they never will be, as
well known as the laws of chemistry, we should not see
men of learning and intelligence coming forward to
defend by elaborate arguments the offering of prayers
for the sick.
Perhaps the most plausible argument put forward by
the defenders of the direct effects of prayer, is that
prayer has its place in the natural order of phenomena.
This view has been ably stated by Dr M‘Cosh in the
“ Contemporary Eeview ” for October 1872.
Dr
M'Cosh does not believe “that God usually answers
prayer by violating or even changing His own laws,”
but that “ He commonly answers prayer by natural
means appointed for this purpose from the very begin
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ning, when He gave to mind and matter their laws,
and arranged the objects with these laws for the accom
plishment of His wise and beneficent ends, for the en
couragement of virtue and the discouragement of vice,
and among others to provide an answer to the accepta
ble petitions of His people.” In illustration of this
argument, Dr M‘Cosh proceeds to urge,—“ God, in
answer to prayer, may restore the patient by an origi
nal strength of constitution, or by the well-timed appli
cation of a remedy. The two, the prayer and its
answer, were in the very counsel of God, and if there
had not been the one there would not have been the
other.” Here the recovery of the patient is in effect
represented as a predestined event dependent upon a
prayer also predestined, and prompted by God, as Dr
M‘Cosh afterwards states. This theory certainly avoids
the objections commonly made to the idea that Divine
benefits, even those of the greatest importance to
humanity, are dependent upon the caprice of mortals,
but it only does so by virtually denying the spon
taneity of prayer. I question whether the majority of
Dr M‘Cosh;s co-believers will be inclined to accept this
issue. But in any case the theory is a pure assumption
without a tittle of real evidence to sustain it. Dr
M‘Cosh does not distinctly tell us in what way men are
prompted to offer these predestined prayers. He does
indeed say,—“ The believer is in need of a blessing,
and he asks it, and he finds that the God who created
the need and prompted the prayer has provided the
means of granting what he needs.” But it seems
obvious that this sense of need is not the Divine
prompting referred to, because every one admits that
many prayers offered by believers for supposed bles
sings that they feel the need of, are not answered, and
I cannot suppose that Dr M‘Cosh would maintain that
God prompts men to offer prayers which He does not
intend to answer. As far as we are acquainted with
the natural order of mundane arrangements, a special
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prompting of particular individuals to pray for certain
benefits that the Supreme Being had determined to
bestow, would be as miraculous as the suspension of
the law of gravitation or any other physical law, simply
because we know of no direct communication between
the Divine and the human mind. We know so little
of the laws of mind that it is impossible to prove that
no such communication exists, nor can we fairly be
called upon to prove the negative : it is for Dr M‘Cosh
and those who agree with him to prove the affirmative
proposition. But if on the one hand it is impossible
to prove that any specified inducement to pray is not a
Divine prompting, on the other hand, it is equally im
possible to prove that it is. No man can know that any
prompting which he is conscious of is a Divine prompt
ing : he can only believe it to be so, and he is at least as
likely as not to be deceiving himself. If it be asked
why I should take pains to throw doubt upon the
theory advanced by Dr M‘Cosh amongst others, I
reply because I am convinced that belief in it tends to
reduce the strength of human effort, which I believe to
be the only divinely ordained prayer (in the sense of
“ laborare est orare.”') Those who completely believe
that they are prompted by God to pray for any benefit
which will therefore certainly be granted, cannot help
relaxing their efforts to obtain it in a degree exactly
proportionate to their faith in the Divine action.
The Bev. William Knight in an admirable paper
entitled, “The Function of prayer in the Economy of
the Universe,” published in the Contemporary Beview
for January 1873, presents us with an eloquent defence
of prayer, in some respects similar to that of Dr
M£Cosh, but by no means identical with it. After
admitting that—“No one, even slightly acquainted with
scientific methods and results, can for a moment brook
the idea of any interference with the laws of external
nature, produced by prayer; ” that—“ This conception
of the absolute fixity of physical law is one which the
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progress of science has made axiomatic; ” and that—“It
is vain to reply that we are continually interfering with
the seemingly fixed laws of the universe, and altering
their destination by our voluntary activities,” &c.; for
“ We are ourselves a part of the physical cosmos, and
in accordance with its laws, we exert a power which
changes external nature”—Mr Knight proceeds to refer
to the common idea that the weather is • a proper sub
ject for prayer, because apparently capricious. This
idea he clearly shows to be illogical. He declares that
it is just as unreasonable to pray for rain, &c., as
against the regular return of the seasons, or to-morrow’s
sunrise, which people never pray against, because they
know such prayers would be contrary to God’s will as
revealed in the laws of external nature. But although
Mr Knight denies the usefulness of prayers for the
abrogation or suspension of any of the physical laws,
however little they may be known, he agrees with Dr
M‘Cosh and other writers, who like Mr M‘Grigor
Allan in the Examiner, have taken part in the recent
controversy, that prayer for the Divine influence upon
and instruction to the mind or spiritual nature of man,
is reasonable and effectual. In reference to prayer for
the removal of a calamity, Mr Knight says :—“ Now,
so far as it can be obviated or lessened by human
action, prudence, foresight, and conformity to the laws
of nature, man may validly pray to be enabled to put
forth that foresight and sagacity, and to conform to
those laws.” But that—In so far as the disaster is
due to causes with which he (man) cannot interfere, it
is illegitimate in him to pray for their removal. His
obvious duty then is to acquiesce in the will of the
Supreme. If he prays, as he should, it must be simply
for the spirit of submission.” “Even in the former
case,” Mr Knight continues, “it is only indirectly that
he may pray, for the removal of a pestilence. He may
ask for wisdom to cope with it, for a knowledge of the
laws of health, and for ability to conform to these : in
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asmuch as unconscious aid is often vouchsafed to the
will of the agent who is striving to observe them.”, I
quote thus at length from Mr Knight, and shall pro
bably quote from him again, because he has written
the best defence of prayer that influences, not the man
praying only, but the Being prayed to, that I have ever
read. I differ from him in this respect, that whilst he
evidently believes that prayer influences God to give
some special moral incentive, and even intellectual
instruction to man, and that the act of praying itself
exercises a useful influence upon the man who prays
(and perhaps upon others who hear, even if they do
not also join in the prayer), I admit only the latter
result. We have seen that Mr Knight thinks it un
reasonable in people to believe that because the weather
is apparently capricious—that is because we know so
little of meteorology—therefore prayer for rain or fine
weather is rational, whereas prayer for the inversion
of the order of the seasons, would be accounted by the
same people to be absurd, and even impious, as being
obviously contrary to the will of God as declared in
the laws of nature. Now to me it seems equally ill
ogical to argue as Mr Knight virtually does, that because
the laws of mind are apparently capricious—that is,
because we know so little of psychology—therefore it is
reasonable to pray that God will specially instruct the
intellectual faculties, or influence the moral sentiments
of a man, whereas (Mr Knight admits) it would be un
reasonable to pray for Divine interference with physical
-sequences. But we will hear Mr Knight again upon
this point:—
“ We pray for a friend’s life that seems endangered.
Such prayer can never be an influential element in
arresting the physical course of disease by one iota.
But it may bring a fresh suggestion to the mind of a
physician, or other attendant, to adopt a remedy which
by natural means ‘ turns the tide ’ of ebbing life, and
determines the recovery of the patient. Or we pray
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for the removal of a pestilence, and the answer is given
within the minds and hearts of those who take means
to check it or uproot it.”
Now we have no more evidence in support of the
idea that suggestions” are conveyed to the minds of
physicians in answer to prayer, than we have that
medicines certain to cure the patients are. placed in
their hands by superhuman agency. As far as we
know, theories of treatment are just as much dependent
upon unaided human thought, as medicines are upon
unaided human manufacture. It seems to me as
reasonable to suppose that an Englishman going out to
China as a missionary, would obtain Divine instruction
in the Chinese language in answer to prayer, as that a
physician should from the same source and through
the same agency receive suggestions as to the cure of
disease. It is true that a sudden thought often flashes a
great discovery upon the mind, and from the suddenness,
men are apt to regard it as an inspiration or intuition;
but sudden discoveries occur in relation to the acquisi
tion of languages as well as in medical science; and it
is an unwarrantable deduction to assume that because
we cannot always distinctly trace the parentage of a
sudden idea, it is therefore any more an exception to
the ordinary regularity of the physical laws, than the
simplest perception common to humanity or the lower
animals.
That I have not mistaken Mr Knight’s meaning
when he speaks of the “ suggestions” above referred to
is obvious from the following quotation from his paper.
If he had only contended that by means of prayer, the
physician’s mind may be concentrated and his energies
strengthened in an unusual degree, so that he will be
more likely to think and act effectively in endeavour
ing to cure his patient, I should have agreed with him
entirely. This is what is meant by the “reflex action ”
of prayer, a result—and the only result of prayer which
has been conclusively proved by common experience.
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But Mr Knight means something quite different when
he says :—“ Had we no free spiritual power within us differen
tiating us from surrounding existence, we could not
‘ come into ’ God’s presence in the act of devotion ; for
surely in that presence man, as well as unconscious
nature, always stands. But endowed with intelligence
and spiritual freedom, he may, by an act either of the
will, or by simple aspiration, present his spirit to the
Divine, withdrawing it from the sphere of the sensuous,
and subjecting it to the influence of the super-sensible.
And the Divine nature may then act upon the human,
to quicken and melt, directly ‘enduing it with power
from on high.’ ”
Mr Knight gives us a more complete key to his
belief in the following eloquent passage :—“ In the
conscious freedom of our own wills we recognise a
power, irreducible by analysis, which proclaims our
superiority to the links of physical causation, while it
acts in unbroken harmony with these. It testifies that
in our inmost essence we are not the mere products
of organising force, but that we have (to use the
Kantian terms) natures noumenally free, and therefore,
noumenally related to God.
The sphere of prayer
is, therefore, the life of the creature endowed with
moral freedom and the capacities of spiritual growth.
Its value to the individual consists in the impulse it
conveys to the inmost energies of the soul in their
ascent and progress. By a direct divine afflatus it
tends, when it is, in Pauline phrase, ‘ prayer with the
spirit and with the understanding also,’ to clarify the
intellect, and to elevate the heart, to rectify the bias of
the passions, to strengthen the conscience, and disci
pline the will, and to foster all the virtues. Are these
results to be .slighted because the power which effects
them is inoperative in external nature? In that outer
region all is orderly and fair. But in the region of the
spiritual, there is conscious disorder, moral chaos,
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which is at once an evidence of the need, and a vindi
cation of the reasonableness of an interference with it.”
In this passage we have another illustration of the fact
that the realm of prayer is coterminous with the realm
of ignorance : or, in the words of a writer before quoted
from—“ that what a man will pray for depends pre
cisely on the extent of his intelligent acquaintance with
the phenomena around and within him.” We know
a great deal about the region of external nature, and
there Mr Knight admits that prayer is not directly
operative. We know little of the “ region of the
spiritual,” and that therefore is the proper sphere of
prayer. In the former region Mr Knight sees that “ all
is orderly and fair,” and he thinks that prayer for in
terference in it is irrational; in the latter, he does not
see that all is orderly and fair, but believes that he
sees “ conscious disorder ” and “ moral chaos,” from
which he concludes that interference is both reasonable
and necessary.
Professor F. W. Newman, in his recently published
pamphlet, “ The Controversy about Prayer ” (Thos.
Scott) 'supports views almost identical with those of
Mr Knight. He deprecates “ stereotype prayer,” and
prayer made to order. He also protests against the
vain repetitions so common in our churches, and often
uttered in a hurried and unthinking manner. Like
Mr Knight, he renounces the idea that prayer can
alter the arrangements of the material universe. He
says, “ Undoubtedly, the received belief of old was
that God’s providence ruled the world by agencies from
without. A pious saint in danger from enemies was
imagined to pray for (perhaps) ‘ twelve legions of
angels/ as a military aid. A prophet’s eyes were
opened to see chariots and horses, invisible to other
mortals, fighting on the side of his people. To such a
mental condition the prayer of those days adjusted
itself. But now all thoughtful persons, educated in
England, are aware that the Divine rule is carried on
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by the laws of the material universe, and by the agencies
of the human mind; and as it is no longer admissible
to entreat that [the Most High will tamper with his
own laws, prayer tends to concentrate itself upon the
human mind,-—that is, invokes influence from the
Divine Spirit on the mind either of him who prays, or
of some others.” Professor Newman believes that the
will as well as the mind can be influenced by prayer,
and I agree with him; but I do not believe, as he
does, if I mistake not, that the influence is externa]
to the mind and will, or, in other words, a direct
action of the Divine upon the human spirit.
To reply to Mr Strange’s pamphlet, “ Communion
with God,” (Thos. Scott) and other publications upon
this controversy, would involve a recapitulation of
many of the above objections, which appear to me to
be sufficient. I will therefore conclude with a few
remarks upon the reflex action of prayer, which, as I
have before stated, I believe to be its only effect.
No one denies that earnest prayer exercises an influ
ence upon the person who prays, and, in the -case of
public prayer, of those also who listen to, even if they
do not sensibly join in, the prayer. At least, no one
who has ever prayed in earnest for a worthy purpose,
can have failed to feel that influence. Dr Littledale
has declared that prayer offered with no other end in
view than that which is now indicated, is little better
than “ a fit of voluntary hysterics ; ” but the sarcasm is
unjust. A man who devoutly believes in the existence
of a Lather of the Universe, whose arrangements are
so perfect that they cannot be altered in accordance
with the foolish whims of His children, is certainly no
' more denied the right of communion with Him, than
is one who ostensibly prays for the sake of what he
can get. The noblest type of prayer is not the beggar’s
petition : it is rather the child’s embrace. The fable
of the digging of ASsop’s orchard for a treasure supposed
to be hidden there has been more than once referred to
�The Province of Prayer.
19
in the present controversy. The treasure was found,
but it was not that which was sought. It was a
treasure of a more permanent kind than a bag of gold ;
it was the treasure of an invaluable lesson of industry
learned, and rewarded by the fertility of the soil as
the natural result. Just so I believe that prayer is
answered, not by an external and temporary Divine
impetus to good intention, earnest will, or noble effort,but by an internal and permanent strengthening and
ennobling of the soul, that comes naturally from the
exercise of our highest mental efforts and moral aspira
tions.
It may be truly said that this view contracts the
province of prayer within the narrowest boundaries,
but they are boundaries which include what the deepest
religious feeling recognizes as its highest function ;
boundaries, too, that are defensible, and, indeed, on a
Theistic basis, impregnable. To the anti-tlieist, of
course, there is no province of prayer. He may object
that such results of prayer as are above referred to as
actual, would be just as likely to be brought about by
earnest self-communion and reflection, or by sympa
thetic converse with a friend, as if the confessions and
aspirations were addressed in the form of a prayer to
an unseen being. I admit the full force' of this objec
tion, which I have often felt; but I think that to
any one who believes, however vaguely, in the exist
ence of a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness, an
obvious reply will suggest itself. Even if it be ad
mitted, for the sake of argument, that there is no such
thing as a religious instinct, there is at least a natural
craving for perfect sympathy. Now, there is never
perfect sympathy between two human beings. To no
human friend, however dear, can we talk as unre
servedly as we can think and feel—“ For if one soul in perfect sympathy
Beat with another, answering love for love,
Weak mortals all entranced on earth would be.”
�20
The Province of Prayer.
But we can pray, at least silently, with a freedom
as unrestrained as the thoughts and desires of our
minds. The Divine Being is to us the infinite per
sonification of our purest ideal. We may believe in
an indefinite way that He is also infinitely more than
this, but it is as this that we pray to Him. Prayer,
then, in its highest, purest, and, as I think, its only
useful form, consists in a yearning after the loftiest
ideal.
�
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The province of prayer
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Bear, William Edwin
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 18 cm.
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Thomas Scott
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Prayer
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Conway Tracts
Prayer
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NATIONAL secular society
the'
ICONOCLASTS.
BY
SALADIN.
[reprinted
from
“the secular review.”]
London:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��gXO 76
THE
ICONOCLASTS.
Christianity was the tender foster-mother of Art. At
her benign glance the canvas became vivid with the
creations of genius ; at her touch the marble breathed
and burned into the symmetry of heroes and the linea
ments of gods. Indeed! Let us examine the preten
sions of this rolling magniloquence, and, if it be found
to have no feet to stand on, kick it to Gehenna, its heroes
and gods notwithstanding.
“ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
•or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or
that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under
the earth,”* quoth Jehovah; and it is no use asserting
that more recent Scriptures abrogated this, for Jehovah’s
son (of the same age with Jehovah himself) assured all
concerned that he came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfil it. So much for Christianity with its genius glowing
■on the canvas, and its demi-gods limned in the marble.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image is
pretty explicit as far as sculpture is concerned ; and in his
oracular, “ nor any likeness of anything” Jehovah kicks
the artist from his campstool, upsets the easel, and knocks
Titian headforemost through his canvas. And yet there
are Christian apologists who contend that, like the late
Joseph Gillott, Jehovah and his son are distinguished
patrons of Art.
Now, it only devolves upon me to show that Christians,
with some exceptions, were loyal enough and consistent
enough to attend rigorously to what Jehovah had said
and what his son had not contradicted in regard to the
“graven image” (sculpture), and the “likeness of any
thing ” (painting). Our George Second admitted that he
“hated boetry and baintingand Jehovah First, and
Exodus xx. 4.
�4
THE ICONOCLASTS.
let us hope last, endorsed the exalted standard of taste
attained to by his royal contemporary in England. Chris
tianity was only a bastard child of Judaism, and we learn
from Josephus* that the Jews regarded images, whether
painted or sculptured, with bitter aversion. The insignia
of the eagles on the Roman standards were hated as
much as the weapons in the hands of the Roman soldiery
were feared. Naturally, as far as painting and sculpture
were concerned, it took a few centuries for the dull
Christian brat to learn anything essential that its Jewish
mother had not taught it. The early fathers, such as
Minacius Felix, Origen, and Lactantius, boast that the
Christians had no “ images,” as Christian Boeotianism
was pleased to call the creations of the sculptor and the
painter.
But the progressive tendency inherent in human
nature, in the long run, began to enter its protest against
the ignorance, vulgarity, and bestial aesthetics of genuine
and primitive Christianity, and painting and sculpture
developed in their despite. A net, a fish creel, a kippered
haddock, a few shavings, and a carpenter’s adz might be
the most elegantly artistic objects to the low-bred rabble
who first pinned their faith to the Nazarene, and to his
apostle, Paul of Tarsus; but gratification had to be found
for higher sesthetical aspirations when Christianity became
imperial and began to absorb proselytes, ennobled by
the culture and taste of decaying heathendom. The
temples of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva became, under
State auspices, Christian Churches, and the only halfChristianised Athenian or Roman refused to break the
art treasures of the temples, out of deference to the
porcine tastes of Christianity. This compromise between
heathen culture and Christian bestiality went on till the
eighth century, when it reached a climax. Then the clear
issue arose, Was Art to be endured or suppressed ? The
Christians who were above their Christianity contended
that it should be endured—nay, fostered ; and those who
were only on a level with their Christianity, a fanatical
and ferocious mob, agitated that the pictures should
be torn to pieces and the images broken with hammers,
Bell. Jud. i. 33, 2.
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
5
conformably with the teachings of Scripture. And thus
sprang into being that brutal and shameful rabblement
■of insurgents known in history as the Iconoclasts.
The first serious Iconoclastic outbreak was in 726,
when the master Iconoclast was the Emperor Leo the
Isaurian. He passed an edict ordering the demolition
of statues and the defacing by whitewash of the paintings
upon the walls of churches. In the face of this edict of
this Christian Emperor (and several succeeding emperors
followed in his footsteps), which was popular with and
zealously carried into execution by tens of thousands of
his subjects, the ordinary Christian apologist is either
dishonest enough or ignorant enough to contend that
Christianity has been the inspiration and patron of Art 1
Over the entrance to a church in a part of Constan
tinople, known as Chalcopatria, stood a statue of him of
Nazareth. By the way, a statue or picture of this per
sonage must, of necessity, bear a very striking likeness to
him, seeing that the fact that such a preaching mechanic
existed is so firmly established, and seeing that there was
a photographer of such distinction in Martha Street,
Bethany. Justin Martyr and Tertullian both admit their
Lord to have been ugly, “ without form or comeliness •”
and his saint and servant, Cyril, is complimentary enough
to describe him as of shabby appearance, “even beyond
the ordinary race of men.” But the ugly Saviour of the
early fathers blossomed into a sort of Galilean dandy in
a spurious epistle, pretending to have been written by
Lentulus to the Roman Senate. So it is to an epistle, by
all scholars admitted to be spurious, that “ the Lord” is
indebted for his good looks ; and it is to four other
epistles, or gospels, which have also undoubtedly much
of the spurious about them, that he is indebted for all
that anybody knows about his existence.
Well, this statue of him of Nazareth (had it a basket
of tools slung over its shoulder, a saw under its arm, and
a foot-rule obtruding from its pocket?) stood over a
church door in the part of Constantinople known as
Chalcopatria. Leo sent a party of soldiers to destroy the
statue. Behold the historic tableau! On came the
soldiers through a crowd, principally made up of exas
perated and hissing women. A ladder was placed with
�6
THE ICONOCLASTS.
its upper end touching the base of the statue; and, amid
cheers, mingled with a storm of hisses and execrations,
armed with a heavy axe, he mounts the ladder. The
excitement is so intense that it fixes itself into wide-eyed
and breathless silence. Would this soldier of the irreve
rent Leo really smite with his axe the miraculous image
of the son of God ? This statue had been specially
useful to wives that had desired to be mothers, and to
maidens who had dreaded lest they should become
mothers. They had prayed to this image of a thing
compounded of world-maker and carpenter, and it had
assisted them in many of the delicate circumstances and
junctures peculiar to their sex. Would the Roman
soldier be permitted to strike the miraculous image? No,
by the thunders of God he should not. They waited
with stopped breath and straining eyes to behold him lift
his axe and arm, and to see whether they should not
be shattered and blasted by a bolt from heaven. Their
suspense was soon over. The soldier reached the top of
the ladder, swung his impious axe, and dealt a heavy
blow upon the face of Almighty God. In the fearful
hush of expectancy the sound of the blow reverberated
through Chalcopatria, and the faint echoes died away
upon the waters of the Golden Horn.
But the calm was only the hush before the crash of
thunder. Ere another blow of the axe could be dealt
upon the face of Jesus, the street was shaken with a
tempest of yells, a hurricane of curses. Men and women
rushed frantically to the ladder, tore it away from the wall
against which it rested, and brought the impious soldier and
his axe crashing to the ground. He rises, he staggers—it is
only for a moment; an angry ocean of human beings dash
against him and overwhelm him ; he is trampled to death,
and torn to pieces. His comrades draw their swords and
fall upon the mob. A mere handful; they are lost in the
armed and infuriated multitude. Women, fierce as tigers,
protecting their hands with their shawls, grasp the swords
of the soldiery, snap them into flinders, and fling the
steel fragments in the faces of their foes. Sounds of the
ferocious uproar reach Leo in his palace. He sends a
relay of soldiers to quell the mob. At last it is quelled.
The street is blocked with corpses and streaming with
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
7
blood, and Jesus, with smashed nose and broken jaw,
looks down upon the carnage.
Vigorously as the Iconoclasts had been led on by Leo
against the Iconduli, as the defenders of the images were
called, their depredations were pushed to even more
lamentable excesses by his son and successor, Constan
tine Copronymus.
Some of the finest treasures of
Roman and Greek art* were, under the Iconoclastic axe
and hammer, irrecoverably lost to the civilisation of the
world. Any priest who dared to make use of an image in
his sacerdotal function, or was known to conceal an image
or picture to save it from destruction, was to be degraded
from his office. An aged monk, named Andreas, was
scourged to death for vindicating the position of the
Iconduli against that of the Iconoclasts. Banishment,
imprisonment, scourching, the cutting off of noses, ears,
and hands, and the burning out of eyes, were the punish
ments resorted to against those who had a word to say
for the preservation of the treasures of painting and
sculpture. One bishop, sound in the Iconoclastic faith,
trampled the paten, or golden plate, used for the conse
crated bread, under foot, because there was carved upon
it the head of Jesus Christ.
Constantine, to conciliate the Christian dregs of the
Roman population for political and military ends, had
made the erection of statues punishable by death. So
much for the encouragement of sculpture by the first
Christian Emperor; and, in this respect, the Christian
Emperors, Constantius and Theodosius, followed in his
footsteps. The great Christian Emperor, Charlemagne,
in this pious detestation of images, followed in the wake
of his imperial predecessors. The Roman pontiffs had
got thinly painted with the brush of civilisation, and, at
the second Council of Nicea, in spite of Jehovah and his
aversion to “ graven mages,” it was enacted that statues
be introduced into the churches. But Charlemagne re
presented the Christianity of the age rather than did the
Pope, and against these statues, supported by the Biblical
anathema against “ graven images,” and eagerly
* Many of the Pagan temples had been converted into Christian
Churches, and the marble statues of heathen gods came to be wor
shipped as Christian saints.
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
seconded by the Christian mob, he sat his face like
flint. This omnipotent “ Emperor of the West,” whose
sway extended over France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and
Hungary, was too powerful a rival for the Papal power
itself to successfully cope with, and so he tore up the
painter’s canvas and smashed the sculptor’s marble
without let or hindrance.
A striking representative of popular Christianity was
this potent Emperor, who had been anointed with the
holy oil. He, in common with every honest man, found
in the Bible inexpugnable sanction for slavery, and did
his best to make it a lucrative source of income to the
State. Here, at least, Charlemagne was at one with the
Papacy, for Pope Adrian, for gain, sold his Italian vassals
to the Infidel Saracens. Like a good Biblical Christian,
this most powerful of the Christian Emperors believed
in polygamy, and, when not engaged in the affairs of the
camp or the senate, had the opportunity to forget the
ills of life amid the blandishments of his nine wives
and numerous concubines. Nine wives he considered
not sufficient for a good Christian, and he tried hard to
make his nine into ten by the addition to his household
of the fiendish Empress Irene, who had gouged out
the eyes of her own son, and that in the chamber in
which she had given him birth. So much for him whom
the representative of Christ on earth had adored and
anointed with holy oil. I have only to add that this
champion of “ the living God ” was so illiterate that he
could not sign his name, and the great majority of God’s
own monks and priests were in the same predicament.
And why not ? Ignorance and Illiteracy are the very
bed-rock upon which are based Faith and Piety.
Although Charlemagne stood unflinchingly by Icono
clasm as the wisest course for his own personal interests,
he was desirous, at the same time, not to come to over
strained relationships with the Pope. Consequently,
although he humoured his myrmidons to the top of their
bent by permitting them to rush over shattered sculptures
to the waning beacon-fires of a former civilisation, he
permitted them to attach all the consequence of super
stitious awe to shrine-cures, talismans, and relics. The
Pope, unwilling to come to a rupture with a potentate
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
9
against whom he was likely to find himself overmatched,
shut his eyes to Charlemagne’s iconoclastic devastations,
while there was no hindrance to his driving a flourishing
business in relics. As long as the populace could be
exercised in wild hyperaesthesia, and behold statues with
wounds that could bleed, eyes that could wink, and
arms that could brandish swords, his Holiness of the
Seven Hills had little reason to complain. The statues
of saints, apostles, martyrs, Christ the carpenter, and
Polly Davidson, his mamma, might be smashed at will,
as long as his Holiness could plenish the pontifical
coffers with the profits from the sale of bones and relics,
never-ending junks of the true cross, hundreds of
bottles of Polly Davidson’s inexhaustible milk, hundreds
of yards of napkins which had been used by her baby
to the Holy Pigeon, and hundreds of legs of the ass
upon which her thaumaturgical son Jesus had ridden
into Jerusalem. The touching of saints’ bones would
cure all maladies, from whitlow to rumblegumption in
the great toe, or the pains of ladies parturient with an
anvil and a grindstone. If the saints, like roaches, had
been nearly all bones, and every saint had been as big as
a hippopotamus, they would not have had enough of
bones to meet the demand of those who, at a moderate
price, were willing to buy them. So his Holiness broke
into the catacombs, and sent out bones in waggon loads
to be sold over the length and breadth of Christendom;
and money flowed copiously into the Papal exchequer.
The fleshless bones of nobodies and somebodies—the
strong femor of the Pagan gladiator and the carious
pelvis of the syphilitic sybarite—were sold as the femoral
and pelvic ossifications of the apostles of Jesus. So,
because it suits the designs and projects of Charlemagne,
let the treasures of painting and sculpture go to eternal
smash, the accursed “graven image,” and the “likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the
earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth”!
Catholicism chiselled out the statue with the one hand
and broke it with the other. But Protestantism, ignoring
tradition and basing her principles upon the infallible
Scriptures, and upon them only, was confronted by
Exodus xx. 4, whenever she might attempt to rise from
�1O
THE ICONOCLASTS.
the bathos of ascetic doctrine and iron dogma to the sublimer levels of the painter’s rapture or the sculptor’s ideal.
As soon as she had the power, to the extent of that
power she exerted it to eradicate Art from the earth.
If, in this direction, she had never done a day’s work but
one, she would have laid claim to the grateful recognition
of him who described himself, “ I the Lord thy God am
a jealous God,” and who inspired some one to write
Exodus xx. 4. That day’s work was performed on the
14th of August, 1566, and it laid the interior of Antwerp
Cathedral, the glory of Europe, in ruins.
Antwerp Cathedral! What poetry in stone the words
conjure up unbidden, what lyrics in oak, what epics in
marble ! The heart of even me, the sometimes con
sidered irreverent Freethinker, wanders reverently back
through the mists of the years that are no more to the
ancient city on the Scheldt and to its hoary Cathedral—
“ Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.”
Who claims the triumphs of architecture for Christianity
speaks blasphemy—blasphemy against the hills and the
stars and the sea, and against the highest visions and
loftiest aspirations in the heart and brain of man that
ring responsive to the ocean’s roar or exult in the hush
and silence of the starlight upon the whispering trees.
To these subjective and objective impulses, and not to
the blood-dyed nails and the crown of thorns, are due
the fluted column and the shafted oriel. Who has stood
in the cathedral chancel and beheld the vesper sun light
up with mellow radiance the scrolls and the blazonry and
stream through the glass, burning with tints of gold and
deepening into blood-red in the limning of saints and
martyrs, and not feel the pulse and glow of a religion of
which no Bible or Veda has touched the fringe ? Who,
as that holy sunlight, catching the stained-glass’s tints of
purple and amythest, flings them upon the tombs of the
rulers and the heroes, fears that all the majesty of Life
can be locked up in the sarcophagous of Death ? Who,
as his heel strikes the flagstone in the aisle and wakens
the echoes among the dead below, does not hear in that
echo a resurrection anthem and feel that man is too
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
II
grand for worms and too mighty for dust ? Man cares
little for the peddling edicts of mere Science, when, in
Religion’s chariot of fire, he careers into realms where
Science dare not follow, and, in his emotional might,
leaps over the flaming wall of the Eternities.
Christianity originate architecture like that of York
Minster or Westminster Abbey, never to speak of the
fane of ancient Antwerp ! Men shall, indeed, gather
grapes off thorns and figs off thistles before Christianity
will be aught else than she ever has been, a plagiarist
and thief, a jackdaw strutting in the plumes of Pagandom,
a Hebrew idiot jabbering the myths of India, vulgarising
the hieroglyphs of Egypt, clowning the philosophy of
Greece, and burlesquing the Pantheon of Rome. She
originate the cathedrals in which she performs her
mummeries of worship ! They are often the holy ground
of Art which she is not worthy to tread upon, even when,
like Moses at Horeb, she has cast the shoes from off her
feet. Her touch to such edifices is sacrilege. I love them
and am. religious in them when she is not there mumbling
about her debased deity and her crazy carpenter, her
tawdry heaven and her revolting hell. When she is
there with her conjurer and her dupes, her book, her
wine, and her bread, conjuring away like the witches
round the hell-pot in “ Macbeth,” I feel pityingly dis
gusted, as I would be if I could see Caliban enshrined
in the temple of Minerva. The tree of architecture had
flourished centuries, if not chiliads, before the tree had
been planted out of which was fashioned Christianity’s
manger-cradle : it was growing while the earliest sept of
shepherds kept watch by night on the starlit plains of
Shinar; it will continue to branch and blossom when the
worship of Jesus has died away from the world as has
that of Thoth.
But the Cathedral of Antwerp, the cynosure of cathe
drals, what of it ? “ There was no Church in all Northern
Europe........... -which could equal the Notre Dame of the
commercial capital of Brabant, whether in the imposing
grandeur of its exterior or in the variety and richness of
its internal decorations. The magnificence of its statuary,
the beauty of its paintings, its mouldings in bronze and
carvings in wood, and its vessels of silver and gold,
�12
THE ICONOCLASTS.
made it the pride of the citizens, and the delight and
wonder of strangers from foreign lands. Its spire shot
up to a height of 500 feet; its nave and aisles stretched
out longitudinally the same length. Under its lofty
roof, borne up by columns of gigantic stature, hung
round with escutcheons and banners, slept mailed
warriors in their tombs of marble, while the boom of
organ, the chant of priest, and the whispered prayers of
numberless worshippers kept eddying continually round
their beds of still and deep and never-ending repose.”*
It was in the middle of Autumn, on the fete-day of
the Assumption of the Virgin, 1566, when the Protes
tant zealots, mad with “ the fear of God,” and horrible
with hammers, burst into Antwerp Cathedral. The
statue of the Virgin was dashed to pieces. Ropes were
thrown over the necks of statues that stood high up on
the walls, and the yelling zealots of pious rabbledom
tugged at the ropesand brought down with a crash upon
the flagstones the marble effigies of gods and heroes—
each marble effigy worth a hundred of the carrion brutes
that destroyed it. For, mark me, the child that proceeds
from the head of the man of genius is of more value to
elevate and redeem the world than is the rabble issue
from the loins of John Smith during a thousand years.
The tapers were lifted from the altar and carried round
with axe, hammer, and crowbar to light up the gloom of
that night of devilry. The pictures were torn down from
the walls, the frames broken, and the canvas torn to
shreds. The stained glass of the noble windows was
dashed to splinters. The Protestant bigots filled the
chalices with the sacramental wine, and roared their
drunken ditties in discord with the clank of their
hammers. A deafening hubbub of clash and crash,
and clang and shout, pealed thunderously under the
groined arches during the live-long night; and, before
the morning threw its first ray upon the Scheldt, the
madly-swung candles which had been taken from the
altar revealed, in ghostly hideousness, such a scene of
devastation as, peradventure, the world had never known
before, and which, let us hope, it will never know again.
Wylie’s “ History of Protestantism,” vol. iii., p. 53.
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
j
z
13
The candles, in the hands of the Iconoclasts, drunk with
sacramental wine, through that mighty temple flung
vivid and fitful glares of light, which rendered more
awful the impenetrable gloom that lay beyond the line
of their illumination. How fearful the ever-shifting area
where the illumination fell! There, under the feet of
the Protestant mob, lay the debris that proclaimed to the
world of Art a loss irreparable. There, in mad com
mingling, lay battered martyr and shattered saint, oaken
carving dashed to matchwood, and pictures torn to
ribbons; patens, pyxes, plate, chalices, and mass vest
ments lay mixed with broken crucifixes and splintered
glass; the Cathedral’s seventy altars were levelled wit
the floor, and the Protestants danced upon them the
jig of destruction.
This at Antwerp. I could go on to recount the
same deeds of Vandalism at Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom,
Lier, Tournay, Hague, Delft, Brill, Leyden, Dort, Rotter
dam, Haarlem, and scores of other towns ; but ex pede
Herculem, and the task is one which no poet or artist
could execute without a feeling of anger and shame.
“ Ah, but,” say you, “ Protestantism gave her learning
to the people, and Rome kept it to herself.” And what
learning, pray thee, did Protestantism give to the people ?
The only learning she gave, and which Catholicism
refused, was that which can be culled from “ an open
Bible.” And this is, of course, learning to be proud
of—inexpugnable cosmogony, incontrovertible astronomy,
and geology that cannot be questioned; and abundant
sanctions for stealing, lying, murdering, slavery, poly
gamy, harlotry, and, perhaps, every crime of which human
turpitude has ever been capable. This is the learning
(save the mark) which Protestantism gave and which
Catholicism wisely withheld. An “open Bible” is an
open Pandora’s box. Learning proper neither Church
has ever encouraged ; and, at this hour, Catholicism is
not more hostile than Protestantism to the fearless
researches of science and the unbiassed generalisations
of philosophy. Catholicism and Protestantism—which
of the two weird sisters is at present most amiably
disposed to Charles Darwin’s Evolution or to Herbert
Spencer’s Agnosticism ?
�14
THE ICONOCLASTS.
This “open Bible” would, ere now, have done irrepar
able mischief but that it might almost as well have
never been “ openhardly anybody reads it. The
ordinary Protestant knows as much about its contents
as does the ordinary Catholic. Not one Protestant in a
thousand knows anything about it beyond a few hack
neyed texts. Miss Nancy Smith walks mincingly home
from chapel with it in her muff, in sublime ignorance of
what it contains. If you were to introduce yourself to
her, and narrate to her certain stories to be found in the
“ sacred volume,” she would blush and scream and
call you a vile, bad man, and a liar; and, if her papa,
Mr. John Smith, were to come up, he would swear that
no such filth was to be found in “ God’s Holy Word
that you were a scoundrel attempting to corrupt a young
girl’s morals, and try to drag you into the police court.
So much for the Protestant knowledge of the “open
Bible.” The Bible is nice to go to church with, and, if
big enough and gilt enough, it is pretty to lie on the
window-sill; but nobody really reads it. I am glad Miss
Nancy Smith does not, as I prefer her ignorant innocence
to her guilty knowledge. The people who have really
read the Bible are to be found in the ranks of the
Infidel, and there the careful reading of the Bible sent
them. It is a tedious and nasty pathway to the repudia*tion of the Christian myth ; but a careful reading of the
Bible is that pathway. I should say that, during the
last seven years, the Bible has made a thousand Infidels
where the Secular Review has made one. So much for
Protestantism’s learning for the people in the shape of
“ an open Bible.”
I have said that literature and learning suffered under
the illiterate malice of Protestantism. The verification
of the statement must be present to the mind of every
student of history. Up to the period of the so-called
Reformation, about which Mr. John Smith and his Non
conformist Beetle speak so endearingly, the whole of the
literature and learning of Europe was concentrated in
the monasteries. The 5,000 MSS. to form the nucleus
of the Vatican Library were collected as early as the
time of Pope Nicolas V.; and, soon after, all over Chris
tendom, every monastery had its library and its scrip-
�THE ICONOCLASTS.
i
15
torium where the patient and laborious monks, with
richly-coloured inks, illuminated and copied on vellum
the works that had come down through the storm and
gloom of the bygone centuries of the world. But the
literary treasures of the ages were sold for waste-paper,
because the charms of Anne Boleyn (said, by the way,
to be his own illegitimate daughter) made Henry VIII.
a Protestant. As a Protestant he suppressed the monas
teries and abbeys, edifices of whose grandeur we can
form some estimate from their magnificence, even in
ruin. The splendour of these institutions may be in
ferred from an account of one of the abbeys, Glastonbury,
left us by the commissioners who visited it in 1538. It
was, we are told, “a house meet for the king’s majesty,
and no man else, great, goodly, and so princely as we
have not seen the like. There are four parks adjoining,
the furtherest of them but four miles from the house ; a
great mere, five miles round, and a mile and a half from
the house, well stocked with great pikes, bream, perch,
and roach; four manor-houses belonging to the abbot,
the furthermost only three miles distant.” This magni
ficent “ House of God,” along with hundreds of others,
was dismantled and gutted, its noble architecture plead
ing in vain against the hand of Protestant Vandalism, its
precious vessels and art treasures in vain opposing their
sanctity to the greedy yearnings of Protestant avarice.
What Protestant Christianity had done for Art at Antwerp
and Dort she now enacted at Glastonbury and Col
chester, and in hundreds of other abbeys and monasteries,
whose broken arches and ivy-mantled towers cast a
melancholy glory over many an expanse of English and
Scottish landscape.
And carefully mark Protestantism’s reverence for books
and learning. She sold the libraries, just as she sold the
lead on the roofs, for whatever sum they would bring.
And, since all the learned institutions were being sup
pressed and an educated priesthood beingdisinherited,the
libraries sold for next to nothing. The Protestants were
too full of heavenly wisdom to care anything for secular
MSS. and learning, the former of which, in its ignorant
disdain, it regarded as “ monkish trash.” The library of
Glastonbury was disposed of as waste vellum. Some of
�i6
THE ICONOCLASTS.
the libraries, says Bale,* they sold “ to grocers and soap
sellers, and some they sent over the sea to the book
binders, not in small number, but, at times, whole ships’
full. Yea, the universities of this realm [when they
became Protestant] are not at all clear of this detestable
fact. I know a merchantman that bought the contents
of two noble libraries for forty shillings. This stuff he
has used instead of grey paper for more than ten years,
and he has enough for ten years to come.”
I have now submitted a few out of many historic facts
for the honest consideration of those who, either in dis
honesty or in ignorance, venture to maintain that Chris
tianity has been the friend of Art and Learning, instead
of recognising that they breathe an air in which she
cannot live. Now we have some Art and Learning; but,
in consequence, we have a tame parody of Christianity,
a poor Protean parasite that will abrogate any previous
dogma, and wriggle itself into any shape, to escape evic
tion and enable it to hold on with its bicuspids to the
obolus of Mammon.
* Declaration upon Leland’s Journal, 1549.
Every Thursday.
THE
Price Twopence.
SECULAR
REVIEW:
A JOURNAL OF AGNOSTICISM.
EDITED BY SALADIN.
Order of your Newsagent, or send direct to the Publishers—W.
Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, London, E.C.
RECENT PAMPHLETS.
The Divine Interpretation of Scripture, being a Reply to
Cardinal Manning, by Saladin ...
...
...
o I
The Crusades, by Saladin
...
...
...
O 1
The Covenanters, by Saladin
...
...
...
01
Christian Persecution, by Saladin ...
...
...
o 1
The Flagellants, by Saladin
...
...
...
01
London : W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�
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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 Ethical Society
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The iconoclasts
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Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Reprinted from the Secular Review. "by Saladin" [title page]. Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Iconoclasm
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4
OF THE
BY
J. M. DIXON,
Minister
of
Bowlalley Lane Chapel, Hull.
HULL :
Fisher, walker, and brown, 7, scale lane.
1 8 7 2.
�The prayer of faith shall save the sick.
ST. JAMES,
The doctrine of the Old Testament is the religion of England. The first
leaf of the New Testament it does not open. It believes in a Providence which
does not treat with levity a pound sterling. They are neither transcendentalists
nor Christians. They put up no Socratic prayer, much less any saintly prayer
for the queen’s mind ; ask neither for light or right, but say bluntly “grant her
in health and wealth long to live.”
EMERSON.
Thrice blest whbse lives are faithful prayers,
Whose loves in higher love endure ;
What souls possess themselves so pure,
Or is there blessedness like theirs ?
TENNYSON.
�/
/
/
Did Prayer Save the Life
OF THE
Prince of Wales?
HE child feeling the smart of physical pain, and knowing nothing
of the imperiousness of natural law, runs to his parent for relief.
The little one imagines that his father has control of the powers
of nature, and can grant all his childish desires. He petitions his father for
the gratification of his wishes, and cries, kicks and rebels, when his prayers
of ignorance are not answered according to their folly. It is much the same
in the mental childishness of man. The savage thinks that he can manage
the capricious temper of his god by the offering of human blood. The
semi-barbarous Hebrew imagines that he can change the frown of Jehovah
into a smile by the sacrifice of animals, or his own child ; and, St. James,
in sublime ignorance of the Divine order, says, prayer can change the weather,
and restore the dying human body to health.
Such conceptions were the creation of the mental child, when the great
unknown power of the universe was conceived as a capricious man, to be
changed in temper and action by the sins and prayers of his creatures.
Now, we know that the Eternal blesses in reward and penalty by law, fixed
and unchangeable.
Every revelation of science confirms the lesson of
experience, that prayer cannot influence the Author of Life to produce a
physical effect by a spiritual cause. Were God to act out of the order of
his law in the domain of matter, in answer to man's prayer, the whole world
of physical law would be uncertain. Fire might refuse to burn or warm,
boiling water might bite us like frost, and ice burn us like fire, the solid
earth might become water, and water be changed at any moment into dry
land. The law which served us yesterday might utterly fail us to-day—the
material world be the sport of prayer. The fixed order of the world, the
�4
DID PRAYER SAVE THE LIFE OF
universal prevalence of law, is our protection against fanaticism, and our
assurance that no breath of man’s can pluck the order of nature out of the
Father’s hand, or induce Him to suspend, in any case, the action of cause
and effect.
We had thought, that as a nation, we had outgrown the childish theory
of St. James on the subject of prayer, and risen to the higher view which
sees the order of law in all things, in the smallest as well as the greatest, in
the modest lily, the hair of the head, and in the falling sparrow. But we
have been recently told, uot merely by fever-heated revivalists, and dull-eyed
fanatics, but also by men of culture, in high places, that the prayers of this
nation have saved a human life. The God of England, we are assured, has
been persuaded by the clergy and their people to step out of the order of the
physical world to save the life of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
This young man has recently been at “death’s door.” The demon of bad
drainage seized him and pulled him down to the lowest point of life. A good
constitution, the best medical skill, with every facility for recovery, success
fully resisted the demon of disease. The battle between life and death was
for a considerable time doubtful. And in this state of suspense the sympathy
of the nation went strongly and tenderly to the sufferer. He has never been
a light of the land, or bread of life to the nation, never distinguished for
wisdom. But he is probably wiser and better than he has generally been
represented. He will, however, be our future King, if he live, and his death
at this time might have caused some trouble in our land. Besides, he is a
young man, and it is always peculiarly saddening to see death in the morning
of life, or biting winter rush into the full spring time. We all rejoice in the
Prince s recovery, for his good mother’s sake, for his sweet wife’s sake, and.
for his own sake.
But, while we thus rejoice, we are saddened by the general manifestation
of dark, heathenish superstition, which ascribes the cure of the Prince to the
prayers of the nation. The Rock (December 22, 1871), the organ of the
largest party in the Established Church, says :■—“ A tidal wave of prayer
rolled through the country on Sunday week, which, we may hope and believe,
will have saved the Heir Apparent for the kingdom, and perhaps a kingdom
for the Heir Apparent. ‘It was a great salvation,’ and so signal an answer
to prayer that the secular journals of all classes have acknowledged the plain
connection between cause and effect in the standing miracle of covenant
prayer.
Here we are told that a miracle was wrought to save the life of
the Prince, in answer to prayer. If the crisis in the sufferer had passed
immediately after the prayers of the churches, minds unperverted by theology
�THE PRINCE OF WALES ?
5
would have said a happy and remarkable coincidence. But this case is not
even a coincidence, for the crisis had passed some hours before the telegram
prayer of the Archbishop was read in the churches. Thus the clergy ascribe
to their prayers what is due to the skilful medical men and the good
constitution of the Prince. We have known cases that seemed to have far
more of miracle on the face of them than the recovery of the Prince of Wales.
Take one as a sample. We once heard an old man say in a Methodist
meeting, that God had sent him bread in answer to his prayer. The poor man
was hungry and knew not how to get a crust honestly. He went down on
his knees, and in old Methodist fashion prayed to God to send him something
to eat, and when he rose from his prayer the cart of the provision dealer was
at his door, with the needful for him. A happy coincidence. But the simple,
good, old man gave all the credit to his prayers. It did not occur to him,
what we knew to be a fact, that the provisions had been put in the cart long
before he began to pray for them. Still, this is a more plausible case of
miracle in answer to prayer than the recovery of the Prince. It is also an
easy and a cheap way of getting bread, and an excellent plan for keeping
down the poor rates. But, unfortunately, or fortunately, God does not give
the daily bread in this way. Neither does he work a miracle or breathe through
natural law to save the life of Prince or beggar.
Do the clergy and their followers really believe that their prayers saved
the life of the Prince of Wales ? If they do, why do they not exercise that
mighty power more for the good of the world ? This Royal life is not more
precious than many others. This young man has nothing to recommend him
to the special sympathy of the nation, but his high station. There are lives
far more valuable to the country than his. And if prayer can save life, why
is not that magic power exerted to keep the Kings and Princes of intellect
and heart in this world their full natural time ? Does the God of England
care more for social status, sounding titles, and gilded mediocrity, than for
genius of mind and wealth of heart ? If prayer can save human life why all
this suffering, and all this death before the night of life ? Priests and people !
if you have this power, go at once and comfort every weeping Rachel. At
this moment, yea, every moment, there are poor, lonely, broken - hearted
women sitting at the bed sides of their dying sons. How these mothers pour
out the prayers of their hearts that their sons may be spared a few years
more. But the sons die, and, with their death the light of life goes from the
hearts of the mothers. What a dark, dismal night in the hearts of the poor,
weeping Rachels, without a ray of light in the valley of time. If ever God
saves life in answer to prayer, surely he would save in such cases as these.
�6
DID PRAYER SAVE THE LIFE OF
Men of the pulpit, and people of the pews ! if your prayers could be effectual
in such instances why do you not offer them? Or, is the God of England a
respector of persons ? Does he save the son of the Royal widow in answer to
prayer, and refuse to spare the life of the poor widow’s son when she cries
her prayer of agony ? Are the lives of the common people and the Royal of
intellect and heart of less importance in the eyes of God than the life of this
young man ? Surely no professed follower of the lovely Nazarene will answer
in the affirmative.
If men have this miracle power of prayer, away with medical skill,
science, and sanitary reform. Let us go back to “ the good old days ” of
ignorance and dirt. Break up our Boards of Health. Why waste our money
for these when we can have health by the short and easy method of prayer ?
When we are sick we will pray, and be made whole. When the drainage is
bad, and the ah’ laden with poison, we will pray, and be saved. And if God
will do miracles for the body, why not also for the mind ? Let us live in
wilful ignorance, and pray to be wise. Yea, let us have the miracles which
will make us all men and women of genius. And surely if prayer can save
the bodies of men it can also save their souls. How is it then that we have
so many heathens in our land ? There are thousands upon thousands of
human beings in the hells of time in all our large towns. Men sunk in crime,
women who have sold their purity, children lost in moral and physical
corruption. Day by day, countless numbers of earnest men and women pray
that these poor home heathens may be delivered from the devil of vice ; and
still the vicious are unsaved. If prayer could make men wise and good, earth
would be a Paradise, for there are no lack of prayers for Heaven's will to
“ be done on earth.”
It clearly is not the will of the Eternal that prayer should save men,
mentally, morally, or bodily. And the very people who say that God saved
the life of the Prince of Wales, in answer to their prayers, do not practically
believe in such efficacy of prayer. They recently denied their own theory
in prosecuting the “ Peculiar Family,” for trusting to prayer and anointing,
to save the lives of their children. That people kept to the Bible lesson—
“ The prayer of faith shall save the sick.” They had a larger faith than the
ministers and members of the popular churches. They would have no
secondary cause to cast suspicion on the cause ; doctors and medicine they
would not have. This lamentable fanaticism is the logical sequence of the
church theory that prayer has saved a human life. And the ministers and
congregations in our land, with few exceptions, have recently encouraged
this superstition, which confronts God’s law, and calls human attention from
the Divine order.
�THE PRINCE OF WALES ?
7
After this we must not be surprised to hear of church prayers for the
death of such troublesome persons as unorthodox thinkers. The notion that
God will save men in answer to prayer, naturally leads to the other ignorant
presumption—that he will remove obnoxious persons from this world for the
petitions of the self-styled faithful. If God saved the life of the Prince for the
prayers of the nation, why not those whose heaven cannot admit a thought
beyond their little theology, pray that those whom they please to call heretics
and unbelievers, may be sent to a speedy death ? The recent fanaticism of our
churches finds genial society in that bigoted zeal which in America, a few
years ago, thus prayed for a great preacher and author of unpopular belief :—
“ O Lord, if this man is a subject of grace, convert him and bring him into
the kingdom of thy dear Son : but if he is beyond the reach of the saving
influence of the Gospel, remove him out of the way, and let his influence
die with him.” “ 0 Lord, send confusion and distraction into his study
this afternoon, and prevent his finishing his preparation for his labours
to-morrow ; or if lie shall attempt to desecrate thy holy day by attempting to
speak to the people, meet him there, O Lord, and confound him so that he
shall not be able to speak ! ” How very kind, thus to pray, for a man whose
sin is that of refusing to bow to the popular theology.
This baneful superstition — this folly of prayer — means that the
government of the world is in the hands of caprice. It would throw the
world back to the dark days, when men cowered before a tyrant and an
uncertain God, the creation of human ignorance. But light is coming before
which superstition wanes. “ The religion which is to guide and fulfil the
present and coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The
scientific mind must have a faith which is science. ‘There are two things,’
said Mahomet, ‘which I abhor—the learned in his infidelities, and the fool in
his devotions! ’ Our times are impatient of both, and especially the last.
Let us have nothing now which is not its own evidence. There is surely
enough for the heart and imagination in the religion itself. Let us not be
pestered with assertions and half-truths, with emotions and snuffle.”
The wisely devout man will not take prayer into the region of physics.
He who is wisely impressed with the solemn mystery of life, and the secret
emotions of his spiritual nature, will be reserved in his devout utterances.
The things of his deeper life are often too delicate and sacred to be proclaimed
in the ears of men. In such spiritual moods man prefers the prayer of hidden
desire to that which goes forth in speech. He loves to be with the Lord of
�8
DID PRAYER SAVE THE LIFE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES ?
life, in the lone garden of devout soliloquy, and on the holy mount of
aspiration, where
“ No voice breaks through the stillness of this world,”
where there is deep, deep silence, which to the listening ear is the most
audible speech. Above all, he will have the prayer without ceasing, the life
of devotion, by living in the spirit of truth, and in the constant unfolding of
his powers. Thus, his life will be a perpetual prayer, and an unbroken hymn
of praise, making part of the full choral service in Mother Church—the
Cathedral of Nature. And, yet, he will feel that he is but a stammerer in
the choir of ‘‘ St. Nature” :—
“With stammering lips and insuffi cient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound,
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground.”
Printed by Fisher, Walker, & Brown, 7, Scale Lane, Hull.
�
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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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Did prayer save the life of the Prince of Wales?
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Dixon, J. M.
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Place of publication: Hull
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Fisher, Walker and Brown
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1872
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CT23
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Religious practice
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English
Conway Tracts
Edward VII
Prayer
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
FLAGELLANTS
'
AND
THE
COVENANTERS
(New Edition).
BY
SALADIN.
Author of “God and His Book,” etc.
London :
W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�THE FLAGELLANTS.
From the era of its half-mythical Galilean down
wards, Christianity has laid incontestable claims to
be considered the Religion of Misery. A radical
doctrine of the faith is that this world is only a
Babelmandeb, or Gate of Tears to the “ glory that
shall yet be revealed.” The teaching’s recorded of
Christ have all the jaundiced acerbity of the Essenes.
The son of Mary was an ascetic, or nothing. Ac
cording to him, the end of the world was close at
hand. Its concerns and aims were despicable, and
the best that could be done was to regard its plea
sures as pernicious seductions and lay up “ treasures
in heaven,” as it would avail a man nothing should
he ** gain the whole world and lose his own soul.”
Strictly compatible with the teachings of Christ
were the doctrines of Cardinal Damiani, when he
wrote a panegyric upon the efficacy of self-inflicted
suffering, and those of the celebrated Dominic, when
he introduced penitential hymns, to be chanted to
a tune to which the self-inflicted lash kept time.
Hair shirts, protracted periods of fasting, and the
like, had long been m vogue as means to propitiate
an angry heaven ; but Dominic affirmed that twenty
recitations of the Psalms, accompanied by selfinflicted scourging, was equal to a hundred years,
of ordinary penitence.
Dominic flourished towards the middle of the
eleventh century ; but it was not till about two
centuries later (1260) that the seed of asceticism
he had sown sprang up to be a great and popular
tree of self-torture. It was in an age of gloom
and suffering and wickedness that, at Pergugia,
in Italy, a monk named Regnier, with wild and
bitter eloquence, preached Flagellation as the anti
dote that would restore an afflicted people to the
�The Flagellants.
3
favour of an angry God. Like Peter the Hermit
in the first Crusade, like Luther at the Reformation,
or Bernhardt of the Millenarian insanity, this
Regnier had rightly interpreted the spirit of the
times. He put in his sickle, and the corn was
already ripe for the harvest. The wars of Guelph
and Ghibelline, famine, pestilence, rapine, murder,
and misery had, after a thousand years of Chris
tianity, made Italy and the most of Europe feel
that life was, indeed, not worth living, but only
a horrid and mysterious burden, which was taken
up involuntarily, and which left those who bore it
such cravens that they had not the courage to lay
it down.
And so another violent epidemic of Lose you-r
Reason to Save your Soul fell upon Christendom
like a rinderpest. The memory and inspiration of
the Man of Sorrows was again to lay the load of
a great sorrow upon the shoulders of the world.
Once more, as, under the preaching of Bernhardt
and Peter the Hermit, rowdy and rascal, swash
buckler and sword-player, blackguard and blackleg,
worked themselves into a frenzy concerning one
Jesus, whose name has always been a spell-word
with miscreants from the time of the Christian cut
throats mentioned by Tacitus down to Booth’s latest
prize, the “ blood-washed soul ” of ’Arry Juggins
the burglar.
Two by two the holy ones of the whip-lash
marched through the gaping multitudes on the
crowded streets. Their heads wTere covered with
sackcloth ; their remaining article of attire was a
bandage round the loins, which rendered them a
little decent for God’s sake. Their backs and breasts
were entirely nude. The back bore a huge cross,
daubed upon J&B skin with red paint ; and another
cross was smeared upon the naked breast. On
through the town, and through the wilderness, in
long and narrow file, like the march of the ducks
from the dub to the dung-hill, marched those nasty
saints of God. The hand of each sacred fanatic
bore a heaw and horrible whip, the thongs tipped
with iron ; and, with this whip, every pious madman
lashed his own bare back till the thongs were clotted
and gory, and long lines of blood running down
�4
The Flagellants.
from the scapula to the pelvis defaced the red cross
which had been painted on the skin.
To what shall we liken the men of that genera
tion? To a crazy dog, refusing its food and chew
ing off its own hind legs to please its master. But
the analogy is imperfect, and the man flogging his
own back to please his Jesus is more irrational than
the dog chewing off his own hind legs to please his
master ; for the dog is positively sure he has a
master ; but the ablest Christian that has ever writ
ten has not been able to establish that his Jesus
really ever existed. The only record of him is in
four so-called “ Gospels,” written by nobodv knows
who, nobody knows where, and nobody knows when,,
and the statements of which are contradicted by
each other and are utterly unsupported by history.
A pretty source, indeed, from which to derive a
Jesus in whose honour you can flog your back 1
But backs always will be flogged, and noses ever
will be held close to the grindstone, till he with
the back and he with the nose takes the trouble to
cultivate his brain, and dares to confront, eagleeyed, the authorities that would make him a chattel
and a poor mad cats-paw in the hands of priest
and tyrant.
Jehovah has ever liked singing and dancing and
capers to his glory and honour. David, the “ man
according to God’s own heart,” danced naked be
fore deity and certain young girls ; and another
worthy sang to God’s glory with acceptance because
Jael had hammered a nail into her guest’s head
while he slept. So the Flagellants, besides tickling
their own backs with whips, deemed it would be
well to tickle Jehovah’s ears with music. Accord
ingly they sang while they flogged. If vou think
flogging your back is conducive to making you
rival the efforts of Sims Reeves, just try the ex
periment. Flog your back while you sing, and you
will find-that many a quaver flies off into a scream,
and that many a crotchet is dead-born. But the
Lord had just to content himself with such music
as- was obtainable under the circumstances. Cer
tain fragments of the hymns which the Flagellants
sang have been preserved. Here are brief speci
mens
�The Flagellants.
5
“Through love of man the Saviour came,
Through love of man he died ;
He suffered want, reproach, and shame,
Was scourged and crucified.
Oh, think, then, on thy Saviour’s pain,
And lash the sinner, lash again ! ” *
The following are a few lines from the metrical
rendering' into English of “ The Ancient Song of
the Flagellants ” :—
“Tears from our sorrowing eyes we weep,
Therefore so firm our faith we keep
With all our hearts, with all our senses :
Christ bore his cross for our offences.
Ply well the scourge, for Jesu’s sake,
And God, through Christ, your sin will take.
For love cf God abandon sin—
To mend your vicious lives begin ;
So shall we his mercy win.” t
Thirty-three days and a-half was the shortest term
in which a Flagellant must macerate and lacerate
himself ; and these thirty-three and a-half days were
meant to be mystically symbolical of the thirty-three
years and a-half which the third part of God, and
yet equal to the "whole of God, had lived on earth
4‘saving souls” and making three-legged stools,
lhe devotees fell down on their dirty knees in the
dirty streets, and, setting up their naked, putrid,
and horrible backs, prayed to Jah and Jesus and
Mary to have mercy on their souls, before having
taken the trouble to find out whether they had souls
or not. Jah and Jesus and Mary had, however,
something else to do than attend to kneeling lunatics
with voices like cross-cut saws and backs like half
cooked beef-steaks. But the cities, then as now,
had plenty of fools, and certain of them rushed out
at their doors or leapt from their windows for God’s
sake to join the ranks of those who lashed their
hurdies with thongs and prayed with their knees
in the gutter. When all Christendom had managed
to lash its back to its own satisfaction, it threw
down the whip, got up from its knees, and took
to swearing and sinning in the usual way.
But, some fifty years afterwards, Christendom
again took it into its head that its back would be
* Preserved by L’Evesque : quoted by Lingard.
t Dr. He:ker.
�6
The Flagelleiits.
all the better for a flogging. So, in 1296, the saints,
particularly those of Strasburg, Spires, and Frank
fort, took unto themselves whips, and began busi
ness in earnest. The Jews had good broad backs,
which they were impious enough never to whip,
and this mightily offended the Christian Flagellants.
The Jews did not see their way to whip their own
backs, so, in the most obliging manner, the Chris
tians offered to whip them for them. The Jews
preferred to look after their commercial enterprises
to tearing away with a scourge at their own dorsal
rafters ; and, for this deadly sin, they were foully
massacred. The wretches who did not scourge their
backs had scourged the third of deity and crucified
him. Down with them to Tophet! One Jew,
goaded to desperation by Christian persecution and
outrage, set fire to the Town Hall and the Cathedral
of Frankfort, and they were reduced to ashes. Down
with the seed of Iscariot and Barabbas ! The holy
ones flung away their whips, and, seizing sword,
hatchet, and knife, devoted some hours of horror
to the slaughter of man, woman, and child of the
seed of Israel. The God of Jacob looked on ; but,
apparently, did not see his way to interfere. In
Frankfort, of all the sons and daughters of Salem
whose ancestors had sung to the Lord by the streams
of Babel, none remained alive, except a small rem
nant that, bursting through the carnage, had
escaped into Bohemia. Christ had “ redeemed ”
these Christians (they were well worth it) by a
bloody sacrifice upon Calvary, and, out of com
pliment—like Catherine Medici in her sanguinous
bath—they set him in blood to the chin. Every
tree must be judged by its fruit. I hereby defy the
history of all the other faiths to produce a tree like
the Christian one, which, from the deepest root to
the topmost twig, is dyed with human gore.
After the Frankfort tragedy of 1296, Flagellantism
did not rear its head conspicuously till the year 1348.
To students of history the mention of this date re
calls the deepest and widest grave that was ever
dug to receive the slag and refuse of morality. The
“ Black Death ” took into her hands the besom
of destruction, and swept into the sepulchre twentyfive millions of human beings ! Europe fell upon
�The Flagellants.
7
her knees, and from Dirt appealed to Deity. But
the appeal was in vain. In every Christian city
there was a plethora of disgusting sewage and un
speakable stench. Cleanliness is, proverbially, next
to godliness ; but the citizens of mediaeval Europe
were so godly that they forgot to be cleanly. Out
side Mohammedan Constantinople there was not a
bath on the entire European continent, from the
Straits of Behring to the Straits of Messina. Pious
Ignorance and theological Intolerance sat to the
eyes in filth, which it would give my readers the
jaundice to describe ; and mankind perished as do
clouds of locusts when overtaken by a gale at sea,
or as perish at the end of autumn tens of thousands
of hives of bees, when imprisoned amid the fumes
I
of burning brimstone.
“ God in heaven, Mary and all the Saints, what
is the matter now? ” gasped Christendom, as, with
pale lips and phrenized eye, she, in whole cityfuls,
-staggered into the grave. Nothing practical, as
connected with this wretched “Vale of Tears,’’
suggested itself to the follower of Jesus. He was
beyond and above attending to the carnal conditions
of this despicable earth, and from the midst of his
priests and relics and shrines and miracles his whole
hope was in heaven, and his only court of appeal
his “ Maker and Redeemer.’’ But neither Maker
nor Redeemer could be induced to interfere ; and
graves were dug till there were none left to dig
them, and corpses were borne out of the streets
and houses till there were none left to bear them.
There were only the voice of prayer, the cry of pain,
and the rattle of the death-cart ; and in certain dis
tricts even these sounds died away. In the houses
the dead were left with the dead. There lay a dis
used cart and a skeleton horse. Grass and weeds
flourished in the streets where a busy traffic had
— rolled its tides, and there the wind waved ghastly
shreds of human apparel, still adhering to more
ghastly relics of human beings. There was high
carnival for maggot and fly, and dogs and swine
tugged and snarled among the entrails of those who
bad trusted in Jesus and neglected their dust-bins.
The New Testament was looked to as the anti
dote to the bane ; and, whatever may be its merits,
�8
' -
The Flagellants.
it is a poor manual of hygiene. Scrubbing is never
mentioned, and there is no reference to washing,
except to the washing of “ souls,” whatever they
may be, in blood. There is, moreover, allusion to
the washing- of a certain party’s feet with tears,
and then drying them with maiden’s hair ; but this
is a sentimental and not an efficacious lavation. It
is not on record that Mary or Tabitha, or anyone
else, ever washed the shirt or tunica which was
worn under the seamless garment of Jesus, and I
question if it was ever washed or changed from
the day on which he left the carpenter’s bench till
the day that, with his life, he expiated his sedition
and folly. Through all the horror of the Black
Death we hear of no wholesome and honest wash
ing with water ; but there certainly was a washing
of the streets with blood. It was surmised that
tlris visitation of the wrath of Heaven was instigated
by the sinfulness of the Christians in allowing the
Jews to live ; for it was the Jews who had crucified
the Lord ; and yet, according to the Christian theory,
if the Lord had not been crucified, the world would
inevitably have been lost. The Black Death was
accompanied with another merciless massacre of the
Jews. It was also accompanied by another pitiless
flogging of backs. So fanatically wild did this selfinflicted back-flogging become that many held that
the rite of Flagellation should, in the Christian
Church, supersede the rite of Baptism. Many liter
ally flogged away the flesh off their bones, and yet
the plague did not abate ; and the sky and the earth
were pregnant with supernatural terrors. A pillar
of fire hung over the pope’s palace at Avignon ;
a red ball of fire in the heavens blazed over Paris,
and Greece and Italy were shaken with an earth
quake. And the Christians flogged and prayed, and
prayed and flogged, and sang and slew, and slew
and sang, and still the plague went on.
Flageliantism was not without its serio-comic as
pect. I cannot say whether it copied from the game
of Leap-the-Frog, or whether Leap-the-Frog has
copied from it. In Leap-the-Frog each boy vaults
over his neighbour’s bended back, and then bends
his own, and so on the process goes till each has
vaulted over the back of all. The Flagellants lay
!
/
|
�The Flagellants.
9
in rows, and one ran along the row scourging
furiously as he went with a leathern scourge tipped
with iron, and then he lay down ; and so on and
so on, till each had flogged the naked backs of all.
In lying in the rows to be flogged, however, those
who wished to do penance for certain crimes had
to observe certain recognized postures indicative of
these crimes. If the crime was perjury, till it was
his turn to get up and flog, the penitent lay on his
side, holding up three fingers ; if it was adultery,
he lay flat with his face on the ground ; and so on,
different postures of the body were fixed upon to
indicate different crimes. The Flagellants, too, were
not without their grotesque impostures in the shape
of pious forgeries. At one of their assemblies they
actually read a letter which had been sent to them
direct from heaven, and in which Jesus Christ was
good enough to give them his favourable opinion of
the efficacy of flagellation. The “ Blessed Virgin ”
had, with maternal affection, given her son some
assistance in the composition of this celestial missive.
Unlike the Millenarian mania, the Flagellant craze
•extended even to England. In 1351 a deputation
of 120 continental Flagellants visited London ; but
insular stolidity did not see its way to carry its piety
to the extent of lacerating its own flesh with
scourges. Even on the continent the irenzy began
to exhaust itself. The leaders betook themselves to
desperate resources to buttress up a falling cause.
They set themselves to the task of restoring life
to a dead child, and performed the “ miracle ” so
clumsily that the performance hastened their dis
solution instead of giving them a new lease of in
fluence. In the hey-day of their fanaticism neither
king nor pontiff saw it prudent to interlere with
the Flagellants ; but when the tide turned against
them, king and pontiff turned against them too. . A
bitter persecution set in, and Flagellantism, like
most other isms, was called upon to furnish its roll
•of martyrs, and it heroically enough responded to
the' call. Its dying spasm—and it was a vigorous
and terrible one—was in 1414, and some time later
it finally expired in the dungeons and amid the
fagots of the Holy Inquisition. Mankind, in the
mass, continue to be fools ; but, in the last four
�10
2 he Couenanteis.
centuries, there has been some small advance to
wards sanity, and it is now somewhat difficult toget anyone to flog his own back for the love of God.
W. S. R.
THE COVENANTERS.
MONDAY, October 27th, 1884.
The House met at tour o’clock.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
Answering Mr. Buchanan, the Marquis of Hartington said hehad communicated with Loid Wolseley as to the employment of a
greater number of Presbyterian chaplains with the Scottish regi
ments under his charge, adding that one at present at Alexandria
would be available, if his services were required.
Alas, that the world has not yet dispensed with'
the services of Presbyterian Beetles of god and gun I
I myself ran such a narrow escape of being a Scotch.
Beetle that this project of employing the ScarabceusScotorum in Egypt brings up to my memory sundry
of the bloodthirsty insects’ previous ravages scrolled,
over history’s panoramic canvas, and that in pig
ments of blackness and fire.
There, with hign cheek-bones and scowling browsr
with black gowns and Geneva bands, file past thedour and grim fanatics who barred the path of
Charles I., and of Laud, Juxon, and Wren. There
go they who, lor twenty-eight years, through steel!
and blood and heather, set their backs against thewall of Fate, and practically swore to lead Scotland
to Hell, rather than to Rome.
History has a pretty feasible hint that the shower
of clasp-Bibles that, on July 23rd, 1637, rained so>
murderously round the head of Dean Hanna, in
St. Giles’s Church, were flung by Scottish ministers,,
dressed in female gowns and mutches, and that
their pulpit-trained voices initiated the popular yell
of “Anti-Christ! Anti-Christ! A Pope! A Pope!
A Bellv-god ! Stone him ! ” It was the fanatical"
and hard-headed Presbyterian Beetles who, by their
wild biblically-phrased warnings, roused the Scottish
�The Covenanters.
11
peers to a vivid apprehension that, if Charles and’
Laud succeeded, the estates which had been con
fiscated from the Church at the Reformation would7
be .wrenched from the nobles and restored to Rome.
This was a potent argument ; for, whatever might
be the territorial lord’s desire for a place in the
kingdom of heaven, he would fight and sing psalms
for twenty years rather than lose a single acre of
his lands in the kingdom of Scotland. And thus
there was almost instantly arrayed ag-ainst the
Government a black phalanx of ninety Beetles,
walled round by John, Earl of Rothes ; John, Earl
of Cassilis ; Alexander, Earl of Eglington ; James,
Earl of Biome ; William, Earl of Lothian ; John,
Earl of Wemyss ; and John, Earl of Loudon ; Lord
Lindesay, Lord Yester, Lord Balmerino, Lord
Cranston, and large numbers of the gentry and
lesser nobility. These, of course, led with them
the psalm-singing yokels of their estates, primed
up by the Beetles to a perfect phrenzy of religious
fanaticism, which could not fail to be exceedingly
profitable to their lords and masters. There is no
patriotism in denying that Scotland’s desperate
struggle in the seventeenth century was carried out
bv the immoral instrumentality of Beetle and nobleprimed bumbkins, howling from Jeremiah and cant
ing from Ezekiel, grimly frantic with suffering and
fanaticism, who, singing psalms, mutilated the slain,
and dashed their texts and swords at the same time
through .the bodies of the dragoons of the Govern
ment. Scotland did all this drunk with divinity,
and I should respect her quite as much if she had
done it all drunk with whisky. And yet I should’
like to see the land in the whole world that can
afford to scoff at her. Man, up to this time, has
been a small and nasty animal at the best, and what
are magniloquently called his noblest motives will
not bear anything like rigid analysis. You are
kinder to mankind when you expect too little of
them, than when you expect too much. And it will.'
puzzle your ingenuity to expect less than you will
get.
1 The passage in Genesis, anent God’s making all
things very good, would have stood better on its
legs, if it had read, 4 God made all thing's verv good
�12
The Covenanters.
save man, and him he made mad.” It is teleology
alone that makes man madder than his “ earth-born
companions and fellow-mortals. ” Well might Burnsapostrophise the mouse :—
“ Still thou art blest, compared wi’ me :
The Present only toucheth thee ;
But, ah ! I backward cast my e’e
On prospects drear ;
And, forward though I canna see,
I guess and fear,”
It is all very well for writers of the school of Dr.
Lewins to abjure, teleology absolutely. It rises
superior to abjuration. The speculatively religious
instinct is strong in normal man, and I, for one,
rejoice, rather than lament that it is so. It is not
the religious instinct that has stultified and cursed
the race, but the diversion of that instinct into
baleful channels by interested sacerdotal and civil
chicane. Man has too little religion, rather than
too much ; but he has certainly too much theology
rather than too little.
"
fc' ’
But, back to the Black-Beetles of the Presbyterian
corner of the vineyard of the Lord. So well did
the interested leaven of religious sedition work, that
in June, 1638, the Hig’h Commissioner swaggered
up to Holyrood escorted by 20,000 men, most of
them mounted. There were present, moreover, 700
Beetles, the most sour and grim kind that ever
banged a bible for the love of God. Many of them
had buff coats under their Geneva cloaks, and,
according, to Burnet, many wore in their belts
swords, pistols, and daggers, that, for the love of
heaven, they might redden the earth with blood.
Madly Beetle-bitten, the peasantry flew to arms ;
every Beetle-box in the country breathed of fire and
slaughter ; the crackle of musketry was in every
sermon, the roar of cannon in every prayer ; the
sword-blade was sharpened on the pulpit, and the
kirk became a recruiting-ground for the battlefield.
We have now cast down the walls of Jericho ;
let him who rebuildeth them beware of the curse
of Hiel and Bethelite, ” was the refrain of a Tyrteeaa
sermon by Henderson, of Leuchars. Beetles Musfiet,
Row, Cant, Dickson, and a mighty host of mur
derous piety, took up the cry. It was thundered
■from hundreds of pulpits. The heather was, indeed,
�The Covenanters.
U
on fire. The Beetle struck the Bible with his fist
in the emphasis of bloodthirsty rhetoric, and his
voice found a terrible echo in the ring of the
armourer’s anvil, as the hammer clashed and clanged
upon the red-hot iron that was being fashioned into
bit and stirrup, helmet and sword-blade.
The Lords of the Covenant prepared for war..
Wheresoever the carcase of prey is, there shall the
eagles of militarism be gathered together. Hereto
fore Scotland had proved too stale and pacific to be
a fitting arena for the restless energies of her gentle
men of the sword and swashbuckling fire-eaters,
and they had accordingly poured in thousands from
the banks of the Forth, the Dee, and the Clyde to
the banks of the Elbe, the Oder, and the Danube,
to follow Gustavus Adolphus for gold and glory,
and write their names imperishablv in their blood
in the annals of the Thirty Years’ War, in which
the stubborn valour of the Scottish Legion filled
all Europe with their renown. The Beetles had now
wrung the coin out of the pockets of their frugal
countrymen at home, and their fighting countrymen
abroad rushed back to offer their steel blades and
their blood for the merks of the peasant and the
burgher. The world had no better soldiers than the
Scoto-Swedish officers of Gustavus, among the most
distinguished of whom were Sir Alexander Leslie,
Sir Alexander Hamilton, Sir James Livingstone,
Monroe, Baillie, and other heroes of Prague and
Fleura, and numerous battlefields in Polish Prussia,
Brandenberg, Westphalia, and Silesia. The Beetle,
the ancestor of him now wanted in Egypt, had done
it with a veng-eance. Every -fourth man in Scotland
was to consider himself a soldier. The sword of
the Lord and of Gideon ! The land was as busy as
a beehive declaiming sermons, whining prayers,
drawling psalms, and getting ready arms and muni
tions—bodv armour for the cavalry, buff-coats and
morions for pikemen, and muskets with rests for
the musketeers. A cannon foundry was, moreover,
established at the Potter Row, Edinburgh, under
the direction of Sir Alexander Hamilton, formerly
master of the cannon foundries of Gustavus
Adolphus at Urbowe, in Sweden. And all Beetledom was up on end, and raving to Jehovah to hurl
�14
*
The Covenanters.
• down the curse of Meroz upon those who failed
to gird up their loins and go forth to help the Lord
.against the mighty.
The old legend-book of Judah was clasped to the
very heart of Scotland. Its bloodiest and most ter
rible texts were interwoven with the common par
lance of mundane affairs, and preached from with
a wild and volcanic vehemence. “ And I will feed
them that oppress thee with their own flesh ; and
they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with
sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I, the
Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty
one of Jacob.” ‘‘The Lord hath a sacrifice in
Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of
Idumea.” “ Cursed be he who keepeth back his
sword from blood.” “ Thus saith the Lord God cf
Israel : Put every man his sword by his side, and
go in and out, from gate to gate, throughout the
camp, and slay every man his brother, and every
man his companion, and every man his neighbour.”
These were the sort of bases of Beetle-spun
harangues that scared the pee-wheet and the plover
-of the hills and moors. “ Now go and smite Amalek,
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare
them not ; but slay both man and woman, infant
and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And
Saul gathered the people together, and numbered
them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen,
and ten thousand men of Judah. And the Lord sent
thee on a journey, and said : Go and utterly destroy
the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them
until they be consumed,” was the fearful text from
which a certain Beetle of Hell preached, and incited
the Covenanters to, after the Battle of Philiphaugh,
enclose the defeated musketeers of Montrose in the
-courtyard of Newark Castle, and pour in volley
after volley of shot upon the defenceless and un
resisting mass, till not a man remained standing ;
and the gunpowder smoke cleared away and left the
court covered with blood and brains like the floor
of a slaughter-house, and the air rent with the
shrieks of those to whom Death had not yet come
in mercy to end their agony. After this holy
massacre, 1,000 corpses were interred in a spot
which to this day bears the shuddering- name of
�The Covenanters.
15
'The Slain Man's Lea. And so much did the
Presbyterian Beetles insist upon the curses that
-would overtake those who spared the A malekites,
the enemies of God, and so terribly did they em
phasise “ man and woman, infant and suckling,”
that the swords of the Covenant ripped open the
■bodies of the women with child, and transfixed the
unborn babe with the blade reeking with the blood
-of its mangled mother, that the Scripture might
*
be fulfilled.
So much for the antecedents of the Presbyterian
Beetles Mr. Buchanan inquires about so kindly, and
in regard to whom the Marquis of Hartington replies
that there is a spare one to be had at Alexandria.
Even now, it would seem, Scottish soldiers do not
feel they can slaughter properly for the Lord unless
they are under the beetlefications of an Ephraim
MacBriar or a Gabriel Kettledrummle !
How long, O Lord, how long, will it be accounted
glorious to drill a bayonet through a diaphragm,
and valorous to lodge a leaden pellet in the medulla
•oblongata? No religion whatever can be true whose
God is the God of Battles, and whose priests officiate
in the sanctification of slaughter. O that there were
.a righteous heaven, and that man’s objective Para•dise was correlative with man’s subjective desire I
Then would I call to this heaven to witness that
the torn banners and emblazoned rags of war are
hung up as trophies in the Christian churches and
^cathedrals—the relics and memorials of wounds and
misery and hate and death in the temples of “ the
Prince of Peace ” ! I have sat in a certain cathedral
and listened to the Gospel of goodwill to all man
kind, although, at the entrance, I had to pass dusty,
torn, and ghastly relics of some of the bloodiest
-engagements in India and the Peninsula. I yearn
for the religion that will account State murder and
■private murder alike unhallowed, and which will find
no room in its fanes for bannered rags in memorial
of burning towns, slaughtered men, shrieking
widows, and breadless orphans, more than for the
gory knives which were wielded by the miscreants
and murderers whose infamy is perpetuated in the
'Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s.
*
W. S. R.
Gordon of Ruthven.
�NEW EDITION.
'
•
380 pp, cloth, gold lettered. Price 3s.; post free, 3s. 3d;
GOD-AND HIS BOOK.
By SALADIN.
Ix Two Volumes Complete.
New Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt lettered.
Vol. I., 260 pp. Price 2s. 6d. ; post free, 2s. gd.
Vol. II., 268 pp. Price 2s. 6d. 5 post free, 2s. 9d.
WOMAN :
Her Glory, Her Shame, and Her God.
By SALADIN.
Large Crown Svo, cloth, gold lettered, 265 pp.
Piice 3-.; post free, 3s. 3d.
THE
BOOK OF “AT RANDOM.”
By SALADIN.
Catalogue of Recent Works by Saladin free on application.
London: Il. Stewart & Co, $r, Farringdon St, E.C.
�
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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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The Flagellants and the Covenanters
Creator
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Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: The Flagellants (p.[2]-10).--The Covenanters (p.10-15). The Covenanters is a new edition. Publisher's advertisements on back cover Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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W. Stewart & Co.
Date
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[188-?]
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N587
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Religious practice
Protestantism
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Covenanters
Flagellants
Flagellation
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a90ffc05f6516872196989b0183522f5
PDF Text
Text
ANSWERS
TO
QUESTIONS
CONCERNING
SABBATH-K EEPING.
OES not man need a day which, by its peculiar duties and
its holy influences, shall be sacred to communion with his
God, with himself, and with his fellow-men ? — with his fellow-men in
thoughts of the higher things of life ? ”
This is a fair question. Let us, in preparation for answering it,
give a glance at what men now think, and why they think so.
It is commonly thought, even by men whose actions are at variance
with their belief, that God requires of men the observance of Sunday
as a Sabbath.
They think so because the clergy everywhere preach this doctrine,
and also teach it in Sunday schools, tracts, and religious magazines
and newspapers.
It is assumed or declared in these sermons, tracts, and other publi
cations, that we know this to be God’s requisition, because he has so
commanded in the Bible.
Unfortunately for these clergymen, these declarations and assump
tions are absolutely incorrect.
Not only does the Bible, as a whole, make no appointment of either
Sunday or any other day for special religious observance by all men,
but the New Testament expressly declares that Christians are not
bound by the sabbatical ordinances of the Old Testament, which
were made for Jews, and Jews only.
Ask your minister to show you where in the Bible an observance
of Sunday is commanded.
He cannot show you, because it is nowhere commanded.
Nowhere in the Bible is it even recommended, or suggested.
Yet the clergy still continue to preach it.
The Sunday-sabbath doctrine is a part of their church-system, and
they want to have it thought that their church-system is copied from
the Bible. So they keep on preaching that it does come from the
Bible.
You have heard of “ pious frauds.” This is one of them.
�2
Now, before entering on- the question whether man needs a day
separated from other days for religious purposes, we shall do well
clearly to recognize these two truths ; namely: —
1. It is certain that the Bible appoints neither Sunday nor any other
day to be specially observed by Christians.
2. If the Bible is “ God’s word,” and the perfect, complete, infal
libly inspired rule of life which these clergymen pretend it to be,
then it is certain that God has not specified any day to be particularly
observed by Christians.
Now we are ready to consider, —Is it desirable for us to separate
one day of the week from the rest for religious observance, or to
make a point of using in that manner a day which we find already
separated by custom ?
Here is an axiom, or self-evident truth, bearing upon the subject.
Just in proportion as you exalt one member of a series, you inevi
tably proportionately depress the other members.
If the sergeant has more authority, the privates must have less
authority.
If Mary is more compassionate than God the Father, or than Jesus
her son, they must be less compassionate than she.
If one day of the week is to be made more religious than the rest,
the others must be made less religious.
This is an objection to separating one day from the rest for relig
ious observance. We ought not to recognize a diminution of the
force of religious obligation for any portion of time. We should
insist on the binding force of duty to God at all times.
The key to the differences of opinion between different people on
this point lies in their different estimate of what religion is. The
profusion of holy days in the Hebrew and Roman Catholic faiths is
due to the fact that rite and ceremony largely constitute their religion.
In Roman Catholic countries the very name of a monk is “ a religious
man ; ” of a nun, “ a religious woman.” To become a monk or a nun
is called there “ going into religion.” These are assumed to be the
only thoroughly religious people, because their lives are spent in per
forming religious ceremonies; and those there who are not monks or
nuns, and who occupy themselves only with the duties of daily life,
are supposed to have religion only in fragments, if they have it at all.
The theory of religion here described is neither honorable to God
nor useful to man, and there is not the slightest reason for accepting
it. A far better definition of religion is, —Voluntary obedience, in all
the details of the business of life, to what is understood to be the will
of God. Those who do not understand God to have required, or to
I
�3
desire, any rite, ceremony, or formality whatever, want no separation
of a day for worship. If what he desires of us is daily obedience,
instead of weekly ceremonies and professions, our allegiance to him
will be clearly expressed in our daily lives. If that daily life is
frivolous or vicious, a Sunday ceremony added to it will not help the
matter. The thing needed in that case is to reform the daily life,
and to apply ourselves, every day in the week, to the work of reform
ing it.
But, whether or not we need a day separated to be more religious
than other days, there are several things which we do need, and
which men will always continue to need, which require us to take
advantage of the existing discontinuance of labor and business on
Sunday.
All men — especially those whose employment is bodily labor —
need a periodical cessation from ordinary business, such as is now
afforded by the Sunday’s rest.
Again, we need to meet together as human beings, without hurry,
pre-occupation, or distraction, to obtain social and spiritual com
munion.
Again, all men need instruction in religion and morals,—the de
partment of conscience and the spiritual department. Even the pure,
as an apostle intimates, need to have their minds stirred up by way
of remembrance; still more need the impure to be admonished, and
the ignorant to be enlightened.
For all these reasons, then, it is desirable to continue the existing
custom of desisting from ordinary labor on Sunday, of meeting to
gether in a social and fraternal manner, and of making arrangements
for religious instruction to be given in these meetings.
But should we not say arrangements for worship also, as well as
for instruction?
This also is a fair question.. Let us look at it.
Worship is understood to consist of prayer and praise.
Prayer — the expression of our individual desires, aspirations,
feelings of every kind, to the ever-present Father — is an unspeak
ably precious privilege. But it seems to me that there are very few
occasions when the mind of an assembly is so moved by one impulse
as to enable an official, or any one person, to be appropriately their
mouth-piece in prayer. The actual wishes of the congregation are
nearly as various as their persons. I think therefore, not only that
public prayer (so called) generally fails to be what it is assumed to
be, the earnest desire o/* the congregation, but that periodical public
prayer must be such a failure in the majority of cases, and thus is not
�4
worship “in spirit and in truth,” the only acceptable worship. For
this reason I would have prayer left, as Jesus recommended it to be
left, ior private use.
As to praise, — “ singing praises to God,” — 1 think that what God
wants of us is not applause, but obedience. I don’t think he values
palaver, profession, wordy demonstration, periodically repeated.
Music is a delightful solace and recreation for human beings, and
makes a good expression of devotional feeling when he, she, or they
who make it have such feelings to be expressed. But elaborately to
make such music twice a week, to please God, seems to me as much
a blunder as the old Jewish fashion of periodically setting hot bread
and roast veal before him.
If we rest on Sunday from our ordinary bread-earning labor, seek
the best religious instruction within our reach, help others with
instruction as we have opportunity, and spend the rest of the time in
family meetings, social intercourse with neighbors and friends, or
quiet recreation at home or abroad, we shall have used the Sunday’s
opportunities pleasantly and profitably, and certainly we shall not
have violated either the letter or the spirit of any rule of Scripture.
If, however, any one chooses to spend that day in giving help —
physical, mental, or spiritual — to the many who are in need all
around us, he, no doubt, will have made the best use of Sunday; the
best use, whether he shall have spent it in sawing wood for the sick
and childless widow, or in taking the poorest of the city children out
into the green fields for recreation, or in explaining the love of God
to one who has been left in doubt and darkness by the preaching of
some theology of the dismal sort.
Let us keep Sunday separate from the customary labors of the
week, because of the manifold uses to which such separation may be
instrumental. Let us, as a general rule, keep it separate, even while
recognizing the fact that the Bible lays down no rule whatever upon
that subject.
“ The Two
For .this Tract, and another entitled
Doctrines of the Bible on Sabbath-keeping,”
Address
CHARLES K. WHIPPLE,
43 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Mass.
Two of each sent by mail for 10 cents.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Answers to questions concerning Sabbath-keeping
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Whipple, Charles K. (Charles King)
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Place of publication: [Boston, Mass.]
Collation: 4 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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[The author?]
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[186-]
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G5534
G5533
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Christianity
Religious Practice
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Conway Tracts
Sabbath
Sunday Observance
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f821ee327d362681044b54962c21007f
PDF Text
Text
CT
ORTHODOX
THEORIES OF PRAYER.
BY
A BARRISTER.
*
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
��ORTHODOX THEORIES OF PRAYER.
OME time ago, a controversy was raging in various
■ periodicals on the subject of prayer—our reason
for noticing which, at this late period, will udirectly
appear.
The real issue raised was this—Is there any reason
for supposing that human supplications are capable of
influencing directly the processes of external nature ?
We say “ external,” because no one seems to deny that
a man may, by this agency, produce a great effect upon
himself, and his own nature. To be sure, the modus
operands is a matter of dispute between the philosopher
and the theologian, the former attributing whatever
result may have followed solely to what is called reflex
action, the latter to the immediate action of the Deity.
Still, an effect is in both cases admitted, and it is not
round this point that the controversy has raged. Again,
we have used the word “ directly,” because it is quite
plain that human supplication may have a considerable
indirect effect, say, upon a religious person at a critical
period who knows that he is being prayed for, and who
believes that a great force is being exerted on his behalf.
So, too, curses (which are a species of prayer) have
often brought about their own fulfilment, by the fears
they have instilled into their objects. In these sorts
of cases, candid theologians, even when adhering to
their own views, are willing to admit that a solution,
such as does not suppose any interference with natural
laws, may fairly be submitted for consideration. If
S
�4
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
men would go on praying for benefits on behalf of
themselves, or of others in reach of their voices, or in
reach of knowledge that those voices were being
thus raised ; then, although there would be a differ
ence of opinion as to the mode in which the results of
such action, admitting that it had results, must be held
to have been brought about, still the man of science
would have very little to say. But the contention of
theologians goes a great deal farther than this, and it
appears to us that the men of science have been justi
fied, nay, that they have only discharged an imperative
duty, in entering a most earnest protest against it. The
contention is, as we have said, that human prayer is
capable of modifying directly the course of external
nature. No better illustration of this claim can be
given than the familiar case of rain and fine weather.
The churches maintain that the faithful are able to
procure at one time a downfall, and at another a cessa
tion of rain ■ and they have imposed it as a duty upon
their members, when called upon by the officiating
minister, or other higher authority, to put in force the
machinery for this end. Upon this well-worn subject,
we repeat that we have hitherto refrained from offering
any observations to the readers of this series, in which,
indeed, two or three excellent papers on Prayer in
general have already appeared.
We have been induced to break our silence in con
sequence of an article which has recently appeared in
an able contemporary (Fraser’s Magazine, Sept. 1873).
This article puts forward a theory of prayer, which is
not new,* but which is very clearly stated and agree
ably illustrated by the writer. For aught we know, it
may have been still better set forth elsewhere—for we
do not profess to have read everything which has been
written on this subject of late. We, at any rate, have
not met with any clearer recent statement of it, nor do
* For instance, it is to be found in Euler’s Lettres a une princesse
Allemande.
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
5
we remember to have seen it anywhere distinctly ex
posed. Probably men of the calibre of Professor Tyn’dall have thought that it would be a waste of time to
show its inherent weakness. Yet it is never a waste of
time to refute theories of this kind, which, from their
plausibility are particularly liable to attract superficial
minds, and which, under the guise of offering scientific
solutions are really the offspring, of a spirit which is
fundamentally opposed to true science.
The theory is this, that prayer may be able to ope
rate directly upon the sequence of external events,
without any violation of law. The Almighty may have
so adjusted the course of nature as to make the favour• able issue of a prayer an effect dependent upon the
prayer as a cause; the particular cause having been
foreseen and having its effect assigned to it in the
general scheme. Thus, for example, a high reading of
the barometer at Bergen, and a low reading at Dundee
will indicate the approach of a storm, for the inhahitants of the East Coast of Scotland; yet, a pious
mother, with a son in the North Sea, may succeed in
averting it by her entreaties to Heaven, without any
violation of law, or consequent disturbance. For the
law may be that the wind blows from a high to a low
barometer, with a force proportioned to the differences
of the barometric pressures in all cases where prayer to
the contrary is not put up, or, rather, put up success
fully. In cases where it has been decided that the
prayer shall be granted, as suppose in the foregoing
instance, there may have been “ an adjustment from
eternity of physical causes to this specific moral end,”
the result “ being serenely wrought out by the natural
operation of remote causes, the combination of which
no science could have predicted beforehand, albeit after
the fact no science can detect any trace of violence or
interference with the steadfast order of things. The
event which answered to the prayer had lain latent
from of old in the undeveloped plan of nature, just as
�6
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
surely as it had lain from the beginning in the secrets
of the Divine foreknowledge."
We have here, by the way, an illustration of the
strange mode in which theologians are endeavouring to
engraft on their system the modern conception of
“Uniformity of Law.” A little while ago, compara
tively speaking, it would have been considered by their
predecessors in the highest degree blasphemous to sug
gest that the Almighty either would not, or could not
comply directly with the requests of his supplicants, in
the same manner as men are able to oblige others ; andthat inconceivably complex and intricate chains of ar
rangements stretching up into infinite time must neces
sarily have been made in every case where prayer had
to be answered. Science, however, having forced this
conception of Law upon them, they are in the position
of men in the fairy tale who have got hold of a Genius
without being possessed of the means of making him
obey them. They really suppose that they have en
listed science on their side, or at any rate have dis
armed all reasonable opposition from that quarter, when
in view of a series of phenomena the precise causes of
which have not been ascertained, they exhibit another
series of entirely dissimilar phenomena, and without
proving the faintest connection between the two, call
upon us to recognise in the latter a 11 possible cause ”
of the former. It is the old story of the Goodwin
Sands and Tenterden steeple. And supposing the phe
nomenon in that case had been, as it is easy to conceive
that it might have been, the disappearance of a shelf
that had stopped up Sandwich haven, instead of the
appearance of a new one, it might have been argued on
these lines, that the building of Tenterden steeple, an
act presumably agreeable to the Almighty, was a “ pos
sible cause ” of the harbour being opened. We might
then have been able with Mr Bacon, the author of the
article we are considering, to detect “ in the day when
the earth and sea shall yield up their secrets, running.
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
7
parallel with a line of moral influences, the vestiges of
an old train of geologic causes, working down through
all the periods of creation until the two lines of diverse
operation converge upon a distinct predeterminate point
of time and space,” the points upon which these parallel
lines have all along been converging having been on
this hypothesis the building of the steeple, on the one
hand, and the clearing away of the sand on the other.
■“ Tous les evenements sont enchain&s dans le meilleur
des mondes !” in a way which even Pangloss did not
suspect. On reading the above, we are irresistibly re
minded of Sheridan’s simile. Whatever science there
■may be in all this, has been disfigured, as gipsies are
supposed to disfigure stolen children, to prevent its
being recognised.
Of course, where real causes are unknown, anything
whatever, the agency of which in producing the given
phenomenon has not been actually disproved, may be
-labelled as a possible agent or cause. We can prove
that the presence of the Sun above the horizon is not the
cause of dew, because we have dew by night after the
setting of the sun. But we cannot disprove the hypo
thesis of some of the low church papers, that Ritualism
and Infidelity attract cholera to our shores. Nor can we
disprove the hypothesis, that prayer is able to influence
storms. But we can submit some considerations which
render these and similar hypotheses so violently im
probable, that they may be safely neglected. Indeed,
if any account had to be taken of them, there could be
no science in the proper sense of the term.
Whenever we are able to trace natural phenomena up
to their real causes, it is found that human prayer is
not among these causes. This is a conclusion co-extensive with human experience, and must be accepted as a
truth of universal application. No person, for instance,
supposes that eclipses are now-a-days in any.way affected
by prayer. The opposite is demonstrable.
For an
eclipse, say of the Sun, being immediately due to the
�8
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
interposition of the moon between us and that lumi
nary, a calculation is made of the time when this collo
cation of the three bodies will be known to take place,
and it is found not to be subject to any disturbance
such as would be produced by the introduction of a new
cause not previously accounted for. What is true of
an eclipse holds good of the most ordinary physical
phenomena of every-day life, with the causes of which
we have become acquainted. The presumption is enor
mous, that in all those cases in which the imperfection
of our instruments leaves us unable to trace phenomena
to their true causes, there is similarly no room left for
the agency of prayer. This conclusion is immensely
strengthened by the fact, that even where we are un
able to penetrate to the ultimate laws of phenomena,
yet, whenever we are able to make any way at all in a
discovery of their nature, we find ourselves in a region
of absolute law, i.e., in the presence of secondary laws-,,
which may be plainly conjectured to be dependent
upon more general laws. At any rate, the onus probandi is thrown upon those who assert the contrary,
and it is difficult to see how they can shape their ob
jections so as not to fall under one of the three follow
ing heads.
1. It maybe said that, even granting all this, no
absolute case is made out against the efficacy of prayer
of this particular kind. For it cannot be demonstrated
that the future order of nature will resemble the past
order. This has been admitted by Hume ; and we
think that Theology in its struggles is capable of
snatching at the admission as at a straw. Indeed, Canon
Mozley has turned it to considerable account in his Bampton Lectures. According to this view, even although
eclipses should be shown to have been due to certain
well-defined causes in the past, yet it by no means
necessarily follows that they will not be influenced by
prayer in the future; and it would be therefore by no
means an absurdity to pray against the occurrence of
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
9
one, supposing such, a course should at any time seem
desirable in the interests of the supplicant or others.
This theory would, of course, render an entreaty for
any miracle (as we term it), however stupendous, per
fectly legitimate. This point, however, the value of
which may be left to the consideration of the reader, is
not taken by Mr Bacon. The argument here is that
prayer may be conceived as having such and such an
effect in an altered constitution of nature, to which our
past experience could furnish no guide. Whereas, his
contention is, that there is reason to suppose it may
have an effect in the present constitution of things.
And indeed, unless this latter ground be established,
it is clear that although many ingenious metaphysical
invitations might be addressed to them, yet, as a matter
of practice, no persons would offer up these prayers.
2. Prayer may be asserted to be one of the possible
causes of physical phenomena, till the other causes are
discovered. The law may be so arranged that when
these other causes are found out by man, prayer ceases
to act as an agency, in consequence, it may be said, of
its ceasing to be put up, though this, by the way, is
not strictly the case, for long after the truth as to any
phenomenon is laid bare by science, the uninstructed will
continue to pray in the direction of their supposed
interests. According to this view, although a thousand
years hence meteorology may be so far advanced as that
rain and fine weather will be predicted with certainty
a long while beforehand, and prayer will accordingly
then be futile, it may not be futile now. Or, to take
eclipses again, some thousands of years ago prayer may
have been effectual in warding them off, though it
would be idle to offer it up now-a-days. This is some
thing in the shape of the former theory reversed. It
is a projection of chaos into the past instead of the
future. The Egyptians may have been right when they
informed Herodotus that the sun had twice risen in the
west and twice set in the east. And this singular re
�IO
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
suit will follow, that any one who gets hold of what
afterwards t turns out to be a natural law, for the first
time, and keeps it to himself, will be wrong, as omitting
one important ingredient, viz., prayer, which would
still be presumably capable of being followed by an
effect not allowed for. But what is here supposed as
to a person keeping a discovery to himself for a while
is, as has already been stated, exactly what takes place,
if for one person we substitute a small body of scientific
men. These discoveries do not penetrate to the mass
of citizens in civilised communities for many years •
and here is an excellent opportunity for observing
whether the calculations of philosophers are liable to
be disturbed by such an agency as prayer. Yet no
single instance of any such disturbance has been verified.
3. The above theories may excite a smile in the
minds of those who are unfamiliar with the methods of
theology. But is there anything one whit less absurd
in the remaining theory to which we shall be driven,
and which is supported by most of the leading thinkers
on the orthodox side,—which is indeed the one upon
which the case of Prayer (in the sense in which we are
using the word) is mainly rested ? It is thus clearly
stated by Mr Mill:—Originally all natural events
were ascribed to such (special) interpositions. At pre
sent, every educated person rejects this explanation in
regard to all classes of phenomena of which the laws
have been fully ascertained, though some have not yet
reached the point of referring all phenomena to the
idea of law, but believe that rain and sunshine, famine
and pestilence, victory and defeat, death and life, are
issues which the Creator does not leave to the opera
tion of his general laws, but reserves to be decided by
express acts of volition.” * In judging this latter
theory it will be found that as is constantly the case in
matters not admitting absolute determination, we are
reduced to a balancing of probabilities. We must re_
* “ System of Logic,” fifth ed., vol. ii., p. 521, note.
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
n
peat that the matter stands thus. Prayer having once
been held capable of producing an effect upon all phy
sical phenomena, and being now by general consent
restricted to those only the laws of which have not
been discovered and established, and this process of
adding phenomena to the domain of law, and conse■quently subtracting them from the domain of prayer,
having gone on uninterruptedly, and pari passu with,
accurate observation, is it more probable that pheno
mena the causes of which are unknown resemble those
which have been explained, in being governed by simi
lar laws, or that they are exceptions, in which our
prayers, demonstrably useless in all other like cases (if
the present constitution of the universe is to be main
tained), may be, after all, efficient causes ? Or, in other
words, no single instance being scientifically established
in which prayer has had any effect on external nature,
and the course of nature, as far as it has been ascer
tained in countless cases and for countless ages, abso
lutely excluding this agency, is there any ground for
-claiming it as a power in those cases where we are at
present unable to trace effects to their true causes ?
Theologians reply that there is such a ground ; and
we do not know that in our day they have found a
more able spokesman than the late Dean Mansel, whom
we shall accordingly quote. In his “ Limits of Reli
gious Thought ” he writes as follows :—
“ Even within the domain of Physical Science, how
ever much analogy may lead us to conjecture the uni
versal prevalence of law and orderly sequence, it has
been acutely remarked that the phenomena which are
most immediately important to the life and welfare of
man are precisely those which he never has been, and
probably never will be, able to reduce to a scientific
calculation.” *
This, by the way, is a very slovenly classification, for
if there be any phenomena “ immediately important to
* P. 134, fifth edition.
�12
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
the life and welfare of man,” such are, certainly, before
all others, the regular transmission of light and heat
from the sun, the alternation of day and night and the
seasons, in compliance with laws which prevent our
being sent wandering through space or absorbed in the
central luminary, and other phenomena of the kind
which are capable of being reduced to a scientific cal
culation. However, Dean Mansel continues :—
“ This argument admits of a further development, in
which it may be applied to meet some of the recent
objections urged, on supposed scientific grounds, against
the efficacy of prayer, as employed in times of national
calamity, such as pestilence or famine. The celestial
phenomena, recurring at regular intervals and calculable
to a second, are by no means a type of the manner in
which the whole course of nature is subject to law.
On the contrary, there are other classes of natural phe
nomena, with respect to which matter is to some extent
directly subject to the influence of mind; man being
capable, by his own free action, not indeed of changing
or suspending the laws of nature, but of producing, in
accordance with those laws, a different succession of
phenomena from that which would have taken place
without his interposition. Franklin sends up his elec
tric kite, and directs the fluid with which the thunder
cloud is charged to a course different from that which
it would otherwise have taken, and the same thing is
now done by every man who erects a lightning-con
ductor. Subject to these influences, the material world
must be regarded, not as a rigid system of pre-ordained
antecedents and consequents, but as an elastic system,
which is undoubtedly capable of being influenced by
the will of man, and which may, therefore, without any
violation of scientific principle, be supposed to be also
under the influence of the will of God.” *
* P. 135, note. How about earthquakes (against which men are
taught to pray), and in which of the two classes of phenomena
shall we rank them, and the cognate phenomena of volcanic
eruptions ?
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
ij
The argument is, that where phenomena are capable
of being directly influenced by man, and so removed
from the sphere of exact prediction, they may be sup
posed to be capable of being directly influenced by
God, and so made the subject of prayer. The reverend
Dean has put the point rather strangely, but we will
not dwell on this. Every one, that is, every Theistr
admits the above proposition and something more.
We believe that all phenomena are capable of being
directly influenced by the Almighty. But this is not a
fair statement of the point in issue. The argument, to
have any bearing on the subject, should be capable of
being maintained in this form. “ Where phenomena
are capable of being directly influenced by man, there
is reason to suppose that they will be directly influenced
by God at the request of man.” The real question is
not as to the power of God, but as to his mode of
working as revealed to us. That the Deity could, if
he thought fit, in answer to human prayer, arrest the
course of a thunder-storm or a pestilence, may be con
ceded, without any appreciable weight being thereby
accorded to the argument for prayer. What we have
to consider is, whether there is any reliable evidence of
his ever having worked in this fashion. If there is
not, then to talk about prayer as a “cause” is an idle
speculation. On the other hand, human labour or
effort is a vera causa capable of producing determinate
results on external nature, as every day experience
shows us. Not only does Franklin divert the course
of the electric fluid, but men have changed the climate
of large tracts of the earth by cultivation, thus entirely
altering what, but for their intervention, would have
been the course of rain, storms, &c. Zoophytes have
produced an analogous effect by raising coral islands.
To argue that because man is able to act immediately
on nature in certain cases, therefore God in those par
ticular cases may be supposed to act in a like way, is a
complete non-sequitur. Again, to argue from the power
�34
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
of human effort over nature, the power of human prayer
to accomplish like results in the same field, is equally
•absurd. In the one case, as, for instance, in the clear
ing away of large forests, and the consequent diminntion of rainfall in those districts, we have a regular
■ chain of causation, entitling us to rank the burn an
effort as an antecedent and the increased dryness as
a consequent. Here a fresh antecedent being intro
duced is followed by a change in the phenomena, and
in this sense of course all nature is an “ elastic system,”
the stars of heaven as well as drops of rain. When
prayer has been exhibited to us as an unmistakeable
antecedent, followed in like manner by clearly ascer
tained consequents, we shall think it as much a matter
of duty to pray as to labour; but not till then.
Strange to say, theologians have never made an at
tempt in this direction. More than this, they have
looked upon all efforts to ascertain the value of prayer,
even when undertaken with the most single-minded
■desire of arriving at the truth, as so many attempts
nearly resembling blasphemies. Surely this is a mis
take on the part of the upholders of this supposed
agency. For, if it be capable of influencing pheno
mena, in the way suggested, this influence may pos
sibly in some one case (and one would suffice) be
capable of being traced ; and this possibility would be
a sufficient justification of research, even in the eyes of
the theologian, inasmuch as if it were realised, the
sceptic would be silenced. Meanwhile, we are com
pelled to say with the lawyers, “ De non apparentibus
et non existentibus eadem est lex.”
To return to the theory of which Mr Bacon, the
author of the article in Fraser, is the latest spokesman.
It possesses what to many will be the incontestable
advantage of extending the power of prayer by making
it applicable to past as well as future events. He in
forms us at the outset that he was travelling twenty
years ago in Mesopotamia with two American theolo-
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
15
gians, one of them a missionary. A letter reached the
latter, dated long months before at Shanghai in China,
informing him that his brother was dangerously ill of
a typhus fever that was approaching its crisis. The
question arose, would it be right to pray for the sick
man ? To which the theologians replied, no. He is
either recovered or dead. In the first case, prayer is
superfluous; in the second, it is useless. Mr Bacon
was not satisfied with this answer at the time, and after
much consideration he deems it wrong. “ The reasons
against excluding such a case from the domain of
prayer are like those which apply against excluding all
cases which come within the sphere of physical law.”
“ The difficulty involved in it is not substantially different from that involved in prayer for future physical
blessings; it is only more vivid, and more incapable of
being evaded. It does not need a great philosopher, it
is possible for a childlike mind, to recognise that an
unknown fixed event in the past, as well as in the
future, may have been fixed with reference to its rela
tions, not only in the physical but also in the moral
system; so that it is no absurdity to believe that a cer
tain chain of invisible and imponderable morbific in
fluences, terminating in an unknown issue of life and
death on the banks of the Yang-tse-Kiang might have
been adjusted with fatherly reference to what, six or
twelve months later, was to be the spiritual attitude
and act of a heavy-hearted missionary wanderer floating
on a goatskin raft down the Tigris.”
The common-sense of the reader will, it is needless
to say, be perfectly satisfied with the reply of “the
theologians.” There is, indeed, a very great difference
between praying for future and praying for past “ phy
sical blessings.” In the one case it is possible that theprayer may have an effect: in the other case, to sup
pose this is in reality a contradiction in terms. A thing
cannot have for a consequent that which has preceded
it. It must be remarked, however, that, according to-
�16
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
this theory, the possible antecedent e.g., in the case of
the missionary’s brother recovering or dying, is not,
strictly speaking, the missionary’s act (praying or de
clining to pray), but God's foreknowledge of what the
act would be. Not that this really mends the matter.
But, before looking into this question a little more
closely, let us see whither we shall be led if we adopt
the line of action which Mr Bacon prescribes.
Any past event whatever, the issue of which is un
known to the person praying, may be made the subject
of prayer, and (provided there be nothing improper or
immoral in the request) of legitimate prayer. To entreat
that Judas Iscariot, or even Cain, may have repented
before dying, that the number of slaughtered in some
• ancient battle was not so great as reported by ancient
historians, that Seneca may have made acquaintance
with Paul and become a convert to Christianity, all
these are fair objects of supplication. The event may
have been adjusted in reference to the subsequent
spiritual attitude and act. Prayer for the dead becomes
■ a solemn duty for all of us, as wre are reminded by the
illustrations just given. For their permanent condi
tion may have been adjusted (we cannot help using Mr
Bacon’s own tenses) in the same way. If the missionary
on the Tigris was authorised to pray that his brother
at Shanghai had recovered six months before, he wTas
just as much, nay, very much more, called upon to pray
that, in the event of that brother not having recovered,
he might have departed this life in the odour of sanc
tity. Similarly we may pray this on behalf of any
person whatever whom we know to be dead, and whose
final earthly state of mind we do not know. And this
being so, surely all those who believe in the efficacy of
retrospective prayer, ought to set to work and pray for all
the dead. We may add that a very rude shock is given
by this theory to the doctrine of free-will, as might
easily be shown. This, however, we shall not press,
-though we apprehend that it would have weight
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
17
with a writer holding the theological views of Mr
Bacon.
According to this theory, prayer, impertinent and
indeed impious to one man, would he a solemn duty to
a person standing by him—we mean in reference to an
■event one and the same, and possessing an equal in
terest for both.
Let us suppose that, instead of being on the Tigris,
the missionary had been at a hotel in New York, and
that a gentleman had called upon him with the an
nouncement that he had recently come from Shanghai.
“ Here is a letter,” he says, “ which I had intended to
post to you on my arrival here, but have preferred
bringing with me, on accidentally learning your address.
It informs you of a serious illness of your brother’s, six
months ago, and of the issue. Open the letter and
you will see whether he recovered or died.” It would
seem that it would be the missionary’s duty, before
breaking open the seal, to kneel down and pray that
his brother had recovered, inasmuch as to him the
result is unknown. Indeed, Mr Bacon puts a pre
cisely similar case in reference to a “telegraphic de
spatch.” Would it not be the duty of the visitor to
reply, “ My good sir, if you don’t know, I do. No
thing that you can devise can alter the event you will
find recorded in that letter.” “ 0 ! but the Almighty
may have so adjusted a chain of morbific influences,
&c., with fatherly reference to what is nowr going to be
my spiritual act.” “ But the very words you have
used, ‘may have adjusted,’ show you what nonsense
you are talking.” The pious missionary, however, ad
heres to his view, offers his prayer, opens the letter,
.and reads the result. Hereupon his equally pious and
very delicate sister chances to come into the room, and
is informed of the illness, but the result' is withheld
from her. How is the missionary to advise his sister ?
•Clearly that she ought to pray.* Prayer, which is a
* "W e might go further.
It would be the duty of the missionary
•
�18
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
futility for him, still remains a duty to her, or else all
this theory tumbles to pieces. But he cannot advise
her to pray with any reference to the result, for the
result is known to him. He is in the position the
visitor stood in a short time before. He can only ad
vise her to pray in a sense quite different from that in
which prayer is used in this theory, viz., as a pos
sible means of influencing past events. Now transport
the missionary back to the Tigris, and suppose the
visitor (Smith) at Shanghai. Smith (and a number of’
other people) know the event: the only difference is
that he does not happen to be at hand to tell the mis
sionary that he knows it. But this does not make the
prayer less futile.
As this is a theory extremely likely to lay hold of
certain persons of a theological turn, we do not think
it a waste of time to repeat that prayer of this kind is
an attempt to tamper with a past event by getting at a
past antecedent which (admitting the theory) has already
produced a consequent. It is plain that a person, C.,.
who knows what happened six months ago,—say that
A. then recovered of a dangerous illness,—and who is
a believer in Mr Bacon’s general theory, would reason
correctly thus as to B., A.’s surviving brother : “ God
may have so adjusted the result in this particular instance
in accordance with his foreknowledge that B. would
either pray or not pray. If B. prays I shall think that
this was very likely the case. If he does not pray,
■ then clearly it was not the case. But either way prayer
can be of no avail now/’ One of the numerous falla
cies of this theory lies in supposing that this view
which is true to C. need not be true to B. ; that be
cause a thing is not known to B. it may be presumed
to be in a certain sense undetermined, by B. If it is
true to C. it must be true generally. It follows that
wheD any event is known to any being in creation
not to inform his sister of the result, with the view of inducingher to pray.
�Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
19
prayer about it becomes useless to everybody. Another
fallacy consists in not observing that in either case,
i.e., whether the issue of the disease be or be not known
to the supplicant, a known past event has to be dealt
with, viz., the Deity’s complete foreknowledge of what
would be the supplicant’s course. The prayer is offered
up in order that the Deity foreseeing it—which now he
■is enabled to have done—may have been thereby dis
posed to save the sick man. But if a cannon may
have been fired off, or not fired off, at Waterloo, ac
cording as a foreknowledge of whether I should this
day pull or not pull a string influenced a superior
power, I can no more by my action on the string affect
that foreknowledge than I can fire off the cannon of 1815.
This theory, then, viz., that of the Supreme Being
adjusting the issue of sickness, &c., to subsequent en
treaties, is not only a wild figment of the brain, opposed
to the lessons derived from a study of nature, but it
does not even justify the practice which is sought to be
founded upon it.*
* Theologians, like common jurymen, require to have things
often put before them ; so I shall make no apology for again set
ting the matter out thus. Granting Mr Bacon’s wild theory of
the existence of a law in virtue of which persons’ lives or deaths
may, in certain cases (for there is no pretence that this is always
•so), depend on subsequent prayers, we will suppose that a certain
event, the issue of which is to me unknown, has reached me, e. gr.,
the illness of my brother six months ago. Now I believe that the
Deity 'nwjy have ordered that issue in reference to his foreknowledge of what would be my action. The only effect of my prayer
now can be to inform me whether the issue, when ascertained, can
be brought into possible connection with the law.
I pray—news comes of his recovery—law has possibly come into
operation.
I pray—news comes of his death—the case did not come under
the law.
I don t pray news comes of his death—law has possibly come into
operation.
I don’t pray—news comes of his recovery—the case did not come
under the law.
In the two cases where my prayer does not correspond with the
past event, law could not have operated.
In the two cases where my prayer did correspond with the past
event, law might have operated.
�20
i
Orthodox Theories of Prayer.
What, we may ask in conclusion, is gained to the
cause of theology by these wild assertions of the power
of prayer over external nature ? To what purpose all
these astounding complications ? The belief, it may
be said, is necessary to stimulate a prayerful spirit.
Yes, but then it ought to be shown that this is a prayer
ful spirit exercised in the right direction. No one, it
is clear, from the theological point of view, can know
for certain whether supplications of this kind meet
with success or not. We should have thought that the
spirit which it is deemed so desirable to cultivate might
find a sufficient scope in the internal sphere, where,
though the modus operand,! may be in dispute, no one
denies that prayer is capable of producing effects,
which is the chief thing. With regard to external
nature, may not a spirit of submission to supreme wis
dom—rather than one of a desire for change in our
own interests—be, at least as “ theological” as it is
philosophical ? Are not, we say, true philosophy and
true religion at one, the former in urging that it is
wiser, the latter in admitting that it is more devout, to
leave external nature in the hands of the Author of
Nature ?
The fallacy consists in putting it that, if I pray God may have
saved my brother; or, if I (Lortt pray, God may not have saved
my brother.
The fact is, that my brother has been saved or not saved with
full foreknowledge of what I should do.
If saved, saved either Secawse it was known I would pray; or,
though it was known I would not.
If dead, dead either because it was known I would not pray ; or,
in spite of its being known that I would pray.
TURNBULL AND SI’BAKS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Orthodox theories of prayer
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from British Library catalogue. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "by a Barrister'. [Title page].
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Thomas Scott
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[1874]
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CT205
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Religious practice
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Conway Tracts
Prayer
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Text
ON
PRAYER.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SOOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD
LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET
HAYMARKET, W.
�i
ON
PRAYER.
---------♦---------
HE mania for Prayer-meetings has lately been
largely on the increase, and the continual
efforts being made to
“ Move the arm that moves the world,”
T
naturally draw one’s attention strongly to the subject
of Prayer; to its reasonableness, propriety, and pro
spect of success. If Prayer to God be reverent as
towards the Deity, if it be consistent with his immu
tability, with his fore-knowledge, with his wisdom,
and with every kind of trust in his goodness—if it
be also, as regards man, permissible by science and
approved by experience, then there can be no doubt
at all that it should be sedulously practised, and
should be of universal obligation. But if it be at
once useless and absurd, if it be forbidden by reason
and frowned at by common sense, if it weaken man
and be irreverent towards the Being to whom it is
said to be addressed, then it will be well for all who
practise it to reconsider their position, and at least to
endeavour to give some solid reason for persisting in
a course which is condemned by the intellect and is
unneeded by the heart.
The practice of Prayer is generally founded upon
the supposed position held by man—first, as a creature
towards his Creator, and secondly, as a child towards
his Father in heaven. In its first aspect, it is a simple
act of homage from the inferior to the superior,
B
�6
On Prayer.
parallel to the courtesy shown by the subject to the
monarch; it is an acknowledgment of dependence,
and a sign of gratitude for the gifts which are sup
posed to be freely given by God. to man, gifts which
man has done nothing to deserve, but which come
from the free bounty of the giver. Putting aside the
whole question of God as Creator, which is not the
point at issue, we might argue that, since he brought
us into this world without our request, and even
without our consent, he is in duty bound to see that
we have all things necessary for our life and happi
ness in the world in which he has thus placed us.
We might argue that the “ blessings ” said to be be
stowed upon us, such as food, clothing, &c., can only
be called “given ” by a fiction, for that they are won
by our own hard toil, and are never “gifts from God”
in any real sense at all. Further, we might plead
that we find “ bestowed ” upon us many things which
are decidedly the reverse of blessings, and that if
gratitude be due to God for some things, the contrary
of gratitude is due to him for 'others; and that if
praise be his right for the one, blame must be his
desert for the second. We should be thus forced into
the logical, but somewhat peculiar, frame of mind of
the savage, who caresses his fetish when it hears his
prayers, and belabours it heartily when it fails to help
him. But, taking the position that Prayer is due from
man by reason of his creaturehood, it must surely be
clear that it cannot be a proper way of manifesting a
sense of inferiority to degrade the Being to whom
the homage is offered. Yet Prayer is essentially
degrading to God, and the character ascribed to him
of “a hearer and answerer of Prayer” is a most lower
ing conception of Deity. For God to hear and to
answer Prayer means that Prayer changes his action,
making him do that which he would otherwise have
abstained from doing; it means that man is wiser
than God, and is able to instruct him in his duty;
�On Prayer.
7
and it means that God is less loving than he ought to
be, and will not bestow upon his creature that which
is good for him, unless he be importuned into giving
it. We are told that God is immutable, “ the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever;” “ God is not a man
that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should
repent.” If this be true—and surely immutability of
purpose must be a necessary characteristic of an all
wise and all-good Being—how can Prayer be anything
more than a childish fretting against the inevitable ?
The Changeless One has planned a certain course of
action, and is steadily carrying it out; in passionless
serenity he goes upon his way; then man breaks in
with his feeble cries and petulant upbraidings, and
actually turns God from his purpose, and changes
the course of his providence. If Prayer does not do
this it does nothing at all; either it changes the mind
of God or it does not; if it does, God is at the dis
posal of man’s whim; if it does not, it is perfectly
useless, and might just as well be left undone. The
parable told by Christ about the unjust judge (Luke
xviii. 1-8), is a most extraordinary representation of
God : “ Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge
her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. . . .
And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry
day and night unto him ? ” Verily, the picture of the
divine justice is not an attractive one ! The judge
does his duty, not because it is his duty, not because
the widow needs his aid, not because her cause is
a just one, but “lest by her continual coming she
weary ” him. There "is only one moral to be drawn
from this, namely, that God will not care for his
“ elect,” because they are “ his own that he will not
guard them, because it is his duty; but that, if they
cry day and night to him, he will attend to them,
because the continual cry wearies him, and he desires
to silence it. In the same way God the immutable
changes at the sound of Prayer, not because the
�8
On Prayer.
change will be better or wiser, but because man’s cry
“ wearies ” him, and he will be quiet if he obtains his
petition. Surely the idea is as degrading as it can
be; it puts God on a level with the unwise human
parent, who allows himself to be governed by the
clamour of his children, and gives any favour to the
spoilt child, if only the child be tiresome enough in
its petulant persistence.
Is Prayer consistent with the foreknowledge of God ?
It is one of the attributes ascribed to God that he
knows all before it happens, and that the future lies
mapped out before him as clearly as does the past. If
this be so, is it more reasonable to pray about things
in the future than things in the past ? No one is so
utterly irrational as to pray to God, in so many words,
to change the things that are gone, or alter the record
of the past. Yet, is it more rational to ask him to
change the things that are coming, and to alter the
already-written chart of the future ? In reality, man’s
own eyes being blinded, he deems his God such an
one as himself, and where he cannot see, he can allow
himself to hope. But there is no escape from the
inexorable logic which pierces us with one horn or
the other of this dilemma, however we may writhe in
our efforts to escape them; either God knows the
future or he knows it not; if he knows it, it cannot
be altered, so it is of no use to pray about it, every
thing being already fixed ; if he knows it not, he is
not God, he is no wiser than man. But then,,some
Christians argue, he has pre-arranged that he will give
this blessing in answer to Prayer, and be foreknows
the Prayer as well as its answer. Then, after all, it is
pre-determined whether we shall pray or not in any
given case, and we have only to follow the course
along which we are impelled by an irresistible destiny;
so the matter is beyond all discussion, and the power
to pray, or not to pray, does not reside in us; if there
is a blessing in store for us which needs the arm of
�On Prayer.
9
Prayer to pluck it from the tree on which it hangs,
we shall inevitably pray for it at the right moment,
and thus—in his effort to escape from one difficulty
—the praying Christian has landed himself in a worse
one, for absolute foreknowledge implies complete
determinism, and prevents all human responsibility of
any kind.
Is Prayer consistent with the wisdom of God ?
After all, what does Prayer mean, boldly stated ? It
means that man thinks that he knows better than
God, and so he tells God that which ought to happen.
Is there any self-conceit so intolerable as that which
pretends to bow itself in the dust before him who
created and who upholds the infinite worlds which
make up the universe, and which then sets itself to
correct the ordering of him who traced the orbits of
the planets, and who measured the rule of suns ?
Pinite wisdom instructing infinite wisdom, mortal
reason laying down the course of immortal reason;
low intelligence guiding supreme intelligence; man
instructing God. All this is implied in the fact of
Prayer, and every man who has prayed, and who
believes in God, ought to cast himself down in
passionate humiliation before the wisdom he has
insulted and impugned, and ask pardon for the
insolent presumption which dared to lay hands on
the helm of the Supreme, and to dream that man
could be more wise than God. At least, those who
believe in God might be humble enough to acknow
ledge his superiority to themselves, and if they
demand that homage should be paid to him by their
brethren, they should also confess him to be wiser
and higher than they are themselves.
Is Prayer consistent with trust in the goodness of
God ? Surely Prayer is a distinct refusal to trust,
and is a proclamation that we think that we could
do better for ourselves than God will do for us. If
God be “ good and loving to every man,” it is mani
�IO
On Prayer.
fest that, without any pressure being put upon him,
he will do for each the best thing that can possibly
be done. The people of Madagascar are wiser, in
this matter, than the people who throng our Churches
and our Chapels, for they say, addressing the good
Spirit, “We need not pray to thee, for thou, without
our prayers, wilt give us all things that be good
for us,” and then they turn to the evil Spirit, saying,
that they must pray to him, lest, if they do not, he
should work them harm, and send troubles in their
way. Prayer implies that God judges all good gifts,
and will withhold them unless they are wrung from
his reluctant hands ; it denies that he loves his crea
tures, and is good to all. In addition to this, it also
implies that we will not trust him to judge what is
best for us; on the contrary, we prefer to judge for
ourselves, and to have our own way. If a trouble
comes, it is prayed against, and God is besought “ to
remove his heavy hand.” What does this mean,
except that when. God sends sorrow, man clamours
for joy, and when God deems it best that his child
should weep, the child demands cause for smiles ?
If people trusted God, as they pretend to trust him—
if the phrases of the Sunday were the practice of the
week—if men believed that God’s ways were higher
than man’s ways, and his thoughts than their thoughts
•—then no Prayer would ever ascend from earth to
the “ Throne of grace,” and man would welcome joy
and sorrow, peace and care, wealth and poverty, as
wise men welcome nature’s order, when the rain
comes down to swell the seed for the harvest, and
the sunshine burns down upon earth to burnish the
golden grain.
But, say the praying Christians, even if Prayer be
not defensible as homage from the creature to the
Creator, in that it lowers our idea of God, it must
surely yet be natural as the instinctive cry from the
child to the Father in heaven ; and then follow argu-
�On Prayer.
ii
merits drawn, from the family and the home, and the
need of communion between parent and child. As a
matter of fact—taking the analogy, imperfect as it
is—do we find much Prayer, as from child to parent,
in the best and the happiest homes; fs not the amount
of asking the exact measure of the imperfection of the
relationship ? The wiser and the kinder the parent,
the less will the child ask for ; rather, it learns from
experience to trust the older wisdom, and to be con
tented with the love which is ever giving, unsolicited,
all good things. At the most, the simple expression
of. the child’s wish is all that is needed, if the child
desire anything of which the parent have, not
thought; and even this mere statement of a wish is
still the result of imperfection, i.e., the want , of
knowledge on the parent’s part of the child’s mind
and heart. In this case there is no pleading, no
urging; the single request and single answer suffice ;
there is nothing which corresponds with the idea
of the prophet to pray to God and to “ give him
no rest” until he grant the petition. In a wellordered home, the child who persisted in pressing his
request would receive a rebuke for his want of trust,
and for his conceited self-sufficiency; and yet this is
the analogy on which Prayer to God is built up, and
in this fashion “ natural instincts ” are dragged in, in
order to support supernatural and artificial cravings.
Leaving Prayer, as it affects man s relationship to
God, let us look at it as it regards man’s relationship
to things around him, and ask if it be permitted by
our scientific knowledge, and approved by experience
and by history. The chief lesson of science is that
all things work by law, that we dwell in a realm of
law, and that nothing goes by chance. All science is
built up upon this idea ; science is not possible unless
this primary rule be correct; science is only the codi
fied experience of the race, the observed sequence of
to-day marked down for the guidance of to-morrow,
�12
On Prayer.
the teaching of the past hived up for the improve
ment of the future. But all this accumulation and
correlation of facts becomes useless if laws can be
broken—i.e., if this observed sequence of phenomena
can be suddenly broken by the interposition of an
unknown and incalculable force, acting spasmodically
and guided by no discoverable order of action.
Science is impossible if these “providential occur
rences’’ may take place at any moment. A physician,
in writing his prescription, selects the drugs which
experience has pointed out as the suitable remedy for
the disease under which his patient is labouring.
These drugs have a certain effect upon the tissues of
the human frame, and the physician calculates on this
effect being produced; but if Prayer is to come in as
a factor, of what use the physician’s science ? Here
is suddenly introduced—to speak figuratively—a new
drug of unknown power, and the effect of medicine
plus Prayer can in no way be calculated upon. The
prescription is either efficient or non-efficient; if it
be efficient, Prayer is unnecessary, as the cure would
take place without it; if it be non-efficient, and
Prayer makes up the deficiency, then medical science
is not needed, for the impotency of the drugs can
always be balanced by the potency of the Prayer.
This argument may be used as regards every science.
Prayer is put up for a ship which goes to sea. The
ship is fitted for the perils it encounters, or it is unfit.
If fitted, it arrives safely without Prayer ; if, though
unfit, it arrives, being guarded by Prayer, then
Prayer becomes a factor in the ship-builder’s calcula
tions, and sound timbers and strong rivets sink into
minor importance. If it be argued that to speak
thus is to use Prayer unfairly, because it is our duty
to.take every proper means to ensure safety, what is
this except to say that, after all, Prayer is only a
fiction, and that while we bow our knees to God, and
pretend to look to him for safety, we are really look
�On Prayer.
13
ing to the strong timbers of the ship-builder, and to
the skill of the captain ?
Science teaches, also, that all phenomena are the
results of preceding phenomena, and that an unbroken
sequence of cause and effect stretches back further
than our poor thoughts can reach. In stately har
mony all Nature moves, evolving link after link of
the endless chain, each link bound firmly to its pre
decessor, and affording, in its turn, the same support
to its successor. Prayer is put up in the churches
for fair weather; but rain and sunshine do not follow
each other by chance, they obey a changeless law.
To alter the weather of to-day means to alter the
weather of countless yesterdays, which have faded
away, one after another, “ into the infinite azure of
the past.” The weather of to-day is the result of all
those long-past phases of temperature, and, unless
they were altered, no change is possible to-day. The
Prayer that goes up in English churches should
really run :—“ 0 God, we pray thee to change all
that thou hast wrought in the past; we, to-day, in
this petty corner of thy world, are discontented with
thy ordering; we desire of thee, then, that, to pleasure
our fancy, thou wilt unroll the record of the past, and
change all its order, remoulding its history to suit
our convenience here to-day.” It is difficult to say
which is the worse, the self-conceit which deems its
own petty needs worthy of such complaisance of Deity,
or the ignorance which forgets the absurdities implied
in the request it makes. But, after all, it is the
ignorance which is to blame: these Prayers were
written when science was scarcely born; in those
days God was the immediate cause of each pheno
mena, sending rain from heaven when it pleased him,
thundering from heaven against his enemies, pouring
hailstones from heaven to slay his foes, opening and
closing the windows of heaven to punish a wicked
king or to pleasure an angry prophet. In those days
�14
0# Prayer.
heaven was very close to earth ; so near that when it
opened, the dying Stephen could see and recognise
the form and features of the Son of Man; so near
that, lest man should build a tower which should
reach it, God had himself to descend and discomfit
the builders. All these things were true to the
writers whose words are repeated in English churches
in the nineteenth century, and they naturally believed
that what God wrought in days of old he could work
also among themselves. But knowledge has shattered
the fairy fabric which fancy had raised up ; astronomy
built towers—not of Babel—from which men could
gauge the heaven, and find that through illimitable
ether worlds innumerable rolled, and that where the
throne of God should have been seen, suns and
planets sped on their ceaseless rounds. Further and
further back, the ancient God who dwelt among men
was pressed back, till now, at last, no room is found
for spasmodic divine solutions, but ^Nature’s mighty
order rolls on uninterrupted, in a silence unbroken
by voice and undisturbed by miraculous volitions,
bound by a golden chain of inviolable law. The most
learned and the most thoughtful Christian people now
acknowledge that Prayer is out of place in dealing
with “ natural order; ” but surely it is time that they
should make their voices beard plainly, so as to erase
from the Prayer-book these obsolete notions, born of
an ignorance which the world has now outgrown.
Few really believe in the power of Prayer over the
weather, but people go on from the sheer force of
habit, repeating, parrot-like, phrases which have lost
their meaning, because they are too indolent to exert
thought, or too fettered by habit to test the Prayer of
the Sunday by the standard of the week. When
people begin to think of what they repeat so glibly,
the battle of Free Thought will have been won.
Many earnest people, however, while recognising
the fact that Prayer ought not to be used for rain,
�On Prayer.
i5
fine weather, and the like, yet think that it may be
rightly employed to obtain “ spiritual benefits.
is
not this idea also the product of ignorance ? When
men knew nothing of natural laws they thought they
could gain natural benefits by Prayer; now that
people know nothing of “ spiritual ” laws, they think
they can gain “spiritual” benefits by Prayer. In
each case the Prayer springs from ignorance. Is it
really more reasonable to expect to gain miraculous
spiritual strength from Prayer, than to expect to give
vigour, by Prayer, to arms enfeebled by fever.
Growth, slow and steady, is Nature’s law ; no sudden
leaps are possible ; and no Prayer will give that spi
ritual stature which only develops by continual effort,
and by “patient continuance in well-doing.’ The
mind—which is probably what is generally meant by
the word “ spirit ”—has its own laws, according to
which it grows and strengthens; it is moulded,
formed, developed, as the body is, by the play of the »
circumstances around it, and by the organisation
with which it comes into the world, and which it has
inherited from a long race of ancestors. Here, too,
inexorable law surrounds all, . and in mind, as in
matter, the “ reign of law ” is all-embracing, all
compelling.
Is Prayer approved by experience ? It seems ne
cessary here to refer to the experience of some, who
say that they have found Prayer strengthen them to
meet a trouble which they had dreaded, or to accom
plish a duty for which their own ability was insuffi
cient. This appears to be very probable, but the
reason is not far to seek, and as the explanation of
the increased strength may be purely natural, it
seems unnecessary to search for a supernatural cause.
Prayer, when earnest and heartfelt, appears to exert
a kind of reflex action on the person praying, the
petition not piercing heaven, but falling back upon
earth. A duty has to be done or a trouble has to be
�16
On Prayer.
faced; the person affected prays for help, and by the
intense concentration of his thoughts, and by the
passion of his desire, he naturally gains a strength
he had not, when he was less deeply and thoroughly
in earnest. Again, the interior conviction that a
divine strength is on his side, nerves his heart and
braces his courage : the soldier fights with a ten
fold courage when he is sure that endurance will
make victory a certainty. But all this is no proof
that God hears and answers Prayer; if it were so, it
would prove also that the Virgin Mother, and all the
saints, and Buddha, and Brahma, and Vishnu were
alike hearers and answerers of Prayer. In all cases
the sincere worshipper gains strength and comfort,
and finds the same “ answer ” to his Prayer. Yet
surely no one will contend that all these are “ Prayer
hearing and Prayer-answering ” Gods ? This fancied
answer is not a proof of the truth of the worship* per’s belief, but is only a proof of his conviction of
its truth; not the soundness of the belief, but the
sincerity of the conviction, is proved by the glow and
ardour which succeed the act of Prayer. All the
dormant energies are aroused; the soul’s whole
strength is put forth ; the worshipper is warmed by
the fire struck from his own heart, and is thrilled
with the electricity which resides in his own frame.
So far, Prayer is found to be answered, just as every
strong conviction, however erroneous, is found to
confer increased strength and vigour on him who
possesses it. But, excepting this, Prayer is not
proved to be efficacious when tested by experience.
How many Prayers have gone up to the Father in
heaven from his children overwhelmed in the sea,
and drowning in floods, and encircled by fire ? How
many passionate appeals of patriots and martyrs, of
exiles and of slaves ? How many cries of anguish
from beside the beds of the dying, and the fresh
graves of the newly-dead ? In vain the wife’s wail
�On Prayer.
i7
for the husband, the mother’s pleading for the only
child; no voice has answered “Weep not;” no
command has replied, “Rise up ;” the Prayers have
fallen hack on the breaking heart, poor white-winged
birds that have tried to fly towards heaven, but have
only sunk back to earth, their breasts bruised and
bleeding from striking against the iron bars of a
pitiless and relentless fate. So continually has
Prayer failed to win an answer, that, in spite of the
clearness and the force of the Bible promises in
regard to it, Christians have found themselves obliged
to limit their extent, and to say that God judges
whether or no it will be beneficial for the wor
shipper to grant the petition, and if the Prayer be a
mistaken one he will, in mercy, withhold the implored*
for boon. Of course, this prevents Prayer from being
ever tested by experience at all, because whenever a
Prayer remains unanswered the reply is ready, that
“it was not according to the will of God.” This
means, that we cannot test the value of Prayer in
any way, we must accept its worth wholly as a matter
of faith; we must pray because we are bidden to do
so, and fulfil an useless form which affords no tan
gible results. In this melancholy position are we
landed, by an appeal to experience by which we are
challenged to test the value of Prayer.
The answer of history is even yet more emphatic.
The Ages of Prayer are the Dark Ages of the world.
When learning was crushed out, and superstition
was rampant, when wisdom was called witchcraft,
and priests ruled Europe, then Prayer was always
rising up to God, from the countless monasteries
where men dwarfed themselves into monks, and from
the convents where women shrivelled up into nuns.
The sound of the bell that called to Prayer was never
silent, and the time that was needed for work was
wasted in Prayer, and in the straining to serve God
the service of man was neglected and despised.
�i8
On Prayer.
There is one obvious fact that throws into bright
relief the absurdity of Prayer. Two people pray for
exactly opposite things; whose Prayers are to be
answered ? Two armies ask for victory ; which is to
be crowned ? Amongst ourselves, now, the Church
is divided into two opposing camps, aud while the
Ritualists appeal to God for protection, the Evan
gelicals clamour also for his aid. To which is he to
bend his ear ? which Prayer is he to answer ? Both
appeal to his promises ; both urge that his honour
is pledged to them by the word he has given ; yet it
is simply impossible that he should grant the Prayer
of both, because the Prayer of the one is the direct
contradiction of the Prayer of the other.
Again, none of the believers in Prayer appear to
consider, that, if it were true that Prayer is so power
ful a weapon—if it were true that by Prayer man
can prevail with God—it would then be madness
ever to pray at all. To pray would be as dangerous
a thing as to put a cavalry sword into the hands of a
child just strong enough to lift it, but unable to con
trol it, or to understand the danger of its blows.
Who can tell all the results to himself and to others
which might flow from a granted Prayer, a Prayer
made in all honesty of purpose, but in ignorance and
short-sightedness ? If Prayers really brought answers
it would be most wickedly reckless ever to pray at all,
as wickedly reckless as if a man, to quench a moment’s
thirst, pierced a hole in a reservoir of water which
overhung a town.
But, in spite of all arguments, in spite of all that
reason can urge and that logic can prove, it is pro
bable that many will still cling to the practice of
Prayer, craving for the relief it gives to the feelings
of the heart, however much it may be condemned by
the judgment of the intellect. They seem to think
that they will lose a great inspiration to work if they
give up “communion with God,” and that they will
�On Prayer.
T9
miss the glow of ardour which they deem they have
caught from Prayer. But surely it may fairly be
urged on them that no real good can arise from
continuing a practice which it is impossible to defend
when it is carefully analysed. Prayer is as the arti
ficial stimulant which excites, but does not strengthen,
and lends a factitious brightness, which is followed by
deeper depression. Those who have prayed most
have often stated that seasons of special blessing”
are generally followed by l< special temptations of
Satan.” The reaction follows on the unreal excitation,
and the soul that has been flying in heaven grovels
upon earth. To the patient who is weak and depressed
from long illness, the bright air of the morning seems
chill and cold, and he yearns for the warmth of the
artificial stimulants to which he has grown accustomed ;
yet better for him is it to gain health from the morn
ing breezes, and stimulus from the glad clear sunshine,
than to yield to the craving which is a relic of his
disease. If they who find in communion with God
a sweetness which is lacking when they commune
with their brethren—if they who cultivate dependence
on God would learn the true dependence of man on
man—if they who yearn for the invisible would con
centrate their energies on the visible—then they would,
soon find a sweetness in labour which would compen
sate for the languor of Prayer, and they would learn
to draw from the joy of serving men, and from the
serene strength of an earnest life, a warmth of inspi
ration, a passion of fervour, an exhaustless fount of
energy, beside which all Prayer-given ardour would
seem dull and nerveless, in the glow of which the
fancied warmth of God-communion would seem as the
pale cold moonshine in the glory of the rising-sun.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Title
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On prayer
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Besant, Annie Wood
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 19 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from British Library catalogue. Published anonymously. Author known to be Annie Besant. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
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Thomas Scott
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[1875]
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Prayer
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Conway Tracts
Prayer
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Text
CT 431
THE
BEAUTIES
OF
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
PAET
PUBLISHED
II.
BY THOMAS
SCOTT,
11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1876..
Price Sixpence.
�4
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
them, and therefore celebrates the service with much
of the ancient pomp ; while the other furiously rejects
this so-called idolatry, and makes the service as bare
and as simple as possible. Both parties can claim
parts of the Communion Office as upholding their
special views, for the English service has passed
through much of tinkering from High and Low, and
retains the marks of the alterations that have been
made by each.
To those outside the Church this office has particu
lar attraction, as being, in a special manner, a link
between the past and the present, and being full of
traces of the ancient religion of the world, that catho
lic sun-worship of which Christianity is a modernised
revival. From the Nicene Creed, in which Jesus is
described as “ God of God, Light of Light, very God
of very God, Begotten not made, Being of one sub
stance with the Father, By Whom all things were
made ”—from this point we breathe the full atmo
sphere of the elder world, and find ourselves engaged
■in the worship of that Light of Light, who, being the
image of the invisible God, the first-born of every
creature, has for ages and ages been adored as incar
nate in Mithra, in Christna, in Osiris, in Christ. We
give thanks for “the redemption of the world by the
death and passion of ‘ the Sun-Saviour, who suffered
on the Cross for us,’ who lay in darkness and in the
shadow of death
we praise Him who fills heaven
and earth with His glory, and who rose as “ the Pas
chal Lamb,” and has “ taken away the sin of the
world,” bearing away in the sign of the Lamb the
darkness and dreariness of the winter; we remember
the Holy Ghost, the fresh spring wind, who, “as it
had been a mighty wind,” came to bring us “out of
darkness ” into “ the clear light ” of the sun; then
we see the priest, with his face turned to the sun
rising, take the bread and wine, the symbols of the
God, and bless them for the food of men, these sym
�The Communion Service.
$
bols being changed into the very substance of the
deity, for are they not, in very truth, of him alone ?
“ How naturally does the eternal work of the sun, daily
renewed, express itself in such lines as
‘ Into bread his heat is turned,
Into generous wine his light.’
And imagining the sun as a person, the change to
‘flesh’ and ‘blood’ becomes inevitable; while the
fact that the solar forces are actually changed into
food, without forfeiting their solar character, finds
expression in the doctrines of transubstantiation and
the real presence.” (‘Keys of the Creeds,’ page 91.)
After this union with the Deity, by partaking of his
very self, we praise once more the “ Lamb of God
that takest away the sins of the world,” and is “ most
high in the glory of God the Father.” The resem
blance is made the nearer in the churches where much
of ceremony is found (although noticeable in all, since
that resemblance is stereotyped in the formulas them
selves ; but in the more elaborate performances the
old rites are more clearly apparent) in the tonsured
head of the priest, in the suns often embroidered on
vestment and on altar-cloth, in the rays that surround
the sacred monogram on the vessels, in the cross im
printed on the bread, and marking each utensil, in the
lighted candles, in the grape-vine chiselled on the
chalice—in all these, and in many another symbol,
we read the whole story of the Sun-god, written in
hieroglyphics as easily decipherable by the initiated as
is the testimony of the rocks by the geologian.
But passing by this antiquarian side of the Office,
we will examine it as a service suitable for the use of
educated and thoughtful people at the present time.
The Rubric which precedes the Office is one of those
unfortunate rules which are obsolete as regards their
practice, and yet which—from their preservation—■
appear to simple-minded parsons to be intended to
be enforced, whereby the said parsons fall into the
�6
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
clutches of the law, and suffer grievously. “ An open
and notorious evil-liver ” must not be permitted to
come to the Lord’s Table, and this expression sepms
to be explained in the Exhortation in the Office,
wherein we read: “if any of you be a blasphemer of
God, an hinderer or slanderer of His word, an adul
terer, or be in malice, or envy, or in any other
grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come
not to that holy Table; lest, after the taking of that
holy Sacrament, the devil enter into you, as he entered
into Judas, and fill you full of all iniquities, and
bring you to destruction both of body and soul.”
In a late case, the Sacrament was refused to one who
disbelieved in the devil and who slandered God’s
word, on those very grounds, and it would seem to
be an act of Christian charity so to deny it; for
surely to say that part of God’s word is “ contrary to
religion and decency” must be to slander it, if words
have any meaning, and people who do not believe in
the devil ought hardly to be sharers in a rite after
which the devil will enter into them with such melan
choly consequences. It would seem more consistent
either to alter the formulas or else to carry them out;
true, one clergyman wrote that the responsibility lay
with the unworthy recipient who “ did nothing else
but increase ” his “ damnation,” but it is scarcely a
pleasing notion that the clergyman should stand in
viting people to the Lord’s table and, coolly handing
to one of those who accept, the body of Christ,
say, “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve
thy body and soul unto everlasting life,” when he
means—in the delicate language used by the abovementioned clergyman—“ The Body of our Lord Jesus
Christ damn thy body and soul unto everlasting
death.” No one but a clergyman could dream of so
offensive a proceeding, and, to those who believe, one
so terribly awful.
The Ten Commandments which stand in the fore-
�The Communion Service.
7
front of the service are very much out of place as
regards some of them, to say nothing of the want
of truthfulness in the assertion, that “ God spake
these words,” &c. In the second we are forbidden
to make any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing, a command which would destroy all art, and
which no member of the congregation can have the
smallest notion of obeying. The Jews, who made
the cherubim over the ark, upon which God sat, are
popularly supposed not to have disobeyed this command,
because the cherubim were not the likeness of any
thing in heaven, earth, or water : they were, like
unicorns, creatures undiscovered and undiscoverable.
Yet in direct opposition to this command, Solomon
made brazen oxen to support his sea of brass (1
Kings vii. 25, 29), and lions on the steps of his
ivory throne (1 Kings x. 19, 20) ; and God himself is
said to have ordered Moses to make a Brazen Serpent.
God is described, in this same Commandment, as
“ a jealous God ”— which is decidedly immoral
and unpleasant—who visits “ the sins of the fathers
upon the children, unto the third and fourth gene
ration of them that hate me;” the justice of this
is so obvious that no comment on it is necessary.
The fourth Commandment is another which no one
dreams of attending to ; in the first place, we do
not keep the seventh day at all, and in the second,
our man-servant, our maid-servant, and our cattle
do all manner of work on the day we keep as
the Sabbath. Further, who in the present day be
lieves that “ in six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the
seventh day; ” geology, astronomy, ethnology have
taught us otherwise, and, among those who repeat
the response to this commandment in a London
church, not one could probably be found who believes
it to be true. The fifth Commandment is equally out
of place, for dutiful children do not live any longer
�8
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
than undutiful. The remainder touch simple moral
duties, enforced by all creeds alike, and are notice
able for their omissions and not for their commis
sions : the insertion of the Buddhist Commandment
against intoxication, for instance, would be an im
provement, although such a commandment is natu
rally not to be found in the case of so gross and
sensual a people as the ancient Jews. The alterna
tive prayers for the Queen, which follow next, are
only worth noting, because the first enshrines the
doctrine of divine right, which is long since dead and
buried, except in church; and the other says “ that
the hearts of Kings are in thy rule and governance,”
and suggests the thought that, if this be so, it is
better to be out of that “rule and governance,” the
effects on the hearts of Kings not having been speci
ally attractive. The Nicene Creed comes next, and
is open to the objections before made against the
Apostles’ Creed ; the last clauses relating to the Holy
Ghost are historically interesting, since the “ and the
Son ” forms the Filioque which severed Eastern from
Western Christendom ; “ Who with the Father and
*
the Son together” ought to be “worshipped and
glorified,” would be more true to fact than “is,”
since the Holy Ghost is sadly ignored by modern
Christendom, and has a very small share of either
* A short, but very graphic account of the shameful transac
tion by which the Filioque clause was, so to speak, smuggled
into the Nicene Creed, is to be found in the first ten or twelve
pages of the shilling pamphlet written by Edmund S. Ffoulkes,
B.D., entitled “The Church’s Creed, or the Crown’s Creed,”
published by J. T. Hayes, Ly all-place, Eaton-square, Lon
don. The following short prayer, ‘ ‘ Mentes nostras, quaasumus, Domine, Paraclitus, qui a te procedit, illuminet: et
inducat in omnem, sicut tuus promisit Filius, veritatem ” (i-’ide
Praeparatio ad Missam, in the “Missale Romanum”), clearly
proves, too, that the Church of Rome once held that the Holy
Ghost only proceeded from the Father, as the Dominus in it
can only refer to the Father.
�The Communion Service.
9
prayers or hymns: yet he is the husband of the
Virgin Mary, and the Father of Jesus Christ; he is,
therefore, a very important, though puzzling, person
in the Godhead, being the Father of him from whom
he himself proceeds: this is a mystery, and can only
be understood by faith. The texts that follow are
remarkable for their ingenious selection : “ Who goeth
a warfare,” &c. (1 Cor. ix. 7) ; “If we have sown,”
&c. (1 Cor. ix. 9) ; “ Do ye not know,” &c. (1 Cor. ix.
13) ; “He that soweth little” (2 Cor. ix. 6); “Let
him that is taught” (Gal. vi. 6). The pervading selfish
ness of motive is also worth noting : Give now in order
that ye may get hereafter ; “Never turn thy face from
any poor man, and then the face of the Lord shall not be
turned away from thee“ He that hath pity upon the
poor lendeth unto the Lord: and look,what he layeth out,
it shall be paid him again;” “If thou hast much, give
plenteously; if thou hast little, do thy diligence
gladly to give of that little ; for so gathered thou thyself
a good reward in the day of necessity.”* No free, glad
giving here ; no willing, joyful aid to a poorer brother,
because he needs what I can give; no ready offer of
the cup of cold water, simply because the thirsty is
there and wants the refreshment; ever the hateful
whisper comes : “ thou shall in no wise lose thy
reward.” These time-serving offerings are then pre
sented to God by being placed “ upon the holy Table,”
and we then get another prayer for Queen, Christian
Kings, authorities, Bishops and people in general,
concluding with thanks for the dead, not a cheerful
subject to bless God for, if there chance to be pre
sent any mourner whose heart is sore with the loss of
As if the clergy, with very few exceptions, are not suffi
ciently provided for by the tithes, &c., without having to go
a-begging like either Buddhist or Roman Catholic monks, to
both of whom P.P. and P.M. are not inappropriately applied
(Professors of Poverty and Practisers of Mendicancy).
�IO
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
a beloved one. At this point the service is supposed
to end, when no celebration of the Holy Communion
is intended, and here we find two Exhortations, or
notices of celebration, from the first of which we have
already quoted : in the second, we cannot help re
*
marking the undignified position in which God is
placed; it is a “grievous and unkind thing” not to
come to a rich feast when invited thereto, wherefore
we are to fear lest by withdrawing ourselves from
this holy Supper, we “provoke God’s indignation
against ” us. “ Consider with yourselves how great
injury ye do unto God what a very curious expres
sion. Is God thus at the mercy of man ? Surely, then,
of all living Beings the lot of God must be the sad
dest, if his happiness and his glory are in the hands
of each man and woman ; the greater his knowledge
the greater the misery, and as his knowledge is per
fect, and the vast majority of human kind know and
care nothing about him, his wretchedness must be
complete. All things being ready, the clergyman
begins by another Exhortation, of somewhat
threatening character : “ So is the danger great if we
receive the same unworthily. For then we are guilty
of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour; we
cat and drink our own damnation, not considering
the Lord’s Body; we kindle God’s wrath against us ;
we provoke him to plague us with divers diseases, and
sundry kinds of death.” (Surely we cannot be
plagued with more than one kind of death at
once, and we can’t die sundry times, even after the
Communion.) One almost wonders why anyone
accepts this very threatening invitation, even though
* It is, however, only just to say that that portion of it con
tained between “ The Way and Means thereto, ” and “ Offences
at God’s Hands,” is one of the best bits in the whole PrayerBook, and which far surpasses the generality of sermons one
hears afterwards.
�The Communion Service.
11
there are advantages promised to “meet partakers.”
The High Church party have indeed the right to talk
much of the real presence, since ordinary bread and
wine have none of these fearful penalties attached to
the eating and drinking, and some curious change
must have taken place in them before all these terrible
consequences can ensue. What would happen if some
consecrated bread and wine chanced to be left by mis
take, and a stray comer into the vestry eat it unknow
ingly F One thinks of Anne Askew, who, told that
a mouse eating a crumb fallen from the Host would
infallibly be damned, replied, “ Alack, poor mouse ! ”
Then follows a Confession of the most cringing kind,
fit only for the lips of some coward suppliant crouch
ing at the feet of an Eastern monarch; it is marvel
lous that free English men and women can frame
their lips into phrases of such utter abasement, even
to a God ; manliness in religion is sorely needed,
unless, indeed, God be something smaller than man,
and be pleased with a degradation painful to human
eyes. The prayer of consecration is the central point
of the ordinance; of old they prayed for the descent
of the Holy Ghost on the elements, “ for whatsoever the
Holy Ghost toucheth is sanctified and clean”—it is not
explained how the Holy Ghost, being omnipresent,
manages to avoid touching everything—and now the
priest asks that in receiving the bread and wine we
“ may be partakers of” Christ’s Body and Blood, and
repeats the words, “ This is my Body,” “ This is my
Blood,” laying his hand alternately over the bread
and the wine; now if this means anything, if it is not
mere mockery, it means that after tfie consecration the
bread and wine are other than they were before ; if
it does not mean this, the whole prayer is simply
a farce, a piece of acting scarcely decent under the
circumstances. But flesh and blood ! Putting aside
the extreme repulsiveness of the idea, the coarseness
of the act, the utter unpleasantness of eating flesh
�12
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
and drinking blood, all of which has become non
disgusting by habit and fashion, and the distasteful
ness of which can scarcely be realised by any believer
—putting aside all this, is there any change in th©
bread and wine ? Examine it; analyse it; test it in
any and every fashion; still it answers back to the
questioner, “ bread and wine.” Are our senses de
ceived ? Then try a hundred different persons; all
cannot be deceived alike. Unless every result of
experience is untrustworthy, we have here to do with
bread and wine, and with nothing more. “ But faith
is needed.” Ah yes ! There is the secret: no flesh
and blood without faith ; no miracle without credu
lity. Miracle-working priests are only successful
among credulously-disposed people; miracles can only
be received by those who think it less likely that Na
ture should speak falsely than that man should deceive;
those who believe in this change through consecration
cannot be touched by argument; they have closed,
their eyes that they may not see, their ears that they
may not hear ; no knowledge can reach them, for they
have shut the gateways whereby it could enter, they
are literally dead in their superstition, buried beneath
the stone of their faith. The reception of the Body
and Blood of Christ being over, the people having
knelt to eat and drink, as is only right when eating
and drinking Christ (John vi. 57), the Lord’s Prayer
is said for the second time, a prayer and thanksgiving
follows, confined to “we and all thy whole Church,”
for the spirit is the same as that of the prayer of
Christ, “ I pray not for the world, but forthem whom
thou hast given me” (John xvii. 9), and then the
service winds up with the Gloria in Bxcelsis and the
Benediction. Such is the“bounden duty and ser
vice” offered by the Church to God, the service of
which the central act must be either a farce or a
falsehood, and therefore insulting to the God to
whom it is offered. Regarded as a service to Godz
�The Baptismal Offices.
13
the whole Communion Office is objectionable in the
highest degree ; regarded as an antiquarian survival,
it is very interesting and instructive ; it is surely time
that it should be put in its right place, and that its
true origin should be recognised. The day is gone by
for these barbarous, though poetic, ceremonials ; the
“flesh and blood,” which was a bold figure for the
heat and light of the sun, becomes coarse when joined
in thought to a human being; ceremonies that fitted
the childhood of the world are out of place in its man
hood, as the play that is graceful in the child would
be despicable in the man ; these rites are the baby
clothes of the world, and cannot be stretched to fit
the stalwart limbs of its maturer age, cannot add
grace to its form, or dignity to its graver walk.
THE BAPTISMAL OFFICES.
For all purposes of criticism the Offices for “ Public
Baptism of Infants, to be used in the Church,” for
“ Private Baptism of Children in houses,” and“ Bap
tism to such as are of riper years, and able to answer
for themselves,” may be treated as one and the same,
the leading idea of each service being identical; this
idea is put forward clearly and distinctly in the pre
face to the Office: “ Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all
men are conceived and born in sin; and that our
Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the king
dom of God, except he be regenerate and born anew
of water and of the Holy Ghost; I beseech you to
call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus
Christ, that of his bounteous mercy he will grant to
this Child that thing which by nature he cannot
have.” According to the doctrine of the Church,
then, baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation:
None can enter . . . except he be . . . born
�14
rlhe Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
anew of water thus peals out the doom of condem
nation on the whole human race, save that fragment
of it which is sprinkled from the Christian font;
there is no evasion possible here; no exception made
in favour of heathen peoples; no mercy allowed to
those who have no opportunity of baptism • none can
enter save through “ the laver of regeneration.” Can
any words be too strong whereby to denounce a doc
trine so shameful, an injustice so glaring ? A child is
born into the world; it is no fault of his that he is
conceived in sin; it is no fault of his that he is born
in sin ; his consent was not asked before he was
ushered into the world; no offer was made to him
which he could reject of this terrible gift of a con
demned life; flung is he, without his knowledge,
without his will, into a world lying under the curse
of God, a child of wrath, and heir of damnation.
“ By nature he cannot have.” Then why should God
be wrath with him because he hath not ? The whole
arrangement is of God’s own making. He fore
ordained the birth ; he gave the life; the helpless,
unconscious infant lies there, the work of his own
hands; good or bad, he is responsible for it; heir of
love or of wrath, he has made it what it is ; as wholly
is it his doing as the unconscious vessel is the doing
of the potter; as reasonably may God be angry with
the child as the potter swear at the clay he has clum
sily moulded : if the vessel be bad, blame the potter ;
if the creature be bad, blame the Creator. The con
gregation pray that God 11 of his bounteous mercy,”
“ for thine infinite mercies,” will save the child, “ that
he, being delivered from thy wrath,” may be blessed.
It is no question of mercy we have to do with here ;
it is a question of simple justice, and nothing more ;
if God, for his own “ good pleasure,” or in the pursu
ance of the designs of his infinite wisdom, has placed
this unfortunate child in so terrible a position, he is
bound by every tie of justice, by every sacred claim
�The Baptismal Offices.
15
of right, to deliver the blameless victim, and to place
him where he shall have a fair chance of well-being.
“It is certain by God’s Word,” says the Rubric,
“ that children which are baptized, dying before they
commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.” And
those which are not baptized ? The Holy Roman
Church sends these into a cheerful place called Limbo,
and the baby-souls wander about in chill twilight,
cursed with immortality, shut out for ever from the
joys of Paradise. Many readers will remember
Lowell’s pathetic poem on this subject, and the
ghastly baptism; they will also know into what de
vious paths of argumentative indecency that Church
has wandered in deciding upon the fate of unbaptized
infants;—how, when mothers have died in childbirth,
the yet unborn children have been baptized to save
them from the terrible doom pronounced upon them
by their Rather in heaven, even before they saw the
light;—how it has been said that in cases where
mother and child cannot both be saved the mother
should be sacrificed that the child may not die un
baptized. Into the details of these arguments we
cannot enter; they are only fit for orthodox Chris
tians, in whose pages they may read them who list.
Truly, the Lord is a jealous God, visiting the sins of
the fathers upon the children, since unborn children
are condemned for the untimely death of their mother,
and unbaptized infants for the carelessness of their
parents or nurses. Of course the majority of English
clergymen believe nothing of this kind; but then
why do they read a service which implies it ? Why
do they use words in a non-natural sense ? Why do
they put off their honesty when they put on their
surplices ? And why will the laity not give utterance
to their thoughts on these and all such objectionable
parts of the Service ? In the Office for Adults, as
regards the necessity of the Sacrament, the words
come in : “ where it may be hadbut the phrase reads
�i€
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
as though it had been written in the margin by some
kindly soul, and had from thence crept into the text,
for it is in direct opposition to the whole argument of
the address wherein it occurs, and to the rest of the
office, as also to the other two offices for infants. The
stress laid upon right baptism, i.e., baptism with
water, accompanied by the “ name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” appears specially
in the office to follow the private baptism of a child,
should the child live; for the Rubric directs that if
there be any doubt of the use of the water and the
formula, “ which are essential parts of Baptism,” the
priest shall perform the baptismal ceremony, saying,
“ If thou art not already baptized, I baptize thee,” &c.
Surely such care and pains to ensure correct baptism
speak with sufficient plainness as to the importance
attached by the Church to this initiatory rite; this
importance she gives to it in other places : none, un
baptized, must approach her altar to take the “ bread
of lifenone, unbaptized, must be buried by her
ministers, “ in sure and certain hope of the Resur
rection to eternal life.” The baptized are within the
ark of the Church ; the unbaptized are struggling in
the waves of God’s wrath outside; no hand can be
outstretched to save them; they are strangers, aliens,
to the covenant of promise; they are without hope.
The whole office for infants reads like a play: the
clergyman asks that the infant “may receive remis
sion of his sinswhat sins ? The people are ad
monished “ that they defer not the Baptism of their
children longer than the first or second Sunday next
after their birth.” What sins can a baby a week old
have committed ? from what sins can he need re
lease ? for what sins can he ask forgiveness ? And
yet, here is a whole congregation prostrate before
Almighty God, praying that a tiny long-robed baby
may be forgiven, may be pardoned his sins of—
coming into the world when God sent him! The
�The Baptismal Offices.
17
ceremony would be ludicrous were it not so pitifuh
And supposing that the infant does need forgive
ness, and has sins to be washed away, why should a
few drops of water, sprinkled on the face—or bonnet—
of the baby, or even the immersion of his body in the
font, wash away the sins of his soul ? The water is
''sanctified;” we pray : “ Sanctify this water to the
mystical washing away of sin.” As the hymn sweetly
puts it:
“ The water in this font
Is water, by gross mortals eyed;
But, seen by faith, ’tis blood
Out of a dear friend’s side. ”
Blood once more I how Christians cling to the re
volting imagery of a bygone and barbarous age of
gross conceptions. And, applied by faith, it cleanses
the soul of the child from sin. Well, the whole thing
is consistent: the invisible soul is washed from in- visible sin by invisible blood, and to all outward
appearance the child remains after baptism exactly
what it was before—except it chance to get inflam
mation of the lungs, as we have known happen, from
*
High Church free use of water, which is, perhaps, thepromised baptism of fire. The promises of the spon
sors are in full accordance with the rest of the ser
vices ; promises made by other people, in the child’s
name, as to his future conduct, over which they have
no control. The baby renounces the devil and all his
belongings, believes the Apostles’ Creed, and answers
“ that is my desire,” when asked if he will be bap
tized; all which "is very pretty acting,” but jars
somewhat on the feeling of reality which ought surely
to characterize a believer’s intercourse with his God.
The child being baptized and signed with the Cross,,
"is regenerate,” according to the declaration of the
priest. Some contend that the Church of England
does not teach baptismal regeneration, but it is hard
to see how any one can read this service, and then
B
�18
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
deny the teaching; it is clearer and fuller than is the
teaching of her voice upon most subjects. The cere
mony of baptism and the idea of regeneration are
both derived from the sun-worship of which so many
traces have already been pointed out: the worshippers
of Mithra practised baptism, and it is common to the
various phases of the solar faith. Regeneration, in
some parts, especially in India, was obtained in a
different fashion : a hole through a rock, or a narrow
passage between two, was the sacred spot, and a
worshipper, squeezing himself through such an open
ing, was regenerated, and was, by this literal repre
sentation of birth, born a second time, born into a
new life, and the sins of the former life were no longer
accounted to him. Many such holes are still pre
served and revered in India, and there can be little
doubt that the ancient Druidic remains bear traces of
being adapted for this same ceremony, although a
natural fissure appears ever to have been accounted
the most sacred.
*
One ought scarcely to leave unnoted the preamble
to the first prayer in the baptismal service: “ Who of
thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in
the ark from perishing by water; and also didst
safely lead the children of Israel thy people through
the Red Sea, figuring thereby thy holy baptism ; and
by the baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ,
in the river Jordan, didst sanctify water to the mys
tical washing of sin.” In the two first examples
given the choice of the Church appears to be pecu
liarly unfortunate, as in each case water was the ele
ment to be escaped from, and it was a source of death,
not of life; perhaps, though, there is a subtle meaning
* Even in this country, at Brimham Rocks, near Ripon, in
Yorkshire, the dead form of the custom is, or was, until very
lately, kept up by the guide sending all visitors, who chose to
avail themselves of the privilege, through such a fissure.
�The Order of Confirmation.'
19
in the Red Sea, it points to the blood of Christ: but
then, again, the Red Sea drowned people, and surely
the anti-type is not so dangerous as that ? It must
be a mystery. It would be interesting to know how
many of the educated clergymen who read this prayer
believe in the story of the Noachian deluge, and of
the miraculous passage of the Red Sea; and further,
how many of them believe that God, by these fables,
figured his holy baptism. Will the nineteenth cen
tury ever summon up energy enough to shake off
these remnants of a dead superstition, and be honest
enough to stop using a form of words which is no
longer a vehicle of belief ? When the Prayer Book
was compiled these words had a meaning; to-day
they have none. Shall not a second Reformation
sweep away these dead beliefs, even as the first swept
away for its own age the phrases which represented
an earlier and coarser creed ?
THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION.
These signs shall follow them that believe : In
my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak
with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and
if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt
them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they
shall recover.’’ In those remarkable days the “order
of Confirmation ” might have been in consonance
with its surroundings, a state of things which is very
far from being its present position. Mr. Spurgeon,
writing for the benefit of street preachers, lately
pointed out very sensibly that as the Holy Ghost no
longer gave, the gift of tongues, they had “better
stick to their grammars,” and in these degenerate
�20
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
days honest effort is likely to show results more
satisfactory than those which ensue from the laying
on of Bishops’ hands. When the Apostles performed
this ceremony which the Bishop now performs after
their example, definite proofs of its efficacy were said
to have been seen ; so much so, indeed, that Simon,
the sorcerer, wished to invest some money in heavenly
securities, so that “ on whomsoever I lay hands he
may receive the Holy Ghost.” A Simon would mani
festly never be found nowadays ready to pay a
Bishop for the power of causing the effects of Con
firmation. So far as the carnal eye can see, the
white-robed, veiled young ladies, and the shamefaced
black-coated boys, who throng the church on a Con
firmation day, return from the altar very much the
same as they went up to it: no one begins to speak
with tongues ; if they did, the beadle would probably
interfere and quench the Spirit with the greatest
promptitude. They are supposed to have received
some special gifts : “ the spirit of wisdom and under
standing ; the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength;
the spirit of knowledge and true godliness and in
addition to these six spirits, there is one more : “ the
spirit of thy holy fear.” No less than seven spirits,
then, enter these lads and lasses. Wisdom and under
standing are easily perceptible : are they wiser after
Confirmation than they were before ? do they under
stand more rapidly? do they know more ? if there be no
perceptible difference is the presence of theHoly Spirit
of none effect ? if of none effect, can his presence be of
any use, of the very smallest advantage ? if of no use,
why make all this parade about giving a thing whose
gift makes the recipient no richer than he was be
fore ? Besides, what certainty can there be that the
Holy Ghost is given at all ? Allowing—what seems
to an outsider a gross piece of irreverence—that the
Holy Ghost is in the fingers of the Bishop to be given
away when it suits the Bishop’s convenience, or is in
�The Order of Confirmation.
21
a sort of reservoir, of which the Bishop turns the tap
and lets the stream of grace descend—allowing all
this as possible, ought not some “ sign to follow
them that believe ? ” How can we be sure that the
Bishop is not an impostor, going through a conjurer’s
gestures and mutterings, and no magic results accru
ing ? If, in the ordinary course of daily life, any one
came and offered us some valuable things he said that
he possessed, and then went through the form of
giving them to us, saying: “Here they are; guard
and preserve them for the rest of your life
and the
outstretched hand contained nothing at all, and we
found ourselves with nothing in our grasp, should we
be content with his assurance that we had really got
them, although we might not be able to see them, and
we ought to have sufficient faith to take his word for
it ? Should we not utterly refuse to believe that we
had received anything unless we had some proof of
having done so, and were in some way the better or
the worse for it ? The truth is that people’s religion
is, to them, a matter of such small importance that
they do not trouble themselves about proof—Faith is
enough to comfort them; the six week-days require
their brains, their efforts, their thought: the Sunday
is the Lord’s day, and he must see to it: earth needs
all their earnest attention, but heaven must take care
of itself; the validity of an earthly title is important,
and the confirmation of a right to inherit property in
this world is eagerly welcomed, but the Confir
mation to a heavenly inheritance is a mere farce,
which it is the fashion to go through about the age
of fifteen, but which is only a fashion, the confirma
tion of a faith in nothing in particular to an invisible
heritage of nothing at all.
�22
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
THE FORM OF THE SOLEMNIZATION OF
MATRIMONY.
One of the most curious blunders regarding or
thodox Christianity is, that it has tended to the
elevation of woman. As a matter of fact, the Eastern
ideas about women are embodied in Christianity, and
these ideas are essentially degraded and degrading.
From the time when Paul bade women obey their
husbands, Augustine’s mother was beaten, unresisting,
by Augustine’s father, and Jerome fled from woman’s
charms, and monks declaimed against the daughters
of Eve, down to the present day, when Peter’s
authority is used against woman suffrage, Christianity
has consistently regarded woman as a creature to be
subject to man, because, being deceived, she was first
in transgression. The Church service for matrimony
is redolent of this barbarous idea, relic of a time
when men seized wives by force, or else purchased;
them, so that the wives became, in literal fact, the
property of their husbands. We learn that matri
mony was “ instituted of God in the time of man’s
innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that
is between Christ and his Church.” It would be
interesting to know how many of those joined by the
Church believe in the Paradise story of man’s inno
cency and fall. It seems that Christ has adorned the
holy estate by his first miracle in Cana; but the
adornment is rather of a dubious character, when we
reflect that the probable effect of the miracle would
be a scene somewhat too gay, from the enormous
quantity of wine made by Christ for men who already
had “ well drunk.” Christ’s approval of marriage
may well be considered doubtful when we remember
that a virgin was chosen as his mother, that he him
self remained unmarried, and that he distinctly places
celibacy higher than marriage in Matt. xix. 11, 12,
�The Solemnization of Matrimony.
23
where he urges: “ he that is able to receive it let
him receive it.” St. Paul also, though he allows it
to his converts, advises virginity in preference : “ I
say to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them
if they abide even as I;” “he that giveth her
not in marriage doeth better ” (see throughout
1 Cor. vii.) The reasons given for marriage are
surely misplaced; last of all, it is said that mar
riage is “ ordained for the mutual society, help,
and comfort that the one ought to have of the
other;” this, instead of “ thirdly,” ought to be
“ first.” “ As a remedy against sin and to avoid
fornication, that such persons as have not the gift
of continency might marry,” is not a reason very
honourable to the marriage estate, nor very delicate
to read out before a mixed congregation to a young
bride and bridegroom; so strongly objectionable is
the heedless coarseness of this preface felt to be that
in many churches it is entirely omitted, although it
is retained—as are all remains of a coarser age—in
the Prayer-Book as published by authority. The
promise exchanged between the contracting parties is
of far too sweeping a character, and is immoral, be
cause promising what may be beyond the powers of
the promisers to perform ; “ to love” “ so long as ye
both shall live,” and “ till death us do part,” is a
pledge far too wide; love does not stay by promis
ing, nor is love a feeling which can be made to order.
A promise to live always together might be made,
although that would be unwise in this changing
world, and the endless processes in the Divorce Court
are a satire on this so-called joined by God; “ what
God hath joined together” man does continually “put
asunder,” and it would be wiser to adapt the service
to the altered circumstances of the times in which we
live. The promise of obedience and service on the
woman’s part should also be eliminated, and the con
tract should be a simple promise of fidelity between
�24
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
two equal friends. The declaration of the man as he
places the ring on the woman’s finger is as archaic as
the rest of this fossil service, and about as true: “With
all my worldly goods I thee endow,” says the man,
when, as a matter of fact, he becomes possessed of all
his wife’s property and she does not become possessed
of his. One of the concluding prayers is a delightful
specimen of Prayer-Book science : “ 0 God, who of
thy mighty power hast made all things of'nothing.”
What was the general aspect of affairs when there
was “ nothing ?” how did something emerge where
“ nothing was before ? if God filled all space, was
he “nothing?” is the existence of nothing a con
*
ceivable idea ? can people think of nothing except
when they don’t think at all ? “ who also (after other
things set in order) didst appoint that out of man
(created after thine own image and similitude) woman
should take her beginning“ out of man,” that is
out of one of man’s ribs ; has any one tried to picture
the scene : Almighty God, who has no body nor parts,
taking one of Adam’s ribs, and closing up the flesh,
and “ out of the rib made he a woman.” God, a pure
spirit, holding a man’s rib, not in his hands, for he
has none, and “ making” a woman out of it, fashion
ing the rib into skull, and arms, and ribs, and legs.
Can a more ludicrous position be imagined; and
Adam ? What became of his internal economy ? was
he made originally with a rib too much, to provide
against the emergency, or did he go, for the rest of
his life, with a rib too little ? And the Church of
England endorses this ridiculous old-world fable.
Man was created “ after thine own image and simili
tude.” What is the image of God? He is a spirit
and has no similitude. If man is made in his image,
God must be a celestial man, and cannot possibly be
omnipresent. Besides in Genesis i. 27, where it is
stated that “ God created man in his own image,” it
distinctly goes on to declare : “ in the image of God
�The Solemnization of Matrimony.
25
created he him; male and female created he them.
Thus the woman is made in God’s image as much
as the man, and God’s image is “ male and
female.” All students know that the ancient ideas
of God give him this double nature, and that
no trinity is complete without the addition of
the female element; but the pious compilers of the
Prayer-Book did not probably intend thus to trans
plant the simple old nature-worship into their mar
riage office. Once more we hear of Adam and Eve
in the next prayer, and we cannot help thinking that,
considering all the trouble Eve brought upon her
husband by her flirtation with the serpent, she is
made rather too prominent a figure in the marriage
service. The ceremony winds up with a long ex
hortation, made of quotations from the Epistles, on
the duties of husbands and wives. Husbands are to
love their wives because Christ loved a church—a
reason that does not seem specially d propos, as
husbands are not required to die for their wives or to
present them to themselves glorious wives, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing (!); nor would most
husbands desire that their wives’ conversation should
be “ coupled with fear.” Why should women be taught
thus to abase themselves ? They are promised as a
reward that they shall be the daughters of Sarah ; but
that is no great privilege, nor are English wives likely
to call their husbands “lord;” if they did not adorn
themselves with plaited hair and pretty apparel, their
husbands would be sure to grumble, and the only de
fence that can be made for this absurd exhortation is
that nobody ever listens to it.
_ Among the various reforms needed in the Mar
riage. Laws one imperatively necessary is that all
marriages should be made civil contracts—that is,
that the contract which is made by citizens of the
State, and which affects the interests of the State,
should be entered into before a secular State official;
�26.
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
if after that the parties desired a religious ceremony,
they could go through any arrangements they pleased
in their own churches and chapels, but the civil con
tract should be compulsory and should be the only one
recognised by the law. Of course the Church might
maintain its peculiar marriage as long as it chose, but
it would probably soon pass out of fashion if it were
not acknowledged as binding by the State.
THE ORDER FOR THE VISITATION- OF THE
SICK.
Of all the services in the Prayer-Book this
is, perhaps, the most striking relic of barbarism,
the most completely at variance with sound and
reasonable thought. The clergyman entering into
a house of sickness, and as he enters the sick man’s
room and catches- sight of him, kneeling down and
exclaiming, as though horror-stricken : “ Remember
not, Lord, our iniquities, nor the iniquities of our
forefathers; spare us, good Lord, spare Thy people
whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy most precious
blood, and be not angry with us for ever.” This
clergyman reminds one of nothing so much as of one
of Job’s friends, who appear to have been an even
more painful infliction than Job’s boils. The sick
ness, the patient is told, “ is God’s visitation,” and
“for what cause soever this sickness is sent unto
you : whether it be to try your faith for the example
of others, .... or else it be sent unto you to correct
and amend in you whatsoever doth offend the eyes
of your heavenly Father; know you certainly, that
if you truly repent you of your sins, and bear your
sickness patiently, .... it shall turn to your profit,
and help you forward in the right way that leadeth
�The Visitation of the Sick.
27
unto everlasting life.” One might question the
justice of Almighty God if the theory be correct that
the sickness may be sent “ to try your patience for
the example of others ; ” why should one unfortunate
victim be tormented simply that others may have
the advantage of seeing how well he bears it ? If
we are to endeavour to conform ourselves to the
image of God, then it would seem that we should be
doing right if we racked our neighbours occasionally
to “ try their patience for the example of others.”
And is the idea of God a reverent one F What
should we think of an earthly father who tortured
one of his children in order to teach the others how
to bear pain F if we should condemn the earthly
father as wickedly cruel, why should the same action
be righteous when done by the Father in heaven F
If we accept the second reason given for the sickness,
it is difficult to see the rationale of it. Why should
illness of the body correct illness of the mind ; does
pain cure fretfulness, or fever increase truthfulness F
Is not sickness likely rather to bring out and
strengthen mental faults than to weaken them F
And how far is it true that sickness is, in any sense, the
visitation of God for moral delinquencies ? Is it not
true, on the contrary, that a man may lie, rob, cheat,
slander, tyrannise, and yet, if he observe the laws of
health, may remain in robust vigour, while an
upright, sincere, honest and truthful man, disregard
ing those same laws, may be miserably feeble and
suffer an early death F Is it, or is it not a fact, that
in the Middle Ages, when people prayed much and
studied little, when the peasant went to the shrine for a
cure instead of to the doctor, when sanitary science was
unknown, and cleanliness was a virtue undreamed of,
—is it, or is it not true, that pestilence and black death
then swept off their thousands, while these terrible
scourges have been practically driven away in modern
times by proper attention to sanitary measures, by
�2$
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
improved drainage and greater cleanliness of living ?
How can that be a visitation of God for moral
transgressions, which can be prevented by man if he
attends to physical laws ? Is man’s power greater
than God’s, and can he thus play with the thunder
bolts of the divine displeasure ? The clergyman
prays that “the sense of his weakness may add
strength to his faith ; ” what fine irony is here, as body
and mind grow weak faith grows strong ; as a man
is less able to think, he becomes more ready to believe.
It is impossible to pass, without a word of censure,
over the passage in the exhortation, taken from the
Epistle to the Hebrews, which says, “ for they
(fathers of our flesh) verily for a few days chastened
us after their own pleasure.” Good earthly fathers,
do not chasten their children for their own amuse
ment, while God does it “for our profit ; ” on the
contrary, they do it for the improvement of their
children, while God alone, if there be a hell, tortures
his children for his own pleasure and for no gain to
them. The succeeding portion of the Exhortation,
that, “ our way to eternal joy is to suffer here
with Christ,” is full of that sad asceticism which
has done so much to darken the world since
the birth of Christ; men have been so engaged in
looking for the “eternal joy” that they have let
pass unnoted the misery here; they have been so
busy planting flowers in heaven that they have let
weeds grow here ; yes, and they have rejoiced in the
misery and in the weeds, because they were only
strangers and pilgrims, 'and the tribulation, which
was but temporal, increased the weight of the glory
that was eternal. Thus has Christianity blighted
the flowers of this world, and entwined the brows of
its followers with wreaths of thorns. The concluding
portion of the exhortation deals with the duty of
self-examination and self-accusation, that you may
““not be accused and condemned in that fearful
�The Visitation of the Sick,
29
judgment.” Very -wholesome teaching for a sick
man; sickness always makes a person morbid, and
the Church steps in to encourage the unwholesome
feeling ; sickness always makes a person timid and
unnerved, and the Church steps in to talk about a
“ fearful judgment,” and bewilders and stuns the con
fused brain by the terrible pictures called up to the
mind by the thought of the last day.
But worse follows; for after the sick person has
said that be stedfastly believes the creed, the clergy
man is bidden by the rubric to “ examine whether he
repent him truly of his sins, and be in charity with
all the world.” Imagine a sick person being worried
by an examination of this kind, putting aside the
gross impertinence of the whole affair. Further, “ the
minister should not omit earnestly to move such
persons as are of ability to be liberal to the poor.”
When every one remembers the terrible scandals of
by-gone days, -when priests drew into the net of the
Church the goods of the dying, using threat of hell
and promise of heaven to win that which should have
been left for the widow and the orphan, one marvels
that such a rubric should be left to recall the rapa
ciousness and the greed of the Church, and to invite
priests to grasp at the wealth slipping out of dying
hands. And here the sick person is to “ be moved
to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his
conscience troubled with any weighty matter, and the
priest is bidden to absolve him, for Christ having
“left power to his Church to absolve by his authority
committed to me,” says the priest, “I absolve thee.”
Confession ; delegated authority ; priestly absolution ;
such is the doctrine of the Church of England : all
the untold abominations of the confessional are
involved in this rubric and sentence, for if the man
can absolve a man at one time, he can do it at
another; the precious power should surely not be
left unused and wasted; whenever sin presses, behold
�jo
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
the remedy, and thus we are launched and in full
sail. But never in England shall the confessional
again flourish; never again shall English women
he corrupted by the foul questions of the priests ;
never again shall Englishmen have their mental
vigour and virility destroyed by such degradation.
Let the Church fall that countenances such an
accursed thing, and leave English purity and English
■courage to grow and flourish unchecked.
The devil is in great force in this service, as is
only right in a so generally barbarous an office:
*l Let the enemy have no advantage of him“ de
fend him from the danger of the enemy “renew in
him whatsoever hath been decayed by the fraud and
malice of the devil;” “the wiles of Satan;” “deliver
him from fear of the enemy ;” all this must convey to
the sick person a cheerful idea of the devil lingering
about his bed, and trying to get hold of him before it
is too late to drag him down to hell.
Is there any meaning at all in the expression : “ the
Almighty Lord ... to whom all things in heaven,
in earth, and under the earth do bow and obey ?”
Where is “ under the earth ?” The sun is under some
part of the earth to some people at any given
time; the stars are under, or above, according to the
point of view from which they are looked at; of course
the expression is only a survival from a time when
the earth was flat and the bottomless pit was under
it, only it seems a pity to continue to use expressions
which have lost all their meaning and are now
thoroughly ridiculous. People seem to think that
any old things are good enough for God’s service.
The last two prayers are remarkable chiefly far
their melancholy and craven tone towards God : “ we
humbly commend,” “most humbly beseeching thee.”
Surely God is not supposed to be an Eastern despot,
desiring this kind of cringing at his feet. Yet the
“ Prayer for persons troubled in mind or in eonsci-
�The Burial of the Dead.
31
ence ” is one pitiful wail, as though only by passionate
entreaty could God be moved to mercy, and he were
longing to strike, and with difficulty withheld from
avenging himself. When will men learn to stand
upright on their feet, instead of thus crouching on
their knees ? when will they learn to strive to live
nobly, and then to fear no celestial anger, either in
life or in death ?
THE ORDER EOR THE BURIAL OF THE
DEAD.
It is a little difficult to write a critical notice of a
funeral office, simply because people’s feelings are so
much bound up in it that any criticism seems a cruelty,
and any interference seems an impertinence. Round
the open grave all controversy should be hushed, that
no jarring sounds may mingle with the sobs of the
mourners, and no quarrels wring the torn hearts
of the survivors. Our criticism of this office, then,
will be brief and grave.
The opening verses strike us first as manifestly
inappropriate: “ Whosoever liveth and believeth in
me shall never die;” yet the dead is then being car
ried to his last home, and the words seem a mockery
spoken in face of a corpse. In the Fourth Gospel they
preface the raising of Lazarus, and of course are then
very significant, but to-day no power raises our dead,
no voice of Jesus says to the mourners, “ Weep not.”
The second verse from Job is—as is well known—an
utter mistranslation: “without my flesh ” would be
nearer the truth than “ in my flesh,” and “ worms ”
and “ body ” are not mentioned in the original at all.
It seems a pity that in such solemn moments known
falsehoods should be used.
�32
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
The whole argument in the 15th chap, of I Corin
thians is the reverse of convincing. Christ is not
the first fruits of them that slept. A dead man had
been raised by touching the bones of Elisha (II Kingsxiii. 21). Elisha, in his lifetime, had raised the dead
son of the Shunamite (II Kings iv.) ; Elijah, before
him, had raised the son of the widow of Zarephath
(I Kings xvii) ; Christ had raised Lazarus, the daugh
ter of Jairus, and the son of the widow of Main. In
no sense, then, if the Scriptures of the Christians
be true, can it be said that Christ has become the first
fruits, the first begotten from the dead. “ For since
by man came death ”; but death did not come by
man; myriads of ages before man was in the world
animals were born, lived, and died, and they have left
their fossilised remains to prove the falsity of the
popular belief. We notice also that “flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” If this be so,
what becomes of “the resurrection of the flesh,”
spoken of in the Baptismal and Visitation Offices ?
What has become of the “flesh and bones” which
Christ had after his resurrection and with which,
according to the 4th Article, he has gone into heaven ?
Cannot Christ “inherit the kingom of God”? It is
hard to see how, in any sense, the resurrection of
Christ can be taken as a proof of the resurrection of
man. Christ was only dead 36 or 37 hours before he
is said to have risen again; there was no time for
bodily decay, no time for corruption to destroy his
frame: how could the restoration to life of a man
whose body was in perfect preservation prove the
possibility of the resurrection of the bodies which
have long since been resolved into their constituent
elements, and have gone to form other bodies, and to
give shape to other modes of existence ? People talk
in such superior fashion of the resurrection that they
never stoop to remember its necessary details, or to
think where is to be found sufficient matter where
�The Burial of the Dead.
33
with to clothe all the human souls on the resurrection
morn. The bodies of the dead make the earth more
productive ; they nourish vegetable existence ; trans
formed into grass they feed the sheep and the cattle;
transformed into these they sustain human beings;
transformed into these they form new bodies once
more, and pass from birth to death, and from death
to birth again, a perfect circle of life, transmuted
by Nature’s alchemy from form to form. No man has
a freehold of his body; he possesses only a life-tenancy,
and then it passes into other hands. The melancholy
dirge which succeeds this chapter sounds like a wail of
despair:, man “hath but a short time to live and is full
of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower;
he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in
one stay.” Can any teaching be more utterly unwhole
some ? It is the confession of the most complete help
lessness, the recognition of the futility of toil. And
then the agonised pleading: “ 0 Lord God most holy, 0
Lord most mighty, 0 holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.”
But if he be most merciful, whence all this need of
weeping and wailing ? If he be most merciful, what
danger can there be of the bitter pains of eternal
death ? And again the cry rises: “ Shut not thy merci
ful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy,
O God most mighty, 0 holy and merciful Saviour,
thou most worthy Judge Eternal, suffer us not, at
our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from
thee.” It is nothing but the wail of humanity, face
to face with the agony of death, feeling its utter help
lessness before the great enemy, and clinging to any
straw which may float within reach of the drowning
grasp; it is the horror of Life facing Death, a horror
that seems felt only by the fully living and not by
the dying; it is the recoil of vigorous vitality from
the silence and chillness of the tomb.
After this comes a sudden change of tone, and the
�34
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
mourners are told of God’s “great mercy” in taking
the departed, and of the “ burden of the flesh,” and
they are bidden to give “ hearty thanks” for the dead
being delivered “ out of the miseries of this sinful
world.’ Can anything be more unreal ? There is
not one mourner there who desires to share in the
great mercy, who wants to be freed from the burden
of the flesh, or desires deliverance from the miseries
of this world. Why should people thus play a farce
beside the grave ? . Do they expect God to believe
them, or to be deceived by such hypocrisy ?
It is urged by some that the Church cannot have a
“ sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal
life” as regards some of those whom she buries with
this service; and it is manifest that, if the Bible be
true, drunkards and others who are to be cast into
the lake of fire, can scarcely rise to eternal life at the
same time, and therefore the Church has no right to
express a hope where God has pronounced condemna
tion. The Rubric only shuts out of the hope the un
baptized, the excommunicated, and the suicide; all
others have a right to burial at her hands, and to the
hope of a joyful resurrection, in spite of the Bible.
We may hope that the day will soon come when
people may die in England and may be buried in
peace without this cry of pain and superstition over
their graves. Wherever cemeteries are within rea
sonable distance the Rationalist may now be buried,
lovingly and reverently, without the echo of that in
which he disbelieved during life sounding over his
grave ; but throughout many small towns and country
villages the Burial Service of the Church is practically
obligatory, and is enforced by clerical bigotry. But
the passing knell of the Establishment sounds clearer
and clearer, and soon those who have rejected her
services in life shall be free from her ministrations at
the tomb.
�
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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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The beauties of the prayer-book. Part II
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Besant, Annie Wood
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 34 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Published anonymously. Author is Annie Besant. Attribution 'My Path to Atheism'. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Thomas Scott
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1876
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CT191
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The beauties of the prayer-book. Part II), 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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Church of England
Religious Practice
Baptism
Book of Common Prayer
Church of England
Communion
Confirmation
Conway Tracts
Funeral services
Marriage
Prayer
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Text
OF PRAYER
G. W. FOOTE.
(Third Edition.)
TWOPENCE.
PRICE
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.G.
1887.
�LONDON :
MINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�fS 2474-
INTRODUCTION.
The following Essay was first published in 1880, and a second
edition was published in 1884, with an introduction dealing with
current illustrations of the doctrine of prayer. In issuing this third
edition I rewrite that Introduction, bringing the subject “up to
date.”
My Essay was originally entitled 77/e Futility of Prayer, but the second
edition bore the more forcible title of The Folly of Prayer. I am con
vinced that Heine was right when he said that “ the superfluous is
harmful.” Progress is so huge a task, so arduous, and so painful, that
any diversion of human energy into unprofitable channels is a disaster.
If prayer is futile, it is a folly.
I omitted in my Essay to mention the recovery of the Prince of
Wales from gastric fever, many years ago, and the National Thanks
giving Service held in St. Paul’s Cathedral. What orgies of religious
excitement were worked up by the London press, and notably by that
eminently pious journal, the Daily Telegraph ! How we were bidden
tofwatch the great national wave of prayer surging against the throne
of grace! Thanks to a good constitution, and the highest medical
skill, the Prince recovered. But the clergy insisted that his recovery
was due to prayer. Accordingly they organised a stupendous farce at
St. Paul’s, where they thanked God for his marvellous mercy. But
amidst all the delirium the authorities retained a little sagacity. The
doctors were handsomely rewarded, and one of them was elevated to
the dignity of a knight. Deity received the empty praise, and the
phvsiciansthe solid pudding.
Several years after that interesting event, President Garfield was
assassinated by a wretched being, whose mind was diseased with vanity
and religion. Week after week science fought with death over the
President’s sick bed, while prayers for his recovery were offered up in
every church and chapel in the United States. But his life ebbed
slowly away amid a people’s supplications. If prayer saved the life of
�Introduction.
the P rince of Wales, why did it not save the life of President Garfield ?
Is God a respecter of persons? Or is the Deity so monarchical that
he will not succor the President of a Republc ? It is difficult to see
how the fatality of Guiteau’s bullet can be explained, without denying
the effioac y of prayer, or impeaching the character of God.
When France and Italy were visited by the cholera, in 1884, it
naturally excited the popular superstition. Religious processions and
public prayers to the Virgin were frequently demanded, but the civic
authorities resisted these pious clamors, and it is a remarkable fact that
they were usually supported by the higher priests, who were sensible
enough to perceive that excitement would render the multitude more
susceptible to the plague. There can be litttle doubt that, if England
were visited by the plague, our higher clergy would exhibit the same
prudence, although our Prayer Book contains a form of “prayer in
time of sickness.”
During the present year the north of Italy and the south of France
have suffered from earthquakes. But while the gambling hell of Monte
Carlo was scarcely shaken, the sacred edifices of many other towns
have been injured or demolished. The inhabitants of Bajardo fled
from their dwellings at the first shock, and assembled in the parish
church, where they fell on their knees, and implored the divine pro
tection. The priests and the people were praying with one voice, when
the celestial answer arrived. A fresh wave of earthquake rent the
walls, and the roof fell in on the devoted crowd, killing three hundred,
and mutilating as many more.
Such an appalling illustration of the folly of prayer might be thought
sufficient to destroy the doctrine. But superstition is not so easily
extinguished. Faith is superior to logic, and there is always a loophole
for the Deity's c scape. Prayer is like the quick-tongued gambler ; it
plays on the principle of “ heads I win, tails you lose.” All the facts
on one side are counted, and all on the other side neglected.
There is even a subtler form of the same irrationality. It is
sometimes said that God helps those who help themselves. We
must trust in God, but we must also keep our powder dry. This
exhortation, however, loses sight of the very essence of the
problem. The deity is supplicated when our own resources fail,
and it is certainly absurd to credit another being, however exalted,
with the fruits of our own wisdom, our own courage, and our
own strength. Such a one-sided doctrine is not too severely
atirised in the following epigram by James Thomson :
�Introduction.
“ God helpeth him who helps himself,
They preach to us as a fact,
Which seems to lay up God on the shelf,
And leave the man to act.
Whish seems to mean—You do the work,
Have all the trouble and pains,
While God, that indolent grand Old Turk,
Gets credit for the gains.”
It may be safely said that there is very little practical belief in the
efficacy of prayer among the clergy themselves. Whole regiments of the
Black Army may be seen at places like Bath, in search of health and
rich widows. When they fall ill they act like other men. They con
sult Dr. Science instead of Dr. Providence, and leave the Lord’s vine
yard for the seaside. Faith is the same in both places, but the air is
different, and it is a curious fact in religious chemistry that prayer is
more efficacious when it is taken with oxygen than when it is taken
with carbonic acid gas.
Mr. Spurgeon, for instance, is accounted one of the most orthodox
preachers of our age. He maintains all the time-honored doctrines of
Christianity, and among them the efficacy of prayer. But his own
practice is a curious commentary on his teaching. Whenever he is
troubled by his old acquaintance the gout, he rushes off to Mentone,
and leaves his congregation at home to pray for him ; and as soon as the
Mediterranean air and sunshine have given him relief, he writes to the
Tabernacle “ Beloved, the Lord has heard our prayers.” The
unctuous hypocrisy of all this would be beneath contempt, if religion
were not such a lively influence for evil. Not 'only could God cure
Mr. Spurgeon’s gout in South London as easily as in the South of
France, but he might extend his divine assistance to the myriad suf
ferers from disease in the back-streets and slums of the metropolis, who
do-not earn a few thousands a year by preaching the gospel, and are
unable to take a month’s holiday at a fashionable watering-place.
�THE FOLLY OF PRAYER.
“ Thebe was,” says Luther in his Table Talk, “ a great drought, as
it had not rained for a long time, and the grain in the field began
to dry up, when Dr. M. L. prayed continually and said finally with
heavy sighs : 0 Lord, pray regard our petition in behalf of thy
promise. ... I know that we cry to thee and sigh desirously ; ivhy
dost thou not hear us ? And the very next night there came a
very fine fruitful rain.” From Luther to Sammy Hicks the Yorkshireman is a fap cry, but an episode of his history somewhat
resembles this naive story of the great Reformer. Sammy Hicks
was a miller and a Methodist, and once while looking forward to a
Love Feast, at which cakes were consumed, he was sorely troubled
by a dead calm that lasted for days together,'and caused a complete
stoppage of his windmill. It so happened that all the flour was
exhausted before the calm was broken, and on the very eve of the
Love Feast there was none left for the cakes. In this extremity
recourse was had to prayer. Sammy himself, who excelled in that
line, petitioned Heaven for a breath of wind to fill his sails. In a
few moments the cheeks of the suppliants were fanned by a gentle
zephyr, which rapidly grew to a strong breeze. Around went the
sails of Sammy’s mill, until enough flour was ground to make the
Love Feast cakes, when the wind suddenly subsided and died away
as miraculously as it came.
How amusing are both Luther and Sammy Hicks, in these
instances, to the educated minds of to-day! Yet amongst, the
ignorant and those who are not imbued with the spirit of Science,
the old superstition of prayer still lingers, and ever and anon betrays
itself in speech and act. Whatever remnant of superstition exists
the priests are very careful to foster. Accordingly, whenever an
opportunity occurs, they stimulate popular folly and make them
selves the laughing-stock or contempt of the wise and thoughtful.
In Catholic countries the miracles of the Middle Ages are even now,
in this age of railways and electric telegraphs, repeated before the
shrines of new-fangled saints. Pilgrims journey to Lourdes and
other holy places, where the credulity of the multitude is equalled
by the imposture of their priests. The blood of St. Januarius still
liquefies annually at Naples, precious relics heal all manner of
�The Folly of Prayer.
7
diseases, and the Virgin appears to prayerful peasants and hysterical
nuns. In England these things do not happen, for there is not
faith enough to make them possible. Yet here also the Catholic
priests get souls out of purgatory by the saying of masses which
have to be duly paid for; and our own Protestant priests, who have
relinquished almost every peculiar function of their office, still
retain one, that of standing between us and bad weather. We may
call them our Kain Doctors, a name applied to the African medicine
men, who beat gongs and dance and shout to scare off the sun and
bring down rain when the land is parched with drought. The
difference between a bishop of the English Church praying for sun
shine and an African medicine-man howling for wet, is purely
accidental and nowise intrinsic. Intellectually they stand on the
same level, the sole difference being that one goes through his per
formance in a vulgar and the other in a high-bred fashion. Perhaps
there is another difference ; one may be honest and the other dis
honest, one sincere and the other hypocritical. Cato wondered how
two augurs could meet without laughter, and probably it would be
comical to witness the meeting of two friendly parsons after a lusty
bout of prayer for fine weather.
In 1879 we were afflicted with a descent of rain scarcely paral
leled in the century. Through the spring and through the summer
the deluge persisted, and each month seemed to bring more violent
storms than its predecessors. Yet our Hain Doctors kept as quiet as
mice. Perhaps they reflected that it was scarcely politic to pray
for sunshine until the Americans had ceased to telegraph the
approach of fresh tempests. How different from the African Bain
Doctors, who will pray for rain while the sun glares torrid and
implacable, and no cloudlet mitigates the awful azure of heaven !
But, deceived by a brief spell of fine weather in the middle of July,
they suddenly plucked up courage and proceeded to counsel Omni
science. The result was woeful. On the very next Sunday after
prayers for fine weather began to be offered, a terrific storm burst
over the land, and for weeks after the rain was almost incessant.
During one week in August only seventeen hours of sunshine were
registered in London.
The harvest was spoiled, about forty
million pounds’ worth of produce was lost to the country, and
farmers looked in the face of ruin.
This was the answer to
prayer !
Yet the votaries of superstition and their priestly abettors will
not admit the futility of prayer. Their reasoning is like the
gambler’s “ heads I win, tails you lose ” ! All the facts that tell
for their case are allowed to count, and all that tell against it are
excluded. If what they pray for happens, that proves the efficacy
�8
The Folly of Prayer.
of prayer ; if it does not happen, that proves nothing at all. Such
is the logic of superstition in every age and clime.
Notwithstanding the occasional outbursts of our Rain Doctors,
it is evident that the docrine of Prayer is being gradually refined
away, like many other doctrines of theology. It originated in
simpler times, when people thought that something tangible could
be got by it. Whenever danger or difficulty confronted our bar
barous ancestors, they naturally looked to the god or gods of their
faith for assistance. If any transcendental philosopher or mystical
theologian had told them that prayer was not a practical request
but a spiritual aspiration, they would have answered with a stare
of astonishment. Even the New Testament embodies the belief of
the savage, although in a slightly refined form, and the Lord’s
Prayer contains a distinct request for daily bread. Before the
advent of science, when men ignorantly and unskilfully wrestled
with the 'manifold evils of fife, their prayers for aid were grimly
earnest, and often the last cry of despair. Fire, earthquake, flood,
famine, and pestilence, afflicted them sorely ; often they gazed
blankly on sheer ruin ; and in lifting their supplicating hands and
eyes and voice, they besought no spiritual anodyne, but a real out
ward relief. The hand of supernatural power was expected to
visibly interpose on their behalf. Now, however, the idea of prayer
is greatly changed for all save a few fools or fanatics. Educated
Christians, for the most part, do not appear to think that objective
miracles are wrought in answer to prayer. They think that now
God only works subjective miracles, and by operating upon men’s
hearts, produces results that would not happen in the natural
course of things. According to this subtler form of superstition,
outward circumstances are never interfered with, but our inward
condition is changed to suit them. Thus, if a ship were speeding
onward to some fatal danger of simoon or sunken reef, God would
not alter the circuit of the storm, or remove the rocks from the
ship’s path, but if he deigned to interpose would work upon the
captain’s mind and induce him to deviate from his appointed course.'
If an innocent man were sentenced to be hung, God would not
break’the rope or strike the executioner blind, but he might influ
ence the Home Secretary to grant a reprieve. Or if in a thunder
storm we had sought the shelter of a tree, God would not divert
the lightning, although he might, just before it struck the tree,
whisper that we had better move on.
This last refinement of the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer is
very intelligible to the psychologist. Physical science has thoroughly
demonstrated the reign of law in the material universe, and
educated people are indisposed to look for miracles in that direc-
�The Folly of Troyer.
9
tion, notwithstanding the occasional attempts of our rain doctors
to cure bad weather with spiritual medicines. But mental science
has produced much less effect. Man’s mind is still supposed to be
a chaos, haunted and mysteriously influenced by a phantasmal free
will. Save by a few philosophers and students, the reign of law is
not suspected to obtain there. Accordingly the miracles which
were thought to occur in the material world are now relegated to
the spiritual world—a ghoul-haunted region wherein there survives
a home for them. Yet progress is being made here also, and we1
may confidently predict that as miracles have been banished from
the domain of matter, so they will be banished from the domain of
mind. The reign of law, it will be perceived, is universal within us
as without us. It is manifested alike in the growth of a blade of
grass and in the silent procession of the stars ; alike in tumult and
in peace, in the loud overwhelming storm or engulphing earth
quake, and in the soft-falling rain or golden sunshine nurturing
the grass in a thousand valleys and ripening the harvest on a
thousand plains ; and no less apparent in the noblest leaps of
passion and the highest flights of thought, but binding all things
in one harmonious whole, so that the brain of Shakespeare and tne
heart of Buddha acknowledge kinship with the mountains, waves
and skies.
e
Meanwhile the sceptic asks the believer in prayer to justify it,
and show that it is not merely a superstitious and foolish waste of
energy. The proper spirit in which to approach this subject is the
rational and not the credulous. The efficacy of prayer is a question
to be decided by the methods of science. If efficacious, prayer is a
cause, and its presence may be detected by experiment or investiga
tion. The experimental method is the best, but there is difficulty
in applying it as the believers perversely refuse to undertake their
share of the process. Professor Tyndall on behalf (I think) of Sir
Henry Thompson, has proposed that a ward in some hospital should
be set apart, and the patients in it specially prayed for, so that it
might be ascertained whether more cures were effected in it than
in other wards containing similar patients, and tended by the same
medical and nursing skill. This proposal the theologians fought
shy of ; and one of them (Dr. Littledale) gravely rebuked Professor
Tyndall for presuming to think that God Almighty would submit
to be made the subject of a scientific experiment. Theologically
there is much force in this objection, although scientifically and
morally there is none. A universal Father would assuredly welcome
such a test of his goodness, but the proud irascible God of theology
would be sure to frown upon it, and signalise his preference for the
fine old plan of closing our eyes while opening our mouths to
�10
The Folly of Prayer.
receive his benefactions. There is a way, however, to take him at
it were by a side-wind. There are certain things impossible even
to Omnipotence. Sidney Smith (I think) said that God himself
could not make a clock strike less than one. Nor can any power
revoke what has already occurred.
“Not heaven itself upon the past has power,”
as Dryden tells us. The past is irrevocable, and we may investi
gate it for the purpose of ascertaining whether prayer has been
efficacious, without the least fear of being baffled by any power in
the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the
earth. People have prayed enough in the past—far more, indeed,
than they are likely to pray in the future—and if we find that their
prayers have been futile, the whole question at issue must be con
sidered as practically decided in the negative.
Let us dismiss all appeals to individual experience, and deal only
with broad classes of facts. It is quite impossible in any particular
case to determine whether prayer has been answered or not, even
when the object besought has been wholly obtained. A single
result is so often produced by a combination of causes, some obvious
and direct, and others obscure and indirect, that we cannot abso
lutely say whether the natural agencies have operated alone or in
conjunction with a supernatural power. If after long and fervent
prayers a precious life has been spared, it cannot be affirmed that
prayer was a cause of the recovery, since the sick person might,
have recovered without it. Nor, on the other hand, can it be
affirmed that prayer was not a cause, since the sick person might,
have died without it. Our ignorance in such cases precludes us
from deciding one way or the other. The only way to neutralise
this is to examine general categories, to take whole classes of
persons, and see whether those who pray get what they ask for any
more than those who do not pray, or if classes of persons who are
prayed for by others are more favored than those who enjoy no
such advantage.
Pursuing this line of inquiry, Mr. Francis Galton, the author of
a remarkable work on “Hereditary Genius,” was led many years
ago to collect and collate statistics relative to the subject of prayer,
which he subsequently published in the Fortnightly Review of
August, 1872. Mr. Galton’s article did not, so far as I am aware,
attract the attention it deserved. Its facts and conclusions are of
great importance, and the remainder of my own essay will be
largely indebted to it.
Let us take first the case of recovery from sickness. It has been
frequently remarked that sickness is more afflictive than death
�The Folly of Tray er.
11
itself, and it is common for persons who suffer from it, if they are
at all of a religious turn of mind, to pray for relief and restoration
to health. Their relatives also pray for them. However pious men
may be, they always submit to Omniscience their own view of the
case when their lives are in the least degree endangered; and how
ever fervently they believe in the eternal and ineffable felicities of
heaven, they are scarcely ever content to leave this vale of tears.
They desire as long a continuance of life on this earth as the sceptic
does. Often, indeed, they repine far more than the sceptic at the
ordinance of fate. Now, as a matter of fact, is it found that
pious persons of a prayerful disposition recover from sickness more
frequently than worldly persons who are not in the habit of praying
at all? If so, the medical profession would long ago have dis
covered it, and prayer would have taken a recognised place among
sanative agencies. On this point Mr. Galton writes as follows :—
“ The medical works of modern Europe teem with records of individual
illnesses and of broad averages of disease, but I have been able to discover
hardly any instance in which a medical man of any repute has attributed
recovery to the influence of prayer. There is not a single instance, to^my
knowledge, in which papers read before statistical societies have recognised
the agency of prayer either on disease or on anything else. The universal
habit of the scientific world to ignore the agency of prayer is a very important
fact. To fully appreciate the ‘ eloquence of the silence ’ of medical men, we
must bear in mind the care with which they endeavor to assign a sanitary
value to every influence. Had prayers for the sick any notable effect, it is
incredible but that the doctors, who are always on the watch for such things,
should have observed it, and added their influence to that of the priests
towards obtaining them for every sick man. If they abstain from doing so,
it is not because their attention has never been awakened to the possible
efficacy of prayer, but, on the contrary, that although they have heard jt
insisted on from childhood upwards, they are unable to detect its influence.”
It thus appears that prayer is a medicine only in the pharma
copoeia of the priests. Many doctors rather dislike it. A medical
friend of mine, who hated the sight of a parson, used always to
keep any member of the clerical fraternity waiting outside the
sick-room door in extreme cases, until it was certain that death
would supervene. He would then allow the reverend gentleman to
go through his performance, knowing that he could do harm. My
friend said that when his patients required absolute repose their
nerves were often agitated in his absence by obtrusive and officious
priests.
A class of persons who are specially and generally prayed for are
kings and queens and other members of royal families. A high
value is always set on things which cost a great deal. Royal per
sonages are very expensive, and we naturally esteem and love them
according to their cost. Animated by an amiable desire that they
�12
The Folly of Prayer.
may long live to spend the money we delight to shower upon them, '
we pray that God will prolong their existence beyond that of ordinary
mortals. “ Grant her in health and wealth long to live,” is the
prayer offered up for the Queen in our State churches, and the
same petition is made in hundreds of Nonconformist chapels. If,
then, there be any efficacy in prayer, kings should enjoy a greater
longevity than their subjects. We do not, however, find this to be
the case. The average age of ninety-seven members of royal houses
who lived from 1758 to 1843, and survived their thirtieth year,
was 54-04 years, which is nearly two years less than the average
age of the shortest-lived of the well-to-do classes, and more than
six years less than that of the longest. Sovereigns are literally the
shortest lived of all who have the advantage of affluence. In their
case it is evident that prayer has been absolutely of no avail.
Another class of men very much prayed for are the clergy. They
pray for themselves, and as they all profess to be called to the
ministry by the Holy Ghost their prayers should be unusually effica
cious. If there be any faith capable of removing mountains, they
should possess it. If the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
much, the fervent prayer of a parson should avail exceedingly.
Now the clergy pray not for spiritual light and help, but also for
temporal blessings. They like to prosper here as well as hereafter,
and are adepts in the sublime art, reprobated by Jesus but lumi
nously expounded and forcibly commended by Dr. Binney, of making
the best of both worlds. They believe in heaven, but are in no
haste to get there, being content to defer occupation of the heavenly "
mansions in store for them until they can no longer inhabit the
snug residences provided for them here. With a laudable desire
to enjoy the bird-in-the-hand to the uttermost before resorting to
the bird-in-the-bush, which is sure to await their convenience, they
naturally pray for health, and therefore long life, since health and
longevity are inseparable friends. Yet we do not find that they
live longer than their less pious brethren. The average age attained
to by the clergy from 1758 to 1843, according to Mr. Galton’s
statistics, was 69-49 years, while that of lawyers was 68-14, and of
medical men 67-31. Here is a slight advantage on the side of the
clergy, but it is amply accounted for by the greater ease and com
fort so many of them enjoy, and the general salubrity of their
surroundings.
The difference is, however, reversed when a
comparison is made between distinguished members of the three
classes—that is to say, between persons of sufficient note to have
had their lives recorded in a biographical dictionary. Then we
find the respective mean ages of the clergy, lawyers and doctors, are
66-42, 66-51 and 67-04, the clergy being the shortest lived of the
�The Folly of Prayer.
13
three. Thus they succumb sooner than the members of secular
professions to a heavy demand on their energies. Prayer does not
protect them from sickness, does not recover them when they are
laid low, or in the least prolong their precious lives. They are no
more favored than the ungodly; one fate befalls them both. In
their case also prayer has been absolutely of no avail.
The same law obtains with regard to missionaries. They are not
miraculously protected from sickness or danger, from perils by night
or the pestilence that walketh by day. The duration of life among
them is accurately proportioned to the hazards of their profession.
Yet theirs is a case wherein prayer should be peculiarly effectual.
Arriving in a remote region of the earth, they are almost powerless
until they have acquired a thorough knowledge of the language
and habits of the people. They are engaged in the Lord’s work,
and if any persons are watched over by him they should be. Yet
at dangerous stations one missionary after another dies shortly
after arrival, and their efforts are thus literally wasted, while the
work naturally suffers because the Lord does not economise the
missionary power which has been provided for it. Ships also have
sunk with missionaries on board before they could even reach their
destination ; and the Lord has so far refrained from working sub
jective miracles on their behalf, that missionaries have been in some
cases digested in the stomachs of the very savages whose souls they
had journeyed thousands of miles to convert.
Parents are naturally very anxious as to their offspring, and it
is to be presumed that the children of pious fathers and mothers
are earnestly and constantly prayed for. This solicitude antedates
birth, it being generally deemed a misfortune for a child to be
still-born, and often a serious evil for death to deprive it of baptism,
without which salvation is difficult if not impossible. In extreme
•cases the Catholic Church provided for the baptism of the child in
the womb. Yet the prayers of pious parents are not found to
-exercise any appreciable influence. Mr. Galton analysed the lists
of the Record and the Times of a particular period, and the propor
dion of still-births to the total number of deaths was discovered to
be exactly the same in both. A more conclusive test than this
could scarcely be devised.
Our nobility are another class especially prayed for. The pre
scription for their case may be found in the Church Liturgy. In
a worldly sense they are undoubtedly very prosperous ; they live
on the fat of the land, and enjoy all kinds of privileges. But these
are not the advantages we ask God to bestow upon them ; we pray
“ that the nobility may be endued with grace, wisdom and under
standing.” And what is the result ? The history of our glorious
�14
The Folly of Prayer.
aristocracy shows them to have always been singularly devoid of
“ grace,” in the religious sense of the word; and they have mani
fested a similar plentiful lack of “wisdom and understanding.”
Even in politics, despite their exceptional training and opportunities,
they have been beaten by unprayed-for commoners. Cromwell,
Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Canning, all arose outside the sacred
precincts of nobility. Gladstone is the son of a Liverpool merchant,
and Earl Beaconsfield was the son of a literary Jew. In science,
philosophy, literature and art, how few aristocrats have distinguished
themselves! Further, as Mr. Galton points out, “wisdom and
understanding ” are incompatible with insanity. Yet our nobility
are not exempted from that frightful scourge. On the contrary,
owing to their intermarriages, and the lack of those wholesome
restraints felt in humbler walks of life, they are peculiarly liable
to it. Clearly the aristocracy have not been benefited by our
prayers.
Let us now turn to another aspect of the question. How is it
that insurance companies make no allowance for prayers ? When
a man wishes to insure his life, confidential questions are asked
about his antecedents and his present condition, but the question,
“ Does he habitually pray ?” is never ventured. Yet, if prayer
conduces to health and longevity, this question is of great import
ance ; nay, of the very greatest; for what are hereditary tendencies
to disease, or the physical effects of previous modes of living, to a
man under the especial protection of God ? Insurance offices,
however, eliminate prayer from their calculations. They do not
recognise it as a sanitary influence, and this fact proves that there
is no efficacy in prayer or that its efficacy is so slight as to be
altogether inappreciable.
Suppose the owner of two ships, similarly built and rigged, and
bound for the same port, wanted to insure them for the voyage ;
and suppose the one ship had a pious captain and crew taken redhot from a Methodist prayer-meeting, while the captain and crew
of the other ship, although excellent seamen, never entered a place
of worship, never bent their knees in prayer, and never spoke of
God except to take his name in vain. Would any difference be
made in the rate of insurance ? Assuredly not. And if the owner,
being a soft-headed sincere Christian, should say to the agent:
“ But, my dear sir, the ship with the pious captain and crew, who
will certainly pray for their safety every day, runs much less risk
than the other, for the Lord has promised that he will answer
prayer, that he will watch over those who trust him, and that what
soever they ask, believing, that they shall receive,” what would the
answer be ? Probably this : “ My dear sir, as a Christian I admit
�The Folly of Prayer.
15
the truth of what you say, but I can’t mix up my religion with my
business. That sort of thing is all very well in church on Sunday,
you know, but it doesn’t do any other day in the week down in the
City.”
The decline and final extinction of belief in ordeals and duels
is an episode in the history of prayer. Both these superstitious
processes were appeals to God to decide what was indeterminable
by human logic. In the ordeal of jealousy, so revoltingly set forth
in the fifth chapter of Numbers, the same curious concoction was
given to all suspected wives, and the difference in the effect pro
duced was attributable solely to the interposition of God. The
same idea prevailed in other forms during the chaotic Middle Ages,
notably in connection with the witch mania. Some idea of the
critical ability which accompanied it may be gathered from the fact
that “ witches ” were often tied at the hands and feet, and thrown
into the nearest pond or river : if they swam they were guilty, and
at once burnt or hung, and if they sank they were innocent, but of
course they were drowned! The duel was explicitly sanctioned
and sometimes commanded by the ecclesiastical and secular autho
rities, and it was devoutly believed that God would give the victory
to the just and overthrow the wrong. This belief has died out,
but a reflex of it exists in the fond idea, not yet wholly discarded,
that the God of battles fights on the side of his favorites. Only
the simpletons think thus, and only the charlatans of clericalism
abet them. All the praying in the world is powerless against
superior tactics, more scientific arms, greater numbers, and better
discipline. Victory, as Napoleon remarked, is on the side of the
heaviest battalions ; and prayer, as a counteractant to such advan
tages, is just as efficacious as the celebrated pill to cure earthquakes.
Driven from all tangible strongholds by inevitable logic, the
believers in prayer take final refuge in their cloud-citadel of faith.
They maintain that there is a spiritual if not a material efficacy in
prayer, that communion with God exalts and purifies their inner
nature, and thus indirectly influences the course of events. “ Cer
tainly,” says a man of magnificent genius, though not a Materialist,
“it does alter him who prays, and alters him supremely, changing
despair into hope, confusion into steady light, timidity into confi
dence, cowardice into courage, hatred into love, and the genius of
compromise into the spirit of martyrdom.”* Far be it from me to
deny this. It is attested by the life and death of many a patient
saint and martyred hero. But the God communed with has been
after all not a person, but a lofty ideal, varying in each according
* Dr Garth Wilkinson, Human Science awl Divine Revelation, p. ■8).
�16
The Folly of Prayer,
to the greatness and purity of his nature. A similar communion,
in essence the very same, is possible to the Humanitarian, who feels
himself descended from the endless past, bound to the living and
working present, and in a measure the parent of an endless future.
His ideal of an ever-striving and ever-conquering Humanity,
emerging generation after generation into loftier levels, and
leaving at its feet the lusts and follies of its youth, serves him
instead of a personal God; and in moments snatched from the
hot strife of the world he can commune with it, either through its
.great poets and prophets, or solely through the vision of his own
higher self, which is essential humanity within him, and thus find
serenity and ennoblement of resolve. This communion, into which
religious prayer may ultimately merge, will survive, because while
inspiring it does not outrage intellect and fact. The laws of nature
will not be suspended to suit our needs; for—•
“ Nature with equal mind
Sees all her sons at play;
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away 1
Allows the proudly riding and the foundered bark.”*
But “ the music born of love,” as another poet tells us, will “ ease
the world’s immortal pain.” Finding no help outside ourselves,
seeing no Providence to succor and comfort the afflicted, no hand
to lift up the down-trodden and establish the weak, to wipe the
tears from sorrowing eyes and convey balm to wounded hearts ;
knowing that except we listen the wail of human anguish is un
heard, and that unless we give it no aid can come ; we shall feel
more imperative upon us the duties and holy charities of life. If
the world’s misery cannot be assuaged by. fatherly love from heaven,
all the more need is there for brotherly love on earth.
♦ Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna.
Printed and Published by G. W. Foote at 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The folly of prayer
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 3rd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. First published 1880 under title The futility of prayer; 2nd ed. 1884. Printed and published by G.W. Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
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Progressive Publishing Company
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1887
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N239
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Prayer
Religious practice
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Prayer
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Text
By One who Endured It.
BASED UPON A MS. IN THE POSSESSION OF
LONDON:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON STREET, E.C.
�I
1
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—i rm 0ffH.WlT1
IMr-v^»r'i**wninr*u)i/y^jCW<-yt >4^. r
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�i 3^ ;
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
A week or two ago, commenting on an exceedingly
polite and urbane letter addressed to me by Julia Hey
wood, nee Fraser, I hinted that I had more MSS. in the
strong and distinctive handwriting of her late father, and
that her provoking courtesy and politeness might tempt
me to publish them. I had hoped to be able to silently
recede from my minatory hint, and leave the soft-spoken
wife of the Rev. Mr. Heywood undisturbed by further
posthumous publication of her father’s MSS. I felt
somewhat regretful at having published “The Agonies
of Hanging” memoir of Major F------, and, in the
interests of peace and amicability, I said to myself:
“Poor Julia! in memory of young and happy days of
auld lang syne, I cannot vex her. When I was a
chubby-cheeked and callow boy, trudging to school with
my leathern satchel on my back, she was to me an elder
sister. When from boyhood I developed into a senti
mental, romantic, dreamy, and erratic lad, and left my
old haunts for roaring Glasgow and its then dingy uni
versity in High Street, it was unmistakeable that she
regarded me in a light more chivalrously tender than
that in which sisters regard their brothers. And—shall
I admit it ?—when in Glasgow I wrote her letters which
I should not be ashamed of even now, should she elect
to disentomb and publish them. Well I know that,
should she give them publicity, my readers would have
many a joke, numerous sneers, and not a few laughs at
�4
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
my expense; but I have got accustomed to being:
sneered at and innured to being laughed at, and the
reading at this mature date of the letters which, in my
burning adolescence, I addressed to Julia Fraser would
irradiate with the glow of boyhood my now murky sky,
awake the dormant throb of passion in my callous heart,
scatter my now barren path with the roses and honey
suckles I was wont to twine in her hair, and fling over
the thought-worn brow of middle life the romantic halo
of love’s young dream. But most likely Julia consigned
my letters to the fire many years ago. Letters signed
‘Heavenly Julia, Yours eternally, W. Stewart Ross,’
are not letters which a clergyman’s wife would be likely
to retain and cherish. I have taken some pains that •
fK Stewart Ross should be a name that clergymen
should have little reason to love. No doubt the wife of
the Rev. Mr. Heywood has destroyed my letters. Poor
Julia ! Many a time, over the midnight and post-mid
night gas, her dear idea and her poetic vision visited me
in my student’s lonely room. Her face peered out from
between the rolling lines of Homer ■ and even sines and
cosines, the processes of surds and the mysteries of the
calculus, were not strangers to the flutter of her skirts
and the perfume and flashing radiance of her hair.
Then, throwing my books aside, I would lift one of the
slippers she worked for me (I never wore these slippers ;
they were too sacred to be soiled by my study floor) and
kiss it, and—shall I own it?—bedew it with the tears of
a poetic, ardent, and impetuous boy. Julia, I am sorry
I published that scrap from your father’s writings. I
will publish no more !”
The above was my soliloquy on Monday evening last
as I sat with my elbows on my desk, burying my face in
my hands. My brain was full of old and tender
memories, my heart replete with unwonted emotions,
when my reverie was rudely broken by the sharp metallic
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
5
■clack-clack ! which announces that the postman is at
the door, and that letters are falling into the letter-box
—letters of praise and letters of blame—to the earnest
if erring man who writes over the name of Saladin.
The servant brought up the letters on a tray. There
was one that at once arrested my eye. It was in the, to
me, never-to-be-forgotten handwriting of Julia. I tore it
open and read it. It will be found reproduced in
another page. Rightly or wrongly, I cried “ Damn!”
*
struck my fist violently on the desk, and resolved to
place before the public more of her father’s MSS. I am
•to be led, but I am not to be driven; I will brook to be
advised, but I will not submit to be defied by either
man or woman. I reproduce “ The Thrashing Machine ”
in defiance of the parson’s horsewhip, the menace in
regard to the criminal court, and the fate of them who
joined in the gainsaying of Kor.
The MS., a printed copy of which I am about to
subjoin, was, along with a large bundle of others, for
warded to me by Julia herself. The messengerf who
carried the package is still alive'. I asked him to my
hotel last time I was in the North, and had a talk with
him about old times. I, moreover, still possess the note
Julia sent along with the packet. Since she went so far
as to suggest that I stole the MS. I formerly published, I
shall take ample care that she shall .not be able to allege
that I stole this one. In self-defence, I feel compelled
to publish the letter which accompanied the package :—Dunder Hall, Tuesday evening.
Beloved Ross,I—Herewith receive, by the hands of Andrew, a
bundle of Dad’s scribbles. He was a daft man, and you are a daft
lad (but a dear, dear ducky all the same !), and let us hope that the
* See Appendix.
+ Andrew Edgar.
t She always called me Ross. I objected to being called Willie.
It had been the name borne by a previous lover of hers.
�6
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
daft darling will understand the daft Dad. Do whatever you like
with the scribbles. Dad used nasty blue paper, and browned it all
over with whiskey and snuff, or I should have used the whole clam*
jawphery to put my hair in curls. You can light the school fire
with them or light the world with them, whichever way you please.
The Irvings have got a gig. I have finished Grant’s “ Harry
Ogilvie.” Glorious 1 The hair-comb ran a long way into my
head : it was too bad of you. The ode is splendour (sic)—better
than that you wrote to pale-faced Agg ; but the fifth line won’t fit
the piano—nearly breaks it. Put that line right, like a dear.
Caught cold sitting on that damp stone, although you put your
handkerchief on it. Friday—old place—old time. It wil be
eternity till then. Don’t bring again that devil of a dirty dog.
Kisses when we meet. Don’t forget your .great coat and your
strong boots. With sincerest love, from everlasting to everlasting,
I am, beloved Ross,
Yours,
Julia.
MAJOR F----- ’j MS.
Ever since my boyhood I have busied myself in
humanitarian pursuits. Even when I was a little fellow
in the sixth form I went out one evening and saw two
broad-haunched, broad-shouldered, rosy-faced, yellow
haired, spanking huzzies driving home the cows of a
neighbouring farmer. They were the very sort of lassies
who had borne sons for Bannockburn. Either of them
could have taken the ordinary Cockney clerk and bent
him over her knee as easily as a Cockney clerk would
bend a hazel wand. On went the cows before and the
girls behind. The former lowed as they had done in
Bashan or Arcadia three thousand years before, and the
latter sang—sang as the angels sang when the world was
newly born, and before singing-masters, or even crotchets
and quavers, had yet been invented. The Ettrick Shep
herd’s songs had just begun to take root in his native
* A wrongly-spelt word of Northern etymology, ancl with little
or no meaning.
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
7
land, and it was one of his songs that his two country
women sang as, with loose hair and swinging step, and
their petticoats kilted to their knees, they strode up the
loaning behind the cows :—
“ ’Tis not beneath the burgonet,
Nor yet beneath the crown ;
’Tis not on couch of velvet,
Nor yet on bed of down ;
It is beneath the spreading birk,
In the glen without a name,
Wi’ a bonnie, bonnie lassie,
When the kye come hame.
What is the greatest bliss
That the tongue o’ man can name ?
’Tis to woo a bonnie lassie
When the kye come hame. ”
I am not sure but it was on that occasion I first fell in
love. The odorous breath of the cows, the fragrance
which the zephyr wafted from the valley below where the
bean was in bloom, the solemn hush of the twilight
hour, and that idyllic song of the milk-maids warmed me
and charmed me till I wandered far away from the school
to the byre into which the cows and the lassies dis
appeared. I, too, went into the byre, the lassies taking
little notice of me, doubtless thinking me too young to
engage their serious attention in any way.
“Jenny,” at last faltered T timidly to the lassie that
had charmed me most; “Jenny, I love you;” and, in
the words of the refrain of a song that ran in my head,
and will you “ meet me by moonlight alone ?”
Jenny set down her milk-pail from her lap, and, fling
ing back her wealth of unkempt hair, looked up at me
with her beaming, healthy, happy, and innocent face,
and said, with a bewitching smile, “Yes, little boy, I
will meet you; but who is to milk the cows ? If you
can invent something to milk the cows, I will meet you.”
“ Thank you, dear Jenny,” said I; and I timidly
�8
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
kissed the upturned face of the milk-maid. “ I will not,
Jenny,” quoth I, waving my hand in adieu; “ I will not
return till I have invented something to milk the cows
while we are gone.”
With the vague uneasiness of premature love, I
wandered back through the dewy grass and through the
bean fields, and arrived at the school too late for evening
prayers, but not too late to receive a sound thrashing
for being absent without leave. I was packed off to bed
sobbing and supperless, and lay nearly all night awake
thinking about Jenny, and planning the invention for
milking the cows while she should “ meet me by moon
light alone.” All next day I had a practice sum on the
one side of my slate and plans for a milking-machine on
the other. Whenever an usher came near I pretended
to be working at the practice sum; but I was really
engaged upon the milking-machine. At the end of
three days I had struck upon a plan which I felt sure
would work. All that was now wanted was to get the
proper materials together, and the little box of tools
which my father had put into my school trunk, guided by
my mechanical ingenuity, would do the rest. My father
had always believed me to be possessed of mechanical
talent. I was now developing that talent in a direction
he little dreamt of, and for a purpose of which I could
hardly venture to hope he would approve. All I needed
by way of material was some pieces of wood, an indiarubber tube, a piece of rope, a penny-worth of tin-tacks,
and seven stripes of leather. During the play-hours,
extending over a week, I hid myself in a deserted barn
and constructed my machine, ever dreaming of yellow
haired Jenny, and humming to myself:—
“ What is the greatest bliss
That the tongue o’ man can name ?
’Tis to woo a bonnie lassie
When the kye come hame,
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
9
When the kye come hame,
When the kye come hame,
’Tis to woo a bonnie lassie
When the kye come hame.”
At length, duly equipped with my milking-machine, I
-strode off to the byre, regardless of discipline and flogging
and extra task and everything sublunary save Jenny. I
felt proud I had suffered for her sake, and I was prepared
to suffer again. I reached the byre, got behind Jenny
who was milking, and triumphantly set down my milkingmachine, which, to tell the truth, looked a queer cross
between a three-legged stool and a sou’-wester, and a
baby-jumper and a sausage-machine. Jenny turned
round and looked at me, and glanced at the machine,
and then held her sides and laughed till the tears ran
down her cheeks. The other milk-maid caught up the
tune and laughed almost as immoderately.
Drawing myself up to my full height, “ Jenny,” said I
sternly, “ I am here in redemption of my promise, and
to demand of you the fulfilment of yours. I guarantee
that this machine will milk the cows, and I claim of you
that you ‘ meet me by moonlight alone.’ ”
“ Great God,” said the other milk-maid, “ the boy is
clean cracked 1”
“ Madam,” rejoined I fiercely, “ I am a gentleman,
and I did not come here to be insulted. This lady
made a vow to me, and by heaven she shall redeem it,
or I shall know why.”
The two milk-maids opened their mouths at me as
well as their eyes, and stared at me in incredulous bewil
derment.
“ Of course, of course,” at length spake Jenny, with an
arch smile; “I will ‘meet you by moonlight alone,’
according to my promise, if you will make that thing
[pointing to the machine] milk the cows while we are
•gone.”
�IO
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
“That/7zz>?£-,” said I with pride and firmness, “will
do the work while we are gone.”
“ Set it to its work, then,” answered Jenny, still with
wild bewilderment on her sun-burnt but honest and
happy countenance.
'‘iThe lady is won” murmured I in triumph; and I
lifted my machine and proceeded to attach it to the
udder of the cow. The animal resisted my attentions,
and seemed to have somewhat set her face against
vaccine innovations. I succeeded, nevertheless, in
attaching the machine to her udder.
“Now!” exclaimed I; and I gave the leather a tug
and the rope a pull, and set in motion the fly-wheel
which I had taken off a disused grindstone. The tug
and the pull and the wheel were more than the cow
could stand—perhaps more than any cow before or
since has been expected to stand. She ventured one
mad stare at myself and the apparatus, and then lashed
out devilishly with her feet. I was lifted clean off the
ground and dashed up against the opposite wall, and the
milk-pail and my most ingenious machine were kicked
to shivers and scattered over and around me. I stag
gered up with a fractured skull and a broken arm, and,
observing the thick milk lying white all around me, I
took it to be the whole of my brains, or mayhap my
immortal soul, scattered over the pavement; and, with a
despairing cry, I fell back insensible.
When I recovered my senses I found myself in my own
bed at school, with my father standing over me. He
had been sent for, and had come more than three hun
dred miles. The doctor was also there, and an old
chrone of a nurse, besides a great number of basins and
bowls and medicine bottles and poultices and jugs with
flowers, and wet towels. When I was sufficiently re
covered to receive it, and when my father was gone,
quite in the interests of the school, I got my ever-
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
II
memorable thrashing, that the discipline of the establish
ment might be vindicated. That thrashing fructified into
incalculable good : it set me to planning and devising
my thrashing machine, the greatest invention since Napier
invented logarithms. It is of this thrashing machine,
God willing, I propose to speak. But I may just mention
that, as regards my first and incipient venture, the milkingmachine, the splinters and fragments of it were picked,
up carefully ; but a piece of leather belonging to it, and
as large as a shoe-sole, was never found—neither were
two of my front teeth. My firm impression is that both
that piece of leather and my two front teeth were knocked
down my throat, and that they remain somewhere inside
my person till the present day. A German surgeon I
once met at Baden-Baden (a Herr Pulvermacher) inclines
to the same opinion. He placed some curious acoustic
contrivance of his own upon my naked back, and, apply
ing his ear to it, assured me that he heard distinctly the
two teeth biting away at the piece of leather. I have a
strange pain in the part, and, on a very quiet night,
when I have had enough whisky, but not too much, I
myself have heard a sound appallingly like the two teeth
biting the leather. But let that pass, and let this serve
as prolegomena to the conception, process, and com
pletion of the triumph of my life, The Thrashing
Machine.
I found I was in for a terrific hammering. It seems
that, in my unconscious state, I had two or three timesevery day risen up in bed and whispered, “Jenny, my
love,” kissed a viewless form, and then sang :—
“ See yonder pawky shepherd
That lingers on the hill ;
His yowes are in the fauld,
And his lambs are lyin’ still ;
But he downa venture hame,
�12
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
For his heart is in a flame
To meet his bonnie lassie
When the kye come hame,
When the kye come hame,
When the kye come hame,
’Tween the gloamin’ and the mirk,
When the kye come hame.”
These recurring outbursts of love and song had, the
surgeon alleged, made me much worse. On one occasion,
as I got enthusiastic in the refrain of my bucolic melody,
it seems I had torn the bandage from my head and flung
it right in the face of Mrs. Fergusson, the principal’s
wife. My wounded scalp bled afresh, and I fell back in
a state of syncope; but Mrs. Fergusson did not stay to
attend to me. One or two drops of blood from the
bandage had lighted upon her face. She rushed out of
the room screaming, and vehemently advised her hus
band, Dr. Fergusson, that I was “ a horrid little pig,” that
I had assaulted her, and that she would not live in the
same establishment with me.
“Thrash,” screamed she; “thrash the insubordinate
and cracked little blockhead, and send him home. He
is not fit to be in the school.”
The Doctor, if he had not had a wife, would not have
been a bad sort of fellow: he was a scholar, a pedant,
but on the whole a gentleman; albeit an act of juvenile
indiscretion on his part had made it necessary for him
to marry a village dressmaker. Dr. Fergusson governed
the school, and this quondam dressmaker governed Dr.
Fergusson.
“ My dear, it shall be done,” said Dr. Fergusson sub
missively, as he wiped away the blood-drops off his wife’s
face with his snuffy handkerchief. “ I agree with you;
he is monstrum nulla virtute redemptum a vitiis. I will
thrash him.”
If the Doctor had not promised “ I will thrash him,”
I strongly suspect he would have got thrashed himself.
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
IS
All the boys remembered the day he came into the
school minus one of his side whiskers. It was no joke
to disobey the impetuous caprices of the quondam
dressmaker who was now Mrs. Fergusson.
In a day or two I was considered well enough to get
thrashed. I was, with shabby solemnity, arraigned
before the entire teaching staff and all the boys in the
school. Mrs. Fergusson sat by her husband’s side, busy
hemming an apron : she surmised that her presence was.
necessary to give him the essential constancy, courage,
and cruelty.
“ Donald Fraser,” began the Doctor sternly, “ you are
unworthy, sir, of the attention of my staff and myself
unworthy of the kindness of your more than mother,
Mrs. Fergusson [here the lady referred to laid down her
seam, took off her spectacles, and wiped her eyes]
unworthy of the young gentlemen who have been pol
luted by being doomed to associate with you ; unworthy,,
sir, of these benches ; unworthy of this ancient academy,
which has been the alma mater of many who have sub
sequently been ornaments to the Army, the Church, and
the Law. [Here Mrs. Fergusson beat the floor with her
heel by way of applause; and all the boys, with the
single exception of myself, battered the boards with
their feet, and hurrahed, and kicked up such a cloud of
dust that, in my weak state, I felt choking and faint.]
It is not for your sake, Fraser, that I put myself to the
trouble of administering a flagellation. Before me lies
a task, not a pleasure. Virtute non armis fido. Your
offence has been inexpressibly flagrant. Twice you have
been absent without leave—absent for a purpose which
I would describe as diabolical if it were not that I have
an impression that you are of unsound mind. You
were found in a cow-house four miles away, lying in a
cataplasm of cow’s milk and fool’s blood, the staves of a
broken milk-pail, and the shivered fragments of an idiotic.
�14
A FEVRm. FLOGGING.
contrivance of yours. In the name of omnipotent God,
sir, what were you doing there ? How, sir, did you dare
to drag the reputation of this ancient seat of learning
over the filthy floor of a cow-house ? How, sir, did you
come to exchange expressions of precocious amativeness
with an unlettered woman of the people? No boy who
has the privilege to attend a seat of learning like this,
august with the classic memories of nearly half a cen
tury, but should sing from the bottom of his heart the
noble ode which opens, Odi prefanum ntlgvs, ef arceo.
Even with the oldest of you it is time enough to think
of ladies: but, when the time comes, look only and
alone to a lady bred and a lady bom [here Mrs. Fcrgusson primmed her mouth, straightened her hards,
perked back her head, and posed as " a lady bred and
a lady bom
and speak to no other woman wha-ever,
unless it be to command her to wash vour shirr or
blacken your boots.”
“ Hear, hear F cried Mrs. Ferguson.
“But,” continued the Doctor, “you have actually
gone and compromised me and the school and vour
family and yomselt, by precocious advances to a miser
able plebeian of the feminine gender. In your delitiirm
you spoke of Jenny. Jenny is not such a mnv as
should be in die mouth of any youth who has walked
through the classic groves of this establishment. sir.
Phyllis, or Chloris. or Calpumia, or Clytemnesma. are
such names as alone should escape your Kps. yborr
is vulgarity and desecration. [ His own wife's name was
Mary Ann.] Then, sir, you kept humming a ditcv
wrirten by a shepherd, and fit only for plcueh-bovs.
‘ To wee a txxutie ssssae
When the kye cosrse tiirae'—
provincial crtveh sir. with which you have polluted vour
mouth and contaminated the atmosnhere of this classic
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
15
• establishment. Your stripes, sir, which shall be many,
would have been few if, in your delirium, you had
sung:—‘ Supprime jam I'aerymas, non est revocabilis istis,
Quern semel umbrifera navita lintre tulit. ’
Sir, you shall be beaten with many stripes in vindication
of the outraged reputation of this seat of learning, and
then you will be forever and ignominiously expelled, a
mensa et thoro. Divest yourself of the garment that
■envelopes the part of your somatic entity upon which,
from time immemorial, flagellation has been conven
tionally laid.”
At this point Mrs. Fergusson pretended to turn her
eyes away, and many of the smaller boys began to sob
audibly, for an expulsion flogging at Angel Turret in
the good old days was something you would carry the
memory, and perhaps the marks, of to your grave. I
let the curtain fait over the sickening details of how I
was stripped, strapped, and flogged till I fainted ; and
how, next morning, I was stuffed inside the school
master’s lumbering carriage, my boxes being on the top,
and driven to the mail coach, that I might be despatched
en route for home.
My father was neither to hold nor to bind. He took
me into the library, and examined my stripes carefully
with a candle, muttering strange oaths as each blue weal,
red line, or yellow star revealed itself to his indignant
scrutiny. He rushed out to the stables and instructed
the coachman to get ready the carriage at once. My
mother met him in the hall, and asked anxiously, “Where
are you going, dear ? Whatever is the matter ?”
“ Going 1” rejoined he, angrily ; “ do you know that
that snuffy old rascal at Angel Turret—the Devil’s Turret
they should call it—has all but murdered your boy ? I
start to-night to punch his infernal old head. I’ll teach
the pedantic old compound of snuff and Latin and
�i6
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
barbarity what it is to print the American flag with a
stick upon the foundation of any boy of mine. I’ll twist
the truculent old savage’s neck for him.”
“No, you won’t,” said my mother; “you won’t do
anything of the kind and she placed her arm in his
and endeavoured to lead him back to the dining room,
for she was well aware that, if he were permitted to visit
I)r. Fergusson, he would be likely, by his choleric temper
and heavy hand, to get himself into serious if not in
superable difficulties.
“ Come with me,” she murmured persuasively, gently
drawing him in the direction of the dining room. But
he was in an ungovernable rage, all the more deep-seated
and determined and dangerous because it was not paiticularly demonstrative; and he shook my mother off
as if she had been a viper, and simply said, with an
inflexible firmness : “ Woman, I have made up my mind,
and go I shall.”
My mother waxed pale with dread, and, with the
utmost exertion of her persuasive force, induced him to
go into the parlour and have a cup of tea, previous to
his setting out on his journey, which she was apprehen
sive might end in murder. Grimly he sipped a cup of
tea. “ Now I am in for anything from pitch and toss to
manslaughter,” muttered he through his teeth; but
beyond this he uttered not a word. A servant announced
that the carriage was ready. He set down the tea-cup
with a clank and sprang to his feet. But, on the instant,
somehow, and from somewhere, a brass kettleful of
boiling water was upset upon his feet, almost filling his
Hessian boots. He uttered a roar of pain, and, without
opening the glass door, crashed through it, and in an
instant was upon the lawn. Here he swore like a fiend
and jumped mountain high with agony. For an instant
. he stood on the margin of the fish-pond. It struck me
like an inspiration that, if he could get some cold water
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
17
introduced into the boiling water in his boots, all would
be well with him. There was not a moment to lose. I
made a short and mad race, and came up against him
like a battering ram; and he was, in what I conceived
to be mercy, knocked heels over head into the fish
pond.
She never confessed it, but I have a strong suspicion
that my mother upset that kettle by preconcerted accident,
in order to circumvent a journey that she apprehended
would end in manslaughter, if not indeed in murder.
Be that as it may, my father was in bed for a fortnight
in a raging fever. I had indeed taken him out of hot
water and cooled him down a bit; but, as it turned out,
the cooling had been all too suddenly effected. By the
time he had fairly recovered he had apparently given up
all idea of visiting Dr. Fergusson and Angel Turret; he
never again mentioned them, nor referred to them in
any way.
During the time my father was confined to bed with
burnt feet and fever I had leisure to attend to and medi
tate upon the many stripes on my person, the outward
and visible signs of an inward grace which I fear I did
not possess. I was seized with an overpowering desire
to behold with my own eyes the stripes by which the
honour of Dr. Fergusson and his academy had been
vindicated. My father had examined these stripes, and
had compared the part on which they were inflicted to a
representation of the American flag, the glorious gon
falon of the stripes and stars. I must behold these
stripes by which the honour of Angel Turret had been
vindicated and my own moral redemption secured. I
twisted myself round like an acrobat; and, if I could
only have twisted myself round two inches further, I
believed I could have had a full view; but, as it was, I
had no view at all. It occurred to me that, if I kept
trying on frpm day to day, I would gradually overcome
�i8
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
that difficulty about the two inches. I, however, tried
and tried three days in succession, but without success,
and on the third day I took cramp while I was in the
very acme of my distorted attitude; and, unable to
screw myself back to my normal position, for over five
minutes I yelled with pain. My cries brought my mother
and the scullery-maid to my bed-room door; but I had
taken the precaution to lock it before I commenced my
experiments, or these two persons would have found me
in an exceedingly awkward predicament. As soon as
the cramp relaxed its grasp I straightened myself up,
hurriedly redressed myself, and opened the door with a
bland smile.
“ Donald, Donald, in the name of heaven,” exclaimed
my mother, “ what is the matter with you ? Your cries
were heartrending.”
“ Oh, nothing the matter with me, mother—all right
—I was experimenting,” stammered I, with some confu
sion of manner.
“ Experimenting 1” cried my mother, “ your screams
were as terrible as if you had, all of a sudden, tumbled
into hell. What kind of experiment requires yelling of
that kind ?”
“ Well, you see I was experimenting on the acting of
Hamlet.’ That scene where the Dane leaps into the
grave of Ophelia, in my opinion, requires fearful yelling.”
“ Boy, you are clean cracked. First you did some
abominable thing at school—Lord knows exactly what it
was; next you attempt to drown your own father ; and
then, in your attempt at acting ‘ Hamlet,’ you bid fair to
burst your own wind-pipe and shout the whole of us
deafand my mother slammed the door and hurried
downstairs.
I was still determined to behold the stripes for which
I was indebted to the strong right arms of Dr. Fergusson
■and his principal assistant. I tried ingenious combina
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
19
rtions of double mirrors and triple mirrors, and I, by this
means, succeeded in seeing all parts of my body except
the very part I desired to examine. Discomfiture I
But I was still determined, ingenious, and resourceful.
.Sitting on the top of the garden wall was a tom-cat
•engaged in his toilet. Now, when a cat sponges himself
•with his tongue he sponges himself all over, from the
■very hat-crown to the boot-heel, as it were. One toilet
.attitude the tom-cat struck gave me a wrinkle. Like
.the ancient Greek geometer, I exclaimed “ Eureka!”
I apprehended that my task could be accomplished if I
■could only place my heel on the back of my neck.
Then an astonishing field of view wrould open before my
prying and intelligent vision. Sir Isaac Newton had
struck upon the law of gravitation from seeing an apple
fall; I, the product of a later and more go-ahead age,
had, from observing a cat at his toilet, struck upon the
law by which I could survey the stripes which the
learned Dr. Fergusson had inflicted that the prestige of
Angel Turret might be vindicated and my own moral
regeneration secured.
Preparatory to my new experiment I stripped myself
and sparred and attitudinised before a mirror, and,
without egotism, it really did appear to me that I was an
•exceptionally handsome lad, and peculiarly suggestive
•of a Greek athlete or agonistes. I arrayed myself in a
■pair of bathing drawers and sat down upon the hearth
rug in order to experiment in the way of placing my
heel behind my neck, that, with mortal vision, I might
behold the stripes with which my moral iniquities had
been healed. At the first trial I managed to put my
great toe in my mouth. At the end of half-an-hour I
.succeeded in making the said great toe touch my ear
Eldorado was all but reached ! I became inordinately
excited and I resolutely determined to succeed. One
desperate duck till my neck cracked, and one reckless
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
20
wrench upward of the leg till knee and pelvis cracked in.
chorus—and the deed was done ! My heel was placed
firmly and solidly on the back of my neck! But no
undiscovered worlds and unexplored hemispheres or
American or other flags met my adventurous vision:
the drawers were there—frightful oversight, irreparable
blunder ! I felt in a state of distress and blindness, and
hastened to remove the heel which I had placed upon
my neck. I was utterly powerless to do so. In a short
time I had not even the power to try to remove my
heel. I tumbled sidewise upon the hearth-rug, and lay
moaning in absolute misery. I felt I was dying—dying
a martyr to research after a certain fundamental truth ;
dying, unlamented, deserted, unappreciated, and no one
would ever divine the cause in which I had perished.
No marble tomb for me, and a brilliant name among
the world’s great discoverers, and those who passed
through the furnaces of tribulation to the throne of the
immortals. In my deadly distress I remembered the
words of young Norval:—“ Cut off from Nature’s and from Glory’s course,
Which never mortal was so fond to run.
*
*
*
*
Some noble spirits, judging by themselves,
May yet conjecture what I might have been.”
In the collapse of my previous experiment I was able
to scream ; but now that last solace of the sufferer was
denied me. My chin was pressed firmly down upon
my throat, and I could make only a low, croaking noise,
resembling the jeremiad of a frog, rather than the wail
of a human being. My plight was terrible. Nobody
would miss me now till supper time, if even then ; and
by that time I should be beyond the reach of mortal
assistance. By the merest accident, the maid had
neglected to “ make ” my bed at the proper time; and,
before I had lain five minutes—which, however, seemed
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
21
.-an eternity—in my helpless and desperate condition, she
entered the chamber to “make” the bed. She stared
at me, uttered a scream, and hurried out of the
room.
“ O ma’am,” she said to my mother, in breathless ex
citement, “the young master is in his room, and has
made himself into a Isle of Man halfpenny, with feet
.all round ; and he is groaning horrible. O ma’am, I
have got quite a scunner. I never see’d the like. Come,
ma’am; he is a-dyin’ by inches.”
My mother rushed up the stairs three steps at a time,
and, beholding my extraordinary plight, she held up her
hands in bewildered horror, and exclaimed :
“ What next ? What part of the play of ‘ Hamlet ’ can
Z7zzk be meant to represent ? What have I done that
divine providence should give me a son like this ? He
is knees and elbows all over, like an octopus. He will
drive me cracked !” and she rushed out of the room and
sent for the parson and the doctor. The former prayed
for me, while the latter, by main force, extracted my
heel from the back of my neck. Then they two retired
to my father’s bedroom, where he was still lying, bad
with burnt feet and fever; and all three got drunk
together. You may think all this unimportant; but it is
not. It all had its bearing upon the magnum opus of my
life, The Thrashing Machine, and that you shall see
before many more lines have proceeded from my gifted
pen.
I was not even yet defeated. Every fresh repulse I
sustained served only to render me the more determined
to behold and study the stripes with which my moral
delinquencies had been healed. These stripes, still
sharply painful, should I inadvertently forget they were
there and sit down all of a sudden, were all that resnained to me to hallow the memory of far-off Jenny
�22
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
and the literal shattering of my idol which the cow had
so irreverently kicked to splinters. But Jenny and the
milking-machine alike became half-obliterated in my wild
and all-absorbing desire to read the primitive hieroglyphy
which Dr. Fergusson and his principal assistant, a B.A.
of Oxford, had written upon me with rods. They were
two learned men. I must see what, in their wisdom,,
they had written with sticks, using my skin for parch
ment. The results of their labour, I determined, should
not be lost to the world,
I, with the unconventional and rare ingenuity which
has ever been my distinguishing trait, sat down upon a
large plate of salt, that I might learn and note from the
spasms and yanks of pain the particular directions and
crossings and re-crossings and notches and stars and
scars of the stripes with which my morals had been so
learnedly, if not humanely, healed. I went down to the
pantry when the butler happened to be out; and I filled
my pockets with finely powdered salt, and concealed as.
best I could under my coat a large silver tray. With
the salt and the tray I retired to my bedroom. I filled
the tray full to the brim with the salt, and levelled it off
beautifully with a comb. Then down I sat with a jerk
but, by the King of Heaven, up I rose with another jerk !
I uttered a savage yell, and ran tearing across the floor
as if all the fiends had been behind me. I had had my
arm broken, my skull fractured, and my two teeth kicked
down my throat; but, in insufferable pain, this salt ex
periment beat all my previous experiences hollow. I
beg humbly to recommend its adoption by the Great
Spiritual Enemy of Mankind as something worthy of the
liveliest corner in the Infernal Pit. Into the room rushed
my mother and her maid.,
“ Donald, Donald dear, in the name of all that is
sane, what is the matter now ?”
“ ‘Hamlet ’ again, mother!” exclaimed I bitterly, hardly
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
2S
knowing what I said; for the pain, although subsiding,
was still intense.
“ But you gag ‘Hamlet ’ horribly,” rejoined she, half in
literal earnest and half in pitying irony; “ I distinctly
heard you cry out, ‘ O Almighty thunder ! I cannot
read the writing with the stick 1 I have sat down on
hell, and here am I!’ What part of ‘ Hamlet ’ is that ?
It is not to be found in Shakespeare’s version.”
I explained that Hamlet was mad, and that, in my
contemplated representation of the character, I should
give a rendering which would astonish the world.
“Astonish the world! I should think so,” rejoined
my mother curtly, and left the room.
I had managed to place a pillow over the tray with the
salt, or I might not have been able to give my explana
tions so readily, or to have got rid of her so easily.
Labor omnia vincit. The gate of hell itself cannot
prevail against the unconquerable might of the human
will. Even the fiery fury of the trayful of salt had not
burnt out of me the indomitable resolution to read the
cryptograms which the learned Dr. Fergusson and his
assistant, Morris, had written with sticks. The gardener
was an exceedingly intelligent young man. Pencil and
compasses were hardly ever out of his hands. His busi
ness was to design flower-beds, rockeries, and fountains ;
but he could draw nearly anything that is in heaven
above, on earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.
I would take him into the summer-house and engage
him to produce, on a sheet of drawing-paper, a facsimile
of the stripes with which my moral delinquencies had
been healed. I hastened out to the garden, gave my
instructions, and, within three hours from the inception
of the idea, it was a consummated fact. The annexed
cut is, accurately, but on a reduced scale, and without
colours, a copy of the document, plan, map, or what you
will, with which the gardener furnished me :—-
�24
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
Never did panting lover read a missive from his mistress,
never did young poet read his first verses in type, with
more ecstatic rapture than warmed and thrilled me now
that I had the stick-writing of a great seat of learning
unrolled before me in all its mysterious splendour. I
admit it was utterly incomprehensible. Would to heaven
I could interpret its esoteric lines, its occult angles, and
its mysterious stars ! But I knew that Dr. Fergusson
was a learned and earnest man, who would not write
flippantly or in vain; and that, therefore, in that mystic
scribble, which had been subsequently retraced by the
flame-pen of the salt, lurked the key to unlock that
problem in ontology, the Origin of Evil, and the sword
with which to cut the Gordian Knot of Evil’s Final
Eradication. I gazed on the map-document with that
absorbing dream-worship with which we regard that
which at once awes our senses and baffles our reason.
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
25
Although I could not read the inscription now that I had
it before me, the consciousness of possessing it was to
me a profound, if inexplicable, pleasure. What could
be the portentous significance of that blue fading away
into that green ; of that umbre black losing itself in that
flaming yellow; of that ominous ttJ, and that fearful □ ?
I would be at the bottom of all this, or perish in the
.attempt. I worked at the problem till I felt the wheels
of my brain cracking and the belts giving way. But, at
last, an inspiration as magnificent as that which had
impelled me to employ the gardener to make the copy
of the cryptogram now struck me with the divine impulse
to employ a certain servant of the Most High to trans
late it. About six miles distant from my father’s house,
Dunder Hall, lived a man of God and Learning such as
the world has all too seldom seen. He had preached
himself out of his kirk, and all but preached himself into
a lunatic asylum, for it is with a lunatic asylum the
world rewards all possessors of mental energy and moral
force which cannot be weighed or measured in the bushel
of vulgar common sense or yoked into the mill of com
monplace to grind out half-crowns.
I begged two guineas from my ever-indulgent father
and enclosed them, along with the inscription, to the
learned and pious, albeit impecunious, servant of the
Most High. I explained to him that I was anxious to
have a translation. I made him aware that the cryptogramic hierogram was the work of two elegant scholars,
James Fergusson, M.A. of Edinburgh and LL.D, of
Yale, and Arthur Morris, B.A., of Brazenose College,
Oxford, and editor of an approved edition of Thucydides.
I permitted the learned and reverend servant of the Most
*
High to infer that the copy I sent him, and which the
* The Rev. Dr. Hamilton, author of “ Key to the Apocalypse ”
and “ The Contents of the Seven Phials.”
�26
A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
gardener had made, was the original. I, somehow, had
not the face to take him the original and lay it before
him. Thank heaven I had just taken the copy in time,
for, under the influence of a salve made of bees-wax,.
fern roots, and alum, the original was rapidly becoming
illegible and passing away, leaving only a tabula rasa
behind.
Within a week from the day I sent off the inscription,
a messenger from the scholar handed it back to me with
the translation thereof! I rushed upstairs to my room,
locked the door from the inside, and eagerly tore open,
the scholar’s packet. A guinea tumbled out upon the
floor. I set my foot upon it till I had time to lift it. I
had now before me a prize grander than a Dijon pyramid
of guineas. A private note ran thus :—
The Cottage, Thursday morning.
Donald Fraser, Esq.
*
Dear Sir,—The writing with a sight of which you honoured,
me, although exceedingly important at this crisis of the Church,
is not at all difficult to decipher. I devoted to it only oneday of prayerful reading and one day of philological synthesis and
analysis. I got at the key to the cryptogram all the readier as the
whole inscription bore a striking resemblance to that upon an
Assyrian tile which Dr. Ravenstein brought from the Land of Moab
seven months ago. Having had to devote only two days tothe translation, it would be avaricious on my part to retain the twoguineas you were generous enough to enclose; but, as I am not
abundantly blessed with the world’s wealth, I have taken the liberty
to retain one of the guineas, and I sincerely trust that you will not
consider the fee for the trifling service it has been my privilege torender you exorbitant.
With prayers that the translation may be blessed to the saving of'
your soul and the souls of those who are of your household,
I am, Dear Sir,
Your most respectful, humble servant,
•
James Hamilton.
The Rev. Dr. Hamilton had evidently thought that the inscrip
tion had been sent him by my father.
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
27
PROLEGOMENAL CLARIS.
(T) The lines have all a tendency from east to west.
They are simply the rays of the sun-god, ^(lrrrjp, Mises
Saotes, He., He. I give due weight in detail to their
respective ray-weight and deflection from the horizontal.
(2) The distinctive marks are all grammalogoi, Phallic
symbols (crux ansata), signs of the Zodiac, oriental,
ancient Egyptian, and Ptolemaic, Hebrew characters, in
which W and H are conspicuous, and tt, which, with its
indication of the relation of the diameter of a circle to
its circumference, affords, in the hands of esoteric erudi
tion, a key to the whole position.
(3) The great character to the left is of course Hl/N,
which, taken with 1TJJ (the virgin) and Zo (the crab) and
TT (the twins), all of which are readily discernible in
the inscription, render the solution easy to the occultist'
scholar.
TRANSLATION.
BY THY LEFT HAND, O AMMON, GREETING.
GREAT
VINDEMIATRIX, ARISE IN THE EAST.
THERE
WAS SILENCE IN HELL ABOUT THE SPACE OF HALF AN
STAR,
HOUR. WO, WO, SON OF POMPONIUS MELA, WITH THE
IRON IN THE GROIN AND THE FOUNDATIONS BEATEN
LIKE AN ANVIL OF MULCIBER. THE RAYS THEREOF
FLEW. Zeus hflijv STRUCK THE NETHER HEEL J THE
MOUTH WAS THAT OF A LION, THE FEET WERE THOSE
OF A SHE-BEAR, AND THE TAIL THAT OF A FROG. FOR
*
n SHALL JUDGE AMONG THE NATIONS, AND AT THE
END OF A TIME AND THREE TIMES AND ONE-EIGHTH
OF A TIME THE EARTH SHALL HOWL AS THE MOON
DROPS DOWN UPON IT IN BLOOD. HOWL FOR THE
CIVET, CRY ALOUD FOR THE MUSTARD PLANT. FOR
THE CRAB AND THE VIRGIN AND THE TWINS MOURN
WITH TAMMUZ IN BAAL-PEOR. THE HERON AND THE
WEAZEL LAMENT IN BACTRIA FOR ANUBIS AND RA AND
SET-TYPHON
AND
SEKRU
AND
TUM
AND
PHTHAH.-
�A FEARFUL FLOGGING.
MOURN, FOR THE LEGS AND THE TEETH ARE BROKEN.
MISES HARMACHIS AND OANNES COME ; THE GRAVES
OPEN J THE WORLD ENDS.
GLORY TO pH ! BEAT
THE WIND WITH RODS, 12 I
AND YEARS 9,999-
CUBITS, AND
FOR DAYS
My countenance fell. The original, even as I sat
upon the salt, was nearly as intelligible as the translation
that now lay before me. What could possibly be the
use of James Fergusson, M.A., and Arthur Morris, B.A.,
troubling in my interest to write with sticks, didactics,
and apothegms utterly beyond the range of my scholar
ship and the scope of my intelligence ? Of the “ founda
tions beaten like an anvil ” I had a vivid comprehension ;
while “ beat the wind ” was intelligible, but rather vague ;
and “ rods ” of “ 121 cubits ” were certainly a great deal
too long for actual, practical flogging. And could they
not, at Angel Turret, have flogged a boy like me without
referring me to, as far as I was concerned, such unknown
monsters as Ra and Set-Typhon and Turn and Phthah ?
No wonder the thrashing did me no good ! No wonder
that I felt quite as wicked as ever ! I resolved to devote
some years to deep meditation on the philosophy of
flogging. And any one who is privileged to follow the
coruscations of my gifted pen may have the glory to
find out for himself the magnificent result at which I
^ultimately arrived.
(To be continued, if Julia—Mrs. Heywood—
shoiild see fit to again provoke Saladin.)
�APPENDIX.
ANOTHER LETTER FROM MRS. HEYWOOD.
Sir,—I have read your vile paper. I took the tongs, and with
them carried it out at arm’s length to the dust-bin. I feel defiled.
I shall ask my husband, a feeble but earnest servant of God, to
appoint a clay of humiliation and prayer throughout his parish.
Then I shall ask him, if he loves me, the wife of his bosom, to horse
whip you to within one inch of your life. He is strong in the arm of
the flesh, and will thrash you as if you were a rat; and the God of
Jacob, the mighty one of Israel, has, in answer to my prayer, pro
misecl to assist him. You shall perish in the gainsaying of Kor.
My father never hanged himself with the----- of any creature.
You forged the whole infamous thing, and you have provoked the
holy one of Israel to anger. I shall be at you at the criminal court.
I never saw you save once, and I wish I had never seen you. The
devil tempted me, and I tattooed on my left arm—
I Love Ross Alone and Forever.
My husband has seen the inscription two or three times, and has
each time kicked up a dust and preached in a way that has emptied
the church and drawn upon him the displeasure of the bishop. I
have tried to take out the tattooing with poultices of vaccine excre
ment, black soap, and steel filings ; but it will not come out. I
shall have my arm amputated rather than bear about with me your
accursed name. Last time the Rev. Mr. Heywood saw it he hurled
a heavy clasped Bibleat my head. The holy book, glory be to
God, missed my head ; but it knocked down Jesus Christ and
three of the saints, and it took £4 5s. 3d. to repair them. I
enclose you the account, and, if you have a soul in your body, you
will pay it.
My father, whose memory you foul with burlesque and whose
grave you desecrate, would not have trusted you with a brass six
pence, far less with his Julia’s honour. Beware of the curse of
Hiel the Bethelite ! There shall be a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a
great slaughter in the land of Idumea, for you stole my father’s-
�3°
APPENDIX.
MS. and then forged it. I will yet number you and your readers
in Telain, when the mighty one cometh from Teman and Ur of the
Chaldeans. I am my father’s daughter, you viper. You say he was
hanged with a murderer’s intestines, which is a falsehood ; and I
pray God that you may .yet see the day when you will be hanged
with his daughter’s garters, which she weareth under the knees
thereof (sic). My husband shall chastise thee with whips, and the
Lord shall rain down upon thee hail-stones and coals of fire. Blow
ye the cornet in Gibeah and the trumpet in Ramah : cry aloud at
Beth-aven !—Yours, with loathing and contempt,
Julia Heywood (nee Fraser).
The Vicarage, Sunday evening.
P.S.—You may insert this or not, as you like ; but, if you do not,
the husband of my bosom has made arrangements to have the whole
•matter of your vile slander published in the Church Times and the
Christian World, and also brought into the police-court.—J. H.,
nee F.
���
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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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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Pamphlet
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Title
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A fearful flogging : by one who endured it; based upon a MS. in the possession of Saladin
Creator
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Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 30 p. : ill. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Stamp on front cover: Bishopsgate Institute. Reference Library. Appendix: Another letter from Mrs Julia Heywood (nee Fraser). Date of publication from KVK (OCLC WorldCat). Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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W. Stewart & Co.
Date
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[1894]
Identifier
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N585
Subject
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Religious practice
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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 fearful flogging : by one who endured it; based upon a MS. in the possession of Saladin), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Christianity
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NSS