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i66
CHRISTIANITY AGAIN CONSIDERED.
no earthly law smites him, he still is sinning against God, inflicts
injury on himself. For he that breaks a law of God, whether it be
a material one—in the physical globe or his own body ; or a spiritual
one, in his own soul, or in society, inflicts damage on his own
being; while he who works righteousness by living in obedience to
the law of God, is the better man for it, in himself, alike in time and
eternity. If there be any reader who rejects these statements, I
can only answer in the words of another, “We believe that con
science exists, just as fully as that we believe all men have bones,
and as it seems to us for the same reasons. Why is that to be
struck out of the list of evidence, any more than any physical testi
mony whatsoever ? Surely a more powerful item of evidence, not
only as to the personality of the First Cause, but as to the character
of that personality, could hardly be conceived.”(/)
(a) History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii., p. 253. Second edition.
(b) Church of England Prayer Book, Article 9: Confession of Faith, chap. vi. 6.
(c) Works, vol. iii., p. igg.
(d) R. H. Hutton.
(e) Duration of Future Punishment, by the Rev. George Rogers, p. 4,
(/) The Spectator.
&gain (EonstWlc
HRISTIANITY” is the title of a new book, by M. D. Conway,
M.A., and it is issued by Trubner & Co., of London. It is a
small but striking book. Indeed whatever comes from the pen of
Mr. Conway is always worth perusal. He has a knack of hitting
his opponents straight from the shoulder, of calling a spade a spade,
of denouncing superstition in unmeasured terms. As a preacher
Mr. Conway prefers an “ unfettered pulpit,” from which he can
fearlessly expose the errors and hypocrisy of the popular creed.
We wish there were more unfettered pulpits in the world, occupied
by men of culture and zeal, and “ no longer bribed by the social or
pecuniary endowments of an established creed.”
The book before us should be in the hands of every one who
wishes to be acquainted with the numerous phases through which
Christianity has passed, and we can confidently say that its perusal
will afford both pleasure and profit.
Mr. Conway considers
Christianity under six aspects : its morning state, its dawn, its day, its
decline, its afterglow, and its mosrow, and each of these divisions
receives masterly treatment.
There are several allusions to English Unitarianism, and the
Unitarian Association comes in for a share of the Author's
criticism. We think, however, that Mr. Conway’s strictures
on what he terms the “ professed liberality ” of the Association
are somewhat strong. No Association can exist without obe
dience to certain laws, and the “ fundamental law” which appears
to be so obnoxious to Mr. Conway is not, in our opinion, such an
obnoxious one as he would make it appear.
Personally, we
should like to see an independent Association formed, which should
e
�ANDREW AYLMER: A SKETCH.
167
include all Theists, whether Jews, Unitarians, Brahmins, or
Rationalists, in fact all who worship a supreme Governor of the
Universe, and wish to assist the extension of a Universal Brotherhood
of Man. But reforms whether social or religious are not carried in
a day, so we must be content to plod patiently alsng that road
which leads to the goal we are all aiming at, and we doubt not it
will be reached e’er many years more have been added to the
world’s age.
There are many-paragraphs having especial reference to the
Unitarian faith which we should like to quote, but our space forbids.
We cannot however conclude this brief notice without giving one
or two extracts. On page 89, Mr. Conway writes : “ Where is the
author of our time who defends the wild notion of an eternal
punishment—a punishment without end, and consequently without
purpose—inflicted on millions for a sin they did not commit, and
who have not even determined their own existence!” On page
124 he says:—“ The English Unitarians have an honorable history,
and no page of it is brighter than the last; but they can retain what
they have wn only by following up their advance.” Mr. Conway
brings his book to a conclusion as follows :—“ The highest religion
of to-day is to look and labour for a nobler day. Nor can I think
that new day so distant. For this matter the world of men means
mainly all those who think. The thinkers of the world are but
thinly divided by veils of language and tricks of expression ; speedily
wii^, they pierce these and discover that round the world hearts
beat with one moral blood, and eyes see by one and the same
sunlight. And as thought moves so will the most motionless
masses gravitate; and every sect in the world be subtly consumed
through and through by that popular disgust of bigotry and
hyprocrisy, which will emanate from the fairly awakened con
science and intellect of humanity.”
winter: &
CHAPTER IV.--- A WORD CONCERNING WILL, AND AYLMER’S INFLUENCE.
ACHEL AYLMER, soon after Andrew left home to attend
Mr. Cuthberton’s class at the Institute, dressed herself for
going out to pay a visit to her brother, Benjamin Harton, who lived
in the village of Ronesburn. As he worked the same “ place ” with
Andrew in the Scottingley mine, she was anxious lest the persecu
tion towards her son had been extended to her brother as well.
And then she wanted a talk with him about the whole matter.
Long had she and Joshua chatted over it, but the thing had not
come out any clearer to their minds. As she stood by her hearth
bound husband, to bid him good-bye for her two-hour visit, she saw
the newspaper was by his side, unused, and she had to touch his
shoulder ere he lifted his eyes from the fire. Responsive to her
touch, he said,—
“ Dinna be lang, wife, for I’m nae owre canny the night. Dis
B
�thoo think the laddie troubles aboot his loss o’ wark ? ”
“ Hinny, An’rew winna let his troubles clood his brow. Let’s
hope he dis’na feel them mair than he shows.”
“ Aye, as Ben said once, ‘ he tabs things philosophically.’ ”
“ Aboot that, I dinna kna,” replied Rachel, thoughtfully, “but
sure, as the boy says in one o’ his ain varses,
*
1 The dew o’ heaven is in his heart,’
an’ he’ll mak’ the best o’t, safe enough.”
The old man was comforted, the cloud passed from his face, the
newspaper was resumed, and Rachel wended her way in the direction
of Ronesburn. Approaching Scottingley, which stands between the
cottage and her destination, she saw a larger crowd of men than
usual at the corner of the road leading towards the colliery. This
would not have taken her attention, but, as she came opposite to
them, one, whom she did not recognise in the twilight, left the
crowd, and, as he neared her, said,
“ Mrs. Aylmer, I want a word wi’ ye.”
“ Is’t Will Bardoyle ? Hoo is’t there’s sae mony oot ? Hae
they shut up the public-hoose ? It’s nae a dog-race being made up
or thoo wouldna’ be in’t.”
“Nay, Mrs. Aylmer, we’ve been having a long talk about
Andrew, and I want to see him for the men ; but I suppose he’ll
not be at home for some time, as it is class night.”
“ He’ll no be hame till late, as he’s cornin’ roond for me frae
brother’s after class, but when thoo’s dune here thoo canst find the
way to Ben’s.”
In spite of her concern on Andrew’s account, she could not
help smiling as she said this, for there were a pair of bright eyes at
Ben’s which drew him there, and not against his will.
“ I don’t know if I dare call in to-night,” said Will, in reply,
“ for I have been offered the situation of overman, and I want to see
Andrew first. Ben has’na been out with us, or he would have known
and agreed with what I propose to do, so I’ll just meet Andrew,
and maybe call in with him.”
With a quiet “ good-night ” she passed on toward Ronesburn,
and Will joined the men, who were still talking in clusters.
The men had talked with each other that evening of many
things__ of the franchise, of improvements connected with their work
and their houses, and especially of the treatment Aylmer had been
subjected to; and of these things Will Bardoyle’s mind was full, as
some time after he took the road to Cuthberton, with a view to meet
Andrew. Not meeting him, however, and learning that he had
taken the river-path leading to the Hall, he continued his walk along
the highway, passed Mr.' Pembroke’s villa, and chatted with the old
lodge-keeper until Andrew came out.
Will was some years older than Andrew, but Will could not
have reverenced him more nad he been as aged as he counted him
worthy. Indeed, Andrew had been tne making of Will, for when he
was Aylmer’s present age he was a rough character truly, taking
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Title
A name given to the resource
Christianity again considered
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 166-167 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Christianity' from 'Free World' February,1877.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
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[1877]
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G5612
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[Unknown]
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Book reviews
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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 (Christianity again considered), 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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Text
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English
Book Reviews
Christianity
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
-
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Text
The sketch, of the character and temperament of St. Paul in his
relation to the doctrine of the resurrection is as important as it is
interesting. The spirit of the volumes is 'summed up in the follow
ing words, with the quotation of which we for the present earnestly
commend the book to the attention of our readers—
“Although we lose a faith which has long been our guide in the past,
we need not now fear to walk boldly with Truth in the future, and turning
away from fancied benefits to be derived from the virtue of His death, we
may find real help and guidance from more earnest contemplation of the
life and teaching of Jesus.”
N
We presume that the chapters in Mr. Conway’s work10 have been de
livered as lectures in South Place. No one could listen to them, few could
read them, without stimulus to thought, without being obliged to say, Do
I or do I not believe in the things which are- here so fiercely assailed as
merely old wives’ fables ? It is well to break idols—it is well often
to be full of scornful irony in the breaking—it is well to show, as Mr.
Conway is never tired of doing, the comparative mythology of religions ;
but the idol-breaker and the comparative mythologist perhaps lose
necessarily a something of reverential spirit that we should like to
find in all teachers, and a power of sympathy with what is true among
the felicities of the past.
One of the most striking lectures in the book is concerned with the
Ammergau miracle-play, in which he draws a very skilful contrast)
between the ideal Christ of the Church and the Christ as represented
in the Gospels ; but we cannot help thinking that his picture is ex
tremely overcharged from a desire of being original, and of differing,
not only from most Christians, but from most free-thinkers.
We are sure that few will agree with Mr. Conway’s estimate of the
manner in which Christ shrank from death, as put out by him in the
following passage—
“ Again and again had Christ tried to escape this danger (death), even
with dexterity, and on his trial he fenced with every art of speech and
silence. When he saw the coils of priestly hatred closing around him,
his soul was exceeding sorrowful. Death haunted him. When a woman
anointed him tenderly, the odour reminded him of death. i She embalms
me for burial,’ he cries, and his very words shudder. He meets his
disciples at supper ; but when he sees and tastes the red wine, that too
suggests death ; he recoils and cries, ‘ It’s my blood ! Drink it yourselves
—I’ll never taste it again ! ’ ”
In a hasty survey of the good and evils of Christianity, the same or
greater want of real sympathy and interest is shown. “ Idols and
Ideals” is a striking but extremely irritating book, attracting by its
brilliancy, repelling by its cold, metallic hardness.
The Hon. Albert Canning has written an essay 11 which, as its seems
to us, would be far more in place in the pages of a magazine than pub10 “ Idols and Ideals.” By Moncure D. Conway, M.A. London: Trubner&
Co. 1877.
11 “ The Political Progress of Christianity.” By the Honourable Albert S. G.
Canning. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1877.
�220
®
Bish pH as a substantial book. For it is too hasty, and is too m"ch
occupied with temporary judgments and modern newspaper litera
ture, to have any real and permanent value. It is an examination into
the comparative civilisation attained by Christian nations and those
under the sway of Islam ; and he considers it evident that, in modern
times, at least, no country except under Christian political rule has
attained to real civilisation. Mr. Canning has drawn carefully on all
authorities which tend to prove his point, but it is a one-sided and
argumentative rather than an exhaustive examination into the ques
tion. It is, however, worth reading as a statement of one side of the
v question.
“No task,” says Miss Whately,12 “ can well be undertaken by a
Christian writer more painful than that of controversy with fellowt Christians.” If such be the case, we can only say that almost every
V theological work ever written must have brought to its author many
terrible pangs ; for, with the rarest possible exceptions, every statement
of faith and doctrine in every language consists in large measure in
running down the faith and doctrines of somebody else. Miss Whately
gives herself the terrible pain of assailing, on evangelical grounds, the
doctrine and practices of the sect known as the Plymouth Brethren.
The whole controversy seems to us so very puerile, that we need only
draw attention to it as another indication of the intestine convulsions
that are shaking religious Protestantism to its foundations.
“ Scepticism and Social Justice ” 13 is an enlarged reprint of a little
work formerly published in Mr. Scott’s well-known series of tracts. It
contains a sketch of the aspect in which the controversy about the authen
ticity and the credibility of the Bible presents itself to an intelligent
layman who has no time to study the subject profoundly at first hand.
He challenges the clergy either to refute the attacks which have been
brought on the received theology and Scripture history, or else to allow
the sceptic to hold his own without placing him under a social stigma.
It is not enough, Mr. Bastard thinks, to say that in the large centres
of civilisation no social stigma attaches to the upholders of sceptical
opinions. He is writing in behalf of those who live in country neigh
bourhoods, where thinkers are few, and where orthodoxy and ecclesiasticism are still rampant. It is a temperate, well-written, though not
profound pamphlet, kindly and considerate to those from whom it asks,
but perhaps asks in vain, equal kindness and consideration.
Mr. Bacon 14 is an American living in Switzerland, who has contri
buted papers to various American periodicals for some time past. His
collected volume, dealing on questions connected with the Church on
the Continent, the Catholic reformation in Switzerland, the Old Catholic
Congress, on the temperance reformation, &c., are better worth reading
than are most volumes of connected essays.
12 “ Plymouth Brethrenism.” By E. J. Whately. London : Hatchards. 1877,.s
13 “ Scepticism and Social Justice.” By Thomas Horlock Bastard. , London :
Williams & Norgate. 1877.
„ n
14 “ Church Papers.” By Leonard Woolsey Bacon. London : Trubner & Lo.
1877.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
[Idols and Ideals]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 219 ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Idols and Ideals' from 'Theology'. Date and issue number unknown.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
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[n.d.]
Identifier
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G5611
Subject
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Book reviews
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[Unknown]
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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 ([Idols and Ideals]), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Christianity
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
Religion
Superstition
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173a2645c331f3345564730fa21bc66f
PDF Text
Text
r
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
T
IF
j
Christianity
AND
x
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Agnosticism
A Correspondence between a Clergyman of the Church
of Scotland, and George Anderson,
V-'
Agnostic; London.
Price Twopence
Bradford :
Printedjlnd Published by J. W. Gott,
2, Union Street.
�List of Books for Sale by J. W. GOTT
2, UNION ST., BRADFORD
Madame Sophie Leppel—Pamphlets on Health without
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Dr. Allinson—A book for Married Women. (Scarce)
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May’s—Practical Methods for Curing all Diseases ...
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Debate between H. Percy Ward and Will Phillips—
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Glyde’s—Liberal and Tory Hypocrisy during the 19th
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Glyde’s—Britain’s Disgrace: An Urgent Plea for Old Age
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Seklew’s—Liberty Luminants (Malfew Seklew sold 600
copies at one meeting) ...
...
Paine’s—Age of Reason. (Marvellously cheap edition)
Paine’s—Rights of Man. (Bound in cloth) ...
Mrs. Stockham’s—Tokology. (A book for Women only)
Over 100,000 sold ...
Mrs. Stockham’s—Karrezza: Ethics of Marriage ...
Dr. Foote’s—Home Cyclopedia. (Tells how to be happy
tho’ married
Professor Huxley’s—Lectures and Essays
Edward Clodd's The Pioneers ot Evolution ...
Samuel Laing’s Modern Science and Modern Thought ...
Matthew Arnold’s—Literature and Dogma ..
Herbert Spencer’s—/Education
■Grant Alien’s—The Evolution of the Idea of God ...
Professor Haeckel’s—The Riddle of the Universe ...
Samuel Laing’s—Human Origins
........................... <
■Cotter Morrison’s—The Service of Man
Professor Tyndall’s—Lectures and Essays
Charles Darwin’s—The Origin of Species ...
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Emerson’s—Addresses and Essays (a Selection)
John Stuart Mill’s—On Liberty
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Sir Leslie Stephen’s—An Agnostic Apology...........................
Ernest Renan’s—The Life of Jesus.......................................
Elements of Social Science (latest edition) ...
�.
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Christianity
AND
>
*
Agnosticism.
A Correspondence between a Clergyman of the Church
of Scotland, and George Anderson,
Agnostic; London*
George, philanthropist.
1824. Anderson was a self-made man
»ho prospered in business and very
generously supported advanced movements.
He was a personal friend of Bradlaugh,
Holyoake, and Watts, and one of the
bunders of the Rationalist Press Associaj .on. The first issue of cheap reprints by
).ie Association was made possible by a
fenerous gift from him of £2,000. He
ive with equal liberality to hospitals and
bher charitable institutions. D. Aug 12
915.
’
IAA <
ck'el*, tA/uj,
.
ANDEKSON,
E.
to Mr. Anderson, in
ng his church.
Mr.
hristian, and, thinking
apy of his first letter,
nation; hence followed
on suggested that it
Ejected; therefore, his
term “ Clergyman ”
yman’s letters which
localities that might
—K. E. Watts.
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List of Books for Sale by J. W. GOTT.
2, UNION ST., BRADFORD
Madame Sophie Leppel — Pamphlets on Health without
Drugs (Complete)
...
...
...
...
...
Dr. Allinson—A book for Married Women. (Scarce)
...
J. R. Holmes—Theory and Practice of Neo-Malthusianism
May’s—Practical Methods for Curing all Diseases ...
...
May’s Comprehensive Cookery Book...
...
...
.■
Allan Laidlaw’s—Sexual Love: What it Is and What it Isn’t *
Debate between H. Percy Ward and Will Phillips—
Secularism v. Spiritualism
...
...
...
...
Glyde’s—Liberal and Tory Hypocrisy during the 19th
Century ...
... . ...1 ...
...
...
...
Glyde’s—Britain’s Disgrace: An Urgent Plea for Old Age
Pensions ...
...
...
...
...
...
9
Seklew’s—Liberty Luminants (Malfew Seklew sold 600
copies at one meeting) ...
...
...
...
...
Paine’s—Age of Reason. (Marvellously cheap edition) ...
Paine’s—Rights of Man. (Bound in cloth)...
...
...
Mrs. Stockham’s—Tokology. (A book for Women only)
Over 100,000 sold...
...
R.
...
...
...
Mrs. Stockham’s—Karrezza; Ethics of Marriage ...
...
Dr. Foote’s—Home Cyclopedia. (Tells how to be happy
tho’ married
...............
...
Professor Huxley’s—Lecturesand Essays ...
.3
...
Edward Clodd's The Pioneers ot Evolution ...
...
...
Samuel Laing’s Modern Sci6n<
Matthew Arnold’s—Literature
Herbert Spencer’s—Education
Grant Allen’s—The Evolution
Professor Haeckel’s—The Ridd
Samuel Laing’s—Human Origi
Cotter Morrison’s—The Service
Professor Tyndall’s—Lectures-a
Charles Darwin’s—The Origin
Emerson’s—Addresses and Esss
John Stuart Mill’s—On Liberty
Edward Clodd’s—The Story of
Sir Leslie Stephen’s—An Agno
Ernest Renan’s—The Life of Je
Elements of Social Science (late
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�Christianity
AND
Agnosticism.
A Correspondence between a Clergyman of the Church
of Scotland, and George Anderson,
Agnostic; London.
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�List of Books for Sale by J, W. GOTT.
2, UNION ST., BRADFORD
Madame Sophie Leppel — Pamphlets on Health without
Drugs (Complete)
............
Dr. Allinson—A book for Married Women. (Scarce)
...
J. R. Holmes—Theory and Practice of Neo-Malthusianism
May’s—Practical Methods for Curing all Diseases ...
■ ...
May’s Comprehensive Cookery Book...
...
...
...
Allan Laidlaw’s—Sexual Love: What it Is and What it Isn’t
Debate between H. Percy Ward and Will Phillips—
Secularism v. Spiritualism
...
...
...
...
•Glyde’s—Liberal and Tory Hypocrisy during the 19th
Century ...
... x .S
...
...
...
...
-Glyde’s—Britain’s Disgrace; An Urgent Plea for Old Age
Pensions ...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Seklew’s—Liberty Luminants (Malfew Seklew sold 600
copies at one meeting) ...
...
...
...
...
Paine’s—Age of Reason. (Marvellously cheap edition) ...
Paine’s—Rights of Man. (Bound in cloth)...
...
...
Mrs. Stockham’s—Tokology. (A book for Women only)
Over 100,000 sold...
...
...
...
Mrs. Stockham’s—Karrezza; Ethics-of Marriage
...
...
Dr. Foote’s—Home Cyclopedia. (Tells how to behappy
tho* married
M ...
...
Professor Huxley’s—Lectures and Essays ...
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�Christianity
AND
Agnosticism.
A Correspondence between a Clergyman of the Church
of Scotland, and George Anderson,
Agnostic; London.
Price Twopence.
Printed
Bradford :
and Published by J. W. Gott,
2, Union Street.
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EXPLANATORY NOTE.
A Minister of the Church in Scotland wrote to Mr. Anderson, in
London, for a subscription towards improving his church.
Mr.
Anderson declined, stating that he was not a Christian, and, thinking
the correspondence would end there, kept no copy of his first letter?
Soon, however, he received a second communication; hence followed
the correspondence.
*
When, towards- the close of it, Mr. Anderson suggested that it
should be published, the reverend gentleman objected ; therefore, his
name and address have been omitted, and the term “ Clergyman ”
substituted
1
One or two short paragraphs in the Clergyman’s letters which
were merely complimentary, and which named localities that might
have betrayed his identity, have been withheld.—K. E. Watts.
�Christianity and
Agnosticism.
A Correspondence.
I.
Dear Sir,—
Your note in reply to my appeal for funds for
church building I have received. I thank you for your
frank statement, and for the leaflet you kindly sent, with
neither of which I agree.
I admit that everyone is entitled to have his own views
on religion as well as on other matters. I know that
many men have difficulty in connection with Christianity,
but certainly your opinions’have at least the merit of being
somewhat novel, if “ to compete ” against the foreigner is
the one vocation of a British subject. There may be some
truth in what you say from your point of view, though I
think few will agree with you that Christianity makes a
man less capable to compete honourably with foreigners
or any others.
I regret I had not the pleasure of seeing
you when in London. I know you are liberal towards
other objects, and generous in giving for charitable purposes,
and I believe, though you may not be aware of it, that you
owe much of that kindly disposition to the fact of the
influence of Christianity upon you. You gave up Christ
ianity forty years ago ; you cannot therefore be young. If
you believe in a future state, I trust the religion you profess
gives you some comfort.
I am quite satisfied with Christianity. 1 try to walk in
the light, leaving alone unknown things. May I ask you
to read again the Sermon on the Mount ? (Matthew’s
Gospel, chapter v.)
Pardon me for troubling you with this letter.
Yours faithfully,
Clergyman.
�11.
Dear Sir,—
Yours of the 25th inst. received. I am sending
you a book called Force and Matter, which treats of such
doctrines as I believe in. You can return it to me any
time within a year, and if you wish to acquaint yourself
further with the views that are accepted by the intelligent
portion of mankind, read Huxley’s Essays, and Darwin’s
and Laing’s works, all of which I am willing to lend you
if you care to read them.
I reject your eternal hell doctrine as an infinite cruelty.
I also reject your virgin-box# son as being contrary to all
experience. It is only a re-hash of similar stories from
religions older than Christianity.
I reject your Hell and Heaven stories because they
teach that which is contrary to all knowledge and to
nature’s laws. I love my fellow-creatures, and I wish that
all would-be mentors would not confuse young minds with
those imperfect doctrines which often perplex them and
render them unfit for the business of life, but would teach
them something of this worl(^, instead.
I know that Christianity is less aggressive than it was
three hundred years ago, but that is only because it is less
powerful. The doctrines are the same, and human nature
is the same ; but science is taking the place of Christianity,
and society is more humane.
George Anderson.
III.
Dear Sir,—
I am much obliged to you for your letter, and
Force and Matter, which I will read. I have read Huxley’s
Essays and some of Darwin’s works, but would like to
read them again when I have time, so shall be pleased to
accept your kind offer.
It seems to me that one of your great difficulties is
belief in the so-called “ miraculous.” I am sure you
believe in Christ as an historical personage ; you cannot
help doing so if you accept history at all. You must also
acknowledge that no religion has produced such moral
4
�and intellectual results as the Christian religion has. How
do you account for that fact if Christianity is a delusion ?
I suppose that a man of intellect like yourself will
acknowledge that some of the greatest men in thisrcountry
accept Christianity. The best scientific men of the present
day admit that the spiritual is of greater force than matter.
Science is advancing. The discovery may yet be made
that there is a higher law which covers the sphere of the
miraculous, so that what you regard as contrary to law may
be in accord with it. There is much to be said for the
questions you raised in your last note, but men of science
are still making advances. They acknowledge that there
are numberless questions in the domain of matter that
they cannot understand—how many more in that of mind
or spirit ?
May I ask you to read Dr. A. B. Bruce’s Apologetics
(published by R. & R. Clark ?) I am sorry I have not got
the book, and I cannot afford to buy it. You can, and I
think it only fair that, if I read the books you recommend,
you should read those that I suggest.
Kindly let me have your'views after you have read the
Apologetics.
Yours truly,
Clergyman.
IV.
Dear Sir,—
I quite deserve to be rebuked for my writing.
I shall do what you desire when reading Force and Matter.
The book I recommended for your perusal is Apologetics,
or Christianity Defensively Stated, by A. B. Bruce, D.D.
(publishers, R. and R. Clark, Edinburgh).
Thanks for “ Caledonian Society Report.” I send you
by this post for your acceptance a course of lectures pub
lished by me some years ago. They do not bear upon the
subject in which we are both interested at present, but, if
you have nothing special to do, you might look into them.
I think they will at least entertain you, if they fail to
convince.
5
�After you have read the leaflet inside vol. i.—viz., the
review of the book—may I ask you to send it back to me
in enclosed stamped envelope, as I have only one or two
copies left, and I wish to keep them by me ?
Yours faithfully,
Clergyman.
V.
Dear Sir,—
I brought home your book of lectures last night,
opened it about eight o’clock, and finished it at five minutes
to three this morning ; and, were I to write a folio, ■ I
could not give a stronger testimony to the enjoyment I
derived from its perusal. It tells once more the old story
how Christians prosecute, and I think their actions are the
logical outcome of their doctrines. “ He that believeth
not shall be damned.” “ For what shall it profit a man if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?”
Hence to skin a man, or to burn him to death, is as
nothing to eternal hell fire. In this country, in the
present enlightened age, we are tolerably certain to die
with our skins on ; but that is only because science, has
humanised the people, and I hope it will continue the
process until there is liberty for one and all to speak their
honest thoughts : then we may expect greater progress, and
much increased happiness for mankind. I would like
your book to be read by every Scotchman, for it gives in a
condensed form facts that one could otherwise only gather
after an extensive course of reading. It also shows the
pluck of Scotchmen, and thfcjr determination to persevere
until they obtain their rights.
I was a lad in Scotland in ’43, and remember the “ non
intrusion ” agitation ; and as the English are now in a
worse position than the Scotch were then, I think that the
mental superiority of the Scotch over the English must be
admitted.
Yours,
George Anderson.
6
�VI.
Dear Sir,—
Thanks for your note just received with leaflet
returned. I am pleased that you propose to read my
book. I read your lecture, for which accept my thanks.
I consider it excellent, and quite enjoyed and profited by
it. I agree thoroughly with what you say as to the efforts
men should put forth to acquire knowledge. It is unwise
in my opinion, to be too dogmatic on any question unless
one is as sure as of the axioms of mathematics, for so
much is yet to be known. I therefore guard myself against
speaking too strongly either for or against Christianity, as
there are many things that now seem impossible which
by fuller knowledge, we may come to understand.
My wife read your lecture with great pleasure. Pardon *
me for stating it, but she said: He must be a good
Christian who wrote that- lecture.”
Yours faithfully,
Clergyman.
Dear Sir,—
I am glad you enjoyed the reading of my lectures.
You appear to appreciate the Scotch intellect and persever
ance. How do you account for these ? I gather from your re
marks that you think the superstition of Christianity retards
intellectual progress. There are no people in the world
so superstitious as the Scotch in this respect.
Does it not strike you as strange that their religion does
not dwarf their intellect ?
It seems odd that such
superstitious people should be so far advanced in learning
and in all the sciences, and should be able to hold their
own in competing with the foreigner.
I have read your reply to Cardinal Manning with great
interest. It bears a second reading. Your arguments are
very fresh, and from your point of view unanswerable.
I am reading Force and Matter. It is a. remarkable
book. The laws of natural philosophy are clearly put.
One of the things insisted on is, that matter is eternal.
Will you kindly define to me what is meant by “ eternal ?”
7
�You do not seem to believe in anything that is not in
aceord with “knowledge” and “experience.”
If you
insist that matter is eternal, then you must regard that
quality as knowable, or in accord with experience ; if not,
you believe in a thing that is not knowledge. ' You accept
“ eternal ” as something you cannot understand, yet you
believe in it, and you say there is that something in matter.
Is it not as easy to believe in something eternal outside
matter ? Is it not as easy to believe in the existence of
God apart from matter ? If you believe in a being you
cannot define, why not in a soul ? But if you say that the
so-called soul is matter, then the soul is eternal too, and,
the brain being eternal, may it not in another and similar
form have possession of its present sensations of pain and
pleasure ? You appear to me to believe in a kind of
material soul. Well, what matters it whether it is material
or not ? If it is eternal, and can consequently carry with
it out of the world all its sensations, may not the brain be
transformed into something else than mere earth and
grass ? We have not yet discovered all the forces and
combinations into which matter can be changed. It
seems to me that the difficulty4 which puzzles most people
gathers around the word “ eternal.” We have not solved
the problem by evading this.
Yours truly,
Clergyman.
VIII.
My Dear Sir,—
I am very much obliged for your great kindness
in sending me the two periodicals, also the volume by Mr.
Gould. I am anxious to read every book that gives useful
information, and I shall read these as soon as my time
will permit. I have nearly finished Force and Matter, and
I agree with the premises laid down. They are full of
natural philosophy and science, with much of which I am
familiar. I do not, however, always agree with the
conclusions of the writer.
I have stated already my difficulty with regard to the
conception of “ eternity.” Materialists trace things up to
8
�that point. They tell us that matter is eternal; they
believe that, and yet they also say that they cannot believe
what is not in accord with knowledge and experience. Is.
eternity in accord with knowledge and experience ? If
then, they say “ no,” and yet believe in it, why not believe
in God ? and why have so great a difficulty in believing in
the existence of a soul, which none of the senses can
discover ? Are we justified in thinking that all that exists
is discoverable by our few senses ? If matter and mind
are identical, and if matter is eternal, does not that agree
with the view ot the immortality of the soul ? I am not
concerned whether that which I call soul, and you call
matter, is matter or not, if it is eternal, and may, as far as
we can see, retain all its powers under different conditions.
I shall read with pleasure the book you sent me. May I
ask you to read Anti-Theistic Theories, by Professor Flint
(Baird Lectures, 1877 ; Blackwood & Sons, publishers) ?
I am sorry I cannot send it to you, but it is not my own.
My wife is interested in your book, and especially in
yourself; she insists upon me expressing her wish to have
your portrait, if convenient for you to send it. I have
marked some parts of Force and Matter, but at present I
am so occupied with my own work that I have little time
for private reading, and I am not much inclined to
controversy, I am a firm believer in the Christian faith,
and in the person of Christ and his teaching. There are
many things in connection with Christianity that I differ
from, many of its doctrines that I do not accept; but I
would never think of staking the whole question on small
issues, and I entirely disagree with you in giving any
importance to such trifling advertisements as you were
kind enough to send me. In my opinion, the large
question of the Christian faith and its power ought not to
be judged on small issues.
Please read M. Janet’s reply to Force and Matter.
With kind regards,
I am, yours sincerely,
Clergyman.
�IX.
-*Dear Sir,—
Yours of yesterday in reference to reading books
just to hand. If any one asked me to read a book on new
discoveries in arithmetic, based on the assertion that
3 + 3 = io, or 3 x 3 = io, I would not waste my time by
doing so ; I certainly would not buy the book. That is
my position in regard to Christianity. It makes statements
which I disbelieve, and it gives no proof of their veracity.
You know fairly well my tone of mind. If you can loan
me, if only for a week or two, any book that you think I
ought to read, 1 will gladly look into it on the strength
of your recommendation.
Herewith I send you a Christian book which the Roman
Catholics put into the hands of children. It is called A
Sight of Hell. I view such teachings with horror and
disgust, for they frighten the little ones, stunt the growth
of their intellect, and fill our asylums with idiots.
Yours,
George Anderson.
Dear Sir,—
In your letter of January 25th you write that you
cannot understand why I think that Christianity makes us
less able to compete with foreigners in business. I will
explain. Continental boys are not dosed daily with
religion in schools, as British boys are. Dogma, miracles,
and mystery do not occupy their time ; hence, on leaving
school they know more of what is required in this world
than our boys do, and their minds are not confused by
divergent ideas incapable of proof, and which all their
knowledge of this life and its duties contradicts. As the
terrors of an everlasting hell form part of the belief of our
boys, they become mental cowards, and are afraid to think.
This dwarfs their intellect, and makes them less able to
compete with boys more secularly trained. But please
note, I do not confine these remarks to your Church. All
religious teaching has the same effect in certain degrees.
You think that my liberality towards “ other objects ”
is due to the influence of Christianity upon me.
iQ
�I cannot agree with you upon this point. If I assist a
man or an object, it is always for the purpose of increasing
comfort, or furthering progress in human affairs. I never
do so as a bribe to heaven to save my soul, nor to escape
the eternal miseries of your hell.
You hope the religion I profess gives me comfort. I
know of no religion that I consider good enough, so I
don’t profess any. I thank you for your kind hope, how
ever, and wish to state that I feel very comfortable except
in this, that I would that more were of my opinions. I
see so much misery amidst so much luxury that I would
like to increase the latter, and, if the former must exist at
all, to see at least a more equal division. I find beautiful
and grand ideas in most religions, but they are all blended
with the preposterous.
The Hindoos had their Trinity of Brahma, Siva and
Vishnu before Christians adopted the idea. Think of the
Hindoos’ glorious wide-flowing river of sacred water (the
Ganges) and compare it with the small vessel of holy
water used by the Christians. At the last eclipse of the
sun the Hindoos thought it was the end of the world ;
they rushed into the sacred water, that they might be
floated into eternity on its holy bosom. We laugh at this,
yet we tell them of men carried up into the air in chariots
of fire. Which is the more absurd ?
Religions also teach morality, but morality is not reli
gion—that is ethics, and the ethical part of Christianity
which is good was previously taught in China, and some
moral precepts that have since been added are wholly
unworkable, such as “ Give all you have to the poor ”—a
kindly-meant sentiment, which, if acted upon, would dis
organize society and ruin any one who attempted it, for no
doubt his relations would take steps to have him housed
in a lunatic asylum.
A subsequent letter of yours I hope to reply to in a day
or two. I wish, however, you would again read my reply
to Cardinal Manning, for I feel you have not gathered a
clear idea of my philosophy of matter and its attributes
Yours,
George Anderson.
i
i
�XI.
My Dear Sir,—
I sent you yesterday a copy of Dr. Bruce’s
Apologetics, which I borrowed. You can keep it for a
month. I am sure you will give the book a fair reading.
Thanks for ltttle book received, A Sight of Hell. I quite
agree with you that it is a scandal to have such literature
put into the hands of youth ; but in religion, as in business,
there is too much fraud. That does not, however, detract
from what is valuable, honest, and true in both.
My wife thanks you very much for your portrait. We
are both delighted with it, and trust it will be a long time
before we shall have to add the omitted date on the back.
It is a pity that London is so far away. I would like so
much to have a talk with you ; letters are of so little use.
If you are travelling in the summer time, would you not
like a tour through the Highlands ? We would be so
pleased to have you with us here ; and you would, I am
sure, enjoy the beautiful scenery. I shall send you another
book when you have read Bruce’s.
Yours faithfully,
j
' Clergyman.
<
,
XII.
Dear Sir,—
I must apologize for my delay in answering your
letters, but I hope to make good my leeway. Your letter
of February 18th I now reply to. You ask how I account
for the intellect of the Scotch and their knowledge of the
sciences, although they were so very religious. I account
for it thus : they lived in a comparatively poor country,
with a harsh climate, which compelled them to consider
ways and means more seriously than if they had lived in
Southern Italy, for instance.
They had also a rich
neighbour, who tried to enslave them and thrust its
religion upon them, all of which tended to develop their
thinking faculties. The Scotch undertook the education
of every girl and boy one hundred years before other
nationalities, and it has been within that period that their
scientific progress has expanded. They had also cheap
coal and iron ; without these prosperity would have been
T2
z
�difficult. Moreover, they have never hesitated to leave
the land of their birth, when they thought that by 'so
doing they could improve their worldly position. These
are all secular agencies, and to me they account for the
progress of the Scotch people, in spite of superstitious
teaching. My own case was similar. I had heard of
London, and I longed to see it. I accepted a contract
that would occupy two or three months, fully intending to
return ; but during those months I changed my mind and
remained, and my experience has justified my decision.
There may be, too, something in the fact that the breed is
considerably intermixed—a condition of things to which I
believe Scottish lasses have no objection.
You ask me for a definition of “ eternal.” We have now
arrived at an important point where we should clearly
understand each other, and I feel from some of your
questions that you do not comprehend my position. By
“ eternal ” I mean that which will continue without end—
vide the Christian hell as recorded in Scripture, 'and as
applied to matter—that which ever has been, and ever
will be. I cannot prove either proposition, but my
knowledge of matter dictates this inference : We see matter
changing in form—never any lost, never any coming into
existence “ out of nothing.” Hence I look on it as without
beginning or end, just as if I were riding on a circular
railway, and, after passing the same fixed objects many
times I would conclude that it had no end, but was a circle.
I think the assumption is as rational in the one case as in
the other, although only in the case of the railway could I
get down and prove it. Those who object to the eternity
of matter say : “ Oh, no ; matter was created.” I reply :
“ My friend, I do not understand ‘ creation,’ never having
seen the process. Please explain.” I am then referred to
very old books, written thousands of years ago, and to the
general assent of mankind. I respond that I don’t want
to be told by books—I could write a book stating the
contrary. I don’t believe all I read even in modern books,
still less in doubtful ones, written in an ignorant age by no
one knows whom. Besides, old books which I have read
give quite different accounts of both creation and creator.
Some say that the world is flat like a plate, so that,'if you
�reached the edge, you might fall off. Others say it is
borne on the back of a turtle, but they do not suggest
what the turtle rests on. So old books are to me wholly
unsatisfactory.
The remainder of your letter refers to “soul” and
“ matter,” which I will reply to anon. Will you again read
my reply to Cardinal Mantling, commencing at page 8, so
that you may not quote views I do not hold ?
Bruce’s book to hand with thanks.
Yours,
George Anderson.
XIII.
Dear Sir,—
The conclusion of your letter of February r8th
contains several arguments re God, soul, and eternity,
which are not based upon anything I have written. Permit
me to again explain.
I believe matter to be etefttal for reasons already given,
but I do not believe “ matter ” to be one thing and
“ eternal ” another.
Eternal is only an attiibute.
Attributes have no
physical existence. I have said that which is called soul
is an attribute of brain, but I have not said that brain, as
brain, is eternal, although as matter it is. Matter is ever
changing, forming new compounds in which its previous
character is lost, although the matter is not. Your fire
poker, a piece of bright iron, if left to the influences of
damp and air, becomes resolved into an oxide of iron,
having no resemblance to a poker. Strike the poker
against the tongs, and you have a musical sound which in
the condition of an oxide does not exist. You might call
the sound the soul of the poker, but I call it an attribute
only ; and attributes vary with the condition of matter,
the latter being the only existence.
Yours,
George Anderson.
�XIV.
Dear Sir,—
Replying to yours of January 31st, as to whether
Christ was an historical character, I am not strong upon
that point either pro or con. The Hindoos had their
trinity before the alleged time of Christ, and the stories of
both religions have many similarities—indeed, “ trinity ”
is a common conception—good, better, best; bad, worse,
worst; length, breadth, and thickness when measuring
solid bodies, etc. Critics are agreed that our Gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, cannot be traced beyond
the middle of the second century of our era. During these
one hundred and fifty years there is no doubt there were
many who aspired to be religious leaders, and, as there
were no printing presses at this period, what these mentors
might have said would become a matter of legend only.
Whoever wrote those books merely voiced the opinion of
the times, and, as they contain many statements that
would only be laughed at if 4pld of events of to-day, I am
most strongly inclined to consider them fabulous. I have
more certainty as to the existence of Julius Cresar, the
Roman Governor, than of Jesus Christ. However this
may be, I consider it of small account. We should judge
writings by what they contain, not by the authorship—
submitting all to the test of reason.
You write that I must acknowledge that no religion has
produced such moral and intellectual results as Christianity.
I am not aware that man is now more moral than in past
ages. To my mind, the scoundrelism of the present
exceeds anything in the past. Take up any leading
newspaper, and what does it contain ? Reports of bubble
companies being floated, regardless of whom they rob, and
in a year or two coming to a disastrous end ; officers of
friendly societies decamping with the cash ; solicitors
struck off the rolls through misapplication of the funds of
their clients ; pious Jabez Balfour absconding with the
hard-earned savings of the poorest bank depositors,
deceiving the poor dupes by his church-going hypocrisy ;
15
/
�the drunkenness, wife beating, seduction of children,
spread of infectious disease, avaricious grasping after
fortune without toiling honestly for it, quarrels of nations
in their efforts to outwit each other for possession of
territory to which they have no right, and from which they
intend, should success crown their efforts, to shut out the
rest of mankind. Oh, no, pray banish that oft-told fable
from your mind ; it is not true. Intellectual advancement
I admit, but that has been in spite of Christianity, which
exerted all its power against mental progress, even perse
cuting its pioneers. From the time of Constantine, the
chief Christian shop has been cruel to all but its own
customers; even the sects that have sprung from its false
roots have persecuted each other, and continue to do so
indirectly. No shopkeeper would succeed in a country
town, however good the quality and reasonable the price
of his wares, if it were known that he did not attend some
conventicle. The intellectuality of this age is due to the
greater knowledge of nature that pervades it—that makes
it more human while less religious; consequently the
burning of witches, warlocks, and even unbelievers, is not
permitted, and the Church endeavours to trim its sails to
the modern breeze.
The creation was not accomplished in six of our days ;
we have misunderstood Scripture. It means six long
periods of time ; “ a thousand years are to the Lord as
one day.” This paltry subterfuge is used to delay the
downfall of the nonsense formerly preached from Genesis.
If the shades of Galileo, Darwin, and many others of
that ilk, can look down and read our thoughts of to-day,
how they must rejoice at the change their writings have
effected, and at the fact that we now enthrone them after
having displaced Moses and the Prophets.
Yours,
George Anderson.
j6
�XV.
Dear Sir, *
'
,
Excuse me for not thanking you earlier for your kind
attention in sendihg me Gould and Darwin. I have read
vol. i. of former with interest. Thanks also very much for
box of pens—a kindly hint to write better. I will try to
do so. I have been very busy of late, and have had
no spare moments.
Referring to yours of March 9th, you say rightly that you
cannot prove the eternity of matter. You cannot prove
an existence without beginning and without ending ; but
you believe in it. My contention is this : It is impossible
for our finite minds to understand what is meant by a thing
being eternal—matter, for example ; but we have the
power to believe it. Now, if you believe a thing you
cannot understand, that you have no knowledge of by the
senses, why not believe in the existence we call God ?
To me, it seems as easy to believe in the existence of God
as in the eternity of matter. I have tried again and again
to understand a thing without a beginning or an ending,
and I have failed. Can you grasp it ? I therefore say, it
is as easy for me to believe in the existence of God and
his eternity, although I never saw him, as it is for you to
believe in the eternity of matter.
Knowledge and experience teach us that everything is
done by some force, some energy You ask : Who made
God ? I cannot tell, but I can more easily believe in a
Supreme being of intelligence than I can in matter, which
you say has no beginning, but possesses the qualities or
powers necessary to develop itself with such perfection as we
perceive in the human frame and in the physical universe.
I have once more carefully read your reply to Cardinal
Manning. I agree with most of what you say. The
arguments you use do not shake my faith in the future
existence of our intelligence, whether that be through the
mere condition of matter, or of the separate existence of
the soul or mind. I am quite of opinion that science and
T7
�religion will become more and more reconciled, and that
Maie.r.lists and Spiritualists will modify their views, and
to see eye to eye as to the existence of a supreme,
intelligent, and heneficient Being, who is behind and before
all things. We are babes in knowledge, but after we leave
the body, or if you prefer it, when this material man has
had his personality changed by death, we shall know far
more than we do'now.
I quite understand what you mean by soul or mind as a
mere attribute of matter; but we do not know all the
circumstances which may go to create that condition.
There may be something better in store for us than to be
transformed into gases, or into grass or herbage to feed
animal life.
I find it quite impossible to conceive that a powerful
mind like your own should evaporate into insignificance
of this description. I do not agree with your view of
religion retarding intellectual progress. As a matter of
fact and history, Christianity has done more to advance
education and the sciences than any other faith, and
history knows that our school people owe more to religion
for their education than to any other cause. Every one
knows that the Scotch Reformation has been the revival
of learning, as it was the awakening of the intellect. I
know I shall not induce you, by any arguments I may
advance, to become a Christian. There are many things
I cannot understand, but Christianity has for me a power
that nothing else possesses, to cause me to live the best
possible life for myself and for the good of others, and
gives more satisfaction with regard to the great future. I
daresay you will smile at my simplicity when I tell you
that I am praying to the eternal God to lead you to
believe in Jesus Christ. I have no doubt the Scotch
mother to whom you owe so much has often prayed for
you, and taught you from the Bible, which you seem to
know so well. I have a great desire to see you, for I
believe that there is much good and kindness in your
nature, and far more of the spirit of Christ than in many
who profess to be his followers. I am led to understand
that you have a son in charge of your office. Pardon me,
J8
�if I say that I am curious to know whether you train him
in the same views as you hold yourself.
You think it strange that I should wish to have your life
prolonged. For one thing, I think that we should wish
good and useful lives to be extended. Then I wish to see
you—that is a selfish motive, you will ay ; and, thirdly, I
would like to know where you are going, before I would
wish you to depart.
,
What a curious thing matter must be that it can act,
think, will, and be happy. What a pity it does not
develop more rapidly, that we might have a longer time to
study by living longer. It is scarcely worth while for us to
come into existence to have it end and become a blank so
soon, as far as mind or intellect is concerned.
I am afraid I have trespassed too much upon your time
in inflicting such a long letter upon you. I trust you
enjoyed your holiday in Ireland, and that you have
returned home full of vigour in body and mind.
Yours truly,
Clergyman.
XVI.
Dear Sir,—
Yours of April ist received. I think we waste time over
the word “ eternal,” of which you ask my definition. I take
the dictionary meaning—without beginning or end. That
meaning I apply to matter, but not to its attributes, which
are ever changing, while matter remains in one form or
another. You say, I believe in the eternity of matter,
although I cannot prove it. I do so because it is more
logical. Matter is : we take cognizance of it by all our
senses. It is ever with us ; we cannot divest ourselves of
it even in imagination ; we cannot put a particle of it out
of, or bring into, existence ; and as we have never seen an
instance of what is called “creation,” it is more logical to
think that it has ever been than that there was a time
19
�when it was not. You assert that it is as easy to believe
in the existence of God as in the eternity of matter. Here
you place an adjective and a noun on an equality. I have
never treated the term “ eternal ” otherwise than as an ad
jective. If you had said, “ It is as easy for me to believe
in the existence of God as for you to believe in the exist. ence of matter,” I would have asked you for some of your
proofs. You say you have ever failed to think of a thing
without beginning or ending. Then your everlasting God
has no existence, and you must accept Materialism as a
consistent belief. Still, you maintain that you can easily
believe in a Supreme Being of intelligence, but you have
, no evidence of intelligence, supreme or moderate, except
as an animal attribute. The dog, the horse, the man,, are
all intelligent in various degrees, the better educated they
are, the more intelligent they become ; but intelligence is
not a thing—it is only an attribute applicable to animals
and to matter • and although we have had thousands of
doctrines over hundreds of years, we have no instance of
the continuance of intelligence after the dissolution of the
material body.
After impressing upon me the fact that it is as easy for
you to believe in the existence of God and his eternity as
it is for me to believe in the eternity of matter (the noun
and the adjective again on equal ground), you say that
knowledge and experience teach us that everything is done
by some force—some energy. I agree with this remark,
and now apply it to the following one. You have never
seen God, but I have seen and handled matter. Is it your
■belief that your God is material—hence his force and
energy ? But this is not the common belief, for it is
written that he has neither body, parts, nor passions.
This is as concise a description of “ nothing ” as I have
read ; yet by the same authority he is represented as kind,
revengeful, and personal. He showed himself to Moses.
He has prepared a heaven for a few, and a hell for the
many. One would only expect such inconsistent statements
to emanate from a lunatic asylum, but they are all in the
Gospel, hence the world is mostly mad. You tell me that
you believe in the future existence of the soul or mind—
20
�you should first prove its present existence before you
launch it into futurity. However, give me your evidence,
for I would like to believe it, as life is sweet. You have a
willing pupil, who will not trouble you to ransack the
writings of the ancients. A few references to current
examples will suffice.
You are of opinion that religion and science will be
come more reconciled. So am I. I ha\e seen consider
able approachment in my time. Religion has joined
science as to the form of the earth. Religion, at least
outside Italy, does not believe that Etna and Vesuvius are
two of the mouths of hell. Religion and science in
Europe and America generally agree that our globe has
existed for hundreds of thousands of years instead of six
or seven thousand. Although this is a money-making age,
and many things are now possible that were not a few
hundred years ago, you would find it very difficult to en
gage a carpenter or mason who would contract on proper
conditions to supply you with a ladder, or any other means,
by which you could climb into heaven. Astronomy says
it is too far away. Telescopes have been brought into use,
and earnest students have looked miles upon miles into
space, and have only found stars, stars, stars with no
glimpse of heaven to reward their search.
Oh ! yes, we are approximating. Our present judges do
not believe in witches, and to burn them on account of
their opinions is quite beyond the pale of possibility.
Superstition cannot fly at our throats as it once did; science
has clipped its wings. It is now kept in the background,
except on rare occasions, such as when we allowed an
English Bishop to unveil the statue of Darwin in the
Natural History Museum. Of course, superstition some
times makes itself heard yet, as it did recently in Rome,
when a Catholic wrote a book entitled Happiness in Hell,
which the chief representatives of Jesus Christ in Rome
and elsewhere said no good Catholic must read. I read
the book on what I considered the Pope’s recommendation,
as doubtless thousands of others did; and I daresay the
Pope’s interdict was considered by the author a good
advertisement.
21
�I had intended to write more, but I must close for the
present. Your other points are only side issues, which I
may return to when I have time.
Yours,
George Anderson.
XVIJ.
Dear Sir,—
In continuation of my letter of April 9th, I note that
you say it is a matter of fact and history that Christianity
has done more to advance education and science than any
other faith. I agree with you in this, for I do not know
that any of the faiths have ever advanced science, while I
do know that Christianity has retarded it. Christians (socalled) have advanced science, not, however, as Christians,
but as scientific men. Christianity has been so ferocious
and so powerful that men of science, who had no ambition
to become martyrs, have used it as a mantle. Christians
have acted as if all unbelievers were so through mere
perversity, and not through honest conviction ; and, as all
who do not believe will be damned, they have cut short
the life of the unbeliever, and all for the glory of God and
the saving of their own miserable souls. But a better
knowledge of human capacities has taught us that belief is
not to be obtained at will or by force, that disbelief is quite
as honest as belief, and in consequence we have become
more humane. This humanity has not been brought
about by Christianity, but in spite of it; and this better
understanding of the nature of man has been accomplished
by unbelievers. And to the believer what does Christianity
offer ? An eternity of idleness, save for playing on a harp
and singing the praises of the Lord. What a puerile
conception of the Author of the universe it is, that he
should be pleased to hear for ever ringing in his ears the
praises of moths like us.
I have been seated in my garden, when a cloud of gnats
were hovering round my head, and have wondered if I
would be happier if I knew they were praising me. No.
I would say : “You fools, mind your own affairs; make
22
�each other happy ; I can get along perfectly well without
you.” But why should your God punish me because I
disbelieve the absurd stories I am told about him ? I
have never, so far as I know, injured him. I have never
spoken an unkind word to him or of him. I don’t trouble
him with my little wants and sorrows. I don’t even ask
any favours of him. I have helped many sufferers who
have not been as fortunate as I have been. I don’t pray
for them—that is easily done. I accept nature as it is
organised, and choose what I consider its better parts, for
I see nothing perfect. Then why should I be damned ?
I cannot believe that a God of Justice would act so
brutally. He would rather say : “ Come in ; give him a
harp, Peter.” I would reply : “ Thank you, but I am on
my way to the Mohammedan paradise ; I like that better.
There is something to be done there—beautiful gardens,
sweet smelling flowers, luscious fruits, noble people, and,
above all, no torments. You reign there too. Au revoir.”
No. the Christian Conception of heaven is poor indeed.
The whole scheme has been built on human pride and
the wish to enslave mankind.. We praise and bow down
to the land-lords and all the big-wigs, and they employ
preachers to teach obedience to the masses, who raise
their daily bread. It is very sad, and I pity the preachers,
who know better, as many of them must do. I am told
hell is not so prominent in sermons as it was even 'in my
young days, when I saw young women brought out and laid
upon the grass fainting from the effects of mission sermons
in the Highlands. We are advancing, and I earnestly hope
that the clergy will preach ethics, and gradually draw people
to believe that every bad thought, every bad action, brings
suffering, seen or hidden, and a conscience smitten with
remorse. I advocate no sudden overthrow of Christianity;
it has hitherto been the one guide, and we can only slowly
provide a substitute ; but do not bring your sons up to the
Church, for it is a decaying institution.
In a subsequent letter I may describe how I brought up
my family, with not one of whom have I ever had the
least trouble.
Yours,
GeorgeJAnderson.
23
�XVIII.
My Dear Sir,
I apologise for my long silence. I have been away
through the Highlands for some time examining schools
in religious instruction, and I have also changed my
residence. This has kept me very busy, and my corres
pondence has been neglected. I send you per same post
Darwin’s Voyage. I have read it with very great interest,
and I shall be pleased to have his Descent of Man. Many
thanks for Mr. Roman’s letter. I should like to keep it,
but will return it if you desire. 1 have read and re-read it.
There is much in it from which I dissent—for example,
his view of the history of Moses ; but there is also much
that indicates honest thought. I like his closing remarks
immensely, viz. : “ Rather keep on doubting and living a
life in preparation for that happier state, even though we
may be disappointed.” Such belief is a powerful lever in
civil government. I am sure you will appreciate that good
advice, and I trust from the bottom of my heart you will
give due weight to it.
Though I have neglected writing to you, you are very
often in my thoughts, and I am really interested in you.
1 cannot think that you yourself believe that “ with death
it means eternal end,” as your aged friend says. You
think much. I am inclined to believe too much. There
are in nature thousands of things we cannot understand,
but which we believe. Why not act on the same principle
in religion ? Our very existence is an unfathomable
mystery, and we must be content with knowing only in
part. I here is, to my mind, no way of combatting the
beneficial influence of Christianity. It has done more
good to the human race than any other religion ; as a
civilising influence no one can gainsay its paramount
place. No doubt it has many blemishes, and has been in
many ways hurried into superstition; but that must be
allowed, because of the slow progress that man makes
towards the higher life. I think no one can read the
sayings of our Lord, such as the “ Sermon on the Mount,”
without feeling that there is something divine in them.
No man could utter such words, and live such a life as
24
�Jesus is represented to have lived, without supernatural
power. Excuse my running wild in these lines.
I must now close. I trust you are well. I have had no
paper nor any remarks for a long time. I should have
also said that I am busy with my new church. I believe
in my work, and, because I do, 1 give myself wholly to it,
and feel satisfied that I am doing the right thing.
With kindest regards,
'7, .
Yours sincerely,
Clergyman.
XIX.
Dear Sir,—
Your silence has been so long that I was wondering
whether you had decided to discontinue the correspon
dence ; but you give a sufficient reason. Darwin’s Cruise
arrived a few days ago, and I sent you his Origin of
Species—his Descent of Man is lent out at present.
I am not prepared to endorse all his doctrines—I am
not sufficiently educated to do so; but, so far as I have
read his works, I think his arguments are most reasonable.
The Bible touches on many of the same points as he does,
but in such an unsatisfactory manner that I reject it as the
production of ignorant men of an ignorant age. The
wonder is that in these more enlightened and humane
times people are not ashamed of it, with its barbarous
cruelties and indecencies, instead of holding it sacred.
Nothing proves more strongly the lasting effects of impres
sions made in early youth, for I feel that you would not dare
to read many parts of it from your pulpit. You and I differ
entirely as to the civilizing character of Christianity. Its
history proves its influence to have been pernicious. While
it had power it persecuted, burnt, and murdered all who
differed from it. Spain is the most Christian country in
Eurjpe, and the most backward; and its amusements are
the most vicious—for instance, its bull-fights where delicate,
high-born women attend on a Sunday afternoon to see an
25
�old horse disembowelled by an artifically enraged bull,
while the eyes of the horse are covered that it may not see
the bull’s approach. “ It is only an old horse.” Poor
creature ! Poor ill-used help to man !
Read the American history of Spain; how she robbed,
tortured, and enslaved the Aborigines, until, after years of
cruelty, most of them died, and then she imported slaves
from other lands to do her work. She even brought
Columbus home a prisoner because he did not send her
enough precious things to satisfy her greed, and he, poor
man, died without redress. You can find all this in
Robertson’s Histories. And the Christian Pope of the
day gave America to the Portuguese and the Spaniards,
think of the impudence of the man. He knew no more of
America before its discovery by Columbus than a Scotch
jackdaw, yet he gave it to them. Why ? Because they
were Christian supporters.
. Christianity is not so bad to-day as it was then, but that
is because it lacks the power. Secular and scientific
knowledge have drawn her fangs, but the spirit of persecu
tion is so strong in her that Roman Catholics, members of
the Church of England, and Presbyterians now persecute
each other, within the law, all struggling to grasp the
“loaves and fishes.” And this persecution is in accordance
with its principles. “ What shall it profit a man if he shall
gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? ” What
indeed ? What is earthly profit against eternal damnation?
And Christians think that disbelief is mere perversity, and
criminal persecution a virtue, if by it they can save souls.
Your order has much to answer for to mankind for preach
ing such abominable doctrines. But do not suppose I lay
all the blame to Christianity ; certainly not. In the first
place, it is due to the selfish nature of man ; and, secondly,
to the dreadful doctrines he has been taught. Scientific
men never damn those who differ from them ; they investi
gate further, and the result is progress. I presume you
have read Livy’s History of Rome. The people then were
more religious than they are now; they never entered
upon anything of consequence without first consulting the
gods (this was previous to Christianity). The result was
26
�continuous wars and robberies, such as your own Bible
stamps with approval.
You ask me to believe ; but believe what ? Something
that soipeone else says, of which he can give no proof,
which is contrary to my own judgement, and which all my
experience contradicts. Take the matter of eternal life.
I should not mind—in fact, would prefer—that it could be
proved,on the same principle that I wish to live to-morrow,
and would not object if that to-morrow were to go on
indefinitely; and, if such is the order of our being, it will
be so whether I believe it or not, and in that case I trust
I may be better employed than I should be in the
monotonous eternity that Christians hold out. I prefer the
teachings of the Koran, which are more in accordance
with human nature.
You mention Mr. Roman’s letter, and ask to keep it.
You may do so. There is an essential difference between
Mr. Roman and myself.
My disbelief is on a
philosophical basis; his evidently is not. He has doubts;
I have none, and he thinks he will do what good he can
and chance it. Had he been brought up in India or
China, he would most likely have acted on the same
principle, and have been a Hindoo or a Buddhist.
I look on all religious systems as deceptions which close
the book of that- nature I love, but do not worship, for it
is not perfect, and sometimes performs its work in anything
but a satisfactory manner. The efficacy of prayer I hold
to be nil, save to tranquilize the mind of the one who
indulges in the process. He who prays and does not act
is a fool. The doctrine of the power of prayer has been
upheld by your Church. (See Combe’s Constitution of
Man, people’s edition, page 93.) The best thing you can
preach is morality. Children should be taught the rudi
ments of science, something of their own anatomy and
physiology, something of their own skin and the duty of
keeping it clean, something of the love of animals includ
ing man, something of the love of truth, of help to the
unfortunate, of tolerance, of sobriety in all things, of the
history of man all over the world—his defects should be
pointed out, and religious teaching should be banished
27
�until the children can judge of it for themselves—then you
would make clever men and women, able to compete
successfully in the battle of life, for we do not lack capacity.
As it is, other nations who are more rationally taught are
supplanting us in our previous specialities, and, unless we
send our manufactures abroad, as a nation we cannot live.
I have sent you Ingersoll’s Mistakes of Moses, which I
think will interest you. I should like to have your opinion
as to the facts contained therein.
Yours,
George Anderson.
XX.
Dear Sir,—
I send you the Literary Guide for July, and have marked
five articles which I would like you to read. Should you
take exception to any of them, mark the portions, tear
them off, and post them Jto me, that we may exchange
views.
•
You will find views in the Guide similar to those I have
expressed in my letters to you, and which are, in my
opinion, such as will, in the fulness of time, rule the world
of thought, and take the place of those unproveable,
absurd, and contradictory notions that were hatched in the
days of ignorance, dividing mankind into hostile camps,
in which they fought to their mutual destruction.
Dr. Wallace, M.P. for Edinburgh, stated in Parliament
last week that we shall come to secular education in our
schools. This has long been my opinion, but the Churches
know that, unless they can secure the young child before
he can think on what he is taught, he will never accept
their teachings about the unknowable.
Yours,
George Anderson.
28
�XXL
My Dear’Sir,—
I am much obliged for your kind wishes, and especially
for your offer to send Science Primers for the use of our
young people. I have five Sabbath schools in connection’
with my church. I should like to read a copy of them
first, although, believing you to be an honourable man, I
quite accept what you say that there is nothing in them pro
or con on religion, so please send me a few to begin with
I am never afraid of scientific knowledge. The articles in
the Literary Guide, which you so kindly sent, I have read,
and with much I agree. I shall, after another perusal,
return some of them marked as you wish.
There are two things upon which, in my opinion, you
are unduly severe. First, “Christianity.” I think you
emphasize too much the superstition and cruelty associated
with the religion of Christ. They are no more the fault
of Christianity than the nonsense that has so often been
associated with science is the fault of science as such.
Christianity, as a system, has its side of evolution. It had
to fight its way against the tyranny and superstition of
Rome for centuries. I am surprised that one who knows
history as well as you do can fail to see and acknowledge
that Christianity has done more to elevate woman, to
civilize man, and to cultivate the human intellect than any
other system or creed. I do not think it is fair to insinu
ate that pure Materialists have been the only or chief pro
moters of scientific research. I presume you will allow that
some of the best scientists of all ages acknowledge the
Christian faith, and admit that there is no real antagonism
between science and Christianity in its enlightened form.
If you will excuse me for saying so, I am of opinion that
you take too narrow a view of Christianity, and do not
give it sufficient credit for the good results it has produc
ed in the world.
29
�The other point on which I specially differ from you is
this : I think you make too much of science. You appear
to me to suppose that all difficulties must be solved by
science alone. There are numberless obstacles that can
be raised along the lines that you have so often and so well
discussed. But do we not meet with as many and as great
ones on other lines ? That matter should have in itself
the power, skill, intelligence, and wisdom which are dis
played in the universe, and in the human body and mind,
is to me a greater difficulty to believe than that there is a
Supreme Being. I suppose that you would find it as im
possible to intelligently conceive of matter arranging itself
with such consummate skill, such perfect balance and accur
acy,without any mind or any power behind it, as you would
find it to believe in the existence of the soul. Why should
you take it for granted that science has made sufficient dis
coveries within the last quarter of a century to justify you
in overthrowing the view of the Christian faith maintained
by such great minds in the past and present ages ? Is it
fair to take it for granted that science has discovered all
that can be discovered ? May not science prove yet more
•clearly than it has done that-there is no inconsistency be
tween belief in God and the tnost advanced scientific facts. I
cannot really make out whether you believe in a Supreme
Being at all, or in the existence of the soul or mind as
distinct from the body, or as being at least capable of ex
isting apart from the present material body. From some
•of your statements I am sorry to be disposed to
think that you have no faith in these. You kindly said to
me some time ago that you would tell me how you brought
up your family. I have no right to ask the question whether
you taught them your own views, but I should like to know.
If you believe in the existence of a Supreme Being out
side matter, then I do not see that it is so difficult for you
to face other obstacles. There are facts as certain, ascer
tained by inference, as those that you arrived at by experi
ments. You do not need to put everything under the
microscope or the dissecting knife in order to be certain.
There are many facts in connection with religion that you
•can arrive at by inference. I go back to the beginning of
•our correspondence. You said you believed in the eternity
30
�■of matter. I say it is impossible for the human mind to
•conceive of anything without a beginning, yet you believe
it. Yes, science forces you to believe it, for you say : “ Is
it not as easy, or easier, to believe in the existence of a
Supreme Being created like matter, with intelligence and
wisdom?” If you believe in an uncreated entity, why
not in the larger and, to my mind, the likelier theory ? I
must honestly say that I would like you to have broader
and fairer views on this question. You have not sufficiently
explained to me how you can believe in the eternity of
> matter and not in the eternity of a Supreme Being. Yet I
am unwilling to think that you do not believe in the exist■ence of God, and hold the opinion that human existence
ends here. I earnestly trust you will reconsider your
position. I do not wish to continue arguing on these
points. You and I will find plenty of material to support
our arguments for and against Christianity and the existence
of a Deity, but I find life top real and serious to occupy
my time in discussing questions on which I believe we
cannot see eye to eye. It would be .a great pleasure to me
to have a personal interview with you, but this cannot be
unless you should chance to be in this directions If so-it
would afford me great pleasure to receive a visit from you.
What do you say of the lat$ Mr. Gladstone ? You will
no doubt acknowledge that he had a powerful mind. See
what comfort and peace he felt on his death-bed. Do not
think that I am presuming too much when I express the
hope that, when your journey is nearly ended, you will go
back in heart and soul to those old truths that have pro
duced such splendid men in our land, many of them well
known to you. Then you will find in the beautiful words
and perfect life of Jesus Christ, as well as in his wonderful
death for sinful mankind, that rest and peace, in view of
the great future, that others have experienced. This is
indeed my prayer for you—that Almighty God will lead
you to faith in him.'
I have allowed my pen to run loose. Please excuse.
With kind regards,
i
I am,
Faithfully yours,
Clergyman.
3i
�XXII.
Dear Sir,—
In a concluding paragraph of your letter of July 6th you
write that we cannot see eye to eye, and that you find life
too serious to occupy time in discussing, etc. That is in
accord with a similar sentiment I have held for some time
—namely, that, /w or con, Christianity may be deleted,
from our correspondence—and, if so, I do not see the use
of continuing it. It was your desire that I should become
a Christian. You have preached at and prayed forme,
but you have only seen one side of the shield. I have seen
both, and the Lord has not heard your prayers ; I leave
that to be settled between you, for up to now I am, as I
was, a disbeliever in the miraculous. In my first letter I
gave you my reasons for dissenting from various points of
your faith, including your virgin-born Christ; but you have
not dealt with them. Indeed, how could you, on a matter
contradicted by all experience ? Your silence reminds me
of an incident that occurred when I was spending a few
days at Naples. On going into the smoking room of the
hotel one day after dinner, I found about a dozen gentle
men, one of whom was doing all the talking, while the others
were smoking. He was a middle-aged man, evidently from
America. He was telling the others what churches he had
been to, and he was pitying those poor ignorant Catholics
who worshipped images, and he related how he had seen
them kissing the feet of the sculptured saints. Being the
last comer, I did not care to speak, unless none of the
others did ; but, as no one replied, I said : “ Perhaps some
of those people could point at something in your belief
which they consider equally as unsound.” “Oh,
” ’
’
”
'
no, he at once retorted; “ I prove all things,
and hold to that which is good.”
I said :
“ I suppose you are a family man.
He nodded
assent. “ Well,” I continued, “suppose your wife were to
say to you one morning at breakfast: ‘My dear, I am much
32
�afraid there is something wrong with daughter Mary : I
don’t like her symptoms.’ You would exclaim : ‘Impossible,
I will have her up to the library and question her.’ You
would call your valet to send in your daughter. When
she arrived you would say : ‘Mary, your mother is seriously
alarmed about your condition; her quick eyes have dis
covered that something is wrong.’ Mary would hang her
head, but say nothing. You would entreat her to make
full confession of her weakness. She would still be silent,
but most probably give way to tears. You would say :
‘Mary, I insist upon knowing who is the author of your
trouble.’ She would then faintly say: ‘Father, it is the
Holy Ghost.’” I paused half a second and said : ‘Would
you believe her ? No; and yet you believe a similar story
told about a Jewish girl, who is alleged to have lived nearly
two thousand years ago.” I paused dramatically. He
made not one word of reply. I looked round to see if any
one else would ; but no. Some smiled broadly, but no
one spoke. The American shortly after rose and left
without saying “Good evening, gentlemen.” He was quite
right to take his defeat in silence, and far wiser than to
have tried to argue in such an impossible position. He
was going to the Holy Land ; I hope I gave him something
to think about on the way.
You said that Ingersoll was flippant; I know what you
mean. Christians can be flippant and abusive in their
references to Freethinkers ; but the moment their faith is
attacked by sarcasm they call it flippancy. I have faith
in sarcasm ; it strikes prejudices, it stings, it makes fools
think. In my opinion, Ingersoll reasons admirably and
humorously ; he can make people laugh, and laughter is
a good antidote to folly.
You have twice asked how I brought up my family. I
had two daughters and four sons. Up to the age of nine
or ten they were at local schools, and at home, where
religion was not considered a fit subject for youthful minds, so
there was no instruction for or against it. When they went
to boarding-school I insisted that they were not to learn
catechisms, psalms, etc., but to have the time that is
usually devoted to this branch of study for play, for I
remembered the trouble such things had been to me. I
33
✓
�✓
have happily forgotten them all now except “that the chief
end of man was to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.’
My eldest son I sent to University College School,London,
where he met boys from different parts of the world—this
itself was education. One of John Bright’s sons was there
at the same time. The other three boys and the two girls
I sent to Madras College, St. Andrews, as they became of
proper age. I found the boys had seven or eight classes
to attend, each of about an hour’s duration, out of one room
into another. I thought these were too many, so I struck
out one class, held about mid-day, which I deemed they
least needed, and they had that hour to play. I gave the
boys bicycles, and sometimes they would ride from St.
Andrews to Leven, where their eldest brother was learning
mechanical engineering. Each of my boys I sent to learn
a mechanical trade. While they were at St. Andrews, I
arranged at the hotel for a groom to take both boys and
girls riding on Saturday afternoons. The two girls and
the youngest boy I afterwards sent to Germany The girls’
education was already what is called finished, but they
went for the study of music and languages, the boy for
natural philosophy and chemistry under Bunsen. They
were there a couple of years. The boy came home and
went to King’s College, London, and the girls I took to
Italy—to Florence first, afterwards to Rome. I used to
join them during their holidays, taking them to Switzerland,
Venice, Pisa, etc., where they saw the immortality of man
in architecture, sculpture, and painting. My eldest sonhad gone to Chili to construct, and afterwards manage, a
gas works ; my elder daughter followed him. He died while
engineer of the gas works, Santiago. My daughter took to
teaching music, English, French, German, and Italian ;
she made two hundred a year, and was welcomed in the
best society, where her riding proved an advantage, as all
good people ride there. In the course of time she married.
My younger daughter, went out to her sister after her
mother’s death. My elder daughter’s husband died, and
she took to teaching again, assisted by her sister. She,
too, became the wife of a Scotchman, and they all live to
gether. My youngest son is now my right hand in my
office. - Of my other two sons, one has been twelve years34
�in Corsica managing my gas works there, the other is en
gineer and secretary in a gas works near London. All are
married and have children. I may say that they have
given me no trouble ; and, if I had their bringing-up to da
again, I fail to see where I could alter it with advantage.
As to their religion, I have never troubled my head about
it, and I fancy the subject has not given them much con
cern, although some of them, I believe, conform to a few
of its forms, which I have never done.
A minister of the English Church called on me shortly
after I had taken possession of a house in the country, to
tell me that my house had a seat in the church. I took
him indoors, showed him my shelves of books, told him
that here and in the fields I spent my Sundays, uncorked
a bottle of port (of which we both partook), and chatted
harmoniously. Some months after the men of the near
village called to ask me to take the chair at their bean
feast. I agreed. They had engaged a band of music from
a neighbouring village. I asked them why they did not
have a band of their own. 'Jhey appreciated the hint, and
came to me next week to head the parish subscription. I
said ; “No, no; you must go to the big-wigs who have been
longer established here than I have, then come to me.”
They did so ; got enough money, bought instruments, and
secured a bandmaster from the nearest barracks. In a
few months they could play very well indeed ; and, after a
while, they used to come marching in at my gate, pose
themselves in the circular carriage-drive in front of the
house, and play capitally. They had got something better
to do than spend their evenings at the ale-house, and I
hope they became better men and saved the money they
formerly paid for a band to play at their village festivals.
In my opinion, this was better than praying for them.
If you have not, up to this, found out my position on
the subject of the gods, I scarcely know how to enlighten
you. I have told you that gods, devils, witches, warlocks,
spirits, etc., are but myths of ignorant human imaginings,
and are as various as teachings you have received—in fact
quite geographical. Born in Rome, Catholic ; in London
Protestant; in China, Buddhist; in Turkey, Mohammedan
—all contradicting and damning each other, hunting and
35
�x
killing as opportunity affords. Outside their various
religions they will buy and sell; they will join in schemes
for the bettering of mankind; but do not introduce
religion of any sort, or they are ready to fly at each other’s
throats. Talk not to me of the civilizing results of religion,
when all history proclaims the direct contrary. Of course,
Christians have done much good, but not as Christians,
and it is only in secular pursuits that they have benefitted
the world. They are'ashamed now to kill or skin a iiran,
but it is because the spirit of the age is more secular.
Christianity has to retire into the background,while science,
which is purely secular, advances to the front; and an
Archbishop of the Church of England is glad to attend at
the inauguration of a marble statue to Darwin.
The excuses which religionists make for their former
blunders and ignorance are most humiliating. The
world goes round and the sun does not travel, as the
Church formerly taught ; so the story of the sun standing
still until Joshua slew his enemies is a mistake. The
world was not created in six days—it was in six long
periods of time; neither was "it created about six thousand
years ago. Here, again, a long period of time is called a
•day, for geologists have settled that the world is hundreds
of thousands of years old ; and so on in many other cases.
Your Bible, too, is an obscene, highly improper book to
be put into the hands of youths. I am certain you would
not read the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis to your con
gregation from the pulpit. I grant there are some beauti
ful passages in the Bible; but they should not be mixed up
with so much that is objectionable. It requires expurga
tion—and I wonder some Christians have not the courage
to do it. The Roman Catholics know this, for they do
not encourage their people to read it. However, with all
its blots and false statements, it will be read, and the sys
tem will go on for many years to come. There are too
many people who earn their living by it, and there is too
little independence in those who do so for them to throw
it up. -Its decay will be a gradual process : but doubtless
the day will come when the churches will be turned into
halls of science and concert rooms, where people will be
able to improve and enjoy themselves : when the fires of
36
�hell will be extinguished, and a heaven be'made here : when
each and all will revel in the happy present, although they
may lament the sorrows of their fore-fathers, caused by
pestilential doctrines imposed on them by the ignorance
and avarice of their teachers for thousands of years, in all
parts of the world. We shall never see the happy day : but
it is coming, coming, coming, and all who advance it a step
(among whom for fifty years I have been one) have their
consolation,
If, in the far-off future, it is in the process of nature that
we shall be cognizant of the doings of the men of that per
iod, we shall have our reward; if it is not, still I am content.
Yours,
George Anderson?
XXIII. _
Dear Sir,
I am much obliged for yours of August 4th, and’for the
full and very interesting account you gave of the history of
your family. You must have been a very kind and thought
ful parent, and your children should always feel grateful
to you. You say they were not permitted to learn catechism and
psalms at school. Well, that was a mild way of teaching
them to avoid the “superstition” of Christianity. I think
that at heart, if you will excuse me for saying so, you are
not such a disbeliever in Christianity as your statements
would sometimes lead me to infer. You recollect that the
first question of the Catechism is “ that man’s chief end is
to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.” If you believe
that and act upon it, you do well.
I am afraid you misunderstood me when I referred to
our not seeing eye to eye about religion. I am not
growing weary of our correspondence ; I have not given
up hope of your returning to the faith of your childhood.
I am still praying for you, and I am not discouraged
because you are still a disbeliever in the miraculous. If
you are a believer in God, that is the first all-important
37
�.
point. It is the point that I was always wanting to get at,
and I must say that you have never been definite on this
subject. Sometimes I think you believe in a Supreme
Being, and at other times you make statements that lead
me to suppose you do not. Now, my contention is this,,
and I would like you to notice it. You believe, you say,
in the eternity of matter. I say, by the constitution of the
human mind, it is easier to believe in a supreme intelli
gence that created matter. Science itself shows most
clearly the order and perfection of nature, and it is incon
ceivable that it could arrange itself without any intelligence
to guide it. Now, if you admit the existence of God,
which I think you do, I contend that other difficulties will
disappear. It is quite easy to raise side issues and discover
weak points in connection with Christianity, and hold them
up to scorn, as your friend Ingersoll does ; but you must
grasp fundamental principles. Admit the existence of
Deity, and you need not make mountains of other matters.
I do not intend to discuss with you the question of the
“Virgin-born Son.” I admit, from the secular' point of
view, there is great difficulty in explaining this ; but God,
who made all things, is surely able to perform acts that
may appear to us to be against the laws of nature. Are
we justified in saying we have discovered all the laws of
nature ? I think, as a scientist, you will allow that there
may be laws—many laws—that are as yet unknown to us.
There may be a sphere in which the miraculous may
appear quite consistent. Do not, I pray, let everything
turn upon the miraculous. Leave that out of the question
in the meantime, and do not harp upon the inconsistencies
of Christianity, nor upon the supposed mistakes in the
Bible ; you can find plenty to say on these points. Look
at the question in its broad outlines, and try and explain
the phenomenon of Christ. Can you explain his life and
sayings; can you account for his influence? I differ
entirely from you as to the effects of Christianity; there is
no question as to its benign influence upon the human
race. Where has heathenism provided hospitals and homes
for the suffering and the poor, as Christianity has done ?
It is because you are a Christian, though you do not know
it, that you so liberally subscribe to these charitable
38
�y
objects. You cannot, in my opinion, get over the difficulty
of the life and sayings of Jesus Christ and his religion
unless you ignore the facts of authenticated history.
Will you read the Gospels once more ? Read the
Gospel of John and the fifth chapter of Matthew. Do
not read to find fault, but simply to learn; and I think, if
you put away prejudice, you will find that there is much
good in the book that you cannot fail to admire.
I am reading Darwin with great interest. All your
books make me a still firmer believer in my God, *who has
ordered all things so perfect and so beautiful.
I am very busy, or I would have answered your letter
sooner.
Yours truly,
Clergyman.
XXIY.Dexr Sir,—
In your last you state that you are not sure whether or
no I believe in God.
I think my previous letters have been quite clear on
that point. Know, then, that I do not believe in any of
the gods I have read of; they are all mere myths.
Ignorance of nature, and the cunning of men who would
use these myths as levers to frighten the ignorant into
submission, are the creators of the gods. The gods of a
beautiful, fertile country, with pleasant surroundings, were
more loveable than the Gods of a country of storm,
avalanche, and wild beasts. The gods of Greece were the
most perfect of any I have read of; but change in the
belief of the people annihilated them. The Greeks have
adopted other gods, less beautiful—the gods of the Old
and New Testament; the former represented as a cruel
tyrant, and the latter as the author of an eternal hell for
most men.
My opinion is that hell is a priestly invention, and has
no existence. Even the clergy are getting ashamed of it,
and mention it as the abode of lost souls—another un
proved assertion, fpr what more knowledge do they possess
39
�of the abode of a soul than I do ? and I know nothing of
souls apart from bodies.
You will hear of someone
described as a great-souled man ; but it only means that
he is noble and loveable.
If the clergy are to continue to live, they must come
down from that elevation from which the ignorance of man
has hitherto allowed them to address us. As a class they
know less than ordinary educated men of the day ; and
what they think they know are deductions from unsound
premises, which no investigation supports, and which are,
therefore, ’ not believed in by anyone whose opinion is
worth having.
I feel, however, that we are wasting time which should
be better employed.
Have you put into your schools the Science Primers I
sent you ? That is the kind of information you should
disseminate.
I know, to my constant regret, that in the Shorter
Catechism “ the chief end of man is to glorify God and to
enjoy him for ever,” for, as a boy of eight, it was inflicted
upon me ; but I can give you something much better, and
far more sensible : The chief end of man should be to do
all the good he can to make himself and his fellow-men
happy.
What do you say to our correspondence being published ?
You could appear under a nom de plume if you liked.
Yours with every respect,
George Anderson.
XXV.
My Dear Sir,—
I am sorry that yours of September 14th has been so
long unanswered.
You say you do not believe in any of the gods. I am
sorry to hear this ; but I cannot help thinking that, in the
depth of your heart, you do believe.
You make many statements which I regard as rash and
unjust. You seem to impute unworthy and base motives
to the clergy, as if they invented and perpetuated views
40
�and opinions to suit themselves, and to support their own
interests. Now, this I regard as unjust and uncharitable.
You tell me that, as a class, the clergy know less than
ordinary educated men of the day. I deny this. I do not
know what class of clergymen you come in contact with ;
but I am astonished that a Scotchman should make a
statement so contrary to fact as far as Scotland is con
cerned, and other countries also, for, as a rule, clergymen
are well educated. But these things are side issues, and,
from the tenour of our correspondence, I have the im
pression that your ungenerous views of Christianity have,
to some extent at least, arisen from animosity to the
clergy, the origin of which is best known to yourself.
I have on several occasions referred to your statements
at an early stage of our correspondence, to the effect that
you believe in the eternity of matter. Now, I again say
that it is much easier for the trained intellect, or for any
intellect, to believe in an intelligent Being (whose origin
you cannot account for) than to believe that matter, in
virtue of its own force, has developed itself into its highest
form—that of the human body and mind. If you do not
believe in a Supreme Being, it seems to me that it is
because you will not, not because you cannot—for you
confess that you believe in the eternity of matter, which
seems much more difficult. And if you will not believe
in God, may it not be that it is because there are some
things you do not wish to part with, which you would be
obliged to do were you to believe ? It resolves itself into
the old question, the words of our Lord : “ Ye will not
come to me that ye may have life.” You will not love the
light. Men love darkness rather than light, because their
deeds are evil. You seem to me to take too much for
granted touching your own knowledge and intellect, and
those of others who think with you, and too little of the
same qualities in those you differ from. A fair mind—one
that has power, and lays claim to impartiality—will weigh
both sides of any question, will read and think of what is
thought and said on the opposite side. Now, I fear that
your reading is somewhat exclusive ; that you study those
books that are opposed to Christianity, and not those that
defend it. I would suggest that you 'read the other side
4i
�of these great questions which we have been considering.
I have read both sides. 1 have read the books and the
periodicals you sent me, and I have not swerved in the
least from my view of Christianity, and my faith in Jesus
Christ as the Saviour of men. Those writers whose books
you lent me, with the exception of one or two—and those
certainly not the most noteworthy—never make assertions
like some of those you make ; and it is not because they
have no intellect, no perception, nor courage, but because
they have fair and logical minds.
With regard to publishing our correspondence, I do not
think it is worth publishing on either side.
If I thought
you had that idea in view when we commenced it, I would
at once say No, for that would indicate on your part a lack
of honesty that I am unwilling to attribute to you. The
only condition on which I would agree is that all my letters
in toto should be published, and that I should be allowed
to correct the proofs ; and that all yours should be pub
lished in the same way. -But I really do not think it
would be of any service. I would not care to have my
name appear.
I visjted two old ladies «th_is week—one ninety-one, the
other ninety-four years of age? They were both peaceful
and happy in'view of death ; they firmly believe in God,
and they have rest in the thought of the future. May I
trust that your old faith will return to you before the end
of your life, and that you will experience that peace and
joy which have been the heritage of millions in the past,
and will be that of millions in the future ?
The Science Primers I have not yet put into the'hands
of my young people, but will do so soon.
Would you like to give an examination at the end of the
sess-on, and would you care to offer some prizes to the
best students ?
Excuse this long letter. May I ask you to read the
Gospels, and study them impartially ?
Yours sincerely,
Clergyman.
42
�XXVI.
Dear Sir,—
Your letter of October 25th arrived when I was from
home. It is the worst I have received from you. Such
statements as thac I do not believe because I will not, and
that, to believe, I would require to give up some things I
do not wish to part with, are beneath notice, and are not
arguments.
Are you not aware that belief or disbelief is not a matter
of will ? It is a matter of evidence, or the want of it.
The opinion I have expressed re the clergy is supported
by history. In the time of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth
the bishops and clergy became Catholics or Protestants,
as suited the pressure of the passing times and the reten
tion of their emoluments.
Henry was the most immoral of all our monarchs, and
Elizabeth the most cruel; yet neither was forsaken by the
clergy, who at one time bastardized Elizabeth and after
wards crowned her. Henry robbed the Catholic Church
of its cathedrals, houses, and lands, wherein the poor were
supported. At that time there were no poor rates ; the
Catholic Church supported the poverty-stricken. There
were houses at short distances where the man in search
of work could sup, sleep, breakfast, and proceed on his
way. This was not charity ; it did not pauperise him ; it
was his immemorial right.
But these two crowned
scoundrels stole all this and divided it between the
aristocracy and the clergy ; hence the present poor rate—
a legacy from those times to us. Kings, queens, and
clergy have improved since then, but only in countries
like ours, where secular knowledge has spread. Some
countries suffer now from kingly injustice and clerical
superstition, as we did three hundred years ago; there
fore, still further improvement is required. The clergy
are very bitter towards anyone who disputes the doctrines
they live by. They are the only body who detest discussion
43
�and free inquiry ; they try to smother free thought in its
bud, so that it may not bloom ; hence they catch the
child in its cradle. They perform the mummery of
baptism ; they “ confirm ” it; they marry and they bury
it ; and they taboo and impute improper motives, and put
outside the law all who question their unproved^ and unprovable assertions about their everlasting gods.
Why, sir, compared with man, gods are things of a day.
The beautiful gods of ancient Greece, the liberal gods of
ancient Rome, are all dead. There are yet Buddha,
Mohammed, and Christ left; but they are all consumptive,
and death will claim them at last.
You have once more returned to the question of my
belief in the eternity of matter, but you have not put for
ward any arguments ; you have only told me that you
think it is easier to believe that an intelligent Being,
whose origin you cannot account for, and of whom you
know nothing, has accomplished all the developments we
find in nature, including man. The God you worship,
whom you suppose has done all this, is, according to
Scripture, without body, parts, or passions, which, to my
mind, appears to be a concise description of nothing.
You cannot give any description of such a body, yet you
ascribe to it intelligence. Where have you ever found
intelligence apart from matter? Intelligence is only a
name we give to the mental action of an organized body—
a body with a brain ; for all bodies are not intelligent. A
lump of granite is matter, but it has no brain ; hence we
do not accord it intelligence.
You say that the clergy are well educated. Tj be
merely a clergyman, I do not see what need he has for
education : he has nothing to talk about but mysteries,
which he tells you he does not understand, yet asks you to
believe. In my opinion, the gift a clergyman most requires
is oratory, a good delivery, such as Burns describes in his
“ Holy Fair.”
Clergymen sometimes dabble in secular matters ; but it
would be better for them to leave that field alone. Their
efforts seldom meet with approval, especially in Scotland,
where secular life thinks it can manage its own affairs—
which opinion I share. They are best in the pulpit, where
44
�no one dares to contradict them, and where they can be
eloquent upon subjects no one understands.
You think my reading has been devoted too much to
books antagonistic to Christianity. I think not. I have
about 1,000 volumes in my library ; not one in fifty speaks
for or against Christianity. Among them is included
Alison’s History of Europe (24 octavo vols.), Scott’s Works
(12 vols.), Gibbon’s Rome (12 vols.), Hugh Miller (13
vols.), Jones’s Asiatic Researches (9 vols.), fourteen volumes
of Scottish History and Story, twenty-four volumes of
Tales of the Borders, Ballantyne’s novels (10 vols.),
Robertson’s Histories (8 vols ), Darwin’s works (14 vols.) ;
several volumes on Geology, several on Astronomy; poems
of Burns, Byron, Shelley, Cowper, Southey, Dryden, Moore ;
most of Dickens’s novels, Berkeley’s Dictionary, and
several others, including the original edition of Johnson’s
in two volumes, which weigh about a hundredweight (these
latter I have only glanced at) ; also twenty-four octavo
volumes of Parliamentary History of England, from the
time of Henry IV. to the restoration of Charles II., many
books on engineering, and hundreds besides. In addition
to these 1 read the Times and Daily Graphic, likewise
magazines and weekly papers.
I read the Old and New Testaments long ago ; found
the former cruel and indecent, and the latter impracticable.
I possess, and have read, the Talmud and the Koran. The
Koran I consider the most rational of them all. Granting
the possibility of a future life, it is the most likely to make
converts ; there is something human in its mode of enjoy
ing eternity, far better than for ever singing in praise of
the Lord. And what a low, barren opinion of God they
must hold who think that everlasting adulation will please
him.
I had no thought of publishing when this correspond
ence began, therefore I kept no copy of my first letter to
you; but, when I saw that you wished to make a Christian
of me, I deemed it best to keep copies ; and it was only
when I was informing you of the manner in which I
brought up my family that the idea occurred to me that I
might publish, as I consider this duty to be the most
important in a man’s career. Should I publish, I will not
45
�name you without your consent. If you decline to give it,
I shall not consider it necessary to send you proofs, for 1
shall not publish for profit, and naturally wish to keep
down expenses.
As this will probably be my last letter, I must say that I
suspect your dull, one-sided ass has not mended his pace
by beating.
I forgive you all your unkind thoughts as to my motives
for rejecting Christianity. I know they are mistakes. Tf
I had not been a lover of truth, I might have posed as a
Christian ; but I detest your faith, and regard it as a hurt
ful superstition that afflicts mankind—one that has divided
those who would otherwise have been mingled into one
great brotherhood ; and I have had honesty and backbone
enough to appear in my true colours, and always, 1 trust,
without giving offence to others.
I am, yours,
George Anderson.
XXVII.
Dear Sir,
I have gone back in my previous letter to the beginning
of our correspondence. You say there you believe in the
eternity of matter—that is, you believe in what you cannot,
in your own words, understand or explain. This is an
admission of great importance on your part. I maintain
it is easier to believe in the existence of an intelligent
Being who created matter than to believe that matter
developed itself.
That being so, I asked the question : “ Why don’t you
believe in what is the easier rather than in the more
difficult thing ? ” You say that this is not argument, and
shunt off, in your usual style, to a disquisition upon the
Old Testament idea of God. In my opinion this “ is not
argument.” In asking the question, Why don’t you believe
in the easier conception ? I suggested it might be that to
do so would involve on your part a sadrifice that you are
not prepared to make. You say that belief is not a matter
46
�of will, but of evidence. Belief is founded on the result
of evidence. In the act of believing you are influenced by
evidence. One may be convinced by evidence that he
should do a certain act; but he determines to do other
wise, because he wills to do the one and not the other.
He is conscious of his freedom to act, and he does it
contrary to the evidence that he should do otherwise.
».
If a man has no will free to act, where is his responsi- .
bility ? I still ask the question : “ Why do you not believe
in the existence of an eternal intelligent Being as well as
in the eternity of matter? You give no satisfactory answer
to that question. The system of your arguments in all
your letters turnS upon that you have to stop there, like
others who cannot explain how things began to be. You
say that you follow Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall.
These gentlemen never make such unfounded assertions as
you do.
You will find that my allusion to the clergy was made
with reference to a former statement of yours as to the
education of the clergy of the present day. You go off to
the time of Henry VIII. ; this is not an unusual method
of yours. I admit, with you, that the state of the olergy
was badjthen, and it is still, in many places. That, how
ever, is not the point. There is an advance in the Church
as well as in science. If you go back to the time of
Henry VIII. for your science, you will find it worse, com
pared with the present, than you find the Church. You
kindly give a list of your books; a fairly good library, but
certainly not modern as a whole. You say there are none
of them for or against religion. Some of those you sent
me are decidedly against religion—such as Gould’s,
Ingersoll’s, and literature of that kind. Have you read the
other side of the question by authors of the present day ?
I have read both sides; but my faith in Christianity, Jn
Christ, in his life and words as given in the New Testament,
is not shaken. You tell me you read the Old and Netf
Testaments long ago : they can bear another reading. I
would most sincerely recommend you to study the New
Testament once more. Read the sayings of Jesus ; you
will find them beautiful and profitable, and not impractic
able, as you assert.
47
♦
�You say that the reading of the Koran has led you to
believe it to be better fitted to make converts than the
Bible and other sacred books. Why does it not do it ?
As a matter of fact, the Koran religion is going down, and
the Christian religion is making rapid and vast strides.
Facts are stronger than assertions.
Christianity has never been so strong and aggressive as
at present. Tell me how it is that faith in Christ produces
such a marvellous moral change in a man. I have been
twenty-five years a minister of the Gospel of Christianity;
I have seen drunkards reclaimed ; I have seen men and
women of all classes, who were a disgrace and a ruin to
their homes and to their friends, so much changed that
they lived good and beautiful lives for the remainder of
their days. These are facts which, it seems to me, your
school cannot explain, and they are produced by faith in
Christ.
I consider your insinuations as to the clergy selling
themselves for a mere living quite unworthy of a gentleman
of your professed intelligence. If you knew many of them,
as I do, I am sure you would change your opinion. You
would find them neither one-sided nor inclined to dis
courage inquiry. I am convinced that if you would study
the other side of the question as to the being of God, and
the literature of Christianity, and if you come more in
contact with Christian men, you would change your views.
I am very sorry you seem to think that I have i nkind
thoughts of you as to why you are not a Christian. My
remark was purely in the line of argument, and I still
maintain that, as a free agent, you have the power to will
and do ; and if you do what is more difficult, there must
be some reason why you do not do what is easier. Excuse
my remark that you did not will to be a Christian because
Christianity involves responsibility that you do not care to
take upon yourself. Far fromTiaving unkind thoughts of
you I have the very opposite. I have your portrait among
my friends in my drawing-room ; I feel the deepest interest
in you. I am still praying for you, for I believe in God,
and in his power to influence you in your old age. But
even God will not force a man to be a Christian against
his will. As I have said more than once, I wish so much
48
�to have a personal interview. If you should have time to
take a holiday, I can assure you of a hearty welcome in
my home. It is quite possible we might understand each
other better if we met. Meanwhile, let me again assure
you that I have every good and kind thought towards you,
and I am not without hope that you will have different
thoughts of Christianity before the end of your life.
I am, faithfully yours,
Clergyman.
P.S.—If you mean to publish, as I have kept no copies
of my letters, and I would like to see proofs and I would
like them to be complete. The sending of proofs to me
will not make much extra expense; but, as I have already
said, I do not think that our correspondence is worth
publishing.
XXVIII.
Dear Sir,
This correspondence must cease. The object which
caused you to commence it has not been obtained nor is it
likely to be; hence we but waste time.
I have daily evidence that my belief is in the ascendant,
and I have no doubts. Governments, Courts of Law, and
business between man and man, are all conducted on
secular principles, notwithstanding that old religious
nostrums are mixed up with their proceedings.
When we find one has sworn falsely we commit him for
perjury, and we know that the man of criminal intent is far
more afraid of a policeman than of the all-seeing, ever
present God.
I trust that you will provide for your schools sets of the
Science Primers I sent you.
Teach children something of this world, and of their
own bodies, and you will make them united, intelligent
and happy, and pave the way for the world we live in to
become a home superior to your fabled heaven.
-1 believe you are better than your religion, and I do not
think that you would burn me everlastingly if you had the
power.
I am, yours,
George Anperson,
49
����J. W. GOTT.
Wholesale and Retail Clothier
2, Union Street, Bradford.
AGENTS WANTED.
Write for Terms.
Leading Lines.
Gent’s Suits to Measure 30/-
35/-
42/-
Gent’s Overcoats to Measure
25/-
30/-
Bradlaugh Boots
15/-
10/6
1216
35/-
Famous Bedding Parcel at 21/-
Dress Goods
1/6 to 4/6 per yard.
Costume Materials 2/- to 5/- per yd.
All Goods direct from the Warehouse.
J. W. GOTT
supplies goods to all the leading Reformers
throughout The British Isles.
�(Editor of the Truthseeker) Last man in England Prosecuted
for Blasphemy.
THE
Truttiseeker
Is the only Penny Freethonght Journal in England.
The Editor has been Prosecuted so often for selling the paper,
that few Newsagents will risk supplying copies. It can always
be had direct from The Truthseeker Office, 2, Union St. Bradford
Post Free for 1/6 per year.
�
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Christianity and agnosticism : a correspondence between a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, and George Anderson, Agnostic; London
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Anderson, George [1824-1915]
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Place of publication: Bradford
Collation: 49 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Advertisement inside back cover: J.W. Gott, wholesale and retail clothier,2, Union Street, Bradford. ... J.W. Gott supplies goods to all the leading Reformers throughout the British Isles. Back cover has photograph of Gott and advertisement for the Truthseeker, of which Gott was editor. Explanatory note, signed by K.E. Watts, and note on George Anderson (from Joseph McCabe's Biographical dictionary of modern rationalists) inserted loose. Both items are photocopies. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Agnosticism
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Text
ON THE
MEDIATION AND SALVATION
OF
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SjCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Fo-w/pence.
��ON THE MEDIATION AND SALVATION
OF ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY.
HE whole Christian scheme turns on the assump
tion of the inherent necessity of some one stand
ing between the Creator and the creature, and shielding
the all-weak from the power of the All-mighty. “ It
is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
Godsuch is the key-note of the strain which is
chanted alike by Roman Catholicism, with its thou
sand intercessors, and by Protestantism, with its “ one
Mediator, the man Christ Jesus.” “ Speak thou for
me,” cries man to his favourite mouthpiece, whoever
it may be; “go thou near, but let me not see the face
of God, lest I die.” The heroes, the saints, the idols
of humanity have been the men who have dared to
search into the Unseen, and to gaze straight up into
the awful Face of God. They have dashed aside all
that intervened between their souls and the Eternal
Soul, and have found it, as one of them quaintly
phrases it, “a profitable sweet necessity to fall on the
naked arm of Jehovah.” Then, because they dared to
trust Him who had called them into existence, and to
stretch out beseeching hands to the Everlasting Father,
they have been forced into a position they would have
been the very first to protest against, and have been
made into mediators for men less bold, for children
less confiding. Those who dared not seek God for
themselves have clung to the garments of the braver
T
�4
On the Mediation and Salvation of
souls, who have thus become, involuntarily, veils be
tween their brother-men and the Supreme. There is,
perhaps, no better way of demonstrating the radical
errors from which spring all the so-called “ schemes of
redemption” and “economies of Divine grace” than
by starting from the Christian hypothesis.
We will admit, for argument’s sake, the Deity of
Jesus, in order that we may thus see the more dis
tinctly that a mediator of any kind between God and
man is utterly uncalled for. It is mediation, in itself,
that is wrong in principle; we object to it as a whole,
not to any special manifestation of it. Divine or
human mediators, Jesus or his mother, saint, angel, or
priest, we reject them each and all; our birthright as
human beings is to be the offspring of the Universal
Father, and we refuse to have any interloper pressing
in between our hearts and His.
We will take mediation first in its highest form,
and speak of it as if Jesus were really God as well
as man. All Christians agree in asserting that the
coming of the Son into the world to save sinners was
the result of the love of the Father for these sinners ;
i.e., “ God so loved the world that He sent His Son.”
The motive-power of the redemption of the world is,
then, according to Christians, the deep love of the
Creator for the work of His hands. This it was that
exiled the Son from the bosom of the Father, and
caused the Eternal to be born into time. But now a
startling change occurs in the aspect of affairs. Jesus
has “ atoned for the sins of the worldhe “ has
made peace through the blood of his cross; ” and
having done so, he suddenly appears as the mediator
for men. What does this pleading of the Son on be
half of sinners imply ? Only this—a complete change
in the Father’s mind towards the world. After the
yearning love of which we have heard, after this abso
lute sacrifice to win His children’s hearts, He at last
succeeds. He sees His children at His feet, repentant
�Ecclesiastical Christianity.
5
for the past, eager to make amends in the future;
human hands appealing to Him, human eyes stream
ing with tears. He turns His back on the souls He
has been labouring to win; He refuses to clasp around
His penitents the arms outstretched to them so long,
unless they are presented to Him by an accredited
intercessor, and come armed with a formal recommen
dation. The inconsistency of such a procedure must
be palpable to all minds; and in order to account for
one absurdity, theologians have invented another;
having created one difficulty, they are forced to make
a second, in order to escape from the first. So they
represent God as loving sinners, and desiring to for
give and welcome them. This feeling is the Mercy of
God; but, in opposition to the dictates of Mercy, Jus
tice starts up, and forbids any favour to the sinner
unless its own claims are first satisfied to the utmost.
A Christian writer has represented Mercy and Justice
as standing before the Eternal: Mercy pleads for for
giveness and pity, Justice clamours for punishment.
Two attributes of the Godhead are personified and
placed in opposition to each other, and require to be
reconciled. But when we remember that each per
sonified quality is really but a portion, so to speak, of
the Divine character, we find that God is divided
against Himself. Thus this theory introduces discord
into the harmonious mind which inspires the perfect
melodies of the universe. It sees warring elements
in the Serenity of the Infinite One ; it pictures suc
cessive waves of love and anger ruffling that ineffable
Calm; it imagines clouds of changing motives sweep
ing across the sun of that unchanging Will. Such a
theory as this must be rejected as soon as realised by
the thoughtful mind. God is not a man to be swayed
first by one motive, and then by another. His mercy
and justice ever point unwaveringly in the same direc
tion : perfect justice requires the same as perfect mercy.
If God’s justice could fail, the whole moral universe
�6
On the Mediation and Salvation of
would be in confusion, and that would be the greatest
cruelty that could be inflicted on intelligent beings.
The weak pliability, miscalled mercy, w’hich is supposed
to be worked upon by a mediator, is a human infir
mity which men have transferred to their idea of God,
A man who has announced his intention to punish
may be persuaded out of his resolution. New argu
ments may be adduced for the condemned one’s inno
cence, new reasons for clemency may be suggested ; or
the judge may have been over-strict, or have been
swayed by prejudice. Here a mediator may indeed
step in, and find good work to do ; but, in the name
of the Eternal Perfection, what has* all this to do with
the judgment of God ? Can His knowledge be imper
fect, His mercy increased ? Can His sentence be
swayed by prejudice, or made harsh by over-severity ?
But if His judgment is already perfect, any change
implies imperfection, and all left for the mediator to
do is to persuade God to make a change, i.e., to be
come imperfect; or, God having decided that sin shall
be punished, the mediator steps in, and actually so
works upon God’s feelings that He revokes His deci
sion, and—most cruel of mercies-—lets it go unnoticed.
Like an unwise parent, God is persuaded not to punish
the .erring child. But such is not the case. God is
just, and because He is just He is most truly merciful:
in that justice rests the certainty of the due punish
ment of sin, and, therefore of the purification of the
sinner; and no mediator—thanks be to God for it!—
shall ever cause to waver for one instant that Rock of
Justice on which reposes the hope of Humanity.
But the theory we are considering has another fatal
error in it: it ascribes imperfection to Almighty God.
For God is represented as desiring to forgive sinners,
and this desire must be either right or wrong. If it
be right, it can at once be gratified; but if Justice
opposes this forgiveness, then the desire to forgive is
not wholly right. Theologians are thus placed in this
�Ecclesiastical Christianity.
7
dilemma : if God is perfect—as He is—any desire of
His must likewise be flawlessly perfect, and its fulfil
ment must be the very best thing that could happen
to His whole creation ; on the other hand, if there is
any barrier of right—and Justice is right—interposed
between God and His desire, then His Will is not the
most perfect Good. Theologians must then choose be
tween admitting that the desire of God to welcome
sinners is just, or detracting from the Eternal Per
fection.
It is obvious that we do not weaken our case by
admitting, for the moment, the Deity of Jesus ; for we
are striking at the root-idea of mediation. That the
mediator should be God is totally beside the question,
and in no way strengthens our adversaries’ hands.
His Deity does nothing more than introduce a new
element of confusion into the affair; for we become
entangled in a maze of contradictions. God, who is
One, even according to Christians, is at one and the
same time estranged from sinners, pleading for sinners,
and admitting the pleading. God pleads to Himself—
but we are confounding the persons: one God pleads
to another—but we are dividing the substance. Alas
and alas for the creed which compels its votaries to
deny their reason, and degrade their Maker! which
babbles of a Nature it cannot comprehend, and forces
its foolish contradictions on indignant souls ! If Jesus
be God, his mediation is at once impossible and un
necessary ; if he be God, his will is the will of God;
and if he wills to welcome sinners, it is God who
wills to welcome them. If he, who is God, is con
tent to pardon and embrace, what further do sinners
require? Christians tell us that Jesus is one with
God : it is well, we reply; for you say he is the
Friend of sinners, and the Redeemer of the lost. If
he be God, we both agree as to the friendliness of
God to sinners. You need no mediator between you
and Jesus; and, since he is God, you need no media-
�8
On the Mediation and Salvation of
tor with God. This reasoning is irrefragable, unless
Christians are content to assign to their mediator
some place which is less than divine; for they cer
tainly derogate from his dignity when they imagine
him as content to receive those whom Almighty God
chases from before His face. And in making this
difference between Jesus and the Father they make a
fatal admission that he is distinct in feeling from
God, and therefore cannot be the One God. It is the
proper perception of this fact which has introduced
into the Roman Church the human mediators whose
intercession is constantly implored. Jesus, being God,
is too awful to be approached: his mother, his
apostles, some saint or martyr, must come between.
I have read a Roman Catholic paper about the media
tion of Mary which would be accepted by the most
orthodox Protestant were Mary replaced by Jesus, and
Jesus by the Father. For Jesus is there painted, as
the Father is painted by the orthodox, in stern majesty,
hard, implacable, exacting the uttermost farthing; and
Mary is represented as standing between him and the
sinners for whom she pleads. It is only a further
development of the idea which makes the man Jesus
the Mediator between God and man. As the deifica
tion of Mary progresses, following in slow but certain
steps the deification of Jesus, a mediator will be re
quired through whom to approach her; and then
Jesus, too, will fade out of the hearts of men, as the
Father has faded out of the hearts of Christians, and
this superstition of mediation will sink lowei' and
lower, till it is rejected by all earnest hearts, and is
loathed by human souls which are aching for the living
God.
We see, then, that mediation implies an absurd and
inexplicable change in the supposed attitude of God
towards man, and destroys all confidence in the justice
of the Supreme Ruler. We should further take into
consideration the strange feeling towards the Universal
�Ecclesiastical Christianity.
9
Hea/rt implied in man’s endeavour to push some one in
between himself and the Eternal Father. As we study
Nature and try to discover from its workings some
thing of the characteristics of the Worker therein, we
find not only a ruling Intelligence—a Supreme Reason,
before which we bow our heads in an adoration too
deep for words, but we catch also beautiful glimpses of
a ruling Love—a Supreme Ileart, to which our hearts
turn with a glad relief from the dark mysteries of
pain and evil which press us in on every side. Simple
belief in God at all, that is to say, in a Powei' which
works in the Universe, is quite sufficient to disperse
any of that feeling of fear which finds its fit expression
in the longing for a mediator. For being placed here
without our request, and even without our consent, we
have surely, as a simple matter of justice, a right to
demand that the Power which placed us here shall
provide us with means by which we can secure our
happiness. I speak, of course, as of a conscious Power,
because a blind Force is necessarily irresponsible ; but
those who believe in a God are bound to acknowledge
that He is responsible for their well-being. If any
one should suggest that to say thus, is to criticise
God’s dealings and to speak with presumptuous irre
verence, I retort that the irreverence lies vdth those
who ascribe to the Supreme a course of action towards
His creatures that they themselves would be ashamed
to pursue towards their own children, and that they
who fling at us the reproach of blasphemy because we
will not bow the knee before their idol, would them
selves lie open to the charge, were it not that their
ignorance shields them from the sterner censure. All
good in man—poor shallow streamlet though it be—
flows down from the pure depths of the Fountain of
Good, and any throb of love on earth is a pulsation
caused by the ceaseless beating of the Universal
Father-Heart. Yet men fear to trust that Heart, lest
it should cease beating; they fear to rest on God, lest
�io
On the Mediation and Salvation of
He should play them false. When will they catch even
a glimpse of that great ocean of love which encircles
the universe as the atmosphere the earth, which is in
finite because God is infinite. If there is no spot in
the universe of which it can be said, “ God is not
here,” then is there also no spot where love does not
rule; if there is no life existing without the support
of the Life- Giver and the Life-Sustainer, then is there
also no life which is not cradled in the arms of Love.
Who then will dare to push himself in between man
and a God like this? In the light of the Universal
Reason and the Universal Heart mediation stands
confessed as an impertinent absurdity. Away with
any and all of those who interfere in the most sacred
concerns of the soul, who press in between the Creator
and His offspring; between the heart of man and the
parent Heart of God. Whoever it may be, saint or
martyr, or the king of saints and martyrs, Jesus of
Nazareth, let him come down from a position which
none can rightly hold. To elevate the noblest son of
man into this place of mediator is to make him into
an offence to his brethren, and to cause their love to
turn into anger, and their reverence into indignation.
If men persist in talking about the need of a mediator
before they dare to approach God, we must remind
them that, if there be a God at all, He must be just,
and that, therefore, they are perfectly safe in His
hands ; if they begin to babble about forgiveness ‘■'■for
the sake of Jesus Christ,” we must ask them what in
the world they mean by the “forgiveness of sin?”
Surely they do not think that God is like man, quick
to revenge affront and jealous of His dignity; even
were it possible for man to injure, in any sense, the
Majesty of God, do they conceive that God is an
irascible and revengeful Potentate ? Those who think
thus of God can never—I assert boldly—have caught
the smallest glimpse of God. They may have seen a
“ magnified man,” but they have seen nothing more;
�Ecclesiastical Christianity.
ii
they have never prostrated themselves before that
Universal Spirit who dwells in this vast universe; they
have never felt their own littleness in a place so great.
How can sin be forgiven ? can a past act be undone, or
the hands go back on the sun-dial of Time 1 All God s
so-called chastisements are but the natural and in
evitable results of broken laws, laws invaluable in their
action, neither to be escaped or defied., Obedience to
law results in happiness, and the suffering consequent
on the transgression of law is not inflicted by an angry
God, but is the simple natural outcome of the broken
law itself. Put your hand in the fire, and no mediator
can save you from burning; cry earnestly to God to
save you, and then cast yourself from a precipice, and
will a mediator come between you and the doom you
have provoked ? AVe should do more wisely if we
studied laws and tried to conform ourselves to them,
instead of going blundering about with our eyes
shut, trusting that some one will interpose to shield us
from the effects of our own folly and, stupidity.
Happily for mankind, mediation is impossible in that
beautiful realm of law in which we are placed ; when
men have quite made up their minds that their hap
piness depends entirely on their own exertions, there
will at last be some chance for the advancement of
Humanity, for then they will work for things instead
of praying for them. It is of real practical importance
that this Christian notion of mediation should be
destroyed, because on it hang all the ideas about
trusting to some one else to do our own work. This
plan has not answered : we judge it by results, and it
has failed. Surely we may hope that as men get to
see that prayer has not succeeded in its efforts to
“move the arm which moves the world, to bring
salvation down,” they may turn to the more difficult,
but also the more hopeful task, of moving their own
arms to work out their own salvation. For the past,
it is past, and noue can reverse it; none can stay the
�12
On the Mediation and Salvation of
action, of the eternal law which links sorrow with
transgression, and joy and peace with obedience.
When we slip back on our path upward, we may
repent and call on God oi* man for forgiveness as we
list, but only through toil and suffering can the lost
way be recovered, and the rugged path must be trod
den with bleeding feet; for there is none who can lift
the sinner over the hindrances he has built up for
himself, or carry him over the rocks with which he
has strewed his road.
Does the sentimental weakness of our age shrink
from this doctrine, and whimper out that it is cold
and stern. Ay, it is cold with the cold of the bracing
sea-breeze, stringing to action the nerves enfeebled by
hot-houses and soft-living; ay, it is stern with the
blessed sternness of changeless law, of law which
never fails us, never varies a hair’s breadth. But in
that law is strength; man’s arm is feeble, but let him
submit to the laws of steam, and his arm becomes
dowered with a giant’s force ; conform to a law and
the mighty power of that law is on your side; “ humble
yourself under the mighty hand of God,” who is the
Universal Law, “ and He shall lift you up?’
So much for mediation. We turn with a still
deeper repugnance to study the Christian idea of
“ Salvation.” Mediation at least leaves us God, how
ever it degrades and blasphemes Him, but salvation
takes us altogether out of His Hands. Not content
with placing a mediator between themselves and God,
Christians cry out that He is still too near them; they
must push Him yet further back, they must have a
Saviour too, through whom all His benefits shall
filter.
“ Saviour,” is an expression often found in the Old
Testament, where it bears a very definite and noble
meaning. God is the Saviour of men from the power
of sin, and although we may consider that God does
not save from sin in this direct manner, we are yet
�Ecclesiastical Christianity.
13
bound to acknowledge that there is nothing in this
idea which is either dishonouring or repulsive., But
the word “ Saviour ” has been degraded by Christianity,
and the salvation He brings is not a salvation from sin.
« The Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ” is the Saviour
of men, not because he delivers them from sin, but
because he saves them from hell, and from the fiery
wrath of God. Salvation is no longer the equivalent
of righteousness, the antithesis of sin , in Christian life
it means nothing more than the antithesis of damnation.
It is true that Christians may retort that Jesus “ saves
his people from their sins;” we gladly acknowledge
the nobleness and the beauty of many a Christian life,
but nevertheless this is not the primary idea attached
by popular Christianity to the word
salvation.
“ Being saved ” is to be delivered out of “ those hands
of the living God,” into which, as they are taught by
their Bible, it is so fearful a thing to fall. ££ Being
saved” is the immediate result of conversion, and is
the opposite of££ being lost.” “ Being saved ” is being
hidden ££in the riven side of Jesus,” and so preserved
from the awful flames of the destroying wrath of God.
Against all this we, believers in an Almighty Love,
in a Universal Father, enter our solemn and deliberate
protest, with a depth of abhorrence, with a passion of
indignation which is far too intense to find any
adequate expression in words. There is no language
strong enough to show our deeply-rooted repugnance
to the idea that we can be safer anywhere or at any
time than we are already here ; we cannot repell with
sufficient warmth the officious interference which offers
to take us out of the hands of God. To push some
one in between our souls and Him was bad enough;
but to go further and to offer us salvation from our
Maker, to try and threaten us away from the arms of
His Love, to suggest that another’s hands are more
tender, another’s heart more loving than the Supreme
Heart, these are blasphemies to which we will not
�14
On the Mediation and Salvation of
listen in silence. It is true that to us these sugges
tions are only matters of laughter ; dimly as we guess
at the Deity we know enough not to be afraid of Him
and these crude and childish conceptions about Him
are among ourselves too contemptible to refute.
“ Non ragione di lor, mai guardo e passo.”
But we see how these ideas colour men’s thoughts and
lives, how they cripple their intellect and outrage
their hearts, and we rise to trample down these super
stitions, not because they are in themselves worth
refuting, but simply because they degrade our brother
men. We believe in no wisdom that improves on
Nature’s laws, and one of those laws, written on our
hearts, is that sorrow shall tread on the heels of sin.
We are conscious that men should learn to welcome
this law and not to shrink from it. To flv from the
suffering following on broken law is the last thing we
should do; we ought to have no gratitude for a
“ Saviour ” who should bear our punishment, and so
cheat us out of our necessai’y lesson, turn us into
spoiled children, and check our moral growth; such
an offer as this, could it really be made, ought to be
met with stern refusal. We should trust the Supreme
so utterly, and adore His wisdom with a humility so
profound, that if we could change His laws we should
not dare to interfere ; nor ought we, even when our
lot is saddest, to complain of it, oi' do anything more
than labour to improve it in steadfast obedience to
law. We should ask for no salvation; we should
desire to fall—were it possible that we could be out of
them—into the hands of God.
Further, is it impossible to make Christians under
stand that were Jesus all they say he is, we should
still reject him; that were God all they say He is, we
would, in that case, throw back His salvation. For
were this awful picture of a soul-destroying Jehovah,
of a blood-craving Moloch, endowed with a cruelty
�Ecclesiastical Christianity.
15
beyond human imagination, a true description of the
Supreme Being, then would we take the advice of
Job’s wife, we would “ curse God and die ; ” we would
hide in the burning depths of His hell rather than
dwell within sight of Him whose brightness would
mock at the gloom of His creatures, and whose bliss
would be a sneer at their despair.
Were it thus
indeed—
“ O King of our salvation,
Many would curse to thee, and I for one !
Fling Thee Thy bliss, and snatch at Thy damnation,
Scorn and abhor the rising of Thy sun.”
“ Is it not worth while to believe,” blandly urges a
Christi a,n writer, “ if it is true, as it is true, that they
who deny will suffer everlasting torments ?
Ho ! we
thunder back at him, it is not worth while ; it is not
worth while to believe a lie, or to acknowledge as true
that which our hearts and intellects alike reject as
false; it is not worth while to sell our souls for a
heaven, or to defile our honesty to escape a hell j it is
not worth while to bow our knee to a Satan or bend
our heads before a spectre. Better, far better, to
“ dwell with everlasting burnings” than to degrade our
humanity by calling a lie, truth, and cruelty, love, and
unreasonableness, justice j better to suffer in hell, than
to have our hearts so hard that we could enjoy while
others suffer ; could rejoice while others are tormented,
could sing alleluias to the music of golden harps, while
our lyrics are echoed by the anguished wailing of the
lost. God Himself—were He such as Christians paint
Him—could not blot out of our souls our love of truth,
of righteousness, of justice. While we have these we
are ourselves, and we can suffer and be happy; but we
cannot afford to pay down these as the price of our
admission to heaven. We should be miserable even as
we paced the golden streets, and should sit in tears
beside the river of the water of life. Yet this is
salvation; this is what Christians offer us in the name
�16
On Mediation and Salvation.
of Jesus; this is the glad tidings brought to us as the
gospel of the Saviour, as the “good news of God;” and
this we reject, wholly and utterly, laughing it to scorn
from the depths of our glad hearts which the Truth
has made free; this we denounce, with a stern and
bitter determination, in the name of the Universal
Father, in the name of the self-reliance of humanity,
in the name of all that is holy, and just, and loving.
But happily many, even among Christians, are
beginning to shrink from this idea of salvation from
the God in whom they say they place ail their hopes.
They put aside the doctrine, they gloss it over, they
prefer not to speak of it. Free thought is leavening
Christianity, and is moulding the old faith against its
will. Christianity now hides its own cruel side, and
only where the bold opponents of its creeds have not
yet spread, does it dare to show itself in its real
colours; in Spain, in Mexico, we see Christianity
unveiled; here, in England, liberty is too strong for it,
and it is forced into a semblance of liberality. The
old wine is being poured into new bottles; what will
be the result? We may, however, rejoice that nobler
thoughts about God are beginning to prevail, and are
driving out the old wicked notions about Him and His
revenge. The Face of the Father is beginning, how
ever dimly, to shine out from His world, and before
the Beauty of that Face all hard thoughts about Him
are fading away. Nature is too fair to be slandered
for ever, and when men perceive that God and Nature
are One, all that is ghastly and horrible must die and
drop into forgetfulness. The popular Christian ideas
of mediation and salvation must soon pass away into
that limbo of rejected creeds which is being filled so
fast; they are already dead, and their pale ghosts shall
soon flit no longer to vex and harass the souls of
living men.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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On the mediation and salvation of ecclesiastical Christianity
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Besant, Annie Wood
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Published anonymously. Author known to be Annie Besant. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Date of publication from KVK.
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Thomas Scott
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[1875]
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Christianity
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Conway Tracts
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Text
CHRISTIANITY
Viewed in the Light of our Present Knowledge
and Moral Sense.
Part 111.—T H E COSMOS.
By CHARLES BRAY,
AUTHOR OF THE “PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY: ” “ A MANUAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY,
OR SCIENCE OF MAN,” ETC.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E,
Price One Shilling.
��CHRISTIANITY.
PART III.—THE COSMOS.
“ A mighty maze, but not without a plan.”—Pope.
“ I say, not God Himself can make man’s best
Without best men to help him.”—Geo. Eliot.
ISHOP BUTLER, in his “ Analogy,” aims to show
that if there are difficulties in the Christian
scheme there are equal difficulties in Nature, but this
is scarcely a fair argument, as it might be supposed
that the object of a Revelation was to supplement and
explain what was not clear to the natural reason. The
question is, what do we now know of Nature and its
intentions ? Probably history and science can tell us
more of its order and purpose than was known in
Bishop Butler’s time. Until we know what the pur
pose of Creation is, we of course cannot say whether
the plan adopted to carry it out is wise or not. AR
seem to agree as to the omniscience of God, without,
however, first agreeing as to what his “ plan” is, and
therefore whether wisdom is shown in carrying it out
or not. Our wise men certainly do not agree as to the
purpose of creation or of our being’s end and aim. By
creation, of course, I mean the beginning to be of some
special form, and not the making of something out of
nothing.
“ Intellectual development is the object of individual
B
�4
The Cosmos.
life,” says Dr J. W. Draper; Comte, modifying this
considerably, only says, “ The main agent in the pro
gress of mankind is intellectual development,” leaving
open in what this progress of mankind consists, that
is, what we have to aim at. Bishop Butler says,
“ It is manifest that nothing can be of consequence
to mankind, or any creature, but happiness,” and J.
S. Mill is of opinion that “ The scheme of Nature, re
garded in its whole extent, cannot have had for its sole
or even principal object the good of human or even
sentient beings”—“ this happiness is not the sole or
principal aim.” In the consideration of this subject—
of the end and aim of existence—we may safely leave
the history of the world till the time when we arrive
at the first appearance of sensibility deep down in the
earth’s strata, some hundred millions of years ago
perhaps. Of course life precedes sensibility, but I
need not dwell upon the evolution, development, and
natural selection which have given rise to life in its
various forms. In the scale of being the lower forms
are made to support the higher until they culminate in
man. They all appear to have had one common base
of what has been called protoplasm, and as life has
had one base, so has sensibility one base of tissue or
nervous matter. In the lowest forms of life this
appears to be spread over the whole body, and by the
constant and repeated action of external forces upon it,
and its reaction upon the forces, separate faculties are
formed having widely different functions, but which,
in fact, really give to both men and animals all the
knowledge of things without them which they are able
to acquire. In his address at Belfast, Professor Tyn
dall describes how the eye is formed. He says, “ In the
lowest organisms we have a kind of tactual sense dif
fused over the entire body ; then, through impressions
from without and their corresponding adjustments,
special portions of the surface become more responsible
to stimuli than others. The senses are nascent, the
�The Cosmos.
5
basis of all of them being that simple tactual sense
which the sage Democritus recognised 2300 years ago
as their common progenitor. The action of light,
in the first instance, appears to be a mere disturbance
of the chemical processes in the animal organism, similar
to that which occurs in the leaves of plants. By
degrees the action becomes localized in a few pigment
cells, more sensitive than the surrounding tissue. The
eye is here incipient. At first it is merely capable of
revealing difference of light and shade produced by
bodies close at hand. Followed as the interception of
the light is in almost all cases by the contact of the
closely adjacent opaque body, sight in this condition
becomes a kind of ‘ anticipatory touch.’ The adjust
ment continues; a slight bulging out of the epidermis
over the pigment-granules supervenes—a lens is inci
pient, and, through the operation of infinite adjust
ments, at length reaches the perfection it displays in
the hawk and eagle. So of the other senses ; they are
special differentiations of a tissue which was originally
vaguely sensitive all over.”
By a similar action on the nervous system and its
centre the brain, the faculties of thought and feeling
are formed : the senses in the higher animals are merely
the instruments by which the brain is communicated
with, and by which the forces without are modified,
controlled and limited. They are barriers to the too
great influx of thought, and the guardians of the mind’s
healthy action.
In speaking of “ light,” I hitherto have meant the
•cause of “ light.” But light itself is a sensation within
ourselves, and not at all to be confounded with the
wave motion without, the force of which acting upon
the brain sets that in motion and causes the sensation.
There is no light in the world without, either in
heaven or earth; light is a mode of sensibility, not an
object without us. Animals must have been created,
therefore, before light could be. The same may be said
�6
The Cosmos.
of colours; if the part of the brain upon which the
sensation depends is not there, people cannot distinguish
colours, they are colour blind, which is not an uncom
mon thing. The same may be said of everything else
which constitutes what we believe to be the world
without us. Light is in us, without is only pitch
darkness; so of Individuals or Substances with their
attributes of Form, Size, Colour, Order, Position, So
lidity, Extension, &c. Thus in man the world is
created within him by the action of the brain organs
of Individuality, which gives the noun substantive;
Form, Size, Colour, Weight, Order, Number, Locality,
give the adjective or quality of the substance; Eventu
ality, the verb or the mode of action; and Comparison,
Causality, and Congruity, give the sense of resemblance
and difference, of necessary connection, and of adapta
tion or congruity. Wit is a sense of incongruity, and
Humour where that sense is mixed with other feelings.
The aggregate of all our thoughts and feelings, the result
of the specific action of different parts of the brain,
we call the Mind. The Soul is the General Force or
Universal Mind out of which these specific faculties are
created, and is common to the whole sensitive existence,,
or rather, we may truly say, common to everything,
as—
‘ ‘ There lives and works
A Soul in all things, and that soul is God.” *
* Serjeant Cox, in his Inaugural Address to the Psychological'
Society, defines Mind as ‘ ‘ the term by which we express brain
action, and the sensation that action communicates to the conscious
self. Soul being the term applied to that conscious self whichreceives and takes cog-nizance of those brain actions which to it are
sensations.” . . . “ Psychology,” he says, “intends by soul the defi
nite entity which has the consciousness of individual identity, and
which constitutes the individual man. ” Now there is no “ conscious
self ” apart from the aggregate of our ideas and feelings, which we
call the mind; that which “receives and takes cognizance” of'
the action of our other faculties are the Reasoning and Reflective
Faculties—what we call reflection on consciousness. There is no
consciousness apart from brain action, and “ the consciousness of
�The Cosmos.
7
That the organs above mentioned exist in the
brain, and have the functions I have assigned to them,
has been established by the careful comparison of
function with brain development. Force without,
varied in its mode of motion by the structure it passes
through, acting through the senses on the brain, creates
the world within us in proportion as that brain is more
or less perfect and fully developed. We have a feeling
also which gives us a belief in the objective reality of
the world so created, and another that this ever-varying
succession of thoughts and feelings is one and belongs
to me, creating the sense of identity or the 11 Ego.”
As, however, consciousness or feeling is all that is of
any consequence, a real world may be too expensive an
agent or not necessary to produce it, and our sense of
it therefore may be all a delusion, as the Berkeleyans
hold. If there is no brain there is no mind or mental
action. Each creature, therefore, has a world of its
own, according to the extent and susceptibility of its
own brain and nervous system.
The modes of motion which give us the ideas or feel
ings of heat and light, seem to give the same ideas
variously modified to all animals, but how far the other
ideas and feelings of many other animals are like our
own we at present are ignorant. If we could get a peep
into their worlds, no doubt it would teach us much;
particularly the vanity of what we call “intellectual
development.” For all we do know, or can know, is
how a certain force without, in its varied modes of
motion, acting upon our development, produces within
us all the multiplicity of thoughts and feelings that we
have. It is the registration and classification of all
these varied modes of external motion that constitute
science, and yet this kind of knowledge or intellectual
development is thought to be the object of man’s
individual identity which constitutes the individual man,” is as
much the result of specific brain action as that of all our other
faculties and intuitions, and no more constitutes the soul than any
other idea.
�8
The Cosmos.
existence, as if such kind of knowledge, in fact, told us
of the real nature of anything; it is a mere illusion be
gotten in our brains by we know not what—the stuff
that dreams are made of:—
“ We know,
That knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.”
Its end and aim appears to' be simply to induce action
in the direction of the true objects of our being. The
ideal world so created, however, by the nice adjust
ment of force without to force within is a much more
wonderful display of power than the creation of the
world in six days, according to Moses. What degree
of objective reality such a world has, we can never
know; it would seem impossible that there could he
any resemblance between a thought and a thing, and a
thought is all we can know, or of which we can be
conscious. The limited relative knowledge that we
have seems, however, all that is necessary for the pur
poses of our being ; and each creature has a world of its
own in which it struts about and thinks itself of more
importance than anything else in the universe.
Professor Tyndall says, in the address already alluded
to, “In our day grand generalizations have been reached.
The theory of the origin of species is but one of them.
Another of still wider grasp and radical significance is
the doctrine of the conservation of Energy, the ultimate
philosophical issues of which are as yet but dimly seen,”
and as it seems to me there is a conspiracy among
philosophers, not only that the philosophical issues
should be dimly seen, but that they should be hidden
altogether, by accepting everywhere motion, which is
the mere sign of energy or force, for the thing signified,
the force itself. Thus Heat is said to be a mode of
motion only, Light also is a mode of motion, so also we
are told as a recognised fact that “ Electricity is not
a fluid, or an entity of any kind, but simply a form of
�The Cosmos.
9
molecular motion” (Westminster Review, July 1875).
Others affirm the same of Mind, as we shall see. Dr
Tyndall says, however, “ Long in advance of all definite
experiment upon this subject, the constancy and inde
structibility of matter had been affirmed ; and all sub
sequent experience justified the affirmation. Later
researches extended the attribute of indestructibility to
force.” As motion however is inseparable from the
thing moving, so force is equally inseparable from the
unknown agent of which it is the force. It is no entity
in itself, hut a mere abstraction; as however it is inse
parable from the entity from which it is derived, it is
always used by me as one or identical with that entity.
Force is not motion, but the unknown cause of motion.
Physicists always talk of matter and motion as if they
were really two indestructihle entities, when in fact all
there is is matter in motion and the occult agent which
causes the motion.
Matter and force in this sense of the term are
equally real; in fact force is probably the only reality,
as matter is known to us only as force. Professor
Huxley accepts this view, for he says, “ Every
form is force visible; a form of rest is a balance of
forces; a form undergoing change is a predominance of
one over others.” Dr Tyndall thus proceeds, “This
idea (the indestructibility of force), applied in the first
instance to inorganic, rapidly embraced organic nature.
The vegetable world, though drawing almost all its
nutriment from invisible sources, was proved incompe
tent to generate anew either matter or force. The
matter is for the most part transmuted gas; its force
transformed solar forces. The animal world was proved
to be equally uncreative, all its motive energies being
referred to the combustion of its food. The activity
of each animal as a whole was proved to he the trans
ferred activity of its molecules,” that is, the trans
ferred force, not the activity or motion, which could
not be transferred.
�IO
The Cosmos.
But we are not to confine this indestructible force to
mere bodily activity, it is equally the source of all
mental activity. It is the cause, and the sole cause, of
all change everywhere. All things would keep their
present, state, either of rest or motion, without it. The
cause of change therefore is not in things themselves,
that is, there is no force or originating power in what
we call matter; in inanimate nature the force that
works is always a pre-existing force, not originated, but
transferred. One physical object moves another by
giving out to it the force by which it has been itself
moved. This is equally true of the organic world and
of the world of Mind, for Volition has no exclusive
privilege of origination. The “form” that force takes
either as a mode of motion or as feeling, depends upon
the structure through which it passes; for matter does
not originate force, but merely conditions it. Some
power, or the mechanical action of light, acting upon
the plant separates the carbon from the oxygen, and
their coming together again in the human body supplies
sufficient force to work the whole system, body and
mind. In its various modes of action it shows itself as
muscular or mechanical, as vital, and as nervous force.
Passing through the brain, and subjected to its
molecular action, it becomes mental force, and thus
creates the “World” of our intellectual consciousness,
the “ ego ” or sense of personal identity, and of our
likes and antipathies, which we call the Moral World.
Each idea and feeling is vivid or strong in proportion
to the amount of force used in its generation, and this
is proportionate to the size and activity of the part of
the brain with which each specific idea and feeling is
connected. But here Dr Tyndall and physicists generally
find a difficulty which to me does not exist. The phe
nomena of physical nature as well as those of the human
mind, it is admitted, have their unsearchable roots in a
cosmical life. We can trace the development of a
nervous system, and correlate with it the parallel
�The Cosmos.
11
phenomena of sensation and thought, but we are told
that “ we try to soar in a vacuum the moment we seek
to comprehend the connection between them.” Why
■go? We find conscious force, or mind, in ourselves
and all around, constantly passing from the conscious to
the automatic or unconscious state, where it still, and
quite as well, fulfils the purpose originally aimed at;
why then is it more difficult to conceive that physical
01 unconscious force should, under peculiar conditions,
again become conscious ? “ It is absolutely and for
ever inconceivable,” says Du Bois Reymond, “that a
number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms
should be otherwise than indifferent as to their own
position and motion, past, present, or future. It is
utterly inconceivable how consciousness should result
from their joint action.” Why so ? Consciousness, or
rather unconscious intelligence, passes into the atoms
■where we have automatic action, why therefore should
not consciousness pass out of them as the result of force
submitted to their joint action1? It is from the
materialistic point of view only from which this is
inconceivable, for what do we know of atoms in their
real nature or essence ? Physicists have already dis
covered that matter differs from ether only inbeing another
state or mode of motion of the same stuff, and they will
discover that ether differs from spirit only in the same
manner. This essential difference between physical
.and mental force is a mere assumption, or rather does
not the fact of the change of one into the other prove
the contrary, and that nothing can produce mind but
mind; that what we call physical force is mind, not
conscious but automatic; and that mind is the only
thing that exercises, or can exercise force ? Mr Lewes
tells us (“ Problem of Life and Mind ”), “that nervous
tremor does not become a feeling in the sentient organism,
it is that feeling in the organism. There is identity
of existence under diversity of aspects.” Strauss says,
“ If under certain conditions, motion can be trans
�12
The Cosmos.
formed into heat, why may it not, under other conditions^
be transformed into thought, into sensation, or even
into self-conscious reason and will ? ” That motion is a
form of feeling is the grand contention of Mr Lewes,
and the demonstration which he offers of this proposition
occupies fifty of the most striking pages of his book.
But how can motion be anything ? Motion is some
thing moving—the mere transference of something
from one point in space to another; it has no existence
in itself apart from the thing moving; it is a mere
condition, of something else. Motion in the case Mr
Lewes supposes must mean the brain in motion, the
two cannot be separated, and surely he does not intend
to affirm that the brain in motion and feeling are
identical, that is, that the brain and feeling are the
same. If force or power is an abstraction, so is motion,
and neither can be considered, or indeed is anything,
apart from the agent exercising the power and the thing
moving, and to make feeling out of motion alone is to
make something out of nothing. Had Mr Lewes said
that feeling, and not motion, but the unknoum cause of
motion were one and the same, I must have agreed
with him, for it is my view, as before stated, that force,
or rather its agent, automatic mind as I regard it, pass
ing through the brain and submitted to its molecular
action, changes from the unconscious to the conscious
state, or to feeling. Mr Lewes has set himself “the
task of disproving and keeping out of science all
ontological entities,” and this necessity for creating
something out of nothing is the legitimate consequence
to which it leads.
There is another most important consideration con
nected with this subject, namely, that as Power or
Force is inseparable from its agent or source it can
not be delegated, or lent, or transferred, nor can
any individual be “endowed” with power. All
power must be the act of the agent, automatically or
consciously exercised; and this agent must be the
�The Cosmos.
l3
supreme source of all power ; for the law of the persist
ence of force shows that the power of all other agentsor individuals is not their own, but derived. Force is
a Unity. It was the doctrine of Democritus, that “ all
changes are due to the combination and separation of
molecules,” as Empedocles held that all change resulted
from “ the love and hate among the atoms,” or in other
words, from their conscious action. Lucretius also held
that “ atoms move together by a kind of volition,” and
this conscious or mental volition has passed in the ages
into the automatic state, constituting what we now call
the fixed and necessary Laws of Nature. There is no
such thing as blind force, each atom has acted intelli
gently from the first, in a recognizable unvarying order,
and at first consciously. There is more unconscious
intelligence in the growth of a plant, and of man’s body,
than has ever yet been shown by man consciously.
“The animal world is, so to say, a distillation through
the vegetable world from inorganic nature ” (Tyndall),
“And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being,
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. ”
Longfellow.
Mr Darwin says, “ that every one appears to admit that
the body consists of a multitude of organic units, each
of which possesses its own p'roper attributes, and is to a
certain extent independent of- all others.” Upon this
the law of Heredity depends, by which we inherit not
only any advance made by our parents, but the physical
peculiarities and mental idiosyncracies—-the red hair
and madness as well—the mental states developing too
at just the time they first appeared in the parent. Be
sides we know now that the world has been in great
part created by conscious “ atoms,” and that that
creation is still going on. Ehrenberg informs us that
the silician stone, the tripoli, consists of the shells of
dead animalcules so minute that it takes 187 millions
�u
The Cosmos.
to weigh a grain. What must the creature have been
whose home was so small and hard ? And what indeed
must atoms be? Considerably less than nothing, I
should think !
This subject is obscured by the fact that unconscious
or physical force is always known to us as a mode of
motion, which is not the case when force passes into
sensibility; we have no reason to suppose that any
mode of motion attends conscious force or mind. Force
is thus known to us in two states,—as a mode of mo
tion and directly as consciousness. When volition
moves the muscles, the force has again passed into the
unconscious state. It will be observed that we do not
assert the materiality of mind but rather the spirituality
of matter.
Life, Herbert Spencer defines to be “a continuous
adjustment of internal relations to external relations,”
and these at least are the conditions of its continued
existence; the same precisely may be said of mind.
At first we have life, and as it is moulded into all its
wonderfully varied forms, the nervous system is
moulded also,—“the differentiations of tissue as first
vaguely sensitive all over,” and the continued “ modi
fication of an organism by its environment”—until
we have all the varied modes of mind or sensibility
that distinguish the whole animal creation, culminating
in man, whose thoughts and feelings produced in the
same way as in other animals, differ from them only in
degree and not in kind. That the thoughts and minds
of other creatures differ from our own only in degree,
and not in kind, is the opinion of all our great natural
ists. Thus Jules Michelet (“The Insect,” p. 151), after
various persevering efforts to get a look at an ant’s face,
concludes the chapter by saying, “after watching its
movements, its numerous actions indicative of reflection,
its acts so much more advanced than those of the larger
animals, we are not unwilling to believe that in this
head exists a personality. And from the highest to the
�The Cosmos.
15
lowest in this scale of life, we recognise the identity of
the soul.”
And now we have come to what appears to me to be
the purpose in creation—for I believe in “purpose,” or
that there is an end and aim in development, equally
whether that purpose be accomplished by evolution, or
by special creation or adaptation. Every possible space
in earth, air, and water, is filled with living creatures,
with bodies fitting them to that particular locality.
Through these bodies is poured a stream of force, which,
by the instrumentality of the brain and nervous system
resumes consciousness, but in this case it is that specific
consciousness, which constituting the soul of each, guides
it to the objects of its being, -i.e., the gratification of its
wants, and the pleasurable sensibility always attending
such gratification. These wants are innumerable, and
the aggregate of their pleasures is what we call happi
ness. Now, whatever may have been the nature of the
consciousness which previously existed before it became
unconscious or automatic in what we call Natural Law,
the present object of existence seems to be that this
unconscious force should resume its consciousness in a
greatly increased amount of pleasurable sensibility.
The worlds are great machines for manufacturing
happiness. “ Slowly, but surely,” says Herbert Spencer,
“ evolution brings about an increasing amount of happi
ness,” that is, a gradually increasing excess of pleasure
over pain in the whole sentient existence by a perfect
ing of the “ correspondence between life and its environ
ment." The objects of creation must be regarded from
this general and not from an individual point of view.
Nature, in pursuit of her object, does not recognise
individuals at all, even if individuality is not purely
the creation of our own minds.
Although, as Bishop Butler says, “ it is manifest that
nothing can be of consequence to mankind, or any creature,
but happiness,’’ yet, that this is the object nature syste
�16
The Cosmos.
matically pursues has been doubted, because the subject
has been regarded from the individual and not from the
general point of view, and because too much stress has
been laid upon the pain or evil attending the working
of the necessary machinery. And if the pains have
been magnified, the pleasures have been as much under
rated ; it has been overlooked how infinitely varied are
our wants, and that pleasure attends the gratification of
each, and as our very existence depends upon these
wants being gratified, happiness must be the natural
or normal state. The difference in the power of enjoy
ment is not accurately measured by the differences in
what we call civilization. The Negroes, who take no
thought for the morrow, but are always laughing and
joking, are probably happier than the lower classes
which constitute the great majority of civilized nations.
The races, such as the Chinese and Hindu, with whom
Civilization, as it is called, has been arrested, are pro
bably as happy as those who have made most progress.
Competition, or “ devil take the hindmost,” does not
seem to have done much for the great majority at present.
Real Civilization is that in which all our faculties can
have the freest play, and this cannot be said to be the
condition of the working classes in Europe as yet. It
is even questionable whether the great increase of pro
duction, as now employed, tends to the increase of
happiness.
Nature is not just or merciful in our sense of the
word, hut mercilessly sweeps away all impediments to
its purpose; not allowing individual interests for a
moment to stand in the way of the general good ; and
we have storms and earthquakes, and revolutions, and
savages everywhere giving place to civilized men, and
worn-out civilizations before the young, and vigorous,
and progressing. The weak everywhere goes to the
wall, that it may make room for the strong, and the
frame capable of the most enjoyment. Life is every
where kept at high pressure;—ten are born that one
�The Cosmos.
17
strong one may be preserved. And who has any right
to complain ? For what right has any one to happi
ness or even to being! The survival of the fittest!
and why should we not all stand out of the way to make
room for him ? But Nature does not say “by your
leave/ but makes us do it; and why should we make
such a screeching. Whatever we have is given to us
gratuitously, without any effort or merit on our part,
and if it falls short of what we think we deserve, or of
what we should like to have, or of what others have,
that is no fault or cruelty on the part of Him who
has thus generously given us what we have : all cannot
be first.
We were nothing before we were born, and if we
return to that state we cannot then regret it. But it
may be said, in man we have not, if we have in other
animals, the survival of the fittest, and it is quite
true that the present low stage of civilization is not
favourable to the highest type of man. Some kind of
martyrdom is still reserved for the highest minds, who
are not en rapport with the self-seeking, and other world
liness, of the world as it now exists. Their time may yet
be very far off. In our civilization we have scarcely
yet advanced beyond security to life, when the strong
man—the soldier—was the fittest, and gone on to the
next stage, security to property. We are, however,
now in a commercial age, where the fittest is he who
knows best how to make and use machinery in produc
tion, and to make profits by exchange, whose gospel is
political economy, or every one for himself, and money
the ruling power.
“ From the beginning, pressure of population has
been the proximate cause of progress,” and it is to his
increasing needs, induced by the struggle for existence,
that man owes all his development, and therefore all
his happiness. Pain, which under its various forms we
call evil, is not only the necessary guardian of our
organization and the life dependent upon it, but from
�18
The Cosmos.
the monad to the man, from every inferior organization
to every superior, this change from the lower to the
higher has been brought about by this evil so much
deprecated.
Again, in the painful consequences of our actions we
are taught our errors, and duly admonished not to do so
again. In America for a few cents, man snares the prairie
birds, and swarms of locusts eat up his crops ; in France
he catches the little birds as they arrive from their
winter trip to Africa, and insects, which only they can
destroy, deprive him of his bread and fruit; and Scotch
farmers, now grown wiser, extirpate the crow, and then
the cockchafer grub and the wire-worm leave his
corn-fields bare; he leaves his fellow-man to swelter
and rot in over-crowded dwellings and underground
cellars, and then he prays to be delivered from “plague,
pestilence, and famine,” and blames his Creator for not
making a more perfect world.
In the “ Martyrdom of Man ” we have the preparation
for the Future State of happiness here,, for the genera
tions that are to come. For I am quite willing to
admit that present happiness, if the principal, is not
the sole aim of nature ; the “ plan ” includes the coming
races. But if we are made to suffer for those who areto come after us, we have been gainers in an equal degree
from those that have gone before.
Natural evils, as they are called, however hard they
may seem in passages in the great book of Nature
separated from their context, yet push men forward in
the progress of improvement.
But one animal dies that another may live—the sus
tenance of one is made to depend upon the destruction
of another. A most beneficent arrangement, as it
seems to me. Suppose all animals lived to the end of
their natural term of life, who then would there be to.
bury them 1 Besides the world would then be filled
with old and worn-out life, instead of the young and
vigorous. Man alone fills the graveyards, and it re-
�^he Cosmos.
19
quires a very close and active inspection of our govern
ment Graveyard Inspectors to keep things healthy, as it
is. In animals, after a young and vigorous life, a thou
sand wants gratified, and a thousand pleasures m the
gratification, one is made beautifully to fit into another,
the lower life sustaining the higher, the one m tact
passing into the other. In Nature’s workshop there
are no shavings. Provision is made to clear away alL
refuse. Everything has to pass through the great
crucible to be renewed or purified. An insect world
keeps the path clear and clean for the higher order of
existence ; and a single blow-fly and her interesting but
numerous family, will move a dead horse out of tne way
sooner than a lion. We may object to the insects, especiallv in hot countries, but they alone have made the
earth habitable, and have kept it so. Mr J. _ S. Mill
questions the benevolence in creation, and thinks the
world for this end but a poor bungling contrivance after
all; for if, as he says, there are certain provisions for giv
ing pleasure to animals, there are also certain provisions
for living them pain. The fundamental ordinance of the
Creator is an ordinance of death. The condition of
existence for the lower animals is mutual destruction.
Death by violence preceded the appearance of the
Adamites. But Mr Mill seems to forget that death, is
but a minute against a life-time of enjoyment. If Life
and Death always go together, surely life has the best
of it in the longer term. The Rev. Erederick Robertson,
of Brighton, we are told, contemplating a caterpillar
perforated by a dozen maggots, and writhing in anguish,
exclaimed, 111 have never yet found the argument from
the understanding, or a hint of it, which can make it
pleasant to believe in a God who had made such a pro
vision as this.”
_
Certainly the higher life everywhere lives upon the
lower, and we do not know that any other arrangement
is possible, and if we believe in a benevolent . God, we
must believe it is not possible; and it is certainly pleaB
�20
The Cosmos.
santer to limit his power than his benevolence; but Mr
Robertson’s error, as it seems to me, is in believing that
a caterpillar can “writhe in anguish.” Whatever the
mere muscular contortions, the great probability is that
a caterpillar possesses but a very moderate degree of
sensibility, and that “ anguish ” can in no sense be
applied to it. Our imaginations play us very false as
to the degree of pain all animals are capable of feeling *
even in man, who possesses the highest sensibility, we
much deceive ourselves. All feeling, dependent upon
the supply of force to the brain, is limited, and pain,
which has probably its special organ, is soon ex
hausted.
“ 0 Life ! no longer a problem,
But a something to see and enjoy,
A brightness on stream and meadow,
A breeze round a dancing boy.”
W. M. W. Call.
I think then we are quite justified in saying with
Pope:—
“ 0 happiness ! our being’s end and aim !
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O’erlook’d, seen double, by the fool and wise.”
The fact is “ overlooked,” first, because happiness is
the natural condition and unhappiness the exception,
and also because our faculties have not happiness for their
object, although happiness is the result of their legiti
mate action. The pleasure we have in colour and in
music would appear to be the only exceptions to this
rule; for they, as far as we know, have no other pur
pose to serve in the system but giving us pleasure. The
colours of the rainbow, the exquisite beauty of the
sunsets, and all the varied coloured charms in nature,
are not necessary to our existence. The birds in their
world seem to have as much pleasure in colour as do-
�The Cosmos.
21
the fem al p.s in the human” species, and no doubt it con
stitutes the great delight of the Insects in their world
of their own creation—the flowers, and perhaps may be
necessary even to their existence. Music would ap
pear to be pure pleasure, although it tends to tune the
whole system in harmony with this higher law.
“ Oh, that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,”
says the poet, and so we are; we are the sound, the
music is in us.
But what becomes of the happiness that is over
looked ? ” Is it then lost ? Consciousness, whether of
pleasures or pains, is of two kinds; in one case it
means mere sensibility, in the other self-conscious
ness, which simply means reflection on conscious
ness. The whole brute creation have the first, they
are happy, but they are unconscious of it; that is, they
do not reflect upon it. Man also, “ with brute uncon
scious gaze,” ungratefully overlooks the greater part of
his happiness. Still he alone is self-conscious ; the
brutes, animal and human, are happy, but do not
know they are; but is the happiness of which they are
unconscious lost i I think not. A pleasurable sensa
tion is not the less a pleasurable sensation because it
is unnoticed by the recipient. The consciousness of
the aggregate of all such feelings probably constitutes the
essence of the Being of God—the happiness so greatly
predominating over the pain that the pain is not felt,
as, in our own experience, the higher joys completely
obliterate mere physical suffering. In this sense only
can I admit with Hegel that our Being s end and aim
is self-consciousness; but this must include not man s
alone, but the whole of sensitive existence. The force,
or automatic mind, which is transmuted into pleasurable
sensibility, is all-pervading—a Unity.
�22
The Cosmos.
God, the Soul, and Immortality.
Outside the sphere of our immediate consciousness all
is only more or less probable conj ecture. The important
subjects of God, the Soul, and Immortality, upon which
Religion is founded, have always hitherto been more
questions of feeling than of reasoning. If we cannot ac
cept any of the so-called Supernatural Revelations, how
much does Nature reveal to us on these all-important
topics ? We have Matter and Force, the active and pas
sive principles in Nature, as they are called. But this
is a misnomer, as both are equally active,—Force in
originating change, Matter in determining the direc
tion that change shall take. It is important to point
this out, as great error has arisen from the divorce of
one from the other, and the giving too great import
ance to Force which is called the spiritual element,
when it is most probable that there can be no action
the one without the other. This Force passing through
living animal structure becomes conscious, and we may,
I think, fairly say resumes its consciousness, for that
only which is Mind could become Mind. Our mental
faculty of Individuality gives unity to certain attri
butes, and we call it Matter—the material world; our
Causality takes cognizance of the Powers that move
the world,—the same faculty gives unity to those powers,
and we call it God “ in whom we live, and move, and
have our being.” But it is through the instrument
ality of the body that physical or unconscious force
becomes conscious—matter and force, body and spirit,
necessarily act together.
This matter and force seem infinite. By infinite I
mean unbounded—beyond the bounds of our concep
tion, we can know nothing else of infinite. Stars are
suns probably with solar systems like ours around them,
and the telescope enables us to count in the Milky
Way more than eighteen millions of such suns, the
number increasing with the power of our instrument.
�The Cosmos.
23
“ Though it may take a beam of light a million of years
to bring to our view those distant worlds, the end is
not yet. Far away in the depths of space we catch the
faint gleams of other groups of stars like our own . . .
Extending our view from the earth to the solar system,
from the solar system to the expanse of stars to which
we belong, we behold a series of gigantic nebular crea
tions rising up one after another, and forming greater
and greater colonies of worlds. bTo numbers can ex
press them, for they make the firmament a haze of
stars. Uniformity, even though it be uniformity of
magnificence, tires at last, and we abandon the survey,
for our eyes can only behold a boundless prospect, and
conscience tells us our own unspeakable insignificance.”
(J. W. Draper’s “ Intellectual Development of Europe,”
Vol. ii., p. 283). Insignificance indeed ! we have but
to go a very little way into space to see in our world
only a little ant-hill, each one of its pigmy human
creatures, however, thinking it can by its prayers turn
the Supreme Power that supports the whole from its
purposes, and that all creation is of no avail if, in the
everlasting change, its little ugly identity is not to be
preserved. It is true that the consciousness of a single
being is of more importance than a world without con
sciousness, for a world without consciousness would be
practically non-existent.
But the Universe is boundless not only in the in
finitely large, but in the infinitely littlej it extends
equally beyond our sight both ways. There is a con
scious world all around us of which we take no thought
and of whose existence we are only just beginning to
have a suspicion, although it has built our world, and
is the most important agent in it even now. Ehrenberg
tells us of a creature so small that it takes one hundred
and eighty-seven millions to weigh a grain. Each of
these creatures had an individuality and a house of its
own, and it is these houses or shells that now make the
silicious stone,—the tripoli, so hard and sharp that it
�24
The Cosmos.
is used for polishing metals. No doubt these creatures
were high in the scale of being of their class—the
animalcules—and so numerous that the aggregate of
their pleasurable consciousness may have equalled ours.
Herbert Spencer tells us of “ molecules each of which
contains literally more atoms than the visible universe
contains stars,” and by the spectroscope we are able to
detect the eighteen-millionth part of a grain of sodium
in a room. So that Mr Nicholas Odgers in his
“ Mystery of Being ” may have grounds for his enquiry
l( Are ultimate Atoms Inhabited Worlds ? ” May not
also the infinitely large and infinitely little lead to the
inquiry whether anything occupies space at all ? If all
is Force, and Force is Mind, space may be, after all,
what Kant affirms it to be, a form only of our own
thought. We know nothing of the real nature of
either matter or spirit, and if the world is all spirit,
and extension does not belong to it, it is equally real.
Our world is of almost infinitely slow growth, and
if other worlds are like our own—and force seems every
where the same, everywhere a unity—then we have
the body and soul of the Universe, equally self-existent
and co-eternal, acting together to produce a higher and
higher consciousness of pleasurable sensibility or happi
ness ; possessing a unity not appreciable by us, and
thus the object of Being-—of all existence, is the de
velopment of the Godhead, or if we may say so with
out irreverence, to create God.
If Life is dependent for its existence on “ the con
tinuous adjustment of internal relations to external re
lations,” the Soul is not less so. Force within sets the
brain in motion, and force without, acting upon the
brain through the medium of the senses, produces those
specific modes of sensibility which we call Intellect and
Feeling, and this relation of thought to a material brain
' is constant and a fact which every one may observe.
So that as Mr J. S. Mill says, “ Assuming the mind to
�The Cosmos.
^5
be’a distinct substance, its separation from the body
would not be, as some have vainly flattered themselves, a
liberation from trammels and restoration to freedom,
but would simply put a stop to its functions and remand,
it to unconsciousness, unless and until some other set of
conditions supervenes, capable of recalling it into ac"
tivity, but of the existence of which experience does
not give us the smallest indication.” (“ Essays on Re
ligion,” p. 198.) It has taken millions of years to make
the organs of body and brain by the continued adjust
ment of action and reaction, and it is these organs that
constitute the Individual, and it is a monstrous as
sumption to suppose that we can do without them, or
that doing without them the individuality can be re
tained. The waters are raised in invisible vapour from
the ocean, they are condensed again upon the mountain
tops, and after forming a part of all that lives, again
join the parent ocean ’ no individual drop, however
high it may be raised in the scale of existence in. a
beautiful flower, or a scent, or even in a man’s brain,
claims to set up an independent existence, but goes
back to the ocean to be again distributed in ever-varying
iip.w forms ■ so of the boundless reservoir of unconscious
force, it resumes consciousness in part in all the infinitely
numerous and varied living animal forms, “ at once the
soul of each and God of all.” At death, the body is
resolved into its elements to take new forms, and the
soul “ returns to God who gave it,” that is, it again
joins the ocean of persistent or indestructible force, to
take new consciousness in new and perhaps superior
forms. Nothing is lost in either body or mind but the
phenomenal forms which are replaced always by some
thing better. Low as we still are, there has certainly
been considerable improvement since the early inhabi
tants of our world. Its highest at one time were the
Megalosauri, the Plesiosauri, &c., the enormous croco
diles, sharks, turtles, and toads which domiciled in its
river creeks and swamps. It has been only recently
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that man lias come upon the scene; the earth, “for
countless ages was a dungeon of pestiferous exhalations
and a den of wild beasts.” Living forms are but of a
transitory nature, many have died out never to reappear,
however much the great toads, alas ! may complain that
an endless life was not given to them. The cerebrum,
the only instrument as yet known to us by which the
soul manifests itself, has reached its present organiza
tion by a continued and unbroken process of develop
ment from the lowest animal. At the present, the
brain of the civilized man is much larger than the brain
of the savage.
The Soul then is immortal, as is everything else that
comes from God and goes again to him; but as to the par
ticular form it took in Dicky Snookes or Tommy Styles,
that perhaps is gone forever, however great a loss they
themselves may think the world has thus had; in another
one hundred thousand years, perhaps, they will not be
missed. What then, has man no soul to be damned !
I do not say saved, because salvation, according to the
popular creed, is the exception. Is Lazarus after all to
be denied the satisfaction of seeing Dives in Hell, con
sidering how many good things the rich man had that
he had not! I must say it exceeds the bounds of my
patience to hear people selfishly and complacently
expatiating upon the absolute necessity and desirable
ness of another life, and the wickedness of not believ
ing in it, when they at the same time admit that, if not
to them, to the many, that other life is to be one of an
eternity of misery. To me the claim is monstrous that
any brute beast, because he is called a man, is to have the
power of bringing into the world any number of immortal
souls, whose life, although it begins with him, can never
end, but, according to the popular conception, in all pro
bability will be continued in everlasting torment. To
me it is some consolation to think that whatever begins
in time must end in time, and that the continued exist
ence of the Individual after this life, could it be proved,
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does not mean Immortality. But this monstrous faith
in absolute evil, is thought even to be virtuous,—for how
otherwise are the self-complacency and self-conceit of
the “ good ” to be gratified, or the bad to be “ served
out,” unless the compensations of another life are pro
vided '? There must be a heaven for the good, and a
place where we can be revenged upon the bad for their
wickedness! That their body and soul should take
another form and another name, and so have a chance of
doing better, would not satisfy the “ unco-guic||i’ at all.
We have no less authority than his Grace the Arch
bishop of Canterbury (“ Good Words,” May 1875) for
the assumed fact that “ the existence of a soul within
the material body, separate from it in nature as something
spiritual, and not material, has never been disbelieved,
without a degradation both of the intellect and the
moral character of man, .... a spirit mastering and
guiding the mere bodily organs.” I thought, on the
contrary, that it was now very generally admitted that
whatever the nature of mind may be as distinguished
from the body, its manifestation was dependent entirely
upon its instrument—-the brain. A wise writer also on
“Natural Religion" (“Macmillan,” Feb. 1875), says,
very truly, that “ physiology has brought us close to
mind, and the old distinction between matter and
spirit begins to be slighted as a superstition.”
But a noble-minded lady, one of the most clear and
forcible writers of our time, tells us (“Theological
Review,” Oct. 1875) that without the hope in
individual immortality, “ the nobler part of us would
dwindle to a vanishing point, and the man return to
the ape,” and also that “ the God of Truth will have
deceived the human race if the soul of a man dies with
his body.” It is quite true that we have an instinctive
dread of ceasing to be, connected with a part of the
brain, which phrenologists call “ Love of Life,” and
which prevents suicide under difficulties; it is man's
own fault if he diverts and perverts this useful feeling,
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The Cosmos.
and as to the soul dying with the body, whatever has
once existed must continue to exist; but everything
changes its form, and why should the soul of man
claim to be an exception to this general law? The
inhabitants of Kamschatka, according to Kotzebue,
insult their deities if their wishes are not fulfilled, and
the negroes beat their Fetish if their prayers are un
answered ; and this most estimable lady thinks that if
she is not to be allowed to retain her special form, or,
at least, the full memory of what she was only in this
grub state, constituting her identity, as she very
much wishes to do, why then, God is not the God she
took him to be, that’s all. Surely, if according to our
human estimate, God has been unjust here, that alone
is not a sufficient reason for believing that he will be
just elsewhere. But we must see that a succession
of beings, here at least, is infinitely preferable to the
continued existence of one. What could we do with
out Jthe children ? What could we do with a world
full of only old fogies ? What could we do without
all those interests and affections to which this succes
sion of being gives rise ? Without death there could
be no birth : the world would soon be full, and no one
could retain his life without murdering all who would
otherwise come after him. Murder, perhaps, is a strong
term, but the coming race would be put out of exist
ence or prevented coming into it, which is, in effect,
the same thing. If the devil offered to renew our life
upon these terms, that we should murder the infant
that was otherwise destined to take our place, thpre are
but few, I suppose, who would sign the compact. And
what is all this for ? Why, because some conceited
person thinks that, having once come into being, he
never ought to go out again, that the Universe could
not do without his particular little Identity, and that
therefore the whole course of nature, as known to us,
must be changed to bring it about. On the present
plan, the malformed development of body and brain,
�The Cosmos.
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the vicious ways, the bad habits, the narrow pre
judices, the ossified ideas, are buried with us, but the
good—all that is worth preserving, is retained in the
immortality, or at least, continued existence of the
race. How absurd then to talk of annihilation, as if
anything could ever be destroyed or lost ! Myriads of
little creatures have built up our material world, have
had their day, and have passed away ; myriads of men
and other creatures have equally created the world of
mind, adding thought to thought, and instinct to
instinct, till civilised man, “ the heir of all the ages,”
has already added thirty cubic inches more of
experience and capacity for enjoyment to his brain.
Is man, it is said, “ fated to pass away like the fixed
and unprogressive creatures beneath him ? ’
But
where are there fixed and unprogressive creatures?
Have they not rather passed by the law of evolution
and development from the monad to the man ?
This selfish craving for continued existence in another
world is thought to be a high and ennobling aspiration.
Even Hume says, “ the doctrine of a Future State is so
Strong and necessary a security for morals, that we
ought never to abandon or neglect it,” that is, we are
to accept things that may be false because of their
supposed good consequences. The Bible tells us more
of God’s wrath than of his love. We must be held
responsible in another life, it is said, for what we have
done in a previous state of being. But surely such
responsibility could only be of use in the present state
of existence or in one exactly like it. That the end
and aim of existence should be the elimination of a few
souls to happiness in some other sphere, and the many
to unhappiness, appears to me the least worthy idea of
all, and to me also it seems in the highest degree impro
bable that provision is to be made for forty millions of
naked souls annually in some other world. And what
is a naked soul ? Carlyle says of Diderot (“ Critical
and Biographical Essays ”), “ The dust that was once
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his body went to mingle with the common earth, in the
church of Saint Roch; his life, the wondrous manifold
Force that was in him, that was He,—returned to
Eternity, and is there, and continues there.” No doubt ;
still all the specific faculties which constituted the
“He,” and even the sensibility, were dependent for
their existence, and for their mode of manifestation
upon the Dust, and were calculated only for preserving
his being, and promoting his activity here. The rela
tion between the soul and the body is an elaborate
adjustment between that which is around us, and that
which is within us. Surely such souls, if they retained
their Individuality, would be rather thick upon the
ground wherever they might go to; we should have to
resume the questions of the schoolmen as to how many
angels or souls could stand upon the point of a needle
at once : besides it has taken millions of years at least
to prepare the subsistence of man in this world, and we
know of no provision made for those countless souls
elsewhere. Such a state would be essentially the crea
tion of a world out of nothing, without any regard to
the conditions which it has taken such countless centuries
to bring about here. As far as space is concerned, no
doubt it may be said that there must be plenty of room
in an infinite universe, but why reserve any of it for
such pigmies ! Besides where do the forty million souls
come from that are annually required for the new births
in this world,—waiting, we are told, to be born, and at
what stage of gestation do they join the body ? Do
they come from some other world ? If so, they have
certainly lost their Identity. Would not also the
“organic units” of which each body is composed
according to Darwin, each of which possesses its own
proper attributes, require separate souls ? and have the
Australian and Papuan savages immortal souls ?
The North American Indian places a dog’s head in
the tomb with its late master, that it may show him
the way to this new world, but it would seem difficult
�The Cosmos.
31
to miss it as there must be much company always on
the road. A leading spiritualist, an educated Profes
sional man, Mr Newton Crosland,. tells us that all
the spirits have been imperative in requiring us to
address our prayers to the one Divine Mediator, lhey
assert, he says, “ that all devout prayers are taken up to
Pi-m and answered; and that there is an angel always
in attendance upon every human being,. to receive and
soar up with any prayer that is sufficiently true and
earnest.” The spirits, however, appear to have thrown
no light upon how these petitions are all delivered at
once, to a Mediator who wishes to receive them all
personally, but it must make the road to the celestial
regions easy to find, so many angels being always on
the way and so worthily. occupied! The fact is that
however desirable, and pious, and religious, it may be
thought to be, to believe in another world, there is no
practical belief in it, and no one wants to go ; all want
to stop here even though it be in pain and poverty:
besides many feel, although they may not express it,
that with the exception of themselves and a few of
their friends and relations, and of the best sort of folks,
all the rest of this world are only fit, like the leaves of
autumn, to make the manure for the richer growth of
the coming human spring.
What then are the destinies of the Cosmos, or
rather we must say of our World1? “A time must
come,” says Strauss, “when the earth will be no longer
inhabited j nay, when we shall have ceased to exist
as a planet. Then all which in the course of her
development was produced, and in a manner accom
plished by her—all living and rational beings, and all
their productions, all political organizations, all works
of art and science—will not only necessarily have
vanished from existence without a trace, but even the
memory of them will survive in no mind, as the history
of the earth must necessarily perish with her. . . .
Either the earth has missed her aim here—no result
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The Cosmos.
lias been, produced by her protracted existence, or this
aim did not consist in something which was intended
to endure, but has been attained at every moment of
her development.” Prebendary Row, commenting upon
this, in an address to the Victoria Institute, says,
“ surely this is a dark prospect which this philosophy
unfolds. Man, as an individual, and as a race, shall
pass into eternal silence; and no trace of him or his
work shall remain in any mind. Still, if this is the
inevitable destiny of the future, let us face it boldly and
honestly ; and not imitate the ancient philosopher, who
wished, if the doctrine of man’s immortality were not
true, that no one should undeceive him while he lived.
No; if this philosophy is true, the most cultivated in
tellects, the greatest moral elevation, and the lowest
baseness of wickedness, shall alike rest in peaceful, but
eternal silence.”
This “ peaceful but eternal silence ” for the wicked,
who already, from the very nature of wickedness,
must have had the worst of it in this world, appears to
be utterly abhorrent to the clerical mind. No, they
shall all be held responsible for what they have done in
the present state of being; although it can then answer
no possible purpose; “ they shall drink the wine of the
wrath of God, and they shall be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and
in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their
torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.” No doubt,
they also hope to be present with the holy angels ;
without this, life to them will have been an utter
failure—not worth having! The Indians tie their
enemy of a hostile tribe to a tree, and slowly burn him
to death with firebrands ; to them this is the most de
lightful of all recreations, and this idea of burning the
enemies of God must be a “ survival ” from some such
source. It is astonishing the tenacity, however, with
which the orthodox mind still clings to it, 10,000
clergymen having not long since proclaimed themselves
�The Cosmos.
33
to be believers in the eternity of punishment. It is
supposed to have the effect of restraining the wicked,
and I suppose of inducing the love of God at the same
time, as we are told that is the first and greatest com
mandment. Neither will they allow of any possible
mitigation. Christ is reported to have said (Mark ix.
48, 49) speaking of hell fire—“Where their worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched. Nor every one shall
be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted
with salt.” Divines tell us that this “ salting with fire”
is to have the same preservative influence as the salt
upon the sacrifice, lest souls should get used to it, or be
destroyed by it, in the course of eternity. For myself I
am quite willing to accept what is to them a still more
horrible alternative, “that each man shall enjoy life as
he best can, and sleep for ever the sleep of unconscious
ness,” rather than that any one, much less countless
millions, should awake to such a fate.
Hume says, with truth, “ I shall venture to affirm,
that there never was a popular religion which repre
sented the state of departed souls in such a light, as
would render it eligible for human kind, that there
should be such a state,” and it is rather a singular fact
that while the Christian world places the chief good of
man in the Immortality of the Soul, the great majority
of the human race—the Buddhists in India and China
—are anxious above all things to divest themselves of
such individual responsibility at all costs. Surely this
is wiser. The Immortality of the Individual Soul is a
most awful idea to contemplate, considering the un
certainty that attends the Future State. Perfection in
another and a better world may not be for all, and
looking at it from an unselfish point of view, it would
be better that we should give up our Individuality, and
be as we were before we were born, without conscious
ness, than that any should continue to exist in an
undesirable state to all eternity.
�34
The Cosmos.
But however much we may think of our own Indi
viduality and our special Identity, it is very evident the
Supreme Power cares little for the Individual as such.
Of course the happiness of the whole is made up of
individuals, and the general plan works for the general
good, that is, “ makes for righteousness,” which I sup
pose is the cant phrase for the right—for honesty, in
tegrity, benevolence, and all the other virtues, but we
find no evidence for that special Providence which
looks after individual sparrows and individual men,
and which constitutes the Father in Heaven of Christi
anity. Such aid is certainly very pleasant for weak
people—indeed for us all—to think of in our extreme
need, but. if such aid were to be had, it would most
certainly be a curse rather than a blessing, inasmuch
as it would weaken those springs to action upon which
our well-being and very existence depend.
Let us take an illustration from Tennyson’s “ Queen
Mary,” which, in my opinion, like the whole Drama,
has more of History than of Poetry in it:—
“ Howard.
0 Paget, Paget!
I have seen heretics of the poorer sort
Expectant of the rack from day to day,
To whom the fire were welcome, lying chained
In breathless dungeons over steaming sewers,
Fed with rank bread that crawled upon the tongue,
And putrid water, every drop a worm,
Until they died of rotted limbs ; and then
Cast on the dunghill naked, and become
Hideously alive again from head to heel;
Made even the carrion-nosing mongrel vomit
With hate and horror.”
Multiply such cases by millions, and what can we
then think of a Special Providence ? Think of the nine
million poor creatures burnt for the imaginary crime of
witchcraft, and the same number of a higher type
burnt or tortured to death for an equally imaginary
crime by the Inquisition. Think of the Crusades, and of
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35
the millions who thus perished. In the first Crusade,
on the capture of Jerusalem, we read, “ the brains of
young children were dashed out against the wall;
infants were pitched over the battlements; every
woman that could be seized was violated; men were
roasted at fires; some were ripped up to see if they
had swallowed gold; the Jews were driven into their
Synagogue and there burnt; a massacre of nearly
?0,000 persons took place ; and the Pope’s legate was
seen ‘partaking in the triumph’” (J. W. Draper,
“ Intellectual Development of Europe,” vol. ii., p. 22).
Think of the sixty years’ persecution of the Huguenots
in France, being a perpetuation of the horrors of St
Bartholomew during the whole of that time. Yes, all
these things were done in the name of God and of
Religion ! I think we cannot but agree with J. S.
Mill, that “ the notion of a Providential Government
by an Omnipotent Being for the good of his creatures
must be entirely dismissed.” (“ Essays on Religion,”
p. 243).
Let us take a more modern instance, one that has
just occurred. In the Sydney Morning Herald we
read :—“ Further information from Fiji conveys still
darker accounts of the plague which has recently passed
over the new colony. A resident of long standing,
writing to a Victorian contemporary, says :—The
death-rate is not yet made up, but the probability is
that forty thousand Fijians died during the four months’
plague. The native population of Fiji is now about
one-third only of what it was when I landed here
twenty-five years ago.’ ’ The accounts given of the
magnitude of the disaster are less harrowing than those
of the sufferings of the victims. ‘Very few died of
the measles, the majority dying of subsequent disease
in the form of dysentery, congestion of the lungs, &c.
Want of nourishment or starvation carried off thou
sands.’ It is interesting to read of the different mental
effects produced by the tortures of disease. It is not
c
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The Cosmos.
surprising to find that ‘ some made fruitless appeals to
their ancient gods. Some inland tribes, who had only
recently embraced Christianity, considered that the
disease was conveyed by their religious teachers, and
they dismissed them, and then abandoned their new
religion. Among these some were for killing the
teachers, but wiser counsels prevailed. It is said that
one tribe buried alive the teacher’s wife and child—
whose husband and father had died of the plague—to
stop infection.’ But while some in their distress fell
back on their former superstitions, the greater number
are said to have borne their calamity with fortitude,
and to have suffered and died under the influences of
Christianity.”
He must be a bold man who could teach the Father
hood of God and the Brotherhood of Man under such
circumstances. It is true the interests of the whole of
humanity would be better served by peopling these
beautiful islands with a civilized than with a savage
race; and now that Her Britannic Majesty had just
taken possession, the savages were better out of the
way, but how about justice and mercy and the eternal
principles of morality!
At the destruction of Tyre, by Alexander the Great,
“ a countless multitude were massacred, two thousand
persons were crucified ” (Draper, vol. i. p. 76). My only
hope and consolation is that pain, as I have said before, is
limited, if the malevolence of man is not. When I read
of these things, and think of man as a little lower than
the angels ! I am obliged to believe rather that “ the
missing link ” will never be found; the monkeys have
hidden it lest we should claim any relationship. When
I ask what devil first invented this horrible mode of
death by crucifixion, I am told by the Christian that
God himself, for his own glory, ordained such a mode
of death for his own Son, to save the world, not then
created, from the fires of Hell, not then lighted !
The saddest thing to me is the Christian’s Cross—
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37
the emblem, it is said, of his salvation. .And I am
more sad over its moral significance that its physical.
That people can look at that cross and think only of
their own salvation, purchased by the death of an
innocent person, and that this subversion of the whole
moral world has been directly ordained by God, is the
saddest sight the world has yet seen. No doubt in
truth it is merely a “ survival” in this nineteenth cen
tury of the savage idea of propitiation by human sacri
fice. The idea is at utter variance with the moral sense
of the present day. Admitting that we have all done
wrong, is there any one willing to accept pardon on
condition that an innocent person should bear the
penalty ? Self-sacrifice may be all very well, but justice
is the only thing that can save the world. Every day
it becomes more evident that Justice is a much higher
virtue than Benevolence. The interests of Morality
require as nice a scale as the physical manipulations of
Chemistry, and this will be felt more and more as the
world advances. Nothing could prove the Christian
scheme of redemption to be true, as the interests of
the whole world are adverse, and make for right and
justice.
I cannot, therefore accept the Christian idea of God
either as a special Providence or as being willing to save
the world by the sacrifice of an innocent person for the
guilty.
Neither can I accept the Theist God—a Being out
side and apart from the Universe., governing the world
with Intelligence and Peelings similar to our own—a
man without limit. Our Intelligence is simply the
mode of thought which certain limited outside forces
have impressed upon our nervous system, and our
Peelings are certain Pains and Pleasures, Likes and
Antipathies that we have in relation to each other, and
which cannot for a moment be supposed to belong to
God. God is Love, it is said; but Love is only one of
these feelings intended to induce a certain line of con
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The Cosmos.
duct of sensitive creatures towards each other. It is a
mental attraction, but repulsions are equally necessary.
In a world in which death is as natural as life something
more than love is required to put us in harmony
with it.
The Being of God is a great mystery; it presents an
enigma which many think altogether insoluble. Our
acutest thinkers are able to throw very little light upon
the subject, and that only of a negative kind. “ The
Deity,” says Sir William Hamilton, “ is not an object
of immediate contemplation ; as existing, and in Him
self, He is beyond our reach; we can know Him only
mediately through His works, and are only warranted in
assuming His existence as a certain kind of cause
necessary to account for a certain state of things, of
whose reality our faculties are supposed to inform us.”
It is Professor Mansei’s opinion that “ to speak of an
Absolute and Infinite Person, is simply to use language
in which, however true it may be in a superhuman
sense, no mode of human thought can possibly attach
itself.”
The author of “ The Philosophy of the Unconscious ”
tells us of an unconscious Absolute which acting in all
atoms and organisms as an universal soul, determines
the contents of creation and the evolution of the uni
verse by a “ clairvoyant wisdom superior to all conscious
ness.”
An American writer also throws equal light upon the
subject when he tells us of “ One whose Spiritual
Majesty is enthroned for ever in the gateways of
Eternity” !
Professor Tyndall more recently says: “ When I
attempt to give the Power which I see manifested in
the universe an objective form, personal or otherwise,
it slips away from me, declining all intellectual mani
festation. I dare not, save poetically, use the pronoun
4 He ’ regarding it; I dare not call it a 1 mind ; ’ I
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39
refuse to call it even a ‘cause.’ Its mystery over
shadows me, but it remains a mystery, while the objec
tive frames, which my neighbours try to make it fit,
simply distort and desecrate it.”—Fortnightly, Novem
ber 1875.
Others consider themselves obliged to rest in general
sympathy with the majesty, the beauty, the beneficence
and goodness that are in existence, animate or inanimate.
We are obliged, I think, to believe that God is everything
or nothing. That there is not God and Nature, but that
God and Nature are one. In the union of God and
Nature, Materialism and Absolute Idealism meet, and in
this identity of the Real and the Ideal we have the body
and soul of God. A personal God is not necessarily a
magnified man—a personality is that which has unity
in any form. Power cannot be delegated. All Power
therefore is God’s Power, originally consciously exercised
in every act or change; but this, through continued action,
has passed in the ages into constant unvarying Law.
Nothing therefore can be supernatural. The connection
between cause and effect is not a necessary one, but one of
Will, dissolvable at pleasure, unconscious for the most
part, but quite capable of again becoming conscious where
conscious action is required. The “ Missing Link ” will
probably be found here. But if this power of interfer
ence with Law were often exercised, which man by his
prayers supposes that it is, both instinct and reason which
are based upon the uniformity of Nature’s action, upon
the invariability of her Law, would become useless for
our guidance. Our well-being therefore, and indeed very
existence, are dependent upon the same effects following
the same causes everywhere, and at all times.
Putting aside the fear that men have always had of
this hidden Power, and the superstitions based upon it,
and the hopes to turn it to their own advantage, we
can only judge of its nature from what it does; and
that knowledge is confined to a mere speck in a limitless
universe. We speak of Infinite Power, Wisdom, and
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The Cosmos.
Goodness, but we know nothing of Infinite. People
believe all sorts of impossibilities and contradictions,
because they say everything is possible to God. He, it
is believed, can create something out of nothing, and
with Him a thing may be, and may not be, at the same
time. Our bodies may be made of the same atoms as
hundreds of others before us, and yet we shall all rise
again with the same bodies, because nothing is impos
sible to God. If God were Almighty, why an age of
crocodiles and great toads ? why may not the higher
race of man have begun at once ? if He were perfect,
why create at all 1 or if He could have prevented all
the evil in the world, and yet have produced the same
amount of happiness, He must be the greatest criminal
in the universe. He does not create by fiat: and God
said, “ let there be,” &c., may be very sublime, but it
is great nonsense. All creation is a growth, and we
suppose therefore necessarily so, and “ not God Himself
can make man’s best, without best men to help Him,”
which is simply saying that He works under “ condi
tions,” not of anything external to Himself, but ’ of
His own essential nature. All is constant and ever
varying change. Life and death appear to be the
law of the universe as well as of this world, and this
applies equally to inanimate and to animate bodies.
Worlds are born out of nebulous matter, pass through
certain changes of youth and old age, , and again are
resolved into nebulous matter. This world when used
up, by the mere stoppage of its motion, will become
again an invisible gas. Without talking of Infinite, of
which a finite nature can know nothing, there is quite
enough of power and beauty in the world to excite both
awe and wonder. Things go on in constant cycles,
with each cycle a visible improvement—progress is the
law. The water rises from the sea, and forming the
circulatory system of the world and the life of plants,
again returns to it to be again distributed. Plants
absorb the carbon from the atmosphere, and animals
�The Cosmos.
4i
again distribute it, and thus the growth of a plant and
the respiration of an animal are dependent upon each
other.
But there is more than this. Sun power, that is,
the mechanical action of Light, divorces the carbon from
the oxygen in the plant, and upon their re-union in the
body this force is restored. Under the law of the Per
sistence of Force exactly the same power that it took
to separate them is restored upon their coming together
again; supplying force enough to work the whole machine
—body and mind.
Body and mind are constantly
changing, are in perpetual flux; each atom of the body
returns to the earth, each thought and feeling returns
to the general reservoir of force or mind from which it
originally came. The plant returns to the earth in
winter to rise in new beauty in the spring j the
body returns to the earth in its winter to return in
fresh, young, and vigorous life, in the rising generation,
and the world is thus created afresh every year, and in
every generation, in renewed and improved beauty.
Talk of annihilation ! Not a particle is lost of either
mind or body ; the body takes new forms, and all that
is worth retaining in mind is retained in the mind of
Humanity.
“ Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ;
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive and successive rise ;
So generations in their course decay,
So flourish these when those have passed away. ”
Men are always passing away, but mankind is always
increasing. All the present forms of Life in the world
must have lived in some form or other many times
before.
This doctrine is not new ; it is as old as the hills. It
is the doctrine of the Vedas, of Brahma, and also more
especially of Buddha, as I have already pointed out:
the Persistence of Force furnishing only the modern
�42
The Cosmos.
scientific proof of its truth. In its more modern form,
it appeared as Averrhoism or philosophical Islamism in
the twelfth century; and at one time, as Draper shows
us, was very nearly becoming the creed of Christen
dom. “ This system supposes that, at the death of an
individual, the intelligent principle or soul no longer
possesses a separate existence, but returns to or is
absorbed in the universal mind, the active intelligence,
the mundane soul, which is God; from whom, indeed,
it had originally emanated or issued forth; . . . . and
thus of all human souls, there remains at last but one-—
the aggregate of them all. It was the opinion of
Averrhoes that the transition from the individual to the
universal is instantaneous at death ; but the Buddhists
maintain that human personality continues in a declin
ing manner for a certain term before nonentity or
Nirwana is attained” (“Religion and Science,” p. 139).
“Ask a Hindu,” says the Rev. Mr Hobson, M.A.
(“ Induism and its Relations to Christianity ”), “ what is
the chief end and aim of man’s existence, and he will
answer, 1 Liberation.’ Ask him what he means by
Liberation, and he will say, to cut short the 84.............
By the 84, he means the eighty-four hundred thousand
of new transmigrations or births, to which all are
appointed. The only way to cut short this series of
successive births is to attain the full knowledge of the
soul’s real identity with God.”
It was an essential condition of the theory of Aver
rhoes that there is a soul of humanity, through their
relations with which individual souls are capable of
forming universal ideas, for such Averrhoes asserted,
is the necessary consequence of the emanation theory
(Draper, “ Intellectual Development,” Vol. ii., p. 188).
Mesmerism and Clairvoyance will probably furnish the
modern scientific proof of this theory, and it is of the
partial glimpses of its truth, mixed with much imposture,
that spiritualists are now making such a superstitious
use.
�The Cosmos.
43-
Dr Draper says, “ Philosophy has never proposed but
two hypotheses to explain the system of the world :
first, a personal God existing apart, and a human soul
called into existence or created, and henceforth
immortal; second, an impersonal intelligence, or in
determinate God, and a soul emerging from and return
ing to Him. As to the origin of beings, there are two
opposite opinions: first, that they are created from
nothing ; second, that they come by development from
pre-existing forms. The theory of creation belongs
to the first of the hypotheses, that of evolution to the
last.
“ Philosophy among the Arabs took the same direc
tion that it did in China, in India, and, indeed, through
out the East. Its whole spirit depended on the
admission of the indestructibility of matter and force.
It saw an analogy between the gathering of the material
of which the body of man consists from the vast store
of matter in nature, and its final restoration to that
store, and the emanation of the spirit of man from the
Universal Intellect, the Divinity, and its final re-absorption ” (“ Science and Religion,” p. 140).
The late Vatican Council anathematised these
Averrhoist doctrines. “ Notwithstanding that stigma,”
says Dr Draper, “ it is to be borne in mind that these
opinions are held to be true by a majority of thehuman race.”
The Universe then is God, and God is the Universe.
This is not Atheism, for with Bacon, “I had rather
believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and
the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without
a mind.” “A little philosophy,” he says, “might make
a man an Atheist; but a great deal will show him
universal mind.” Matter and Spirit constitute the body
and mind of God. These are inseparable, that is each
necessary to the other’s action, both in the universal
and the individual. We must recollect that we know
nothing but our own consciousness, and that that tells
�44
The Cosmos.
us nothing of the essential nature of either body or
mind; both one and the other are to us equally trans
cendental.
As to the Personality of God, the Christian Deity
has three persons; but as we understand Personality, it
implies limitation, and we cannot see therefore how, in
that sense, either as One Person or Three, it can apply
to the All in All. It is true that we can see that
Porce and Matter are One throughout the Universe—
probably the same stuff, the same in essence. As the
World exists in our Thought, so the Universe may exist
in the mind of God, and extension may not belong to
thought. Here, then, is Unity and Personality. We
are a manifestation of the power of God; and if it were
possible that such power could be withdrawn, the
Universe would disappear with it. We can speak, of
course, only of remote probabilities, but the most subtle
minds are of opinion that nothing exists out of the
mind of God. “ All permanent existence is in the
Divine mind,” says Berkeley; and Hegel considered
that by his philosophy he had demonstrated, that the
■essence of the world, and all things in it, was Thought.
As everything ultimately resolves itself into Force and
Force is Mind, this view has high probability The
*
* It is as easy to jump out of our own skin as out of our own
forms of thought, yet we cannot but feel a little ciirious as to what
lies beyond. It is difficult to believe in a Universe without Space,
and yet its existence, except as a form of thought, implies a con
tradiction, as it is infinite at both ends—infinitely small and in
finitely large. There are worlds, we are told, so far off that their
light takes millions of years to reach this earth, and if we got there,
we should be no nearer the confines of space than before ; and
there are molecules composed, it is said, of as many atoms as
there are stars in the firmament. It seems much easier to believe
that these things have only an Ideal existence, that is, exist only
in thought. Still all change objectively represents a mode of
motion, and motion implies space, but motion does not appear to
belong to thought, only succession, and thought is all we know.
So again, if anything exists besides myself, there must be somewhere
where it exists, and that implies space,—but not if it has only an
Ideal existence, or existence in thought.
It can have an existence to us at any rate only in thought, for
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45
.•Consciousness of this world then, is the consciousness of
God, its happiness is His happiness, and the. individu
ality and the “Ego” a mere unit of sensibility. By
the slow process of growth in the world, we have the
elimination of a higher consciousness than previously
existed, and happiness is created out of unconscious
force or automatic mind. Evolution, development,
natural selection, variation, excess, of reproduction, and
transmission by inheritance, are simply the manner of
God’s working—the necessary action of His Being and
attributes ; and so far as we are able to understand it,
most wonderful it is. The blue sky and the blue sea,
the light and shade, the harmonies of colour and of
sound, and all the beauties the highest poetry can
as Hume says—“Let us fix our ideas out of ourselves as much as
possible • let us chase our imaginations to the heavens, or to the
utmost limit of the universe, we never really advance a step be
yond ourselves, nor can perceive any kind of existence but those
perceptions which have appeared in that narrow compass. What
ever kinds of existence in fact may exist besides ourselves we have
no knowledge that they are essentially different from these per
ceptions. These perceptions, that is, thoughts and. feelings, are
' in reality the only things of any consequence. A universe without
perception would be the same as no. universe at all, and on reflec
tion it is perhaps easier to believe in these wonderful atoms and
molecules, and worlds on worlds, as the relations of thought to
thought than as anything else. It is difficult also to believe m the
distances in which bodies are said to act on one another without
anything to connect them. Space is that in which anything exists,
and Extension need not belong to it, and certainly does not belong
to the only thing we know—thought. The attributes of Spinoza s
universal “ Substance ” are Thought and Extension, but between
thought and extension it is impossible to conceive of ?,ny kind of
identity or similarity, and therefore of any kind of unity. An
ideal existence or existence only in thought does not imply.an un
real existence, for thought or mind may be the only real existence.
G. H. Lewes says, “ This manifestation of all modes of Existence
by no means obliterates the distinction of modes nor the necessity
of understanding the special characters of each. Mind remains
Mind, and is essentially opposed to Matter, in spite of then
identity in the Absolute, just as Pain is not Pleasure, nor Colour
either Heat or Taste, in spite of their identity in Feeling.. The
logical distinctions represent real differentiations, but not distinct
existents. If we represent the One in the Many, we do not thereby
refuse to admit the Many in the One.”—(“ Problems of Life and
Mind,” vol. ii., p. 504.)
�46
The Cosmos.
picture, are the world, as it exists in the mind of man,,
most wonderfully created out of the varying modes of
motion without him : and we may turn immediately to
another world, no doubt equally wonderful, although
less understood—the Insect World. Flowers, which
man, in his pride and conceit, thinks made only for his
peculiar delectation and delight, are the objective world
of the insect, actually made as much by the insect asour world has been made by us. Darwin has shown
us that almost the whole make and colouring of flowers
can be explained only on the supposition that the
relationship between the insects and the flowers is one
of reciprocal advantage—the flower was made for the
insect, and the insect for the flower—each has made the
other. Man boasts of his machinery and of his superior
powers, but could he have made the flowers? The
senses and organs of insects differ so widely from our
own, that it is only very little peeps that we can get
into their minds and into their modes of viewing things.
It is true that in the Ant and in the Bee, we see more
perfect modes of working than our own, and that
intellectually in some things, if not in power of feeling,
they excel us. Birds have also their world, and we
should do well to learn their language; it would be of
much more service than Latin, Greek, or Hebrew.
The good that is to come from comparative physiology
and pyschology is immense; but that is not to be
attained by vivisection ; we cannot judge of function in
a delicate instrument like the nervous system under
abnormal conditions.
What then is the part that man has to play ?
The object of creation is certainly not the elimination
of a small number of individual human souls to be
perfected in some other world, but to increase the sum
of enjoyment in this. It is man’s duty to do all he
can to promote this object wherever sensibility exists.
As far as he individually is concerned he may best
further its object by the development and cultivation
�The Cosmos.
r
47
of all his higher powers, and thus raise himself in the
-scale of creation, that is in capacity for enjoyment.
It has been the universal practice of the Christian
Religion to decry and to degrade the body, to separate
the soul from the body, and to try to cultivate one at the
expense of the other ‘ but no such separation of the
}
two is possible in nature, and as Dr H. Maudsley says,
« This absolute and unholy barrier between psychical
and physical nature must be broken down.” The
mind can only act through the brain, and the perfection
with which it acts is always in proportion to the per
fection of the instrument through which it acts. This
perfection depends upon the harmonious action and
■co-operation of the whole nervous system, every part
must be brought into use, and if any part is allowed to
fall into disuse it must be to the injury of the whole.
This requires the adequate exercise of all the natural
■functions of the body in their legitimate spheres, and
that again necessitates man’s knowledge of, and
obedience to, all the laws of nature in every depart
ment. Man must act in harmony with nature or she
will crush him in spite of all his prayers. . The degree
■of his well-being and the amount of his enjoyment will
depend entirely upon his moving smoothly along with
nature in her modes of working. Morality concerns
only one set of these laws, and they are not in the least
more important then the physical laws. Both are
equally God’s laws. The distinctions between right
and wrong are not immutable and eternal, but have
relation to man’s mutable condition. The function of
conscience is first the preservation of the family, then
of the tribe, then of the nation, and from the nation it is
transferred to the community at large; and lastly, it
includes the good of the whole animal creation. . Morality
is the relation of man to man, and regards simply the
rules and regulations by which men may live together in
* See my “ Education of the Feelings,” fourth edition. Longmans
and Co.
�48
The Cosmos.
the most happy manner possible. And “Morality,” as
Herbert Spencer says, “ is essentially one with physical
truth. It is a kind of transcendental physiology.”
(“Social Statics.”)
CONCLUSION.
I HAVE left little room for Religion in its ordinarily
accepted sense. The Religion of Pre-historic Man and
of Savage Races, as we have seen, is based on sleep
and dreams, on pain, disease, and death. In this way
the belief in spirits, souls, mysterious and invisible
beings, is originally engendered and religions founded,
until we arrive at the horrible conception of our
orthodox Deity. In Western Africa no man approaches
the king except on his knees with an appearance of
fear, and as man first conceived the Deity as a being
like himself in form, character, and attributes, only
wiser and more powerful, so he approached Him in the
same way. It is difficult to find in the past in what
is called religion anything but slavish fear or intense
selfishness—a doing good, not because it is good or
right, but from the fear of punishment or the hope of
reward. All the higher feelings seem smothered in the
wish to get into heaven—to secure our oum salvation.
Religion as ordinarily practised is but another kind of
magic or witchcraft by which it is hoped and expected
to get things by words instead of work ; it is an address
to a Being, supposed to have inordinate Self-esteem
and Love of Approbation, and by flattery to serve our
own purpose and get something for ourselves. Our
later religious developments could not have been but
for the earlier; they are properly “survivals” of the
past, coming down from uncivilized and savage men.
Worship originally meant deprecation—don’t hurt me,—
and it still retains that significance joined to its logical
consequence, propitiation.
�The Cosmos.
49
“The central principle of Judaism,” says DouglasCampbell (“ The Gospel of the World’s Divine Order,”
p. 161), “is a God-King speaking by Moses through
the ages, and giving earthly power, peace, and plenty to
his elect so long as they call on his name alone, and
bring offerings to no other altar but his.”
“The central principle of modern orthodoxy is that
Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, a man who by the
law of Moses was put to death for blasphemy, is God
Almighty, and that he punishes by eternal torment in
hell-fire those who reject this dogma and its preachers.”
“ The central principle of Common Sense is that God
is alike to all—that each rational being is God’s, and that
we know Him and obey Him and obtain His aid by
learning and keeping His rational laws or the order He
hath established in Nature and in our own souls.”
There is a large class of people, however, to whom
religion is not a mere conventional form of “ other
worldliness,” with whom it is almost purely subjective,
taking its colour almost entirely from their own minds.
Forgetting or ignoring creeds and dogmas, it consists of
the very best they are able to conceive, and no more
resembles its origin than the orthodox devils and angels
of the present day resemble the bats and owls from
which, Herbert Spencer says, they were derived.
*
The views I have given of God and Christianity,
although taken from the Bible itself, and in the very
words of Scripture, will appear, it is too probable, to
this class as only a blasphemous caricature. They worship
the Bible and reverence Christianity as the highest
* “With moths of many kinds, it is the habit of the larva to bury
itself in the earth, and after a time there is found near the
chrysalis case a winged creature. Why, then, should not the
winged creature found along with, the human body which has been
buried in a cave, be concluded to have. come out of it ? . . . .
Creatures commonly found in caves which have been used for
burials, hence come to be taken for the new shapes assumed by
departed souls. Bats and owls (found in such caves), are conceived
to be winged spirits ; and from them arise the traditional ideas of
devils and angels.” (“ The Principles of Sociology,” pp. 357-373.)
�5°
The Cosmos.
good. I shall be very sorry to hurt the sincere religious
feelings of any such good person, but is there nothing
to be said on the side of people who, like myself, feel
that a gross libel has been committed against our
Creator, and that our God has been made into a devil
to frighten naughty children and wicked people. I am
quite aware that with the great majority of good
people religion means all that is good in a wicked and
selfish world; it means a preparation for eternal
happiness in another and a better world ; a re-union
with the dear departed; endless increasing knowledge
and progress to the individual; and it may well be
asked if you take this away what can you give in the
place of it 1 I should answer, the Truth, if we can find
it, and surely this endless happiness to individuals may
be purchased too dearly if it is to be accompanied by
endless misery to a greater or equal number. Hear
what Father Newman offers to all without the pale of
his own church, and to a great many within:—“I say
nothing,” he says, “ of that unutterable region of woe,
the prison of the impenitent, which is to last to eternity,
coeval with Him henceforth, as if in rivalry with his
blessed Heaven. I say nothing of this, for God cannot
be touched with evil, and all the sins of these reprobate
souls cannot impair His everlasting felicity” (“ Parochial
Sermons,” vi. 396). “This last statement is of course
a truism,” says Lord Lyttelton, who may fairly be said
to represent the English Church (“On the Future
State of Souls,” Contemporary Review, June 1873).
“ I see the perfect consistency of the doctrine with
reason,” says his lordship, “ when the indestructibility
of man’s free-will is admitted;” as if it were reasonable
to suppose that any wise and good being could leave
any of his creatures “free ” to damn themselves to all
eternity, and be happy in so doing. In a tract lately
issued by the Christian Knowledge Society, called
“The Second Death,” we are told “the second death
will be ‘ gloom without a gleam,’ and not one drop of
�The Cosmos.
51
water will be given to cool the tongue . . . With the
unsaved there shall be nothing but crying, nothing but
pain,” &c. The Rev. J. Llewelyn Davis objected to
this as opposed to modern Anglican doctrine, but it is
the doctrine of the church, and Maurice for protesting
against it was dismissed from King’s College ; and in
the Arches Court, July 16th, 1875, Sir R. Phillimore
said the Rev. F. Cook was perfectly right in refusing
the sacrament of the Holy Communion to Mr Jenkins
for avowing his disbelief in the personality of the
devil, and in the eternity of punishment. This judg
ment I find has been reversed (Feb. 16, 1876) on ap
peal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,
but on purely technical grounds, and the Vicar is
ordered to pay the costs in both courts.
I am sure that all minds not twisted and perverted
by ages of ignorance and superstition, must feel that
Immortality to man would be a most fearful gift, if
•attended by the possibility of such consequences. For
myself, I would willingly give up heaven rather than
one should be left out. No doubt, between ourselves
and the highest, many states of being may be imagined
preferable to our own, but it is our place to be satisfied
with that which has been assigned to us, and which
we find, in fact, is not the continuous existence of indi
viduals, but a stream of life flowing on continuously
-—a change of life from one body to another. I do
not see that the butterfly would be the least the
better for having a vivid recollection of when it was a
great ravenous grub. It passes through its changes,
has one short moment of nectar and love, and dies,
leaving plenty of butterflies to come after it; and who
knows the difference between one and the other ? The
butterfly itself does not certainly. Let those to whom
their dreams of a life to come are necessary to their
enjoyment, continue to enjoy them; if they are mistaken
they will never find it out, and if any one gives up
such hope after this life, he can never regret it. If
�5*
Tbe Cosmos.
we had never been born we should never have re
gretted it, and if we return to what we were beforewe were born, we equally cannot regret it, for weshall never know it, and we shall have the satisfac
tion of feeling now that if we are not to continue toenjoy ourselves, some one else will, and that Hell,,
except such as we each make for ourselves here,
will be empty. We each have our portion of enjoy
ment, great in proportion as we are good, that is, as.
our bodies and minds are in harmony with people and
things around us; “ death emancipates the afflicted
and the wearv, opening the door to eternal rest ” to
all.
But, it is said, can we do without the religious
sanction to Morality—without future rewards and punish
ments ? Morality and religion are by no means the same
things, or bear any direct relationship to each other,
for there is no conceivable wickedness that has not been
practised, as a sacred religious duty, by one nation or
another in the world’s history; to this Christianity
forms no exception, [and it is singular that the most
devout also insist most devoutly upon the eternity of
punishment. If happiness is to be eternal, they say,
so must punishment be. No doubt the hope of heaven
is a strong motive to good conduct, but the natural
rewards to goodness would be quite enough, for every
deviation from “the right” is followed by pain of some
kind, and it becomes gradually to be recognized that
pain always attends the disregard of national law, and
that by obedience to it, pain may be ultimately
avoided, and we may have the consolation of dis
carding the grossly libellous supposition that God
ever created a devil, or any creature which He knew
would ever become one.
There is no fear for the interests of Morality. Natural
Law everywhere makes for righteousness, and it is by
Natural Law we are governed, which is as supreme in
the department of mind as of matter. Pains and plea-
�The Cosmos.
53
rgures—that Revelation given equally to all God’s crea
tures—and the Responsibility to which they immediately
and directly subject us, are quite sufficient to insure
good conduct in the long-run. As the progress of the
species depends upon the principle of Natural Selection,
so Moral Progress is evolved from our Pains and Plea
sures, which are equally the springs and principles of
■action in the universe with heat or cold, attraction or
repulsion. Moral laws are simply the rules and regu
lations by which we can all live together most happily,
and we must become more and more moral as we get
increasing knowledge of this fact. Civilization depends
upon Science and not upon Religion; and Morality
depends upon the law of man’s nature to seek his own
well-being, and it will thus be assured whether he has
a creed or no creed. It is never our interest to do ill,
and that is a short-sighted and erroneous calculation
that appears to make it so. It is the place of moralists
to show this, and instead of putting Responsibility off
indefinitely to some other world, to bring it directly and
immediately home to every one. As it is now generally
recognized that “ honesty is the best policy,” it is their
duty to show with equal clearness the interest we all have
in Truth, Justice, Mercy, and that the happiness we are
able to give to others, even the brutes, is reflected upon
ourselves. To preach “ goodness” as the supreme pur
pose of our being, or that li righteousness is the high
and ultimate end. of all that exists,” or that “ the cul
ture of the idea of perfection in the soul” is what we
have to strive after, tells us very little, for what are
goodness, righteousness, and perfection 1 What was
the supreme end before man so recently came upon the
scene 1 neither intellect nor goodness, I suppose, in our
sense of the term. But “ every virtue,” says Walsingham, “ gives a man a degree of felicity in some kind.
Honesty gives a man a good report; justice, estimation •
prudence, respect; courtesy and liberality, affection;
temperance gives health; fortitude, a quiet mind, not
�54
The Cosmos.
to be moved by any adversity.” To demonstrate clearly
these consequences of our actions—that virtue is always
our greatest good here, will be much better than the
promise of happiness in some far distant world, in some
far distant time.
But if there is no better land for which, it is said,
this earth is only a preparation, what have we then ?
We have to make a Heaven here, for ourselves and
for those that are to come. We have to learn all the
various modes of motion around us, and to put ourselves
into harmonious action with them, the perfection of our
well-being depending upon our moving together. It
gets less difficult to do this every day as our knowledge
of Science, t’.e., of the “ order of Nature” increases.
There are many actions which, technically speaking, can
not be called either moral or immoral, and which are still
right or wrong, and these science alone can teach. What
it took Pythagoras twenty-two years of travel to acquire,
a student may now learn by the study of a single book..
We require equally the labours of “ the illustrious
author of the great work on the cockchafer,” M. Strauss,
with the M. Strauss who gave us the “ Life of Jesus,”’
and his confessions on the “ Old Faith and the New.”
Everything we actually require has been put within our
reach, to be attained by our own efforts, and our health,
and well-being depend upon our making those efforts.
If this is so, then prayer is needless and even irreligious.
*
If we have not, in this sense, a Heavenly Father,
we have Nature, the Mighty Mother, careful of her chil
dren, but who enjoins them, for their own sake, towork out their own salvation by the discharge of their
daily duties, and by the careful study and practice* It is singular how reading- the Bible and saying- prayers have
come to be considered virtues in themselves without any reference
to their effects. The poor shivering, sleepy child is always asked
by the proper mother or nurse, have you said your prayers ? and
I recollect a very good woman, while lamenting her sins, only wish
ing she were half as good as her husband, who, if he came home
ever so drunk, always said his prayers.
�'The Cosmos.
55
of the means appointed. This was the religion of
Socrates. He says :—“ The best man, and the most be
loved by the gods, is he who, as a husbandman, per
forms well the duties of husbandry—as a surgeon, those
of medical art—in political life, his duty towards the
commonwealth. But the man who does nothing well
is neither useful nor agreeable to the gods.” “ This,”
says Mr Grote, “ is the Socratic view of human life :
to look at it as an assemblage of realities and practical
details—to translate the large words of the moral
vocabulary into those homely particulars to which
at bottom they refer—to take account of acts, not
of dispositions apart from act (in contradiction to the
ordinary flow of the moral sympathies)—to enforce
upon every one, that what he chiefly required, was
teaching and practice as preparations for act; and
that therefore ignorance, especially ignorance mistaking
itself for knowledge, was his capital deficiency. The
religion of Socrates, as well as his ethics, had reference
to practical human ends; nor had any man ever less of
that transcendentalism in his mind, which his scholar
Plato exhibits in such abundance.”—History of Greece.
“ When shall the churches' Sabbath bells,” says
Douglas Campbell, “ringing gladness and joy, call us
to a higher, purer worship, in which the book of God
—not Moses’ or Paul’s writings, but this all-glorious
world and man—shall be explained to the intellect and
affections by men accomplished in literature and science,
and who are therefore true religious teachers? The
men, or church, that, instead of preaching the cross and
its sad doctrines, shall bring to the pulpit the prism,
the flower, and the rock—the works of the poet, the
historian, and the philosopher,—with the wisdom,
beauty, and mercy they disclose,—and the correction
and instruction in righteousness they give,—will take
rank with the people’s leaders and best benefactors, as
the beginners of a new era of intellectual and religious
improvement, and of social joy and life.”
�56
The Cosmos.
It is to be hoped that this is the Church of the
Future towards which we may all look, and that we
shall not press forward disestablishment and disen do wment until it is prepared to take some such form. At
present, although a beginning has been made, the
labourers in this vineyard are few, and we .may have
some time still to wait, but there are other things for
which we may have to wait longer still. Thus it must
be generally recognized that mind is equally a part of
nature with matter, and although acting consciously
and voluntarily yet acts equally according to law ; the
free-will, of which we are conscious being an intuition
founded merely on the fact of our physical power or
freedom to act in accordance with the will. No act
therefore under the then existing circumstances could
have been other than it was. When this is clearly
understood lamentations over the past, which now
cause so much useless misery, must cease. “ Repent
ance whereby we forsake sin,” there may be, but no
remorse. “To the past we must look for lessons—not re
proach.” “ Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,”
(Dryden). When also the gross superstition that an
eternity of happiness or misery may depend upon a
death-bed repentance—upon a few hours or even minutes
at the end of our lives, » has been got rid of, medical
men will discover that it is their duty to smooth the
way to the tomb, and instead of directing all their
efforts to the prolongation of life for a few hours or
days in pain, they will ensure our going out of life with
as little pain as we came into it. Death is, or rather
should be, “a sleep rather than a sensation; a suspen
sion of our faculties rather than a conflict with them :
instead of a time of suffering, a time of deepening uncon
sciousness.” (“Life, &c., by L. H. Grindon,” p. 258.)
With increased knowledge the fear of the Great
Unknown is turned to reverence and awe; we find
nowhere blind force, for cause and effect is probably
not an eternal necessary sequence, but one established
�The Cosmos.
57
and upheld for good—an infinitely judicious contriv
ance for the production of the largest amount of pleasur
able sensibility—the greatest happiness of the greatest
number; and although this is not reconcilable with
man’s idea of justice, yet we may suppose that as it is
all that is done, it is all that can be done. The only
way in which we can serve God is, not by prayer and
sacrifice, but by increasing the amount of happiness in
this world, in which increased happiness, as universal
mind underlies all sensibility, it seems to me He is a
direct participator. We began with the worship of
nature, and we shall probably end there ; for nature is
God and God is nature, all “ is but the varied God.”
To the first men, the unseen, the unknown cause of
motion or action was a spirit, and it gradually became
the spirit. The Hindoo, we are told, has three hundred
and thirty millions of divinities; he worships every
development of “Force” in any one of its details. All
power to him is God’s power:—
“ A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought.”
Wordsworth.
Light is not a vibratory motion without, but exists only
in us, and the beauty of a setting-sun is the direct action
of God upon our minds—of the union of His mind with
ours—-a mode in fact of His existence; “ a presence
that disturbs us with the joy of elevated thoughts,”
and makes us feel that if there is cause for wonder and
worship anywhere it is in this creation of the world
within us, and our absorption into His Being: God
thus becoming conscious in humanity. As an in
dividual I am grateful for the share of enjoyment
awarded to me, and I accept the inevitable, especially
in the limited term allotted to me for such enjoyment.
I feel raised in contemplation of myself as part of the
Great All, and patiently await His fiat, when “ the
dust shall return to the earth as it was,” and “the
spirit shall return to the God who gave it.”
�58
The Cosmos.
The question, now frequently arises as to how far it is
desirable for every one to state their honest convictions,
to speak the truth, as far as they know, on all these mo
mentous questions, not only with reference to the offence
that may be given to the sincere and deep religious
convictions of others, but with reference to the good of
the world at large supposed to depend upon the mainten
ance of the old faith, or at least of so much that is good
in it. There are those whose honest conviction it is
that the Church can best be reformed from within, and
who therefore stay there, although they cannot subscribe
to all its formularies. Among the highest minds of this
class perhaps we may mention Dean Stanley. On
Sunday morning, May 9th, 1875, at Christ Church,
Marylebone, he said
“ The great truth, that God
spoke not always in one fashion or form, but ‘ in sundry
times and in divers manners/ has been gradually ac
cepted by the English Church. The rigid scholastic
theories of Thomas Aquinas, of Calvin, and of Luther,
have given way to a more spiritual and lofty conception
■of Christian redemption. The wider and larger view
of Biblical inspiration, which was not long ago de
nounced by eleven thousand clergy, is now tacitly if
not openly accepted, and it is no longer heresy to say
that the Bible contains poetry as well as prose, that its
history is to be read with the same knowledge of time
and place as other history, and that the true value of
its records does not depend on the accuracy of its
geology, astronomy, or chronology. The Authorised
Version, whose manifold errors amidst all its grace and
dignity it seemed for so long a point of religious honour
to refuse either to acknowledge or justify, is now under
going the revision which Christian truthfulness and
scientific honesty alike required, and which has pro
duced also the inestimable benefit of bringing together
Churchmen and Nonconformists in a common religious
work.” Every well-informed person who has examined
the subject now knows that the Old Testament certainly
�The Cosmos.
59
contains “ poetry as well as prose,” and also that “ the
Christian Scriptures are the slow and natural growth of
the age which succeeded the birth of Christ,” selected
from the large mass of such traditions by men no better
qualified for the task than we are ourselves, and that
therefore Dean Stanley is perfectly right in the view he
takes of the Bible and Inspiration, but how such views
can be reconciled with the Church’s Creeds and Thirtynine Articles we do not ourselves so clearly see.
On the other hand, Mr Moncure D. Conway, at a
meeting of the Liberal Social Union, May 2d, 1875, said :
—“ There are certain great moral facts, constituting, it
might be said, a new morality, which are not recognized,
by the Churches. He believed in the great duty of
inflexible honesty of mind and speech, perfect open
ness and candour of utterance, not to speak to the
people with a double tongue, not to speak to the world
one thing, and to hold another in our families and our
studies. This duty of occupying a public position, ex
actly representing the mind and character, is not yet
insisted upon, and thousands of the great authorities of
the country are giving their influence to a system in
which they do not really believe. The great new com
mandment of the nineteenth century is to be honest and
veracious in action and speech, and to promulgate
among the people greater reverence for the order,
wisdom, and, on the whole, beneficence of nature, with
faith in the progress of humanity, and the wonderful
discoveries of the human mind.”
I hold entirely with Mr Conway. It is not a ques
tion of what may be considered “ essential ” to|believe,
but what really is true. There will be enough of un
reasoning people, with honest conviction, to support the
old temple while the new one is building, and it is
the duty of everyone therefore, so far as he knows how,
“ to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth,” and to take upon himself the small martyr
dom, which, by so doing, is sure to await him.
�
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Christianity: viewed in the light of our present knowledge and moral sense. Part III: The cosmos
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Free thought
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“For no more can he who understands hut one religion under
stand even that religion,than the man who knows only one language
can understand that language.”—Primitive Culture, E. B. Tylor.
“ Woe to the Philosopher who will not condescend to flatter in
his picture of man 1 ... he sets the reading public against him ;
he is refuted beforehand or -worse than refuted, for he is laid
aside unread.”—Minor JKorZs, Geo. Grote.
�CHRISTIANITY:
Viewed in the Light of our Present Knowledge
and Moral Sense.
L—RELIGION : PRIMITIVE, AND AMONG
THE LOWEST RACES.
Part II.—THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
Part
By CHARLES BRAY,
AUTHOR OF THE “PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY: ” “ A MANUAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY,
OR SCIENCE OF MAN,” ETC.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS. SCOTT,
NO. Il, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price One. Shilling.
�T
�CHRISTIANITY.
PART I.
RELIGION ! PRIMITIVE AND AMONG THE LOWEST RACES.
“Everything that exists depends upon the Past, prepares the
Future, and is related to the whole.”—Oersted.
“ I view all beings, not as special creations, but as the lineal de
scendants of some few beings which lived before the first bed of the
Silurian system was deposited.”—Origin of Species, C. Darwin,
first Edition, pp. 488-9.
“ Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the
necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gra
dation.”—Ibid., p. 488.
“ The variation of human thought proceeds in a continuous man
ner, new ideas springing out of old ones, either as corrections or
developments, but never spontaneously originating. With them
as with organic forms, each requires a germ or seed. The intel
lectual phase of humanity, observed at any moment, is therefore
an embodiment of many different things. It is connected with the
past, is in unison with the present, and contains the embryo of the
future.”—The Intellectual Development of Europe. J. W. Draper,
vol. ii. p. 109.
HESE views embody the philosophy of the present
day, and it is a no less interesting than profitable
study to follow the evidence in the works of Lubbock,
Tylor, Draper, Darwin, Wallace, Spencer, and others,
upon which these truths are founded. By slow and
gradual, and probably unbroken links, the whole physi
cal world has been evolved, and this is no less true of
the world of mind. There has been nothing spon
taneous, nothing supernatural, but everything that
exists in the growth of mind, as in the physical world,
T
CA.
�4
Primitive Religion.
depends upon the past, prepares the future, and is
related to the whole. We must go hack to pre-historic
times to explain the thoughts and feelings, the aptitudes
and prejudices, the customs and languages of the present.
Many things otherwise utterly incomprehensible are
“ survivals” of primaeval barbaric life and thought.
Customs differ widely according to climate and the
world’s age. There is no telling in what form they
may come down to us, but they are evidence that one
human nature is common to all the races and tribes
scattered over the habitable globe. The world, at the
present time, furnishes illustrations of all the forces
that have been at work in its original formation both
physical and mental. Heat and water, certainly, are a
little moderated in their action, but as rude savages as the
world has ever known still continue to exist, and the ex
tremes of civilization are as great now as at any previous
era. In the north, where the cold imposes considerable
limitation to the pleasures of life, the Esquimau
enters his house by the chimney, the occupants passing
in and out “ by means of a strong pole notched deep
enough to afford a little holding for a toe” (“Pre-his
toric Man,” p. 393, by Sir John Lubbock). A more
civilized person would no doubt prefer a ladder, and
perhaps a different place of entrance, but this mode of
ingress and egress may have conveniences that are not
at once obvious to a European. In the midst of all
the ice and snow in these regions, the great want is
water. The houses being built of ice and snow, a tem
perature above 32 degrees would make them what
would be considered unpleasantly damp to a European.
But fortunately for this phase of domestic comfort they
have no wood, but use blubber and oil to keep up a
tolerable temperature. They use lamps outside and
consume an immense quantity of blubber inside. The
temperature of their bodies is about the same as our
own ! they are heated from within by the slow e.ombustion—the union of carbon and oxygen—of what
�Primitive Religion.
5
thus constitutes both food and fuel. The heat is sus
tained by thick skins. The inhabitant of Central
Africa, on the contrary, enters his house, very much of
the same shape, by a hole at the bottom, through which
he crawls on his hands and knees. The Fuegians of
the Antarctic region are a much lower race than their
Esquimaux brethren of the Arctic, and the Australians,
Papuans, and Fijians are lower still. The Fuegians,
when hard pressed for food in severe winters, kill an
old woman, and when asked why they did not kill
their dogs, they said ££ Dog catch ioppo” (■£.<?.) otters.
We should justly consider this a rather narrow view
of utilitarianism, and the conscience does not appear to
speak very loud in this stage of civilization: all doubtless
have their ideas of right and wrong, slightly varying,
however, in their significance : thus a savage explained
that if anybody took away his wife that was bad, but if he
took another man’s that would be good (Tylor, vol. ii.,
p. 289). The marriage ceremony among the Bushmen
of Australia is very simple and inexpensive. The man
selects his lady-love, knocks her down with a club, and
drags her to his camp. In South Africa, in the British
settlement of Natal, the natives are beginning to show
marked evidence of civilization. Mr Froude tells us
that a young Zulu, by hiring himself out at six shil
lings a day, soon finds himself in a position to buy a
couple of wives; he makes them work for him as well
as for their own living, and he thus sets up as a
gentleman for life, and a very troublesome one we are
told.
An interesting question has, however, arisen in Dutch
Borneo as to the extent of the duty a wife owes to her
husband. The circumstances, as detailed in a letter
written from Bandj ermassin, and published in a Java
paper, are as follows:—“ It seems that a fugitive rebel
chief, who is now well stricken in years, has lately
with commendable prudence been making arrangements
as to the disposition of his property after his departure
�6
Primitive Religion.
from this life. Among other directions he has given
orders that immediately on his decease his two youngest
wives shall he killed in order that they may accompany
him to the next world. The two ladies for whom this
honour is designed strangely enough fail to appreciate it,
and have fled to the Dutch fort on the Tewch, where they
have put themselves under the protection of the com
mandant. The venerable chief is naturally incensed at
their having taken this ill-advised step, and has expressed
his intention of compelling the fugitives to return to their
domestic duties without further nonsense. His indigna
tion is shared by his family, friends, and followers, who
have rallied round him in his trouble, and by the latest
accounts he was preparing to attack the fort where his
wives had taken refuge. In the meantime, the govern
ment steamer ‘Baritoy’ had been despatched to the
assistance of the commandant, with a reinforcement of
twenty-five soldiers; and a howitzer, with artillerymen,
had also arrived at the fort. This painful family dif
ference has naturally created a profound sensation in
the colony, and it is to be hoped that it will be satis-,
factprily arranged without a recourse to arms.”—Pall
Mall Gazette.
The conventional practices and views of etiquette of
what we call savages differ considerably from our own ;
thus, with us, to pull a man’s nose is not considered
polite, whereas the Esquimaux pull noses as a mark of
respect (“Pre-historic Man,” p. 456). Among them
also the temporary loan of a wife is considered a mark
of peculiar friendship (“Primitive Culture,” vol. ii.,
p. 136). Civilization borrows the wife without the
consent of the husband.
The inhabitants of the Eastern Archipelago are of
increasing interest as our intercourse with them
extends. Little, however, comparatively, is yet known
of the natives of Hew Guinea and the neighbour
ing islands, and that little certainly does not reveal
them to us as a very interesting people. The principal
�Primitive Religion.
7
supply of meat is from human flesh, and that not
always from the bodies of their enemies, for Mr Kiehl
tells us, in an article read before the London Anthropo
logical Society, that the people “ of the Solomon Archi
pelago are obliged to build their houses in the most
inaccessible spots on the rocks, even to the very sum
mit of the peak on Eddystone Island, to prevent being
treacherously killed at night and eaten by the very
friends with whom they feasted the day before on a
roasted enemy’s body, or perhaps on a raw one j those of
Vaati, who, as late as 1849, were yet all cannibals, pre
ferring children to adults, and girls to boys.” Mr
Kiehl thinks it by no means a sufficient excuse for
this that other animal food is scarce, for although there
are neither cattle nor sheep, still there are plenty of
dogs, fowls, pigeons, and fish. When we consider, he
says, how many Hindoos live altogether without animal
food, “ the Papuans must be a desperately wicked people.”
Their social customs are certainly unpleasant. “ What
good,” he says, “ can be said of such people as the
natives of Vaati, whose custom it is, when they wish
to make peace, to kill one or more of their own people,
and send the bodies to those with whom they have
been fighting, to eat ? On the death of chiefs it is the
frequent custom among them to kill two, three, or
more men, to make a feast for the mourners. When
parents are unwilling to bear the fatigue of rearing their
children, or when they find them a hindrance to their
work, they often bury them alive.” As these interest
ing creatures are near relations to the Fijians, who are
about to become British subjects, it is as well to know
something about their habits, and it is pleasing to think
also, that they are “ beginning to find out that trading
with the white men is more advantageous than killing
and eating them.” Commerce is everywhere the great
civiliser. Mr Kiehl says, “ I regret not to know any
thing about the religion of the Papuans. The practice
of circumcision seems to point to at least some form of
�8
Primitive Religion.
religious observances.” Unless eating their fellows is
another form, we certainly cannot say much for their
devotional aspirations.
I mention those things to show that the savages now
in the world are as primitive and varied in their indi
vidual habits and customs as in pre-historic times, and
that we may probably learn as much, by the study of their
interesting ways, of the origin of many of our own
modes of thought and action as by going far back into
the past.
It is a question whether all our altered customs are
improvements. Thus at Tahiti and some other islands,
tattooing was almost universal, and a person not
properly tattooed would be as much reproached and
shunned, as if with us he should go about the streets
naked (“Primitive Culture,”p. 377), and the Pijian fully
believed that a woman who was not tattooed in an
orthodox manner during life, could not possibly hope
for happiness after death (Idem, p. 459). This mode of
painting our clothes upon our bodies would certainly
save much thought and time that might be devoted to
more useful purposes, and it would probably save many
of those colds that are caught by going about only
half-naked, when people are in what they call fulldress.
But it is the religions of the world that furnish the
largest amount and best illustration of “survivals.”
The ideas upon which they are mainly founded have
been thousands of years forming, and the question
immediately presents itself how far opinion and con
duct based on such ideas are in conformity with modern
knowledge, or only with such knowledge as was available
in the earlier and ruder stages of culture ? Upon in
vestigation, it is evident that the religious opinions of
the present day are results adopted from previous
systems which have come down from the earliest age,
and that they could not otherwise have found accept
ance now. We should shrink with horror from our
�Primitive Religion.
9
present theological creeds, if they had not come down
to us from a thousand generations of the past.
The deities of savages are evil, not good; they may
be forced into compliance with the wishes of man;
they require bloody, and rejoice in human, sacrifices;
they are mortal, not immortal; a part, not the author
of, nature ; they are to be approached by dances rather
than by prayers ; and often approve what we call vice,
rather than what we esteem a virtue (“ The Origin
of Civilisation,” by Sir John Lubbock, p. 195). For
like ourselves, “ they think the blessings come of them
selves, and attribute all evil to the interference of
malignant beings” (Idem, p. 196).
“ They have much clearer notions of an evil than of a
good Deity, whom they fear, believing him to be* the
occasion of sickness, death, thunder, and every calamity
that befalls them” (Idem, p. 212).
The Tartars of Katschiutze (like our Pessimists) con
sider the evil spirit to be more powerful than the good.
(Idem, p. 213).
All religion is originally based on fear—love does
not enter till long after—fear of the invisible and
unknown, and all cause at first is invisible and un
known. Darwin in “ Expressions and Emotions in
Men and Animals,” p. 144, speaking of the effect of
fear among some of the larger baboons, says of one of
d;hem (Cynopetheius Niger) that “ when a turtle was
placed in its compartment, this monkey moved its lips
in an odd, rapid, jabbering manner, which the keeper
declared was meant to conciliate and please the turtle.”
Here we have probably the origin of what is now called
Divine Service. “ Id awe,”Tylor tells us, “the Philippine
Islanders, when they saw an alligator, prayed him with
great tenderness to do them no harm, and to this end
offered him whatever they had in their boats, casting it
into the water” (“Primitive Culture,” p. 209). “Primos
in orbe deos fecit timor.” “As an object of worship,
the serpent is pre-eminent among animals. Not only
�io
Primitive Religion.
is it malevolent and mysterious, but its bite—so trifling
in appearance, and yet so deadly, producing fatal
effects rapidly, and apparently by no adequate means—
suggests to the savage almost irresistibly the notion of
something divine, according to his notions of divinity ”
(Sir John Lubbock). “All things that are able to do
them hurt beyond their prevention/’ says Tylor, “the
primitive man adores” (“Primitive Culture,” p. 340).
The first idea of God is almost always as an evil spirit,
and among the savages of the present day, religion is
anything but an ennobling sentiment.
Thus the
Caffres believe in the existence of a heaven for those
only who had killed and eaten many of their enemies,
while those who were effeminate would be compelled
to dwell with Aygnan, their devil (“ Pre-historic Man,”
p. 469).
The Maories were perpetually at war during life, and
hoped to continue so after death. They believed in a
spirit named Atona. When any one was ill, Atona
was supposed to be devouring his inside, and their
religious service was curses and threats, on some
occasions attended with human and other sacrifices in
the hope of appeasing his wrath. The New Zealanders
believed that the greater number of human bodies they
eat, the higher would be their position in the world to
come. Under such a creed, we are told there is a
certain diabolical nobility about the habit, which is,
at any rate, far removed from the grovelling sensuality
of a Fijian. Certainly to qualify yourself to go to
heaven by eating your fellow-creatures, is much more
spiritual than to eat them from mere gluttony.
The Dayaks considered that the owner of every
human head they could procure would serve them in
the next world, where indeed a man’s rank would be
according to the number of heads in this a young man
might not marry till he had procured a head. Waylaying and_ murdering men for their heads was the
Layak s religion. To be an acknowledged murderer is
�Primitive Religion.
11
the object of the Fijian’s restless ambition. Even
among the women there were few, who, in some way,
had not been murderers. To this they were trained
from their infancy. One of the first lessons taught an
infant, is to strike its mother. Mr Ellis tells us that
no portion of the human race was ever perhaps sunk
lower in brutal licentiousness, than this isolated people.
Certainly their customs and conscience differed a little
from our own, but notwithstanding, we are told that
Captain Cook and his officers lived with the natives
“in the most cordial friendship,” and took leave of
them with great regret, and Mr Ellis says, they showed
great anxiety to possess copies of the Bible, when it
was translated into their language. “ They were,” he
says, “ deemed by them more precious than gold—yea,
than much fine gold;” no doubt being very discriminat
ing as to the quality of gold, and able also to appreciate
the dealings of God’s chosen people with the Canaan
ites, in which the inhabitants of whole cities were
murdered in cold-blood—men, women, and children,
ruthlessly slaughtered—more highly than we should.
Among most savages it was considered the right
thing, and there was no resisting public opinion, that
wives, friends and slaves, should accompany their chiefs
into the next world. By some they were strangled, by
others buried alive. “The Gauls in Caesar’s time,” Tylor
tells us, “burned at the dead man’s sumptuous funeral,
whatever was dear to him, animals also, and much-loved
slaves and clients (“Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 419).
The ancient Gauls had also a convenient custom of
transferring to the world below the repayment of loans.
Even in comparatively modern times, the Japanese
would borrow money in this life, to be repaid with
heavy interest in the next {Idem, p. 443). When a
New Zealand chief died, the mourning family gave his
chief widow a rope to hang herself with in the woods,
and so rejoin her husband. In Cochin China, the
common people object to celebrating their feast of the
�12
Primitive Religion.
dead on the same day with the upper classes, for this
excellent reason, that the aristocratic souls might make
the servants’ souls carry their presents for them—
which presents were given with the most lavish ex
travagance (Idem, p. 441). As to what became of
the objects sacrificed for the dead—strangled wives,
servants, golden vessels, gay clothes or jewels—although
they rot in the ground, or are consumed on the pile,
they nevertheless come into the possession of the dis
embodied souls they are intended for, not the material
things themselves, but phantasmal shapes corresponding
to them (Idem, p. 439).
The native Australian goes gladly to be hanged, in the
belief that he would “jump up whitefellow, and have
plenty of sixpences;” and the West African negroes
commit suicide when in distant slavery, that they may
revive in their own land (Idem, vol. ii. p. 5).
Souls are supposed to appear in the other world in
the same age and condition as they leave this, conse
quently true religion, and the liveliest filial piety
require that parents should be dispatched before they
get too old. They are generally, where this belief
obtains, buried alive, with their own joyous consent.
The Fijians consider the gods as beings of like
passions with themselves. They love and hate; they
are proud and revengeful, and make war, and kill and
eat each other; yet they look upon the Samoans with
horror, because they have no religion, and no belief in
any such deities. “It has been asserted,” says Sir John
Lubbock over and over again, “ that there is no race of
men so degraded as to be entirely without a religion—
without some idea of a Deity. So far,” he says, “ from
beuUr true’ the verJ reverse is the case ” (Idem, p.
467). Let us hope so!
Primitive men, as mankind do now, worshipped Un
known Cause—the powers of nature ; every tree, spring,
river, mountain, grotto, had its divinity: the sun, the
moon, the stars, had each their spirit. The names of
�Primitive Religion.
13
the Semitic deities, Max Muller tells us (Fraser,.
June 1870), are mostly words expressive of moral
qualities, they mean the strong, the exalted, the Lord,
the King j and they grow hut seldom into divine
personalities. The Aryan race are recognised every
where, in the valleys of India, in the forests of Germany,
by the common names of their deity, all originally ex
pressive of natural powers, thousands of years before
Homer or the Veda, worshipping an unseen being
under the self-same name, the best, the most exalted
name they could find in their vocabulary. The popular
worship of ancient China was, Max Muller says, a
worship of single spirits, of powers, we might almost
say of names ; the names of the most prominent powers
of nature which are supposed to exercise an influence
for good or evil on the life of man. If the presence of
the divine was perceived in the strong wind, the strong
wind became its name; if its presence was perceived
in the earthquake and the fire, they became its name;
“wherever in other religions we should expect the
name of the Supreme Deity, whether Jupiter or Allah,
we find in Chinese the name of Tien or Sky.” “Do
we still wonder/ he says, “at polytheism or mythology 1”
No doubt the first religious worship was of the
powers of Nature or Spirits—a sort of deprecation of
their evil influence, and of their power to hurt. But
whence came man’s knowledge of spirits ? Brom his
own supposed double nature. When a man died, he
felt that with the life something had left the dead upon
which life and consciousness, i.e., all the difference
between life and death, depended. This he called his
soul or spirit. In sleep, he often dreamed of distant
places, and he thought his spirit went there ; in dreams
also his dead comrades often appeared to him, and he
thought therefore they continued to exist somewhere.
Out of this dream has grown the popular religion in
all times and in all countries; Man has an instinctive
love of life and dread of death, and he thinks he must
�14
Primitive Religion.
live again, somewhere, because he wishes to do so,
accordingly the somewhere was soon found—a place
above for the good, and below for the bad, where
people would be rewarded or punished as they might
behave themselves here. No one liked to part for ever
with his parents, children, and friends, and if there
was not a place where the bereaved could meet them
again, why, there ought to be, and that soon settled it.
A place was wanted also for the naughty people, and
the people we did not like, to go to. The primitive
notions of this Future State differed considerably from
our own, only the worst part of it has come down to
us—an eternity of torture for the great majority?
Of the locality of this Future State, Herbert Spencer
says, “ The general conclusion to which we are led is,
that the ideas of another world pass through stages of
development. The habitat of the dead, originally con
ceived as coinciding with that of the living, generally
diverges—here to the adjacent forest, and elsewhere to
distant hills and mountains. The belief that the dead
rejoin their ancestors, leads to further divergences which
vary according to the traditions. Stationary descend
ants of troglodytes think they return to a subterranean
other world, whence they emerged; while immigrant
races have for their other-worlds, the abodes of their
fathers, to which they journey after death, over land,
down a river, or across the sea, as the case may be.
Societies consisting of conquerors and conquered,
having separate traditions of origin, have separate other
worlds, which differentiate into superior and inferior
places, in correspondence with the respective positions
of the two races. Conquests of these mixed people
by more powerful immigrants, bring further complica
tions- additional other worlds, more or less unlike in
their characters, finally, where the places for the
departed, or for superior classes of beings, are mountain
tops, there is a transition to an abode in the heavens ;
which, at first near and definite, passes into the remote
�Primitive Religion.
15
and indefinite, so that the supposed residence of the
dead, coinciding at first with the residence of the
living, is little by little removed in thought: distance
and direction grow increasingly vague, and finally the
localization disappears in spaced’ (“ The Principles of
Sociology,” p. 232.)
This dream of a double self—of a living soul and
spirit, the cause of life and all mental action, if it has
done good, has also done infinite mischief in the world.
On the one side it is true that children in many cases
would scarcely have been induced to take care of their
parents in old age, if it had not been from fear of their
ghosts when they were dead, and on the other, in
China, ancestor worship is the dominant religion of
the land, and it has had more to do with checking
civilization there, than anything else. The Chinese
look backwards, not forwards, and “ for thousands of
years this great people have been seeking the living
among the dead.” It is the ghosts of their fathers
and mothers that they are always thinking of, and of
the harm that they may do them, every unknown
cause with them being a spirit. This is why mines
cannot be worked, or railways made, lest these inter
esting relics should be disturbed, and this insult to the
remains of the dead visited upon the living : and after
the birth of a Chinese baby, it is customary to hang
up its father’s trousers in the room, wrong way up,
that all such evil influences may enter into them,
instead of into the child. All diseases are supposed to
come from such source, or from some tormenting,
offended deity, the latter being most easily appeased
by the offer of a hog ; in the same way as the Negroes
of Sierra Leone sacrifice an ox when they want “ to
make God glad very much, and do Kroomen good.”
At the present day when an affectionate wife says
to a sneezing husband, “Bless you, my dear,” the ex
pression comes from the time when sneezing was
thought to indicate “possession” by an ancestral
�i6
Primitive Religion.
spirit; and the Hindu when he gapes still snaps his
thumb and finger, and repeats the name of some god—
Rama, to prevent an evil spirit going down his throat.
It has been in this kind of chaotic superstitious
atmosphere, in which everything was supposed to be
brought about by spirits, that what are called our
religious instincts, were originally formed. This is
the soil in which even our present ideas of God, the
Soul, and Immortality first took root.
Mr Tylor says (vol. ii. p. 286) “ Conceptions originat
ing under rude and primitive conditions of human
thought, suffer in the course of ages the most various
fates. Yet the philosophy of modern ages still, to a
remarkable degree, follows the primitive courses of
savage thought.” This is true as regards our philo
sophy, but it is still more true with respect to our
religion, for ancestor-worship in the saints, and inter
cession to them and to the “ mother of God, the Queen of
heaven,” and anxiety for the future condition of this
dream-created soul, still rule the mind of Christendom.
Propitiation and sacrifice form the substance of all
religions in their earliest stages. Man first of all, and
above all, fears the spirits and gods that his imagination
has created, and he offers up to them what he most
values, and which he thinks, therefore, they will most
value—his finest fruit, the firstling of the flock, even
his own children. An only son was thought to be the
greatest and most acceptable sacrifice. When the Carthagenians got into trouble, three hundred children of the
first people of the city were offered up in the fire to their
God; so willing has man always been to cast upon
another the burden of his own misdeeds. The religion
of the present day is little more than a “survival” of the
past, and “ throughout the rituals of Christendom stands
an endless array of supplications unaltered in principle
from savage times—that the weather may be adjusted
to our local needs, that we may have the victory over
all our enemies, and that life, and health, and wealth, and
�Primitive Religion.
17
happiness, may beours.” (“Primitive Culture,” vol. ii. p.
336).
We are told that man. is especially distinguished by
the possession of a conscience which, like a heavenly
messenger, guides him in his choice in the immutable
and eternal distinctions between right and wrong. If
this be so, it is in a very incipient state in primitive
man, and this guide itself seems to require educating and
guiding quite as much as any other of his faculties.
Thus Dr Seeman tells us of the Fijians, that “in any
transaction where the national honour had to be
avenged, it was incumbent on the king and principal
chiefs—in fact a duty they owed their exalted station,
to avenge the insult offered to the country, by eating
the perpetrators of it.” He adds, “ I am convinced,
however, that there was a religious, as well as a political
aspect of this custom.” No doubt conscience gave them
a high sense of their social, political, and religious
duties, only they differed slightly from us, as to the
mode in which they should be carried out. So also
of the practice, where from a religious sense of duty,
children eat their parents, when they got old and in
firm, waiting however, till the season when salt and
limes were at the cheapest.
The savage theory of the universe refers its pheno
mena to the action of pervading personal spirits, similar
to what in dreams they have made out their own spirits
to be; the powers of nature are everywhere spiritual
ized and personified. With increasing knowledge unity
is given to these powers, and we have a God One and
Indivisible : at least this becomes the creed of the
highest minds, the multitude still continue to find a
separate God in everything, and for everything. (An
excellent account of how these so-called religious ideas
of the existence of the “ double ” or soul, of a future
state, and another world, arise in the minds of savages,
from which they have come down to us, changed from
a very definite and material conception to a very indefi
�18
Primitive Religion.
nite and immaterial one, is to be found in Mr Herbert
Spencer’s “Principles of Sociology,” now publishing.)
From this point, says Dr J. W. Draper, that is, from
the very earliest ages when the comparative theology
of India was inaccessible, “ there are two well-marked
steps of advance. The first reaches the consideration
of material nature : the second, which is very grandly
and severely philosophical, contemplates the universe
under the conceptions of space and force alone. The
former is exemplified in the Vedas and Institutes of
Menu, the latter in Buddhism. In neither of these
stages do the ideas lie idle as mere abstractions ; they
introduce a moral plan, and display a constructive
power not equalled even by the Italian Papal system.
They take charge not only of the individual, but regu
late society, and show their influence in accomplishing
political organizations, commanding our attention from
their prodigious extent, and venerable for their anti
quity.
“ I shall, therefore, briefly refer, first, to the elder,
Vedaism, and then to its successor Buddhism. The
Vedas, which are the Hindu Scriptures, are asserted to
have been revealed by Brahma. They are based upon
an acknowledgment of a universal spirit pervading all
things: ‘ There is in truth but one Deity, the
Supreme Spirit, the Lord of the Universe, whose work
is the Universe.’ ‘ The God above all Gods, who
created the earth, the heavens, and the waters.’ The
world, thus considered as an emanation of God, is
therefore a part of him ; it is kept in a manifest state
by his energy, and would instantly disappear if that
energy were for a moment withdrawn. Even as it is, it
is undergoing unceasing transformations, everything be
ing in a transitory condition. The moment a given phase
is reached, it is departed from or ceases. In these per
petual movements, the present can scarcely be said to
have any existence, for as the past is ending, the future
has begun.
�Primitive Religion.
ig
“ In such a never-ceasing career all material things are
urged, their forms continually changing, and returning,
as it were, through revolving cycles to similar states. . .
“ In this doctrine of universal transformation there is
something more than appears at first. The theology
of India is underlaid with Pantheism. “ God is One
because he is All.’ The Vedas in speaking of the rela
tion of nature to God, make use of the expression that
he is the Material as well as the Cause of the Universe,
‘ the Clay as well as the Potter.’ They convey the
idea that while there is a pervading spirit existing
everywhere of the same nature as the soul of man,
though differing from it infinitely in degree, visible
nature is essentially and inseparably connected there
with : that as in man the body is perpetually undergo
ing change, perpetually decaying and being renewed,
or, as in the case of the whole human species, nations
come into existence and pass away, yet still there con
tinues to exist what may be termed the universal human
mind, so for ever associated and for ever connected are
the material and the spiritual. And under this aspect
we must contemplate the Supreme Being, not merely as
a presiding intellect, but as illustrated by the parallel
case of man, whose mental principle shows no tokens ex
cept through its connections with the body j so matter,
or nature, or the visible universe, is to be looked upon
as the corporeal manifestation of God.
“We must continually bear in mind that matter ‘ has
no essence, independent of mental perception ; that ex
istence and perceptibility are convertible terms; that
external appearances and sensations are illusory, and
would vanish into nothing if the divine energy which
alone sustains them were suspended but for a moment.”
— (“ The Intellectual Development of Europe,” Vol. i.
pp. 54, 55, 56.) Truly, there is nothing new under the
sun. Here we have the most advanced Pantheistic
Theology of the present day, and being given some two
thousand years before the Christian era it would seem
B
�20
Primitive Religion.
almost as if the Vedas were inspired. Here also, we
have the Idealism that constitutes the creed of so many
of our most cultivated philosophers. However pure a
doctrine may be at its source, as it comes from the
highest minds, it is soon perverted to suit the lowest, and
high and simple and true as it seems to me this doctrine
is, it was soon twisted into every possible form of error
and superstition that was best calculated to give the
Brotherhood command over the ignorant multitude.
It soon needed Reforming, and Buddhism came before
the world as that Reformation.
Buddhism most probably dates from about 1000 years
before Christ, and Draper says it is now professed by a
greater number of the human race than any other religion.
“ The fundamental principle of Buddhism is that there
is a supreme power, but no Supreme Being. . . It is a
rejection of the idea of Being, an acknowledgment of that
of Force. If it admits the existence of God, it declines
him as a Creator. It asserts an impelling power in the
.universe, a self-existent and plastic principle, but not a
self-existent, an eternal, a personal God. It rejects
inquiry into first causes as being unphilosophical, and
considers that phenomena alone can be dealt with by
our finite minds. . . . Gotama contemplates the existence of pure force without any association of Substance.
He necessarily denies the immediate interposition of any
such agency as Providence, maintaining that the system
of nature, once arising, must proceed irresistibly accord
ing to the laws which brought it into being, and that
from this point of view the universe is merely a gigantic
engine. Equally does Gotama deny the existence of
chance, saying that that which we call chance is nothing
but the effect of an unknown, unavoidable cause.” (“ In
tellectual Development of Europe,” vol. i. p. 65.) I
scarcely need point out the similarity existing between
this creed and that of the leading physicists of the present
day.
“ As to the external world, we cannot tell how far it
�Primitive Religion.
21
is a phantasm, how far a reality, for our senses possess
no reliable criterion of truth. They convey to the mind
representations of what we consider to be external things
by which it is furnished with materials for its various
operations; but unless it acts in conjunction with the
senses, the operation is lost, as in that absence which
takes place in deep contemplation. It is owing to our
inability to determine what share these internal and ex
ternal conditions take in producing a result, that the
absolute or actual state of nature is incomprehensible to
us. Nevertheless, conceding to our mental infirmity the
idea of a real existence of visible nature, we may con
sider it as offering a succession of impermanent forms,
and as exhibiting an orderly series of transmutations, in
numerable universes in periods of inconceivable time
emerging one after another, and creations and extinc
tions of systems of worlds taking place according to a
primordial law.
“ Of the nature of man, Gotama tells us that there is
no such thing as individuality or personality—that the
Ego is altogether a nonentity. In these profound con
siderations he brings to bear his conception of force, in
the light thereof asserting that all sentient beings are
homogeneous. . . . Each one must however work out
his own salvation, when, after many transmigrations, life
may come to an end. That end he calls Nirwana—
Nirwana, the end of successive existences. It is the
supreme end, Nonentity. The attaining of this is the
object to which we ought to aspire. . . . The panthe
istic Brahman expects absorption in God; the Buddhist,
having no God, expects extinction.
“ India has thus given to the world two distinct
philosophical systems —Vedaism, which makes its
resting-point the existence of matter, and Buddhism, of
which the resting-point is force. The philosophical
ability displayed in the latter is very great; indeed, it
may be doubted whether Europe has produced its meta
physical equivalent.” (Idem, 66, 67, 68.)
�22
Primitive Religion.
It need scarcely excite our surprise then if our
Christian missionaries make but little progress in India.
It is worthy of note with reference to those who assert
that the “ Immortality of the Soul ” is among the unextinguishable instincts of our nature, that in the two
religions of the world—if we must call them two—which contain the greatest number of adherents, not
Immortality is sought, but absorption in God, or Nir
wana, both of which include the extinction of the
individual. The Lazarist Hue testifies that they die
with incomparable tranquillity, and adds, they are what
many in Europe are wanting to be. It is worthy of
note also how much there is in each system in accord
ance with the most advanced modern thought: the one
as Idealism, the other as represented by the recent dis
covery of the Persistence and Correlation of Force. For
if Vedaism connects itself with Matter, it is Matter as
regarded only as “ the corporeal manifestation of God,”
and I have endeavoured to show elsewhere how and
where, as so regarded, Materialism and Absolute Idealism
meet. (“ Illusion and Delusion,” published by T. Scott.)
In my work also “ On Force, and its Mental Correlates”
(Longmans & Co.), I have endeavoured to illustrate
and enforce the following propositions :—
There is but one Beality in the universe, which
Physical Philosophers call “Force;” and Metaphy
sicians “Noumenon.” It is the “Substance” of
Spinoza, and the “ Being ” of Hegel.
Everything. around us results from the mode of
action or motion, or correlation of this one force, the
different Forms of which we call Phenomena.
The difference in the mode of action depends upon
the difference in the structure it passes through; such
Structure consisting of concentrated Force, or centres
of Force, and has been called Matter. “ Every form is
force visible; a form of rest is a balance of forces • a
form undergoing change is the predominance of one
over others.”—Huxley.
�Primitive Religion.
23
Heat, Light, Magnetism, Electricity, Attraction, Re
pulsion, Chemical Affinity, Life, Mind, or Sentience,
are modes of action or manifestations of Force, and die
or cease to exist, when, the Force passes on into other
forms.
Cause and Effect is this sequence or correlation; and
each cause and effect is a new Life and a new Death :
each new form being a new creation, which dies and
passes away, never to return, for “ nothing repeats
itself, because nothing can be placed again in the same
condition : the past being irrevocable.”—-W. R. drove.
11 There is no death in the concrete, what passes away
passes away into its own self—only the passing away
passes away.”-—Hegel.
Force passing through a portion of the structure of
the brain creates the “ World” of our intellectual con
sciousness, with the “Ego ” or sense of personal identity;
passing through other portions the world of our likes
and antipathies—called the moral world: Good and
Evil being purely subjective.
The character and direction of Volition depend upon
the Persistent Force and the structure through which
it passes. Every existing state, both bodily and
mental, has grown out of the preceding, and all its
Forces have been used up in present phenomena. Thus,
“ everything that exists depends upon the past, pre
pares the future, and is related to the whole.”—
Oersted.
As no force acts singly, but is always combined with
other forces or modes of action to produce some given
purpose or particular result, we infer that Force is not
blind but intelligent. As Force is intelligent and One,
it would be more properly called Being—possessing
personality ; and that being we have called God. “ He
is the universal Being of which all things are the mani
festations.”-—-Spinoza.
All power is Will power,—the will of God. “ Caus
ation is the will, Creation the act of God.”—W. R.
�24
The Christian Religion.
Grove. The will which originally required a distinct
conscious volition for each act has passed, in the ages,
generally into the unconscious or automatic state, con
stituting the fixed laws and order of nature.
PART II.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
“ The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is
to fill the world with fools.”—Herbert Spencer.
We in this Christian country are brought up in the
belief that the Jews were chosen by God to perpetuate
a worthy representation of Himself in a Pagan world
given up wholly to Idolatry : that the character and
attributes of the Creator, as given to man in the books
of the Old Testament, are a Revelation from God Himself. On examination this turns out to be by no means
the case. The Hebrew god is made entirely after the
likeness of man ; wiser and more powerful, but with all
his vices as well as his virtues greatly exaggerated—a
conception fitted only for a barbarous age and a bar
barous people; and notwithstanding some sublime
poetical passages of the later prophets, altogether in
ferior to that formed by the wise men of other Eastern
nations. To Jewish conception, even to the last, the
Creator of the Universe was the family God of the
Patriarchs—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
Jacob, the titular or national God of the Hebrews, and
it was not till after the Babyionic captivity that the
<£ chosen people” abandoned altogether other supposed
protecting deities, and became confirmed monotheists.
Thus the religious history of the Jewish people in the
historical books of the Old Testament, presents a series
of vacillations between the worship of Jehovah and that
�The Christian Religion.
25
of the gods of the surrounding nations ; the people
serving that god who they think will afford them the
most powerful protection. Hence the jealousy of
Jehovah, and the term the living God, and the First
Commandment, “ Thou shalt have no other gods l?ut
me.” It will be necessary to show this, as Christianity
is based on Judaism, and the orthodox theology of the
present day is derived more from the Old Testament
than the New. I shall let the Bible speak for itself.
“ And God said, let us make man in our own image,
after our likeness.”-—Gen. i. 26.
“ And on the seventh day God ended His work
which He had made, and he rested on the seventh day
from all His work which He had made.”—Gen. ii. 2.
“ And they (Adam and Eve) heard the voice of the
Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”
—Gen. iii. 8.
Cain and Abel from the very first make offering unto
the Lord of fruit and flesh, and “of the fat thereof,”
and they are accepted by him.”—Gen. iv. 3, 4, 5.
And the Lord appeared unto him (Abraham) in the
plains of Mamre accompanied by two angels, and they
eat of a calf that was “ tender and good,” and the Lord
said unto Abraham Wherefore does Sarah laugh, &c.,
and the Lord went his way as soon as he had left com
muning with Abraham.”—Gen. xviii. 1, 7, 8, 13.
The Lord also afterwards appeared unto Moses, on
his desiring to see the glory of God. And he (Moses)
said, I beseech thee show me thy glory. And he (the
Lord) said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee,
and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee ;
and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and
will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And He
said Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man
see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold there is a
place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. And
it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that
I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover
�26
I
X
The Christian Religion.
thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will take
away my hand, and thon shalt see my back parts : but
my face shall not be seen.”—Gen. xxxiii. 18-23.
And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all
thy house into the ark, and the Lord shut him in.”—Gen. vii. 1, 16.
“And when Noah came out of the ark he builded an
altar unto the Lord ; and took of every clean beast, and
of every elean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
altar.
“And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the
Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground
any more for man's sake.”—Gen. viii. 20, 21.
“ And the Lord came down to see the city and the
tower which the children of men builded,” and the
Lord said, “ Go to, let us go down and there confound
their language, that tKey may not understand one
another’s speech.”-—Gen. xiv. 5, 7.
“ It repenteth the Lord that he had made man upon
the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.”—Gen. vi. 6.
“And God heard the voice of the lad : and the angel
of God called to Hagar out of heaven?’—Gen. xxi. 17.
“ And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should
obey his voice, and let Israel go 1 I know not the
Lord (Jehovah) neither will I let Israel go. And they
said, The God of the Hebrews hath met us, let us go
three days’ journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto
the Lord our God : lest He fall upon us with pestilence
or with the sword.”—Exod. v. 2, 3.
“ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply
my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But
Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you.”—Exod. vii. 3, 5.
And I (Jehovah) will give the people favour in the
sight of the Egyptians : and it shall come to pass, that,
when ye go, ye shall not go empty. But every woman
shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth
m her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and
raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and
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IS]
upon your daughters ; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
—Exod. iii. 21, 22.
“ And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight
of the Egyptians, so that they lent them such things as
they required, and they spoiled the Egyptians.’ Exod.
xii. 36.
When “wrath is gone out from the Lord, and the
plague is begun, Aaron put on incense, and made an
atonement, and the plague was stayed” (Num. xvi.
46-48.)
God’s promise to Abram. “Thou art the Lord
God, who didst choose Abram, and brought him
forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the
name of Abraham, and foundest his heart faithful
before Thee, and mad’st a covenant with him to give
the lands of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites,
and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites to give it, I say to his seed, and hast per
formed Thy words: for Thou art righteous” (Neh. ix. 7-8).
Of how this promise was kept we need give only one
illustration.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, avenge
the children of Israel of the Midianites. And they
warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded
Moses ; and slew all the males. And Moses was wroth,
and ordered every male among the little ones to be killed
in cold-blood, and every woman that had known man :
“ but all the women children that have not known a
man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
“And there were 32,000 persons in all, of women that
bad not known man by lying with him ” (Num. xxxi.
1,2,7,14,17,18,35.)
“Righteous” is not perhaps exactly the word which
we should now apply to such dealings ! And the child
ren of Israel said to Samuel, “ Cease not to cry unto the
Lord our God for us, that He will save us out of the
hands of the Philistines.” And Samuel took a sucking
lamb, and offered it for a burnt-offering wholly unto the
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Lord : and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel; and
the Lord heard him. And as Samuel was offering up
the burnt-offering, the Philistines drew near to battle
against Israel: but the Lord thundered zoith a great
thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discom
fited them ; and they were smitten before Israel (Sam
uel, 1 Book, vii. 8, 9, 10.)
The Lord fights for Israel, and casts down hailstones
from heaven ; “ they were more which died -with hail
stones than they which the children of Israel slew with
the sword; ” and he makes the sun and moon to stand
still until the people are avenged. “ Then spake Joshua
to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the
Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in
the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ;
and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun
stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had
avenged themselves upon their enemies. So the sun
stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go
down about a whole day. And there was no day like
that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto
the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.
(Num. x. 8, 14.)
Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and
the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt
treacherously with Abimelech (Judges ix. 23.) Who
shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at
Ramoth-Gilead ? and one said in this manner, and
another said in that manner. And there came forth a
spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will per
suade him. And the Lord said unto him, wherewith ?
And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And He said,
thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth,
and do so. Now therefore, behold the Lord hath put
a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets
(1 Kings xxii. 20, 23.)
God’s throne is in heaven. “ The Lord hath pre-
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pared His throne in the heavens; and His kingdom
ruleth over all (Ps. ciii. 19.)
I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and
lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it
stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered
his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried
unto another, and said, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of
hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory (Isaiah vi.
1, 3.)
Por I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord
is above all gods (Ps. cxxxv.)
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh (Ps. ii. 4.)
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to
another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a
book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.
(Mai. iii. 16.)
In every place incense shall be offered unto my
name, and a pure offering : for my name shall be great
among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts (Mai. i. 11.)
I saw the Lord sitting upon His throne, and all the
host of heaven standing by Him on His right hand,
and on His left (Micaiah.)
Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon
a thousand hills (Ps. i. 7, 15.)
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the
world and they that dwell therein. Eor He hath founded
it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
(Ps. xxiv. 1-2.)
The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even
thousands of angels (Ps. lxxiii. 17j
After the Chaldean captivity, when it was thought
to be beneath the dignity of God to appear personally,
these angels are very active and much more plentiful.
Then the Lord employs his destroying angel to slay
185,000 men in the Assyrian camp. David also sees
an angel.
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So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel: and there
fell of Israel seventy thousand men. And God sent an
angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was
destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of
the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, it is
enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the
Lord stood by the threshingfloor of Oman the Jebusite.
And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the
Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having
a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem
(1 Chron. xxi. 14, 16.)
Here is Daniel’s description of the angel Gabriel:—
“ A man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with
fine gold of Uphaz: his body also was like the beryl,
and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his
eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in
colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words
like the voice of a multitude. (Dan. x. 5-6.)
This God of the Hebrews is certainly not a very sub
lime conception, and it is difficult to say in what it differs
from that of other primitive savages. He shows him
self in bodily presence as a man to Adam and to Abram,
walks in the cool of the evening, shows his parts behind
to Moses, comes down to prevent a tower being built up
into heaven, spoils the Egyptians, utterly exterminating
the Canaanites, man and woman, infant and suckling,
ox and sheep, camel and ass, that he may give their
land to his chosen people, sending lying spirits into his
prophets, and in fact possessing all man’s greatest vices
greatly exaggerated.
He is angry, furious, cruel,
vindictive, jealous, treacherous, partial, and by the
smell of a sweet savour of poor innocent slaughtered
beasts and birds, and by incense and sackcloth and
ashes is turned from his purpose and repents. The
Hebrew God is everywhere represented as delighting in
blood, requiring the first-born of both man and beast
to be offered up to him, and a lamb to be supplied to
him both night and morning throughout the year. Is
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it not strange that this barbarons conception of a blood
thirsty people should have been chosen by the modern
world as the foundation of its religion, and can we
wonder that the picture of such a Being, painted as we
are told by himself, should have had a most deleterious
effect on the moral sense of all who have been intro
duced to it, or that those who prefer to believe in no
God at all, rather than in such a God, should increase
daily 1
The Jews have continued to “ spoil the Egyptians,”
that is, all the nations among whom they are thrown,
until this day, and this spoiling the Egyptians is quoted
as a precedent for every kind of cheating and dis
honesty among all who are disposed to prey by false
pretence upon their fellow creatures. The religion of
the Hebrews was like that of every savage nation. It
consisted of Prayer and Supplication and Sacrifice. All
unusual and extraordinary phenomena, all good gifts
and evil fortune came direct from God, and they sought
by gifts to him of what they thought he would like
best, and by praise and adulation which they knew they
most liked, to propitiate him, and win his favour.
This was accomplished by a Priesthood who made it
difficult to approach him except through themselves,
and who claimed a reversionary interest in all gifts
offered to him.
It is true that more refined notions of deity prevailed
among “ God’s chosen people,” as civilization advanced,
and after they had spent seventy years in captivity in
Babylon, and had become acquainted with the much
higher “ revelation ” of Zoroaster. Still their most
sublime and poetical conception never rose above that
of a mighty magician, speaking the word of power ; the
heaven his throne, and the earth his footstool; to
whom belonged,—not the countless worlds of which they
had no idea, but the cattle upon a thousand hills ; rid
ing upon the wings of the wind ; governing the world
by his angels, and in whose name every possible atrocity
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is committed : to whom such men as Jacob, David, and
that wisest of all men, Solomon, with his three hundred
wives, and nine hundred concubines, are represented as
especially acceptable and favoured, but who show an
utter indifference to any moral law whatever. Notwith
standing this, we have that good man, the late Dr Norman
Macleod, telling us almost with his last words, that “ The
Bible practically says to all seekers after God, ‘Whom
ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.’ It
professes to give a true history, in harmony with reason,
conscience and experience, of God’s revelation of Him
self during past ages, culminating in Jesus Christ, and
continued in the Church by His Holy Spirit.’—Good
Words, June 1875, p. 420.
Hear also His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the highest authority of all. He says, “ Good Words,”
May 1875, “As to morality, upholding as we do the
immutable and eternal distinction between right and
wrong, and thankful that in all but degraded specimens
of the human race there is a conscience capable of
learning these distinctions. ... We believe that the
Great Being who controls the universe is in Himself
the very good, and very right.” Now as His Grace
identifies the Great Being who controls the universe with
the Hebrew God of the Bible, and as we cannot certainly
classify His Grace among “ the degraded specimens of
the human race,” we are obliged to conclude that his
conscience has yet something to learn. An aged and'
much respected dissenting Minister tells me that “ The
Bible will treat you as you treat it,” that is, you may
find whatever you are looking for, and only nineteenth
century ideas are looked for ; we look for a reformed
God, and a reformed religion, and this is the only way I
can account for the judgments of the good men I have -,
quoted above, and also for the fact that such chapters
as Gen. xix., xxxvii., Jud. xix., 2 Sam. ix., xiii., &c., i
are allowed to be retained, although they would not '
obtain admission into any book in the present day in
any refined and civilized community.
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But even among those who reject Revelation as a
revelation, the deistic conception of God as a governing
power outside the universe is probably as childish as
the original one conceived in the childhood of the
world, when all the earth was supposed to be filled
with his glory.
The cosmogony of the Hebrews, as might be expected,
is exactly upon a par with their Theology. The earth,
according to their revelation, was the centre of all
things j it was flat, founded upon the seas, and could
not be moved. The sun, and moon, and stars, are so
many lamps placed in the firmament to give light to
the earth. The firmament or sky is a solid structure,
and supports a great ocean like that upon which the
earth rests, in which are little windows through which
pour the waters of this upper ocean—under the earth
is the land of graves, called sheol, and is the hell, to
which it is said, Christ descended.* Above the waters
of the firmament is heaven, where Jehovah reigns,
surrounded by hosts of angels. It is to this heaven
that Christians say Christ ascended, his disciples and
a vast multitude having seen him go up, where he sitteth
on the right hand of God. There is some little
discrepancy as to whether Christ is sitting or standing,
as St Stephen saw him standing, and we might well
believe it was “sometimes one and sometimes the
other,” if the Athanasian creed, supported by the
church, did not say that we shall be damned if we do
not believe he is sitting. Between the firmament and
the earth is the air, which is the habitation of evil
spirits, and properly belongs to Satan, the “ prince of
* Mr George Smith informs the Daily Telegraph that some
of the Assyrian tablets discovered by Mr Smith and presented
by the proprietors of the Telegraph to the British Museum,
contain a much longer and fuller account of the creation and
fall of man than the Book of Genesis. In particular, the fall
of Satan, which in the Bible is only assumed, is in these
records reported at length, and the description of this being is
characterized by Mr Smith as “ really magnificent.
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the powers of the air.” As to the order of creation, the
sun is made on the fourth day, the changes of day and
night preceding it. The sun and moon are subordinate
to the earth. It took no less than five days to create
the earth, while for the sun, the whole starry host, and
the planets it took only one day, but then they were
made just to light up the earth. It was for professing
some little doubt as to the accuracy of this plan of the
universe that poor Galileo was persecuted and imprisoned,
and the special charge against Giordano Bruno was that
he had taught the plurality of worlds, a doctrine, it was
said, repugnant to the whole tenor of Scriptures, and
inimical to revealed religion, especially as regards the
plan of salvation. For this he was to be punished as
mercifully as possible, and “ without the shedding of
blood,” the horrible formula for burning people alive.
It was this adoption of the Jewish sacred writings as
the standard of all knowledge, this conflict between
religion and science, this attempt to put the Cosmos
into a quart pot, that has put a logger on science, even
up to the present day. The so-called revelation now
stands in the way of mental science as it formally did
in the way of physics ; but as our astronomy has come
from science and not from revelation, so also, must our
mental and moral philosophy.
Mohammedanism
released the people of Asia, Africa, and the Continent of
Europe, from those narrow and erroneous scriptural
dogmas, and the thick darkness of papal Borne, and left
science free; and the lamp of discovery was kept burning
through Arabian learning, and the highest civilization
we have yet reached, that of the Moors in Spain. We
are evidently approaching another Reformation in which
Science not in one department only, but in all, shall be
left entirely free. The intellectual development of
Europe has reached that stage where Arabism left us in
the 1 Oth and 11 th centuries. Through the influence of
Rome the world then took the wrong way ; had it
adopted Averhoism, which was rejected only by a
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small majority, we should have been then where we
are now.
But if the Jewish conception of God was a most
unworthy one, what must we say of that of the orthodox
Christian 1 Why, that it is infinitely worse. With
both he is the Creator of all things, therefore, of
evil and good, but with the former evil is confined to
time and this world, while with the latter it is absolute
and endless. Thus, according to the orthodox creed
the Almighty and All-wise, with a perfect knowledge
therefore of what he was doing, and full power to do
otherwise, made our first parents, Adam and Eve, and
put them into Paradise, with the full knowledge that
they would get themselves immediately turned out for
a single act of disobedience. They were not to eat of
a certain magic tree, for if they did so on that day they
should surely die. But our poor inexperienced mother
Eve, not knowing even what death was, was beguiled
by a talking serpent, into eating, and Adam, like a
gentleman, determined to share the consequences with
his wife : and if they had merely died on that day they
would only have been where they were before they
were made. But did God keep His word? No, they
did not die that day, but after cursing the earth for
their sake, they were kept alive to fill it with their
children, all of whom, with themselves, were condemned
to everlasting torture for this single act of disobedience.
But God had already arranged a scheme by which the
world might be saved; He would give His only be
gotten Son; Christ was to die for our salvation, an
innocent person for the guilty; but the conditions
were such that God in His infinite fore-knowledge knew
perfectly well they would not be accepted, and that the
great majority would be damned, notwithstanding this
infinite loving kindness, and awful sacrifice. From the
“Westminster Confession of Faith,” we learn that by the
decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some
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men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life,
and others fore-ordained to everlasting death.
“ Those angels and men, thus predestinated and fore
ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed ;
and their number is so certain and definite, that it
cannot be either increased or diminished.”
“ The rest of mankind, God was pleased, for the
glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to
pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for
their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.” Glorious
justice indeed 1 an infinite punishment for a finite sin,
or rather for no sin at all, for if the causes that pro
duced the act had not been adequate to the result, God
could not have foreseen it.
“ Our first parents, we are told, on the same authority,
being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan,
sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin
God was pleased, according to His wise and holy
council, to permit, having purposed to order it to His
own glory.” Thus He permitted a subtle and powerful
being to tempt our first parents, knowing full well the
result, and having already prepared a place of eternal
torment, that he might “ order it to His own glory.”
J. S. Mill says (“Autobiography,” p. 41.) “I have
a hundred times heard him (his father) say, that all
ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked,
in a constantly increasing progression; that mankind
have gone on adding trait after trait till they reached
the most perfect conception of wickedness which the
human mind can devise, and have called this God, and
prostrated themselves before it. This ne plus ultra of
wickedness he considered to be embodied in what is
commonly presented to mankind as the creed of Chris
tianity.”
The Rev. Dr Norman Macleod, however, says, 11 God
has manifested in humanity the same kind of joy He
Himself had in beholding the works which He had made
very good, and in which He rested and reposed ’’
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(“Good Words,” June 1875, p. 421.) Fancy such a
work being “ very good f ’ but we trust the Doctor did not
believe it, any more than we do ourselves. He may, how
ever, possibly have held with Luther, that it is by faith
we are saved and Luther says, “ it is the highest degree
of faith to believe Him merciful, who saves so few and
damns so many: to believe him just who of his own
will makes us necessarily damnable.” However laud
able such a degree of faith may be, we must confess
ourselves unequal to it, for it points to a devil, not a
god, and one wonders how such a horrid conception
could ever get into people’s heads, and ever form the
faith of a civilised people. It has taken ages of “ sur
vivals ” of hideous barbarism from the earliest ages to
put the idea together, and ages of transmission to
propagate the faith. No one coming fresh to it could
entertain it for a moment. It is absurd to say that
God’s original intentions were frustrated with respect
to man ; it is a contradiction to suppose that anything
can take place contrary to the will and wish of Almighty
power and wisdom. The “Spectator,” (Nov. 7, 1874),
however, regards it “ as a higher act of power to create
free beings, and therefore beings liable to sin on their
own responsibility, than to create only those whose
natures are for ever fixed in the grooves of good; ” that
is, it may be a much higher act of power to create
beings capable of damning themselves to all eternity,
than to create them so good that they could not do it;
granted, but then what shall we say of the wisdom ?
We very much doubt, however, whether omnipotence
itself could create a free, that is self-originating, uncaused act of any kind ; it is very certain it never has.
It is wonderful that it never seems to occur to the ortho
dox school, that if God had kept His word, and Adam
had really died, and another pair had been created, less
“ free ” to damn themselves and all their posterity, how
much trouble might have been spared. There would
have been no necessity then to “ keep a devil,” or a
(
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place of eternal torment, and the Son of God need not
have died, and this, as it appears to poor human reason,
might have been turned equally to God’s glory. “ If
Christ, as St John writes, appeared on earth to destroy
the works of the devil, He might have been dispensed
with if no devil had existed” (Strauss.)
This doctrine of the atonement, of sacrificing an
innocent person for a guilty one, and that in Christ’s
case only for an elect few: for although “many are called
few are chosen”—must have come down from the very
earliest times. “ Without shedding of blood there is
no remission of sins” (Heb. ix. 22) must be a “sur
vival ” from pre-historic men and the most barbarous
races. The law of vengeance, life for life, blood for
blood, was the savage law; and what was thus acceptable
to man was thought to be the most acceptable to his
Deity that he wanted to propitiate. Hence human
sacrifices. An only son being the dearest to man was
t thought to be most acceptable to God. At length
animals were substituted for human beings, as in Abra
ham’s case, the ram for his only son Isaac, and the
first-born among the Hebrews ceased in time to be
sacrificed according to primitive barbaric custom, and
was redeemed by a ram or a lamb. In Exodus and
Leviticus we have a whole ceremonial worship based
upon sacrifices, as we are told, by divine command.
“ Thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin-offering
for atonement ” (Ex. xxix. 36, &c.) The Jewish ritual
is full of bloody sacrifices, and Paul, not Christ, has
made it the key-stone of the Christian system, in the
blood of God’s only begotten and beloved Son. This
doctrine of propitiation by blood—of being washed
clean in blood, could never have entered a civilised
man’s head or heart; we have gradually been ac
customed to it from the earliest times, until like the
sun’s rising, it excites no wonder.
That all should fall for the sin of one*—of Adam, and
all be saved by the sacrifice of an innocent person, is so
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great a breach of all moral law that we rather wonder
how the Archbishop of Canterbury reconciles it with
“ the immutable and eternal distinctions between right
and wrong.” There can be little doubt that the con
founding of all moral distinctions in the “ spoiling of
the Egyptians,” and the sacrifice of the innocent for the
guilty as a plan of salvation, must have had a most
deleterious influence upon the conscience of all who
have believed in them, as part of the direct ordinances
of God. “ The covenant of grace in which the guilty
are pardoned through the agony of the just—and a God
kept holy in His own eyes by the double violation of
His own standard of rectitude,” can in no way be re
conciled with the intellect or our moral sense.
But these dire chimeras, these awful and blasphem
ous slanders upon the character of God, are silently
dying out before the gradually increasing intelligence of
the age, as witchcraft has done before. We no longer
burn thousands of old women for having personal inter
course and dealing with the “ prince of the powers of the
air,” and theological dogma is giving place, even in the
church itself, to practical religion. There are still,
however, many good people who think it desirable to
retain these horrible lies and libels upon our Creator, in
order to frighten men into being good, and the hope of
an immortality attended with such results is thought to
be a high and ennobling sentiment. At the present
time (June 1875) a case is going through the Court of
Arches, Jenkins v. Cook, in which the Rev. F. Cook
refuses to allow Mr Jenkins to partake of “ the body
and blood of Christ,” which, as the Church Catechism
tells us, “ is verily and indeed taken and received by
the faithful at the Lord’s Supper,” with his fellow
communicants, because he had expressed doubts about
the verbal inspiration of the Bible and the personality
of Satan; he had even gone the length of supposing
that there were parts of “ God’s Holy Word” that
were better left out, and he had prepared a selec
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tion for his young family. On the other hand, we
have an article in the “Contemporary,” for May, by Prof.
J. B. Mayor, in which he says, 11 reason and conscience
inevitably revolt against such a gospel as this (that
hopeless misery is the destiny of the larger propor
tion of created souls), yet how are those who believe
in the inspiration of the Bible to avoid accepting it 1
Accept this or give up Christianity is the alternative
presented to many minds at the present day—an alter
native enforced with equal vehemence by the extremists
on either side. It is this which is the great stum
bling-block not, how can I believe in this miracle or
that miracle ? but how can I accept a revelation which
appears to me to contradict the first and deepest of all
revelations, God is just, and God is good? He who
would solve this problem and justify to man the
ways of God, as revealed in Scripture, would, indeed,
do a great and excellent work. Maurice did some
thing by calling attention to the distinction between
endless and eternal.’'
A great many equally good and learned men, in the
interests, as they believe it to be, of religion, are making
similar useless distinctions, straining at a gnat and
swallowing a camel, and by taking things in a non
natural sense, the spiritual instead of the literal meanby turning affirmed facts into allegory, &c., are
earnestly striving to make black appear white and save
their livings; the church, as they believe, being much
better reformed from within than from without. The
question which is really interesting and pressing,
according to Principal Tulloch, is not how to get out
side the church, but how to enlarge and make room in
side it for varieties of Christian intelligence and culture.
But we may read the signs of the times when the
“ Edinburgh Review,” not now the organ of advanced
but of conservative liberalism, is disposed to go much
further „ than “ the distinction between endless and
eternal,” and to throw over the Old Testament alto
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gether and much even of the New (Oct. 1873, on Dr
Strauss). “ We are not Jews/’ it says, “ and there is
no reason in the world why we should be weighted
with the burden of understanding and defending at all
risks the Jewish Scriptures.” It also says, “Is it
right, is it truthful, is it any longer possible, in the
face of all that is now known upon the subject, to pretend
that legendary matter has not intruded itself into the
•hew Testament as well as into the Old?” Still the
writer contends for the precious truths which notwith
standing this lie enshrined in “ Oriental metaphor”
and “ Mediaeval dogma,” and accuses Strauss of “ igno
rant blasphemy or hypocritical sarcasm,” for professing
to understand these things literally, and to believe that
they form any part of Christianity. This is the attitude
that is now assumed by those who do not wish to give
up the Bible altogether. They fall back upon what
they call Christianity, by which they mean the example
and moral teaching of Christ, as far as that can be
ascertained. It is very difficult to ascertain what
Christ did, and still more to say what he taught. We
have the fourth Gospel, and the Epistles of Paul, and
of Peter, James, and Jude, all of which have added to
and differ from what Christ himself taught. The
theologic system that has come down to us is in reality
not Christianity, but much has been added to it
which Christ himself, as a religious reformer, strongly
protested against. The bloody doctrine of sacrifice and
atonement, which had been derived from a primitive
savage state, was re-introduced and made the corner
stone of the new faith j in fact, orthodox Christianity
is more indebted to Paul and the Alexandrine School,
as represented in St John’s Gospel, than to its putative
founder.
In the midst of the myths and legends that have
surrounded Christ, it is very difficult to say who and
what he was. Without believing at all in the super
natural, I yet believe that he wrought most of the
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miracles that are ascribed to him, and that this appa
rently miraculous power deceived him and his disciples
and ourselves. This power was not peculiar to Christ,
for a power of curing many kind of diseases has attended,
and still attends, 'many individuals. One of the best
known cases on record is that of Valentine Greatrakes,
an Irish gentleman, but no saint, born in 1628. He
was invited by the King to London, whither he went,
curing very many by the way. There the Royal
Society, then young, investigated the matter, publish
ing some of his cures in their Transactions, and account
ing for them as produced by “ a sanative contagion in
Mr Greatrakes’ body, which had an antipathy to some
particular diseases and not to others.” We are told
by a contemporary writer, Henry More, what particular
diseases this sanative contagion had an antipathy to,
viz., “ cancers, scrofula, deafness, king’s evil, headache,
epilepsy, fevers (though quartian ones), leprosy, palsy,
tympany, lameness, numbness of limbs, stone, convul
sions, ptysick, sciatica, ulcers, pains of the body, nay,
blind and dumb in some measure, and I know not but
he cured the gout.” Now if we leave out the cures
that were said to be wrought by Christ that the pro
phecies might be fulfilled, we have here most of the
diseases that he was able to cure, for we must not forget
that people’s want of faith prevented his being success
ful in all times and all places. He knew also when
“ virtue,” this sanitary power, went out of him, as when
touched by the woman with the issue. We may doubt
as to the source of this power, but that it exists there
can be no doubt. I have seen six cases, including
toothache, lameness, and rheumatism cured or relieved
in less than a quarter of an hour by the simple contact
or laying on of hands, and I have carefully watched
many permanent cures by the same person, by what
appeared to me an excess of vital power or of the “ vis
medecatrix.” Now if Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s
son, found himself possessed of such a power, he would
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of course ascribe it to Divine origin and believe that he
■was intended by the Almighty for some special mission,
most probably the Messiah, which all the Jews were
expecting, to deliver them from the Roman yoke and
to place them in the exalted position which had been
promised to the seed of Abraham, and to which there
had been already several pretenders. He himself
does not appear to be quite certain as to the character
of his mission, for when sent to by John, asking, “ Art
thou he that should come, or do we look for another 1 ”
he replied, “ Go and show John again those things
which ye do hear and see, the blind receive their sight
and the lame ■walk, the leapers are cleansed and the
deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have
the gospel preached to them,” intimating that this was
all he knew. There is little doubt, I think, that on
his entry into Jerusalem he expected a rising of the
people in his favour, and probably divine assistance in
that direction, as he daily received it, as he thought,
in others. When that did not take place, and he saw
that a revolt against the Roman power was vain and
hopeless, he did not the less doubt his own Divine
mission, of which he received daily proofs in the
miracles which he wrought; but he began to see that
the promised kingdom was not to be of this world,
but upon a second coming, which was to take place
even in that generation, and when he should be accom
panied by such divine power as would establish this
Heavenly Kingdom for ever. In the meantime he
began to prepare for that martyrdom that had always
attended all the great prophets and all previous
claims to the Messiahship. He prayed that this might
pass from him; but was nobly prepared to meet it if
such was God’s will, and never once does he seem to
have doubted that he was under God’s special care for
a special purpose, except in his own most pathetic and
despairing cry upon the cross, “ Mv God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me !” Christ died as a rebel to the
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Roman. Empire, and in the full persuasion that on his
second coming, then near at hand, all things would be
made subservient to himself and to his followers, and
that the Jewish nation especially should have the pre
eminence that had been promised to them. In this
belief, his disciples, who had daily witnessed his appa
rently miraculous power, joined him, and expected to
sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel.
It is impossible not to feel love for Christ, especially
when we think of the horrid suffering to which he w’as
subjected by his fellow-creatures, and to feel respect
for him as the most amiable and greatest of our moral
and social reformers, but I cannot look upon him as a
perfect character, or his example as one that could be
followed in the entirely altered conditions we have now.
There is much in the spirit of Christ’s character that is
most loveable and estimable, but to attempt to follow
his example would as certainly bring us wuthin the
power of the police, as it did him in his day. In all
the phases of social life, as a son, as a celebate, as a
producer or worker, his example is certainly one that
cannot be followed. As Strauss says, we must have
a definite conception of him whom we are to imitate as
an exemplar of moral excellence, and there are not such
essential facts in the life of Jesus firmly established j
neither are we clearly cognizant of his aims, nor the
mode and degree in which he hoped for their reali
zation. It is in the spirit of his doctrine only, that he
can be held up as an exemplar, and that certainly,
excellent as it is in many points, would not tend to the
full development of all our faculties.
But whence did Christ get his knowledge, which seems
greatly to have exceeded that of his time, and most cer
tainly that of his condition as a carpenter’s son ? What
sources were open to him 1 Was he one of those seers
or clairvoyants which the world has occasionally known,
and in that sense inspired ? The power of healing and of
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this kind of intuitional knowledge, are seldom found
together. It is very difficult to ascertain what Christ
really did teach. There were no short-hand writers in
those days, and the traditional reports we have, would
come to us strained through, and coloured by, the much
lower minds of his followers. We must therefore take
the spirit of his teaching, and not take it literally; and
we must recollect that much of what he taught was
under the firm conviction that the world was coming
to an end, probably in that generation. The morality
of the New Testament, to which the Broad Church is
now driven, giving up the conventional theological
creed, furnishes no system of morals, or one upon which
a science of mental and moral philosophy can be based.
The sun still goes round the earth in the mental science
of the New Testament, as much as it did in the physics
of the Old, for of course there can be no science of
mind, if the mind obeys no law, and it has power to
resist the strongest motives, as the advocates of Free
Will affirm. If, on the contrary, the mind necessarily
obeys its own laws, then we require a re-modelling of
the whole of Christ’s morality, as it must be based upon
a different idea of responsibility to that which he taught;
for the whole tendency of Christianity is to separate
conduct from its immediate and natural consequences,
and to place such consequences far away, or even in
some distant world; whereas the only divine judgment
or responsibility which science can admit, is that only
“ which fulfils itself hour by hour, and day by day.”
Thus Christ taught, as his especial doctrine, the
Fatherhood of God; now in the sense that God ever
interferes with natural law in our favour, this is not
true, and if not true, however comforting such a doctrine
of a Heaven-Father, or Father in Heaven, may be to
weak people, it had better be given up, as the truth
must always serve us best. God has put everything we
require within our reach, and has appointed a way by
which it may be attained, and has lent us his power to
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act for ourselves, and after that we have no right to
expect he will interfere personally in our behalf, and if
he did, it could only be to our injury, by weakening
that self-reliance upon which certainly all progress, if
not our very existence, depends. If we do not take
this natural course towards the object of our desires,
we are punished in the consequences, and as such
punishment is for our good, God never injures us by
forgiving our sins.
' And this is what I have principally to say against
Christianity. It has attempted to come between man
and the natural consequences of his actions; it has
filled the world with eleemosynary charity, and has thus
weakened his most important springs of action.
. Here we have the orthodox creed on this subject,
“ If man is compelled to distinguish between right and
wrong, he is a responsible agent, subject to penalties
for the misuse, &c., of his moral powers. He must be
responsible to some one. That some one must be
omniscient and omnipotent (or little less) in order to
act as Judge of humanity, and to mete out adequate
rewards and punishments. As these adequate rewards
and punishments do not follow in this life, there must
be a future state. If not, there would exist in man a
whole class of moral faculties which seem to find in the
present state of things an appropriate field for their
exercise, but which man is under no necessity of using.”
(The Dean of Canterbury on “ Science and Revelation ”).
Now it is the consequences of man’s actions that enable
him to distinguish between right and wrong, and at
the same time mete out an adequate reward and punish
ment. He is judged at once, and by an infallible judge,
and where the rewards and punishments, the pains
and pleasures attending his actions, may be of some use
to him and not carried on to some future state or other
world, where the conditions being different, they can be
of no use whatever. Man is responsible to himself, and
to the society of which he forms a member. This idea
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of vengeance, this notion that has come down from
savage life of apportioning a certain amount of useless
suffering to a certain amount of sin, pervades the whole
of the Bible. We are told also that man is endowed
with certain faculties for the exercise of which no
proper field has been furnished him by natural means,
and that therefore it requires a supernatural interposi
tion to provide him with one. We know of no faculties
that man possesses, that are not brought into daily use,
that he could live without, or which are not active in.
providing an improved state of things here in this
world, for himself and fellows.
The two great commandments of Christianity are
that we should “ Love God with all our hearts, and our
neighbour as ourselves.” Now is this possible ? If not,
is it not time that we should give up pretending that
it is ? Can we love the God of the Hebrews who puts
whole towns to the sword, men, women, and little
children, and every living thing, and who throws great
stones out of heaven upon the retreating hosts, and who
kills more in that way, than are killed by the sword 1
Can we love the God of the Christians who has ordained
an eternity of torture for the majority of his weak and
erring creatures, having full power to save them or not
to have created them 1 It is true we can make an idol
of all the ' highest attributes with which we are
acquainted and give it a personality after our own image,
and love that, but that is not God. Can we love the
Great Unknown ? We may love goodness and beauty,
but they must take some form to enable us to do so,
we cannot love a mere abstraction. The Universal
Bather works for the good of all, and does not recognise
individuals. Love is a human feeling applicable to our
fellow creatures, and is not applicable, as it appears to
me, to the All Supreme, which supports the Universe,
or rather which is the Universe. We cannot know
enough of this power to make it an object of love,
however much it may create a feeling of reverence and
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awe, and this idea and feeling increase the higher our
conception rises of the Great Supreme. We may love
Christ as the highest manifestation of God we may
know, but this is a very different and inferior feeling to
that which we have for the Great All. As to “ loving
our neighbour as ourselves ” that is neither possible
nor desirable. Suppose my neighbour is a nasty sneak,
a mere animal, full of low and vicious propensities, why
should I love him ? I am not called upon to love vice
in any form, although it is my neighbour, and to do so,
as man’s conduct is governed by the consequences,
would be holding out a premium for vice. Let my
neighbour make himself loveable, and I cannot help
loving him. On principle I may do him all the good I
can—getting him hanged perhaps being the greatest
good I can do him—but as to loving him, I must
decline. We can only love what is loveable, and believe
what is credible. It is true that orthodoxy professes
to love the Being who may send themselves or their
best and dearest friend to spend an eternity in “ ever
lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” and
as to belief, it thinks that any fool can believe what
is credible, but that that only is a saving and justifying
faith which believes what is incredible. If all that it
is meant to inculcate is a settled principle of good-will
to all men, that certainly is a most desirable feeling to
encourage, even towards the unworthy. The same may
be said about loving our enemies. Why should we love
our enemies? The interests of the community, and
therefore of morality, do not require it. We cannot do
more for our friends. It is true we may bless them that
curse, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them
that despitefully use us and persecute us, and we can do
what pious people are very fond of doing, pray for
our enemies; but as to loving them! when by doing
them all the good we can, if they deserve it, we have
made them our friends, then we may love them.
Does God love his enemies when he exacts an infinite
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penalty for a finite fault, or is it not true that he pre
pares an eternity of torment for them ? “ They shall
drink,” John says, “the wine of the wrath of God
which is poured out without mixture into the cup of
his indignation, and they shall be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and
in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their
torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.” How the
holy angels must enjoy the sight ! we are told also on
the same ‘ loving ’ authority, ‘ they have no rest day
nor night, they shall desire to die, and death shall flee
from them, they blaspheme God, they gnaw their tongues
for pain.’ ” Moses says, “ Slay every man his brother,”
rather than allow the existence of heretics, but Moses
did not believe in a future state, and therefore he could
not damn them as well. Christ says, “ He that believeth not in me the wrath of God abideth on him ”—■
“He that believeth not shall be damned,” and Paul says of
the unbelievers in his day, “ God shall send them strong
delusion (as he had previously done to Pharaoh and to
Ahab), that they should believe a lie, that they may all
be damned.”
All that can come of setting up a false standard, and
professing to love our enemies, is a pharisaical hypocrisy.
What we have to do is to love the true, the good, and
the beautiful; to stand up for the right regardless of
consequences, and to maintain an unending battle
against evil in all its forms. This may be done in all
kindness, and in the full conviction that “ Society
prepares crime, and the guilty are only the instruments
by which it is executed.”—Quetelet. It is justice that
ought to rule the world. We are governed by the con
sequences of our actions, and if we can get love without
being loveable, and good for evil, the chief motives to
be good and loveable are taken away. The same reason
ing applies to the whole doctrine of the non-resistance of
evil. Not to resist evil is to encourage it. If a man
smite us unjustly on one cheek, and turning the other
Jo be smitten would prevent its recurrence, let us do it.
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With a good man it might do so, but with the great
majority it would only encourage them to further
aggression. To give a man my cloak who had taken
my coat would be a premium for robbery; and to give
to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow
of me not to turn away, as a rule, would be equally a
premium for improvidence. So also to take no thought
for the morrow, to trust to God to clothe us as he does
the lilies of the field, would sap self-reliance and self
dependence, the foundation of all morality. No society
that ever existed in Christ’s time or since could hold
together on such principles, translate them into what
ever transcendental or sesthetic language we may.
As to the golden rule, which is not peculiar to
Christianity, viz., “ that we should do as we would be
done by,” it can only be received in spirit, in a very broad
and general application, for people differ so in bodily
and mental constitution that what suits one person by
no means suits another. It is not at all safe to judge
of other people by ourselves. Not to do to others what
we would not like to have done to ourselves is a much
safer way of putting it.
We must notice also, it is that W’e may be rewarded,
not that we may do right, is the inducement every
where held out.
With reference to prayer, Christ says, “when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut
thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and
thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee
openly.” We are expressly told that we are not to
pray standing in the synagogues, that we may be seen
of men; that we are not to use vain repetitions and
much speaking, for that our Father knoweth what
things we have need of, before we ask Him. The
whole of Christendom has systematically set these
injunctions at defiance, for there would be little use
for the priests were they carried out, and with one sex
at least, church-going would be less popular if they were
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not to be “ seen of men.” The last new bonnet is a
great stimulant to devotion. The great majority of
Christians, who believe their saints to be ubiquitous, or
omniscient, and who pray to those who are always
listening, to intercede with the Mother of God, to
petition her Son, to ask his Father, can have little
faith that the “Father knows what things we have need
■of, before we ask Him,” or that if he does, he is
very hard to persuade to let us have them. His Holi
ness, the Pope, in his Encyclical, recently issued, enjoins
incessant prayer, employing a Mediatrix with Him, the
Virgin Mary, Mother of God, who sits, he says, as a
queen upon the right hand of her only begotten Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in a golden vestment, clothed
around with various adornments. There is nothing she
cannot obtain from him.
Now is it likely that God will be constantly altering the
•course he has appointed for our well-being at our ignor
ant intercession ? Surely he knows what is right, and
will do it, without our asking him or constantly re
minding him! No amount of toadying, which we call
worship, or serving him, will induce him to do other
wise than what is right, or prevent him from doing it,
whether “ we praise him,” or “ acknowledge him to
be the Lord,” or not. The savage with the noise of
pots and pans tries to prevent an eclipse, that is, to
prevent the sun eating up the moon, or vice versa, and
the noises we make in the churches to bring or prevent
rain, or in any way to alter the course of natural law,
may be expected to be equally efficacious. The whole
tendency of modern research goes to show that if law
is anywhere, it is everywhere.
The Kyoungtha of Chittagong are Buddhists. Their
village temples contain a small stand of bells and an
image of Buddha, which the villagers generally worship,
morning and evening, first ringing the bells to let him
know that they are there (Sir John Lubbock’s “Origin
of Civilisation,” p. 220). This is no more than polite or
D
< » •
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politic; we ring our bells merely to call the people
together, thinking God is always ready to listen to
petitions, to do for us what he has given us full power
to do for ourselves, or simply perhaps, to reverse the
order of nature, upon the invariability of which the
good of all depends. Surely it is better that all people
should know that miracles will not be constantly worked
on their behalf. It is true that by the laws of the
mind, prayer often answers itself, and we get what we
ask for, but should we mock God that we may be so
benefited? No man prays for the success of his
chemical experiments, neither will he for moral results
when he knows as much of the likes and antipathies of
human beings, as he does of the attractions and repul
sions of atoms. Our present practice is a “ survival ”
of primitive barbarous times, when all evil was supposed
to come directly from spirits, or from the gods, and
prayer was the only means supposed capable of averting
such evils. We certainly have no right to reflect on
less civilised times and nations for their superstition, so
long as we expect the ordinary course of nature to be
altered in our behalf whenever we choose to ask it.
It never seems to occur to those who pray without
ceasing, to ask the question that if in answer to their
repeated importunity, God delivers them from evil,
why an infinitely powerful, good, and benevolent being
does not deliver all from evil, without asking. If it
were right in their case it would be right in all; but it
would be not right. Any interference with the estab
lished order of nature would render both reason and
instinct useless, and would weaken those springs of
action on which all progress depends.
The late Bev. Charles Kingsley, says, speaking of
Atheism •—££ Has every suffering, searching soul, which
ever gazed up into the darkness of the unknown, in
hopes of catching even a glimpse of a divine eye,
beholding. all, and ordering all, and pitying all, gazed
up in vain ?.............Oh! my friends, those who
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believe or fancy that they believe such things, must be
able to do so only through some peculiar conformation,
either of brain or heart. Only want of imagination to
conceive the consequences of such doctrines can enable
them, if they have any love and pity for their fellow
men, to preach those doctrines without pity and horror.
They know not, they know not, of what they rob a
mankind already but too miserable by its own folly and
its own sin, a mankind which, if it have not hope in
God and in Christ, is truly—as Homer said of old—
more miserable than the beasts of the field. If their
unconscious conceit did not make them unintentionally
cruel, they would surely be more silent for pity’s sake ;
they would let men go on in the pleasant delusion that
there is a living God, and a Word of God who has
revealed him to men, and would hide from their fellow
creatures the dreadful secret which they think they
have discovered—that there is none that heareth prayer,
and therefore to him need no flesh come.”
No doubt this is very eloquent, but if such eloquence
were compatible with reason, I should ask, who is it
that professes to have discovered “the dreadful secret,”
that the majority after a moment spent here, are con
signed to endless torments, where there “ is none that
heareth prayer, and therefore to Him need no flesh
come.” Surely Atheism is better than this orthodox
belief, and if any have discovered that it is a blasphem
ous libel upon our Creator, the sooner they proclaim
it the better. The good, most loving, and gentle
Cowper, the Poet, not having felt, as he and his Par
son thought, sufficient evidence of conversion, lived
year after year in the full belief that God had utterly
rejected him, and on his death-bed exclaimed, “ I feel
unutterable despair.” The self-righteous people who
feel so certain of their own salvation, forget, or more
probably selfishly disregard, the numberless cases of
this kind, of sensitive people being driven, as poor
Cowper was, to despair; they think it so hard that
�any should be deprived of the comforting notion. It
is a great mystery, they say, but it is one of their own
making: they first make it dark, and then complain
that they cannot see.
I need not say any more, I think, to show that the
Christianity of Christ, however much of excellence there
is in it, is not up to the thought and moral sense of our
time. Great efforts are being made to adapt it to the
altered conditions by new and forced meanings, and by
dropping, what no forcing can adapt, as not abidingprinciples intended for our times. So far as attempts
have been made to put Christianity systematically into
practice, they have been failures.
The early Christians were communists—they had all
things in common ; and no doubt it is better adapted tosuch a social system than to any other. When all are
dependent upon each and each upon all; when all have
a direct and immediate interest in the well-being,
physical, moral, and intellectual of every member of
the community, when conscience or the sense of duty
is as strong a feeling as hunger and pride and vanity are
now, when the unselfish feelings shall decidedly pre
dominate, then some form of Christianity will be practi
cable. But society in no country has ever yet approached
such a state. Communism is still, and may continue
so for ages, the great Socialist Utopia.
Where Christianity has been attempted to be carried
out as a system of theological belief; where he “ who
believeth shall be saved and he who believeth not shall
be damned,” the burnings of millions of people have not
brought us any nearer to it in practice. People will con
tinue to believe that what appears to them to be black and
not white, is black, whether they are to be burned here
and hereafter for it or not; and as to “ renouncing the
devil and all his works,” and burning some nine millions
of poor old women and others for supposed personal deal
ings with him, the devil, or at least the principle of evil,
is nearly as rampant as ever. It -would have been much
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more convincing if those who burned others for want
of faith, had exhibited a proper evidence of their own,
which they never did. “ And these signs shall follow
them that believe says Mark xvi. 17, 18, 19, “ In my
name shall they cast out devils j 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.” But
such is the perversity of human nature, that had such
powers attended their faith, they would probably have
been burned for witchcraft. “ So then,” Mark goes on
to say, xvi. 20, “ after the Lord had spoken unto them
he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right
hand of God.”
The asceticism, which is a part of Christianity, has
done the world infinite mischief, if it were only in
depriving it of the offspring of so many of its highest
minds, who were either imprisoned, burnt, or voluntarily
retired from it. What wise man had time to marry
when he had an eternity to prepare for ? what good man
would run the risk of introducing beings to a life of
everlasting torment ? The stake was so great, that no
wonder that among those who were not good utter sel
fishness prevailed, and men thought only of their own
salvation. The soul was the only thing to be thought
of, the body was despised, mortified, degraded, and
neglected.
Monks, nuns, and hermits were the
only sensible people. Prayer was the only occupation
in which a man could profitably engage, and conse
quently no more attention was given to the body than
its natural wants absolutely required. This absurd de
preciation of the body, the sole instrument of thought,
has continued to the present time.
It is absurd to say that we owe modern civilization
to Christianity. Islamism \yas a real reform on the
state of society induced by the Christianity of that day,
and carried willingly all the East and the great cities of
its birth along with it; and when it had reduced Europe
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to the dark ages, we were saved again by the Moors
and Saracens, and a return to Greece and Rome. The
Greek and Roman philosophers aim at the perfect de
velopment of the individual man—mind and body—
and of the individual state. “ Magnanimity, self-reli
ance, dignity, independence, and, in a word, elevation
of character, constituted the Roman idea of perfection ;
while humility, obedience, gentleness, patience, resigna
tion are Christian virtues” (Lecky, vol. ii., pp. 72, 155),
and it is not, I think, saying too much to affirm, that
had the principles of Christianity been really practised,
modern civilization could never have existed. His
Excellency Iwakura Tomomi, chief of the supreme
Japanese Embassy, which visited England a few years
ago, has presented to the Library of the India Office a
set of the Chinese version of the Buddhist Scriptures.
The work weighs 3| tons. A selection is probably, in
their case, allowed to be made for the use of families.
If, as is reported, the Chinese and Hindus are about to
send missionaries to Europe, they certainly cannot come
Bible in hand.
The time was when people were really in earnest
about their religion, but now all living faith in the
dogmas of the past seems to have died out. Where
the idea of duty first makes its appearance is in the
sacrifices to the dead. The most costly gifts of men,
and women, and horses, and dogs, and arms, and money,
were presented to the dead, and buried or burned with
them. The Chinese, however, are a practical people,
and Tylor tells us that in China “ the fanciful art of
replacing these costly offerings by worthless imitations
is at this day worked out into the quaintest devices—
the men and horses dispatched by fire for the service
of the dead are but paper figures and the manufacture
of mock-money, both in gold and silver, is the trade of
thousands of women and children in a Chinese city”
(“ Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 445). Such a change
has come over our religion,—which has now become a
�The Christian Religion.
57
mere conventional custom of what is called good society
—a great sham which thousands of men, women and
clergymen are engaged in manufacturing. There is no
doubt we are bordering on change.
Not that we expect this change to be rapid; all per
manent change is very slow. Besides the two extremes of
the positivists and scientific men at one end, and work
ing men at the other—who regard religion as allied
always with monarchy and aristocracy, and as offering
post-obit bills on heaven for what they think they are
unjustly deprived of here—the great body of society
looks upon Christianity as containing their highest
ideal of excellence. Its dogmas are a dead letter to all
but a very few, people have got used to them, or they
are interpreted so as not to shock their moral sense, or
they are regarded as awful mysteries to be cleared up in
another world, and without which their religion would
be mere morality and Dot half so acceptable. Add to
this that custom, conventional usage, fashion, and re
spectability, with the toll-gates of birth, marriage and
death, are all on the side of the national religion, and
we certainly need expect no sudden change. The
Christianity of the present day is not taken from the
Bible, but is Bible doctrine strained through the mind
of the nineteenth century, and many good people still pre
fer to call themselves Christians because there is nothing
really at present equally good and of equal authority
to take its place. There cannot be a doubt that church
membership, whether of churchmen or dissenters, helps
to keep people within the broader and most obvious
moral laws ; and it will be some time before the mass
of the people will set themselves to learn what is true
in order that they may do what is right, or that they
will do what is right because it is right, and not from
the hope of reward or from the fear of punishment. We
must wait; in the meantime let no one fear or hesitate
to proclaim what he believes to be the truth and of
highest excellence.
�
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Christianity : viewed in the light of our present knowledge and moral sense
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Bray, Charles [1811-1884]
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Christianity
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ß
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIANITY
SHOWING IT UNREASONABLE AND IMPRACTICABLE.
BY CHARLES C. CATTELL.
Author of “ Laconics” “ Which is the True Religion T ¿re., Av,
As I believe it is not legal to say that Christianity is not
true, I only contend that it is unreasonable and imprac
ticable. Think of the millions of people known to live on
this globe, and then listen to the talk of the Christian, you
would imagine that all the world followed his prophet and
professed his faith. The fact is, only a few of the millions
even profess to be Christian; and these are so divided,
that we may say with truth the Christian party in this world
is split up into sects. The sects are so numerous that a
man may many times change his Church, and yet continue
to be what is called a Christian. When dissatisfied with
the Church he may take refuge in the Chapel, and chapels
exist in almost endless variety; and if all these fail him, he
may set up on his own account and be a Free Christian 1
If there is only one Christianity—only one true way to
heaven—the multiplication of sects must be a great source
of confusion to the would-be believer. The Christian passes
from one sect to another in search of the true Church; his
life is a series of changes, being everything by turns, and
nothing long. Some unsettled spirits spend their whole lives
in search of the true Church. Sometimes this ends in urn
belief—that is, unbelief in churches and chapels, and the
reasons given for this form of doubt are often too con
temptible to appear in print. These people “take their
stand on the Bible,” and even they have different ways of
looking at the Bible. Some read it as literal, others as
figurative or poetic, or philosophic, or symbolic, or pro
phetic, or spiritual—or the Lord knows what ! Christian
parties differ so much, that the only thing they are heartily
agreed on is, that the unbeliever ought to be put down !
Yet each sect contends that it alone is right, and every other
wrong. This is the only justification that each sect can urge
for its separate existence. I take the decision of all, which
�2’
is,, that they are each of them wrong. This extraordinary
conclusion is easily explained, by the fact that all the lead
ing points in each are but dreams, matters of conjecture and
fancy.
This great variety is proof to me that nothing is known,
nothing is certain, nothing is demonstrable in any of the
faiths—it is all imagination,, myth, fiction.
Towards the Christians I bear no ill-will, and forgive all
their persecution of me. Times and manners have happily
changed during the past twenty-five years, and in spite of
Christianity the life of an unbeliever is not so rough as it
was—there is less ignorance, and consequently less hatred..
Only once during my life has the peace of Birmingham.been
disturbed 15y contending sects, and that once sufficiently
showed the state of society which would result if Christians
were allowed to exhibit their feelings, and express their
opinions of one another, uncontrolled by the unbelievers,
the indifferent, and the magistrates. It required a secular
army to prevent the saints destroying each other. The
frenzy, the excitement, the ungovernable fury of a believer
would, if unchecked, turn the world into a bedlam, and in
stead of being harmony and peace, society would be one
uninterrupted scene of bloodshed and robbery. Sensible
men have a wholesome horror of theological strife. All
my little efforts have had one object—the subjugation of
bigotry and intolerance, and the increase of liberty and. jus
tice. Freedom for all mankind, consistent with the rights
of each other, that is my doctrine, and when once fully esta
blished, people will be amazed at their ignorance and folly:
they will wonder what power bewitched them, what dia:
bolical influence prevented the adoption of so beneficqnt a
doctrine.
If Christianity had started with this doctrine of universal
freedom, and preached and practised it, what a different
world we might have seen !
Unhappily, the declarations of Christianity on this subject
are most unreasonable, and the results, as declared in the
history of the Christian world, have been most deplorable.
“He that believeth not, shall be damned.” (Markxvi.).
This assumes that a man can believe or not by his own
effort, as though evidence—facts—had nothing to do with
either belief or unbelief. Custom and interest can make
liars and hypocrites, but evidences control, belief.
The truest sentence ever uttered cannot influence any man
unless he understands the language in which it is expressed.
�That two and two make four every one admits who under
stands what is meant, but none other. Men do not believe
unless they understand. But “believe or be damned” is
not only inconsistent with the laws of thought—it ignores
the other declarations of the same book. For instance—
“ It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his
good pleasure.” (Phil. ii.). Again—“ By grace. are you
saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift
of God.” {Eph. ii.).
St. Paul (2 Cor; iii.) goes so far as to state that we are
not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves.
The Master settles this point (John vi.)—“No man can
come to me except the Father draw him.”
Yet St. Paul confirms the opposite doctrine taught by the
same Master, when he writes (2 Cor. vi.J—“ Be ye not un
equally yoked with unbelievers : what part hath he that
believeth with an Infidel ?” He grows quite fierce on the
subject (Gal. i.)—“Tf an angel from heaven preach any
other gospel, let him be accursed,” which, I presume, means
something disagreeable.
This condemnation of all unbelievers, this separation of
men into believing and unbelieving, and this cursing of all
teachers contrary 01 opposed to Christ, lie at the root of
that terrible movement which was carried on for centuries
by fire, sword, and chains^ till the sceptical spirit arose
which shamed the Christian world, and bid it hold its mur
derous hand. The practice of the Christian world for ages
may be read in the awful language of Moses (Deut. xxxii.).
Substitute the Christian Church for the word God in those
verses, and you have a picture of its mode of dealing with
the unbelievers.
It has been urged that this spirit of persecution could not
come from God, because he is a God of love, and that all
the cruelty perpetrated in his name is to be attributed to the
wickedness of God’s servants, that it is antagonistic to his
holy nature.. In order to test this, let us inquire into God’s
character, as given in his. own book. Only a few examples
can be given, and I do not say that these are true, but we
read that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”
The 2 Thessa ii. it, speaking of those who receive not the
love of truth that they might be saved,, says, “' For this
cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie: that they all might be damned,” Other
persons, the same writer continues,, have been chosen from,
the beginning to salvation.
�4
Another instance may be found in i Kings xxii. 22,
wherein the Lord accepts the services of a spirit who offers
to deceive Ahab, by being a lying spirit in the mouth of all
his prophets—“Now, therefore, behold, the Lord had put
a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets.” Again,
“ If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I
the Lord have deceived that prophet, and will stretch out
my hand upon him and will'destroy him,” &c. (Ezek. xiv. 9.)
On one occasion the people complained of having no
bread and no water, “ And the Lord sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they bit the people, and much
people of Israel died.” (Numb. xxi. 6.) On another occa
sion it is related that “ the Lord rained upon Sodom and
upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of
heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the inhabitants,
and that which grew upon the ground.” (Gen. xix. 24.)
Some persons do not believe the Lord would do anything
wrong, but Amos ch. iii. says, “ Shall there be evil in a city
and the Lord hath not done it?” Again, in Micah i. 12,
“ For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good,
but evil came down from the Lord upon the gate of Jeru
salem.” The following is very clear: “ I form the light,
and create darkness ; I make peace, and create evil. I the
Lord do all these things(Is. xlv.).
It would be impossible in the space allotted for this essay
to even name the battles the Lord is said to have arranged,
to say nothing of the number killed and wounded, and the
cities made desolate ; but one transaction in which he was
concerned is too important to be passed over. In Gen. vi.
the Lord is described as planning the wholesale destruction
of all the inhabitants of the earth. We are here told in the
most exact language that “ every living substance was de
stroyed.” “ Noah only remained alive, and they that were
with him in the ark,” and this was done by the Christian s
’ God. The author of Christianity is here described as
planning and superintending a scheme of the most cruel
and revolting character that the world has recorded—sup
plying all the gigantic machinery for effecting this terrible
slaughter of all the creatures he had been at the trouble to
make. What makes the case still worse and more awfully
tragic, is the fact that the same God continued the existence
of the* same kind of creatures which he knew would neces
sitate the cruel death of his only son. An impartial student
of these statements will be able to form an estimate of the
character of the God of the Bible.
�5
A person who makes others in the image of himself to be
destroyed, or that he may destroy them himself, is one to
whom the attribute love is misapplied. Yet in books and
sermons, and even on the walls of our great cities, we read
the extraordinary sentence, “ God is love 1” It is the love
of a father who destroys his own children. The less love
people have of this kind, the better for mankind. Yet this
same God is the author of Christianity—the Christian ideal
of perfect love, mercy, and justice. Millions say they love
this God; can this be possible ?
The story of Christianity, according to the Bible, begins
in the Garden of Eden. A man and woman, the father and
mother of us all, are placed in a Garden, surrounded by
circumstances which are certain sooner or later to bring about
the fall of man. The penalty attached to, the act of disobe
dience is death ; and if this plan had been carried out, there
would have been no sinners, no Christianity, no Saviour, and
no salvation—in fact, no human race, according to this tale.
The fall of man is the cause of Christianity, and Chris
tianity requires the fall of man to justify its existence. One
necessitates the other. That both were portions of God’s
plan is obvious, for “ Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world.” (Acts xv.)
No talk about free-will or the wickedness of the devil will
set aside the important fact that all that which men glory in
calling Christianity, owes its origin to the transgressions of
Adam and his wife. Now, if we admit a devil in the
Garden, and a free-will in Adam, and grant that no Gospel
and ho Christ were possible without these, the fact still re
mains that only one source of power exists to whom we can
refer to the origin of the devil and the free-will, for by God
“ were all things created that are in heaven and earth, visible
and invisible.” (Col. i.)
There is no escape from the conclusion, that whatever
happened in the Garden, or in man, was in accordance with
the will and plan of God, who is the maker and ruler of all
things. To admit any other power, would be to limit the
power of the Almighty, or to recognise more Gods than one.
An unbiassed reader of the third chapter of Genesis
would infer that before the fall, no labour except that of
tending the Garden of Eden was contemplated. After the
fall, Adam is discharged from his situation and is sent forth,
or, as we should now put it, is “ condemned to hard labour
for life ” among thorns and thistles. Now is it not a fact,
that the whole of our modern civilisation is the result of the
�6
combined labour of the human race? Every ship that
floats, every train that runs, every thing in our houses or
on our bodies, every comfort we possess, every science, and
every printed word we read, attest the value of human
labour ! Yet in spite of all these world-wide facts, this
book speaks of labour as the punishment for some fabled
sin against some imaginary God who once dwelt in some
corner of the earth, when its inhabitants consisted of him
self, his gardener, and the gardener’s wife 1 This is indeed
a tale for children in understanding. Yet the Christian
often boasts that civilisation, which is the result of continu
ous labour, is owing to his faith and his book.
Admitting that some calamity involving the eternal in
terests of mankind did happen, in the place and manner de
scribed by the Bible, it must have been by the will of God,
in spite of the will of God, or without God’s will interfering .
whichever it was, either his goodness, his power, or his love
for mankind, must be disbelieved after this.
But what did he do to repair the injury? He destroyed
every living substance, “except those m the ark.
he sent his only son to be put to death, so that by is
blood we shall be saved from wrath” (Rom. v.) What
wrath ? Whose wrath ? God is love !
The death of Christ is in harmony with the character of
God, as before described. Judas betrays him so that he
may be put to death (Mark xiv.), and he submits to this
frightful death by the will of God—yet in the same chapter
(v. 21) he himself says it had been good for Judas if he
had never been born. Never been born I If he had not
been born, had not been a devil, Christ would not have
been betrayed and died, and nobody would have been
saved ! Without a Judas the scheme could not have been
carried out. But John’s words (c. vi.) settle this point:
“ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that
believed not, and who should betray him.
_
Here, then, we have God the father planning the death
of his only son by means specially adapted to secure his
destruction. If a man had done this, we should use very
strong language against him and his plan. _ If God, the allpowerful, could not have “ saved ” mankind without sacri
ficing Jesus, he could have prevented their being lost
if he liked.
_
, ,
What a strange story is this. A good God puts to deatn
an innocent God to deliver wicked people from the wratii
of a God of love. If God the creator had put to death the
�7
first sinner, Adam, there would have been no wicked; or,
failing in that, if he had prevented the building of the ark,
all the wicked might have been drowned. God’s ways are
not as our ways. So much the better for us.
To rectify the evil doings of mankind, God did not send
a race of Christs with absolute power over sin and tempta
tion, but only one innocent Christ to suffer for the guilty
sinners—and still the sinners go on sinning, just as though he
had not come. What would the civilised world say if we pro
posed to hang one innocent man to save all the murderers ?
What would virtuous men and women say if all the
governments in the world combined and put one innocent
person to death in order to release all the offenders against
the laws and morality of the whole world ? The unso
phisticated moral sense of the world would be shocked at
such a proposal. Rather let all men suffer for their own
wrongs, and all the criminals be hanged, than one innocent
person be put to death. How long will mankind profess
to follow so unreasonable a creed ? This may Be divine,
but it is inhuman, cruel, a scheme of blood.
What a strange story I The Son dies to appease the
wrath of God the Father ; the 'Son being equally God and
equally wrathful, why not the Holy Ghost die to reconcile
him ? And, lastly, the third person being equally God,
and equally wrathful, why not the first person die to recon
cile him ? In the end all would be crucified. The illus
trious pagan could not believe in an expiring crucified infi
nite God. Surely no man in his senses does believe in
such an unreasonable story as this. Men only believe they
believe.
On the bright side of this story it is not necessary for me
to dwell. Jesus, as a patriot, exposing the priests, and
dying at the hands of an ignorant and bigoted misguided
multitude, is not the theological Jesus who has done all
the mischief I deplore. It is not against a reformer of
abuses and a benevolent advocate of human rights, that
any Freethinker has one word to say. So soon as the
Gospel is made to mean the intellectual and social eleva
tion of man, it will cease to be all that it is and has been.
Happily for society, the desire for intellectual and social
progress is growing stronger than the belief in the Gospel.
To return. This scheme being carried out, Christ having
died to save the world, is the world saved ? Certainly not.
After all this agony and bloody sweat, another element is
ixffrodued men must believe, and these signs shall follow
�8
them that believe (Mark xvi.)—they shall cast out devils,
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.”
Now, if only those are believers who can do all these
wonderful things, how many are there alive at the present
time? Is it true that any of the Christians of to-day can
take poison, play with serpents, and cure the sick, better
than the Freethinker ? To show these signs, a person must
have a different skin and stomach to what man has, or every
time a dose of poison is swallowed, God must work a miracle
to prevent it operating. Any sane man would hesitate
before risking his life to show such signs as these, even to
convert an unbeliever. He would argue in favour of the
doctrine rather than attempt his conversion by example.
Only a few fanatics exist in the whole world who rely on
miracle for the cure of diseases. Mankind in general, in
cluding so-called Christians, rely on science and the men
who have studied the curative art, for relief in cases of
physical and mental suffering. Then where are the Chris
tians—“ them that believe ?”
We know it is written (James v.), “ And the prayer of
faith shall save the sick;” but if so, why do Christians sub
scribe to the “medicine men,” to hospitals, and infirmaries?
Is it because they do not believe ? Surely their method
would be less painful to the patient and less costly to society 1
If nearly the whole of Christendom not only ignore their
own method, but adopt the Secular scientific method, where
are the Christians—“them that believe?” The doctrine
is impracticable, that’s the answer. There are but few
real believers, but many sincere persons believe that they
believe.
Test this matter another way. If there were any believers
alive, the following words would have a public importance
that no unbeliever could ignore and no doubter dispute,
“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth in me,
the works that I do he shall do also—and greater works
than these shall he do.” (John xiv.)
Take the cream of the Christian party—all the bishops
and ministers of the Gospel on the face of the earth—can
they, combined, even feed another five thousand, or fast
forty days, or raise the dead, or walk on the sea, or see all
the world off Snowdon? Without asking them to do “greater
works than these,” if they cannot do even these, where are
the Christians—“ them that believe ?”
�9
To get rid of these difficulties, the followers of Jesus,
who are clever, contend that these extraordinary powers
ceased with the early Christians ; but I tell them that signs
of belief are more needed now than ever, and further, that
I believe they are to-day just as able to show these signs as
the early Christians, and not more so. Where people, are
ignorant even to-day, Christians do not lack pretensions
to being superior to other people in doing impossible
things.
A great deal is urged by preachers and defenders of
Christianity in favour of its broad humanity, on the ground
that it enjoins love even to enemies, and that you are to
bless even those that curse you. Those who have read
history know what Christians did to their enemies and
opponents. They destroyed them. But what does the
Master himself say ? “ Whosoever shall offend one of these
little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a mill
stone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into
the sea.” (Mark ix.)
Again, “ Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will
I also deny before my father, which is in heaven.” (Matt, x.)
The same sentiment is repeated in another place (Mark
viii), and another writer (2 Tim. ii.) says emphatically, “If
we deny him, be also will deny us.”
Again (John xii.)—“ He that rejecteth me, and receiveth
not my words, bath one that judgeth him, the word that I
have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”
Any one impressed with the notion that Christ is a forgiving
and generous spirit should read what will take place at this
“last day ” (Matt. xxv.). Here all nations are gathered to
gether, like boys at school, or regiments of soldiers, and
are put to the “ right ” or the “ left ” amongst the “ sheep ”
or the “ goats.” Now for the mercy and love to enemies
-—“ Then shall he say unto them on the left-hand—Depart
from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angels.” In other words (2Thess. i.)—“The
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty
angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know
not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his
power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and
to be admired in all them that believe.”
• It is playing fast and loose with language, to preach the
love of Christ in the face of such cruel and revengeful de-
�IO
-clarations as these, which could proceed only from the
mouth of a despot or a savage.
By way of reply to this, it may be urged that this awful
-doom may be avoided, but not unless you believe. All the
“ fearful and unbelieving ” are to go into the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone (Rev. xxi.), where their
worm dieth not, -and the fire is never quenched.
Instead of being so easy for mankind to escape, there is
the greatest difficulty, and the whole of the preaching which
declares that heaven is open to everybody, and hell only
open to those who seek it, is as nearly as possible the re
verse of the truth.
“ Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to
destruction. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which
leadeth unto life, and /¿w there be that find it.” (Matt, vii.)
Was the road made narrow purposely ?
As regards the narrow road and the strait gate, we are
distinctly told that “ many will seek to enter in and shall
not be able ” (Luke xiii.) And this could not be otherwise,
since “ many are called, but few chosen ” (Matt, xxii.) In
the day when the Son of Man is revealed, we read that “ in
that night there shall be two men in one bed, the one shall
be taken and the other shall be left ” (Luke xvii.) One
class of men are certain to be shut out, << for it is easier for
a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God ” (Luke xviii.) The only
hope for the bishops and the rich supporters of the Church
is to give away all their wealth to their rich relations before
they start on their celestial journey. There is another class
that will hardly get into heaven—“ them that are without
to them “ all these things are done in parables, that seeing
they may see and not perceive, hearing, they may hear and
not understand, lest at any time they should be converted ”
{Mark iv.)
The idea that Jesus came into the world to open up a
broad road for everyone to walk to glory in is but an idea,
not a fact, since he was not sent save to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel (Matt, xv.) And the Lord “ made the
wicked for the day of evil ” (Prov. xvi.) So they have no
chance whatever, and never had any. And St. Paul (Rom. ix.)
defended this as being in harmony with God’s character 1
Even the conditions of discipleship would deter many
from following Jesus, since their love of humanity is higher
than their love of a sect or a leader, and such could not
comply with—“ If any man come unto me, and hate not
�IT
liis father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, &c., he
■cannot be my disciple” (Luke xiv.) It has been urged
that this text is not the pure word of God, that it means
something different; all objectionable texts ought to mean
something different to what they say. For instance, how
absurd to suppose that a follower of Christ should “ hate
his brother,” when we know in that case he. would be .a
“ murderer,” and 11 no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
him ” (i John iii.)
Those who believe the mission of Jesus to be peace, love,
harmony, and goodwill, either do not believe the word, of
God, or require great latitude in interpreting the following
remarkable words : “ I am come to send fire on the earth ”
(Luke xii.); “ Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on
earth? I tell you nay, but rather division” (Luke xii.);
“ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come
not to send peace, but a sword. I am come to set a man
at variance against his father, and the daughter against her
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ”
(Matt, x.)
So far as my observation and reading enable me to judge,
this is the only part of the Gospel of glad tidings and great
joy which has been successfully taught, and the only part
that has been universally adopted in practice.
I believe the amount of family discord, persecution, and
war, caused by. professing religionists, to be almost as great
as has been produced by all other causes put together.
Books have been published to show that Christianity
means pure Democracy, Republicanism, universal liberty,
and all sorts of good things. To judge of these repre
sentations we must appeal to the Book, and truth compels
us to state that there are no such declarations to be found
in it. St. Paul says (Romans xiii.) the powers that be are
ordained of God, and if you resist them you will be damned.
The great patriots that have resisted the powers that be—the
hope of the world and friends of man—are thus all damned.
In Luke xix. we read : “ A certain nobleman went to
receive a kingdom, but the citizens hated him, and said—
We will not have this man to reign over us.” It concludes,
“ But those mine enemies that would not that I should reign
over them, bring them hither and slay them before me.”
These two statements, if they apply to the question at
all, or have any meaning, would appear to teach govern
ment by divine right against the will of the people. If
they illustrate the politics of Jesus, let us be thankful for
�12
his assurance—“My kingdom is not of this world.” (John
xviii.) Submission to governments by divine appointment
received a severe check when the English cut the king’s
head off, and when the French stirred the world by their
mighty revolution.
But the Gospel teaches men not to resist evil—if our
coat is taken, to hand over our cloak; and if our goods are
taken away, not even to ask for them back again! (Matt, v.;
Luke vi.)
Mr. Mill has well said these are texts to pelt adversaries
with, but Christians are not remarkable for anything besides
repeating these texts on Sundays and on special occasions.
Even a Christian does not practise the philosophy of
letting others take from him what he wants and has worked
for himself. The most extreme social theory never pro
poses that another shall take the loaf from my mouth to
fill his own. To do this would be to encourage all sorts
of insult and robbery. The Christians are not such lunatics
as to put these doctrines in practice, but “he that believeth
not shall be damned.”
The Gospel is a message to the poor, we are told, and a
very poor message it is. The poor ye have always with you;
they shall never cease out of the land. “ Blessed be ye
poor;” “Blessed are ye that hunger now” (Luke vi.)
There is a strange contrast between being blessed and
being poor. The one means being in tranquil possession
of good things : the other means wanting proper food,
shelter, comfort, and the means of living a long, pleasant,
and healthy life. Absolute poverty is a state of Christian
perfection, but very few of the bishops are perfect, or care
to be, only those who sit on benches without velvet even
approach perfection among the flock. But “ If thou wilt
be perfect, sell all thou hast, and give to the poor ” (Matt,
xix.; Luke xviii.; Mark x.) “ He that believeth not shall be
damned.”
Suppose this carried out, if one county sells out and
distributes to the poor, and each follows in succession till
the whole nation becomes perfect, it must then sell to some
foreign country, and distribute to some other country, and
when we all become perfect we shall be without a dinner
or a shilling. Very few Christians wish to become perfect,
but “ he that believeth not shall be damned.”
Consistent with this view of poverty is, “ Lay not up
treasures on earth, take no thought for the morrow, for
your life, or what you shall eat, drink, or wear” (Matt, v.)
�i3
Suppose all Europe were converted—ceased to be provi
dent, industrious, and to prepare for the future—how long
would society hold together? Next season the people of
Europe would plant no seed ; they would be imitating the
lords, and bishops, and the lilies of the field, which neither
toil nor spin. The result would be no harvest—no food.
Hence famine and disease would carry them all to glory so
soon as they became perfect Christians. The inhabitants
of these countries would cease to exist, and their Christianity
would recommend itself, by example, only to some nation
desirous of committing suicide !
So soon as Christianity is put into practice, this sinful
world will become the inheritance of the unbelievers. Of
course I shall be told the Christians have more sense than
to put into active service such directions as the Gospel
gives—but “ he that believeth not shall be damned.” To
carry out these doctrines would necessitate constant miracle;
but “ the age of miracles is passed,” saith the wise Shakspere. Science has banished the Deity in our day from all
active or providential interference, and has become itself the
only providence of man. No thoughtful, scientific man
believes that such supernatural aid in this world is either
possible or desirable. The hope of man. now is in know
ledge, industry, and the universal reign of justice.
Miracles reported to have happened are urged in favour
of Christianity being true, but as other systems offer the
same kind of evidence, this does not specially assist the
Christian, and it is not obvious that any doctrine which is
not true and reasonable without miracle, would be so with
miracle. Moreover, Jesus himself shows the futility of
miracles when he says (Luke xvi.) “If they hear not Moses
and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one
rose from the dead.” But did miracles ever happen ? What
is a miracle ?
Let us look at one recorded miracle, that of the loaves and
fishes, the most useful, if it could be wrought. According
to Luke (ix.) an evening party or pic-nic was held away from
the towns and cities, and the natural question arose about
refreshment. About 5,000 men, besides women and chil
dren, formed the party. After inquiry, it was found that
there were only five loaves and two fishes amongst them all.
They sat down on the grass, and were waited on by the
disciples, and were all filled, and twelve baskets of frag
ments remained after this.
Now at a moderate computation each of these fishes,
�14
which one writer describes as “small fishes,” must haveweighed over 2,5oolbs.r and each of the loaves i,ooolbs.r
and the time required to hand it round in the manner de
scribed, at the rate of serving one every minute, would be
over seven hours, long before which time had expired, the
whole party had gone home, according to the Gospel, fer
tile day began towear away before they commenced. Before
evening had come they were alLsent away. (Matt xiv.)
It is highly improbable that “ a lad ” had such loaves and
fishes “ in a basket,” and if not, Jesus must have enlarged
the fishes to the magnitude described, or contracted the
stomachs to fit the occasion. But this is not left doubtful,
because after all had eaten, there were eleven basketsfull’
more than before the eating began.
It is unreasonable to suppose this event ever happened,
and the impracticability of dividing these seven small sub
stances into seven or eight thousand parts, of sufficient mag
nitude to fill an ordinary human stomach, is plain to any
person who devotes five minutes to the consideration of the
subject. To say it was “a miracle” is not to prove that
such an event ever occurred.
Besides, the belief that such an event took place' two
thousand years ago, will not fill one- empty stomach to-day,
and if those who believe can do greater works, why don't they r
i
In a nation containing a million paupers and people dying
of starvation in its greatest cities, such a power of feeding
the empty no benevolent being in heaven or on earth could
refuse to exercise. This is a miracle in print, but in a
country with a national system of education, with the laws of
nature understood by all, and in the presence of a free press,
such a miracle could not be performed. Such is my opinion.
If such a tale were told by the disciples of any other pro
phet, the Christians themselves would reject it as imposture.
And, in my opinion, all the other miracles are like unto this,
evident impossibilities—mere tales.
It is often urged that Christianity must be true because
the early disciples and followers of Jesus had no inducements
to take up the doctrine, that none of their material interests
could be served by it. Let Jesus answer this powerful argu
ment m his own words. Peter said, Lo, we have left all and
followed thee, “ what shall we have I" Jesus said, “Ye
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel.” Again, “ Verily I say unto you, there is no man
that hath left house, brethren, sisters, mother, wife, children,
or lands for my sake and the Gospel’s, but he shall receive
�i5
an hundred-fold’ now in this time, houses, brethren, sisters,,
mothers, children, and lands, with persecutions, and in the
world to come eternal life.” (Matt, xix.; Mark x.)
These offers are so tempting, that I have often wondered
why the whole of the Jews did not join the movement for
that reason only. The reader will observe that the word.
“ wives ” does not occur in the “ hundred-fold/’ but “ per
secutions ” does. This, and the fact that they may have
doubted the security, may be offered as a partial explanation.
The Gospel is preached as the charter of freedom to the
oppressed sons of toil. St. Paul advises men to obey their
masters, “with fear and trembling ” (Eph. vi.) If a man haslabour to sell, what has he to fear if the master buys and
pays, for it ? “ Servants, obey your masters in all things
(Col. iii.) “ Be content with such things as ye have,” and
says he himself is contented in any state (Phil, iv.) What
sublime doctrine for nigger-drivers, but how about the nigger ?To him this means perpetual bondage. No man ever raised
himself by being contented, by obeying everybody, or by
living in fear of and trembling at all above him ! The
religion of Christ is much beloved by women. The greatest
apostle writes •. “ Wives submit yourselves unto your own
husbands, as unto the Lord; as the- Church is subject to
Christ, so let wives be to their husbands in everything”
(Eph. v.)
Can anything be more degrading than the entire submis
sion of one half the world to the other half? Because a
human being happens to be a woman—a wife—is that any
reason why she should sink her individuality ? Surely the
black people of America are in a nobler position than this.
But women are getting wiser than the Gospel, and the serf
dom of Paul is being superseded by women becoming
citizens of a free state. This new fashion becomes a woman,
and may it endure when the writings of Paul are forgotten.
The great struggle in modern Europe has been, and is, an
endeavour to reverse all the texts quoted, to counteract the
operation of them, to oppose them, and supersede them.
Instead of all this, called Christianity, we have great efforts
to drive slavery out of existence, to raise the labourer by
co-operation, to institute governments by the people for the
people, to encourage prudence and forethought, savings
banks, sick societies, life insurance societies, sanitary im
provements, improved dwellings, education, and all other
conceivable means for the prevention of evil and the increase
of human comfort.
�i6
Christianity is often defended by quoting sensible, moral
texts borrowed from Secular or Pagan writers, incorporated
in the New Testament, and opposite texts can be quoted in
reply, as shown in this paper. Let Christians admit that
Christianity in its theory is wrong, and that Pagan or Secular
moral teaching is right, then my opposition ceases, not till
then.
.
Apart from the doctrines which some pretend to believe,
and no one attempts to practise, I reject the Jesus whose
father was a god or an angel, who could fast, forty days, see
all the world off the top of one mountain, raise the dead for
no practical purpose, leaving Socrates, Confucius, Plato, and
Aristotle still under ground. I do not believe m the Jesus
who could walk on the sea, and not teach, others how to do
it, feed many thousands on next to nothing, and not leave
the secret how he did it, who could wither a. fig-tree and
get nothing off it, send into the sea innocent little pigs that
belonged to somebody else, who could speak of a glorious
time and not stay to realise it, keeping the word of promise
to the ear, but breaking the heart full of expectation. 1 do
not believe in the Jesus who came to save.the world and
left without saving it, leaving it as full of ignorance and
crime as when he entered it, promising to come again and
upset everything except himself and his own party. 1 do
not believe in the Jesus who went out of the world as mys
teriously as he came into it, leaving men gazing and watch
ing for his second appearance before, they tasted death.
(Matthew xvi.) His divided, persecuting, inconsistent fol
lowers still wait. Let them wait. In the meantime,' we
advise men to look for something better—to throw away
these childish superstitions, to work out their own redemp
tion by intelligence and self-reliant effort—for there, is
nothing more injurious to mankind than this Christian
deified error.
SECOND EDITION.—PRICE TWOPENCE.
Printed and Published by C. Watts, 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street,
London, E.C.
�
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The dark side of Christianity, showing it unreasonable and impracticable
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Cattell, Charles Cockbill
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Christianity
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g, 23^
tUilX
Pamphlets for the People
No. 18
Christianity
and Ethics
I
BY
CHAPMAN COHEN
2d.
THE PIONEER PRESS
�Christianity and Social Ethics
The whirligig of time brings many changes. Time was
when Christianity imposed rules upon mankind, and in the
plentitude of its power decided what should or should not
be permitted to exist. Today thinkers are no longer under
the necessity of proving that their teachings are in harmony
with religion; it is Christianity that feels called upon to
show that its teachings are in agreement with established
truth. The support of a scientific name is angled for,
fought for, and when obtained advertised with the
persistence of a quack medicine vendor advertising his
cures. Contemporary Christianity not only craves the
assistance of forms of thought which it denounced as born
of the devil and tried its hardest to suppress, but every
passing mental fashion, every social movement or political
agitation—provided it commands a fair measure of public
support-—finds Christian organisations ready with ex
pressions of friendship and promises of support.
It is, therefore, only to be expected that as there is
to-day less faith and interest in religious questions, and
more concern for social and humanitarian ones, the attitude
of church and chapel should undergo a corresponding
change. Purely religious doctrines are kept discreetly in the
background, those bearing a social aspect are brought to the
front, and the public is informed, sometimes by inuendo,
sometimes by direct statement, that the social betterment
of the people is the prime, if not the only concern of
genuine Christianity. Instead of being openly taught,
purely religious beliefs are implied or suggested. Vague
texts that may be anything, everything, or nothing are cited.
Professions of good will, such as no system, secular or
religious, is without, are produced as authoritative endorse-
�3
ments of the most definite of modern social theories. Above
all, the name of Jesus is kept constantly to the fore. On
the strength of a handful of moral commonplaces—all
perfectly familiar to the people of his day—he is accounted
the greatest of social reformers. That he seized upon a
little child as an illustration of the type of mind necessary
to gain eternal felicity in the next world, is proof positive
of his profound care for children in this. His preaching
to the poor—although there is no evidence that the poor
were specially selected—is proof of his deep concern for
their social welfare. His obvious belief in the approach
ing end of the world—a belief shared by his immediate
followers—is made to mean the redress of social and
political injustice only. His dependence upon super
natural methods of help, supernatural methods of curing
disease, and the fact that once eliminate the supernatural
there is no reason whatever for his existence, all these con
siderations are slurred over or their relevancy flatly denied.
And so by eliminating objectionable aspects and over
emphasising favourable ones, by ignoring all the circum
stances of time, place, and culture, a poor Jewish peasant
is transformed into the ideal leader of modern social
reform. No other person is treated in such a manner, and
if any were, there is hardly one who could not be elevated
to the same pinacle of excellence.
In spite, however, of such apologetic tactics, the con
viction that ourely Christian morality is at best inadequate,
and at worst dangerous, steadily gains strength. And this
conviction is really more inimical to Christianity than
would be an equally widespread conviction of its falsity.
For the average person will more easily tolerate a false
teaching than a palpably dangerous one. Thousands of
people give Christianity their support because they believe
it to be socially useful, not because they have, a conviction
that its teachings embody any vital truth. Meanwhile it is
the developing moral consciousness of the public that is
testing Christianity most severely. That we no longer hear
�4
from the pulpits so much of the cruder and more brutal
Christian teachings is due in part to the sustained criticism
of recent years; but something is also due to the fact that
people are outgrowing such teachings, and that were they
now generally preached, congregations would be filled with
contemptuous pity* or sheer disgust. To evade the intellec
tual attack apologists have talked largely of Christianity’s
ethical value, and of the "moral homage to Christ." And
now that the public at large is beginning to have doubts
upon this point, the end would seem to be approaching
with rapid steps.
What are the objections that may be properly raised
against Christianity from the standpoint of a sane social
morality?
They may be stated as follows:—
Christianity is " a negative or ascetic ideal, and can
not therefore be the true ideal of such a being as man
in such a world as this. It not merely invalidates the
instincts and interests of the healthy-minded man, it
further degrades and enslaves the human spirit itself,
and paralyses, instead of stimulating its highest powers.
Its morality is not merely lacking in virility and
strength; it destroys the virile qualities in human
nature, and substitutes servility and cowardice for the
masterfulness and courage which are inseparable from
strength of purpose and self-respect and its anti-social
tendencies which make it impossible to construct any
social order in accordance with its principles.’’
Asceticism is not a transient phenomenon in Christian
history; it is more or less constant, and such a general
phenomenon must be attributed to more than a mere
accident.
Asceticism is so deeply embedded in Christianity that all
the efforts of the churches have never yet been able to
suppress it. Its ideal figure, Jesus, was a celibate. His
�s
great disciple, Paul, declared that it was better to remain
unmarried than to marry, and only sanctioned marriage for
the lowest of reasons. In heaven there was to be neither
marriage nor giving in marriage (Matt, xxii., 30), a teach
ing emphasized by the writer of Revelations, who saw
144,000 around the Throne, all virgins (Rev. xiv.? 3);
while the saying of Jesus (Matt, xix., 12) bore its fruit in
the practice of self-mutilation among some of the Christians
of the early centuries. Asceticism was deliberately taught
by the early Christian fathers as the most desirable state.
Denunciation of " worldly pleasures,” and the duty of
mortifying the flesh, has been one of the stock features
of the Christian teaching from the earliest ages to the
present, with Catholic and Protestant alike . . . and we do
not yet know how to take life in a frankly, healthy spirit,
with the result that we are always oscillating between
unhealthy outbursts of over indulgence in purely sensual
pleasures, and equally unhealthy displays of a prurient
puritanism.
Now it is certainly far easier to trace the influence of
Jesus and of historic Christianity in this direction than in
that of sweetening and purifying life. That those who
took the ascetic view were mistaken is at best an assump
tion : that they were sincere does not admit of question.
It may also be noted that there is a strange dearth of teach
ing in the New Testament concerning the family. True it
is not condemned, but it is in part deprecated, and in part
ignored. One might go carefully through the New Testa
ment without finding enough counsel therein on which to
bring up a family. Among the Christain writers of the
first few centuries the teaching that family life was more
or less of a drag on spiritual development held a high
place.. A few—and a very few—do pay a little attention
to this topic, but with all there is an absence of any
adequate conception of the influence of family life in
refining and elevating human nature. It will be noted how
seldom children are mentioned in the Christian writings of
�6
the first three centuries, and the less pleasing features of
the succeeding centuries can be attributed to this omission.
The Christian appeal was to the individual as such, and not
always to the individual at his best. The clarifying con
ception of the individual as an expression of family and
social life is quite absent.
And when we add to these grave faults of omission
and commission the inculcation of indiscriminate almsgiv
ing, the contempt of riches, and the blessings of poverty, the
teaching of non-resistance, the behest to trust in God who
will care for man as he cares for the birds of the air and
the lilies of the field, with the exhortation to the disciples
to trust for support to the charity of those amid whom they
preach, the absurdity of parading genuine Christian morality
as an adequate social ethic becomes apparent. We are
not dealing with a gospel of social regeneration, but with
a teaching of asceticism perfectly familiar to students of
Eastern religions.
Far from Christianity presenting us with an adequate
social ethic, it is positively deficient in both a rational com
ception of the nature of morality and of the conditions of
its development. The mere enunciation of superficially
attractive moral precepts does not—to modern minds, at
least—constitute a man a great moral teacher, and it is cer
tain the world is not perishing for want of moral counsel
of this description. Moral maxims and precepts have always
been sufficiently plentiful, generally ignored, and largely
useless. Those who by nature could appreciate them stood
in small need of their guidance: those who did need their
guidance were unable to appreciate them. Moreover,
general precepts of the nature of those attributed to Jesus,
and which Christian teachers have been always pleased to
preach-—and ignore—are necessarily vague in character, and
correspondingly useless in practice. To be of use we require
with such precepts some rule of interpretation that would
allow of their application to the changing circumstances of
a developing society. To love one’s neighbour as one’s self
A
�7
may be a good enough rule, but its value will depend upon
the circumstances determining its application. Christians
who made the dungeon and the stake the reward of heresy
were often enough convinced that they were acting in the
best interests of their neighbours in seeking to enforce
uniformity of belief upon all. So, too, with such a teaching
as " The labourer is worthy of his hire.” One cannot well
conceive anyone disagreeing with this : and the agreement
robs it of all practical value. What is needed is not the
vague counsel that he who labours should receive adequate
payment, but some equitable rule of determining what the
social value of labour really is. The truth is that such
precepts were never intended to apply to such social
problems as confront modern society, and therefore they
break down with any attempt! to apply them.
o
" On the greater number of moral questions on which
men require moral guidance Jesus has left no direction
whatever.”
The teaching of Jesus ignores the problems of industry,
of civilisation, and of culture, and in so doing does
positively nothing to develope the essential and all im
portant element in life. The great fault of all Christian
teaching and of Christian teachers has been the assumption
that morality can develope without appropriate material and
social conditions. Morality has been treated as though it
existed in vacuo. It was in life, but it had no organic
connection therewith, while social and material conditions
have been looked on more as hindrances to a perfect
morality than as the indispensable medium of its existence.
People have been surfeited with moral teaching, while the
conditions that would have made it of any value have been
persistently ignored. Yet morality neither develops out
of teaching nor does it altogether depend upon teaching
for its development. The primary obligation to morality
is not from precept, but from life. Precept only sum
marises a portion of what life has made manifest. The
�8
purest flower of human conduct has its roots in the
material conditions of life, and purely animal instincts
of the human organism. Divorced from such conditions
morality not only loses all meaning, it ceases to exist-—it
is as valueless as a plant from which one has cut the roots.
In their action Christian teachers have doubtless followed
the lead of the New Testament Jesus, and their failure is
the result. Pagan philosophy gives us a much higher
presentment of ethical truths, a much more satisfactory
analysis of moral states. It is from the Pagan writings
that we get a glimpse of the truth that it is a sanely
ordered and developed intelligence that provides the
surest guarantee of a satisfactory moral life. Purely Chris
tian teaching knows it not; and the result is seen not only
in the constant opposition of organised Christianity to
scientific thought, but also in the continuous depreciation
of character under its influence. Ignoring both the material
and social conditions that make for a higher ethical life, it
has prevented the little good that might have accrued from
the doleful repetition of official moral platitudes.
The absurdity of parading the gospel Jesus, as a social
reformer, is still more apparent when we note that the New
Testament is silent on precisely those questions that con
cern the scientific sociologist. To commence with, the con
ception of the State as a definite organic structure is quite
outside its purview. In the New Testament the only
counsel concerning the State is of a kind to which modern
thinking will attach little value. We are to render
obedience to the " powers that be,” for they are " ordained
of God,” and to resist them merits damnation. Historically,
Christianity has carried out this teaching with a consider
able degree of faithfulness. Every form of political and
social tyranny has in turn received the unquestioning
support of organised Christianity. Occasionally when the
secular power has threatened the interests of the; Church—
often in the interests of the people—there have been signs
of insubordination-—but in the main its subservience has
�9
been complete. So far as the early Christians are concerned
political liberty and social reform were the things that
concerned them least. It will be noted that as the Roman
Empire became more Christian, so it became more sub
missive to the oriental form of government. The people '
lost their love of liberty, their taste for political indepen
dence. In the Christian spirit there was no turn for
liberty, no rebellion, no assertion of right. The process
was practically completed by Constantine, who found
Christianity his most useful ally. And for obvious reasons.
" It strengthened in them (i.e., the people) the feeling of
submissive reverence for government as such; it encouraged
the disposition of the time to political passiveness. It was
intensely conservative, and gave to power with one hand as
much as it took away with the other. Constantine extended
his patronage to the church and by so doing, he may be
said to have purchased an indefeasible title by a charter.
He gained a sanction for the Oriental theory of government.
In all disputes between authority and liberty the traditions
of Christianity are on the side of authority . . . The whole
modern struggle for liberty has been conducted without
help from the authoritative documents of Christianity. In
the French Revolution men turned from the New Testament
to Plutarch. . . . Plutarch furnished them with the teaching
they required for their special purpose, but the New Testa
ment met all their new-born political ardour with a silence
broken only here and there bv exhortations to submission.
Jt R. Seel&y.
. Nothing was further from the minds of primitive Chris
tians than social reform; nothing more foreign to the whole
of the New Testament than a political philosophy. That the
State—in the sense of the entire social structure—could be,
and in fact is, the great determinant in the life of man, is
a view of things never once reached by the New Testament
writers. The individual is addressed as an individual, not
as a member of an organic whole. Yet in any really scien
tific view of the case general individual improvement is to
be realised through social life, or not at all. For an ulti
mate analysis will show that man as an individual is an ex
pression of social forces—forces that precede and survive
his personal existence. Language, habit, frames of mind
�10
and forms of belief are all a product of the social medium,
and are only properly explainable by reference to social
conditions. To consider man apart from this social medium
is, to use an old metaphor, like considering the structure
’of a bird while ignoring the existence of an atmosphere.
Divorce the individual from society, and from both the
standpoints of psychology and natural history, he is an
insoluble enigma.
Such a conception is, however^ quite foreign to the New
Testament, as is also that of a sense of obligation to the
public at large. In this respect Christian ethics is much
inferior to Pagan teaching. The question of the con
stitution of the ideal State, studies of existing social struc
tures, with teachings concerning the duties of the individual
to society, were common enough among Pagan writers.
The narrowing influence of Christian teaching at its
best may be seen by a single illustration. In the Republic
(Bk.v., c. 10) Plato had likened the State to the human or
ganism, the parts of which suffer with any injury to the
whole, the whole losing or gaining with injury or benefit to
any of its parts. There is an obvious echo of this in one
portion of St. Paul’s teaching. The same illustration is
used, but with an important difference. The Pagan applies
it to the State as a whole; the Christian teacher carries it no
further than a petty organism within the State. In the
hands of Plato the principle was essentially inclusive and
social. In the hands of Paul it is essentially exclusive and
sectarian. The one is based upon a perception of the fact
that the interdependence of human beings is a natural, an
organic fact, transcending and embracing all smaller
differences. The other is no more than an appreciation of
the necessity of common action and mutual support among
a select community united by the bonds of a common belief.
Under such conditions the conception could only serve as
a social bond in the improbable event of the whole of the
members of a society being in voluntary agreement on
questions that must always be of a speculative character.
�11
And, as a mere matter of historical fact, Christianity has
always served more as a cause of social division than of
social union.
Christian teaching, on this head, is on a much lower
plane than that current among the Pagans. Instead of
teachings concerning the nature and function of the State,
we have either an ignoring of the subject, or the doctrine
that the State is to be accepted as a fact wherever it exists,
and whatever its form, and that its commands are to be
obeyed whenever they do not directly traverse Christian
teachings and practices. The legitimate fruit of the Chris
tian conception of social duty was seen in the advice of
Luther given to the princes, that they might shoot, stab,
poison, or put out of the way like mad dogs, those peasants
who had risen against the hereditary feudalism of their
time.
The case against Christian social morality is still further
enforced when we note the New Testament teaching con
cerning the position of woman and the question of slavery.
In both cases Christian teaching fails to reach the highest
level of Pagan thought. Women are commanded to keep
silence in the churches; they are not to be permitted to
teach; the man is to be looked upon as the head of the
woman, as Christ is the head of the Church; and wives are
ordered to obey their husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham—a form of obedience that would get a husband lynched now
adays, were it insisted on. In the early Christian literature
women are denounced as incurably vile; opprobious epithets
are showered upon her; she is everwhere treated as an in
ferior creature. Certainly no literature the world has yet
seen has taken a lower view of women than that assumed in
the Christian writings of the first few centuries, nor have
centuries of subsequent development quite destroyed, in the
average Christian mind, the poor conception of woman
engendered in the early centuries of this era.
So, again, with slavery. The only form in which Chris
�12
tianity encountered a labour problem in early times was in
the form of the question of slavery. And with what result?
In all the recorded utterances of the Gospel Jesus, there is
not a single condemnation of slavery as an institution. In
the Pagan world the question of the legitimacy of slavery
was already beginning to excite interest; slaves themselves
were exhibiting symptoms of unrest; but the Gospel Jesus
appears oblivious to their existence. Further, we find St.
Paul sending back a runaway slave to his master, and com
manding slaves (wrongly translated " servants ” in the
English New Testament) to be obedient to their masters, in
fear and trembling, whether they be good or bad, and to
count them as being "worthy of all honour,’’ whether the
masters be believers or unbelievers; while to bear unmerited
punishment in silence and patience is to be counted to their
honour hereafter. The influence of this Christian teaching
and spirit was seen in the absolute cessation of the Pagan
legislation for the betterment of the lot of the slave,
followed by a re-introduction, under Christian emperors,
of some of the harsher features that had been removed.
The modern black-slave trade, it must also be noted, was
pre-eminently a Christian traffic—instituted by Christians,
and at a time when the supremacy of Christianity was
practically unquestioned. And it remained, backed up by
Christians, who quoted thq New Testament and " the pure
Christianity of Apostolic times ” as their authorities, until
the writings of Thomas Paine, with the perception that
free labour was economically more advantageous than
forced labour, led to its abolition. And the glaring fact
remains that no Christian country has ever abolished slavery
while its continuance was economically profitable. Thus
an examination of the one point on which both the teaching
and influence of Christianity on the position of the poor
could be decisively tested, results in an emphatic con
demnation.
A defence of Christian morality is often attempted, not
from the standpoint of direct teaching, but from that of its
�13
sympathy with weakness and suffering, and the spirit of
compassion it has evoked. Now no one, so far as I am
aware, has any complaint to make against sympathy with
suffering, or with the desire to help such as fall by the way
in the struggle of life. Still it could, I think, be shown that
even in this direction Christianity, bv placing sympathy on a
sectarian rather than a humanitarian basis, has given its
development anything but a healthy turn. But the point
of any criticism against Christianity is that, by its lack of
desirable social teaching and intellectual discipline, it has
tended to make sympathy with suffering maudlin and in
jurious instead of sane and helpful. Had Christianity merely
taught kindness towards the unfortunate, criticism would
have been impossible. But it has done more. It has
glorified weakness and suffering, and held them up as
necessary elements in an ideal character. It has taught
people to be patient under wrong and oppression, where
a preaching of discontent would have been far more help
ful. It has preached patience—not the patience that results
from the stern resolve to bear the inevitable with courage,
but the patience that recognises in misery the work of an
all-powerful providence whose decrees it is blasphemy to
question. Patience of the former kind may have its uses;
patience of the latter and Christian kind only makes the
continued existence of wrong the more certain.
All that Christian teaching has ever done is, at most, to
make the lot of the sufferer a little more tolerable. But,
so far as our sympathies lead to this, without our know
ledge causing us to essay the task of preventing the per
petuation of evil social conditions and the continued exis
tence of an undesirable type, our sympathies tend to' become
our deadliest enemies instead of our best friends. The
problem before us is a simple one, so far as its statement is
concerned. Nature’s method of securing a desirable type
is by a process of sheer elimination. The growth of
sympathy and knowledge places a check upon this process
in human society. Both unite in keeping alive those who,
�14
under other conditions, would have been killed off. I am
not aware that anyone would wish it to be otherwise, only
while this is the case all would be better pleased did an
undesirable kind not exist. Still more pleased should we
be at the destruction of those social conditions of which an
undesirable type is, in part, an expression. But to per
petuate a poor kind of human nature is desirable from
neither a biological nor a social point of view. The great
question before society today is really this : Having sus
pended the operation of natural selection in a particular
direction in relation to human society, what are we doing to
bring about the birth of a better type, or to secure its
survival, once it is brought into the world? And, from
the standpoint of this enquiry, the question is : What has
Christianity ever done, either in teaching or in practice, to
give'a satisfactory lead on the matter?
A candid enquiry would show that Christianity, by its
foolish glorification of suffering and pain, by the very fact
of the quality of its ideal character, has not only done
nothing positive, but it has blinded people to the real
gravity of the danger. From thousands of pulpits it has
preached that pain develops character, that suffering
sweetens and ennobles life. They do nothing of the kind.
They deaden and degrade. The world is full of broken
and blasted lives that would have been far different from
what they are but for their experience of pain and misery.
This teaching has been a useful one for the few whose
power has been consolidated by its acceptance; it has been
a disastrous teaching for the many. By its influence the
public conscience has been deadened to the existence of the
mass of removable misery in its midst. Christian sympathy
may have made its existence bearable; a healthy intelligence
would have made its continuance an impossibility.
In truth, the intellectual insight and foresight necessary
to frame a satisfactory moral or social code is quite lacking,
both in Christianity and in its titular founder. Taking the
character of Jesus as it stands in the New Testament, its
�15
intellectual calibre is far below that of Zoroaster, Confucius,
or Buddha. In the case of either of these we encounter
flashes of wisdom, deep insight into many of the problems
of life. In the case of the Gospel Jesus we never leave the
region of moral platitude. Instead of the thinker wrestling
with the world’s problems, we have the religious enthusiast
exhorting the people to submit to the will of God. We
find him insisting on the value of blind faith, while
ignoring the need of right enquiry and the conditions of
rational belief, and threatening vengeance against such as
reject his message. Even in the case of the injunction
against oath-taking, it is the lower, not the higher ground
that is taken. The reason given is a religious one, where
it should have been rejected as a slur upon a person’s
honesty, and an appeal to his fear of punishment instead of
to his love of truth.
Surrounded by all forms of superstition, Jesus rejected
none. All were accepted without question. Outside Judea,
Pagan science had propounded correct theories as to the
shape of the earth, the true nature of disease, the causes of
many natural phenomena, while the conception of natural
law was steadily gaining ground. Never for a moment does
Jesus show himself superior to the ignorance of the Jewish
peasantry amidst whom he moved. The belief in legions
of angels and devils and in demoniacal possession is held
with a gravity that would be laughable but for its sorrow
ful after-consequences. For it was his example that gave
a fuller measure of authority to the witch hunts of the 16th
and 17th centuries, and to the practice of exorcism as a
cure for lunacy. The teachings upon this head are plain
and unmistakable. No one doubts their meaning, and no
one believes them. And yet the teacher who laid down
this ignorant doctrine, who looked for legions of angels
to carry out his bidding, and who walked with, talked with,
and cast out devils, whose whole teaching was based upon
a discredited supernaturalism, is held up before us as an
ideal social reformer and perfect moral guide!
�16
What do we really find when we carefully and honestly
test Christian morality? We have a founder who has
nothing to do with civilisation, with culture, with work, or
industry. We have an ideal character, himself a celibate
and encouraging celibacy in others, its greatest apostle
recommending celibacy as the more desirable state, and
celibacy upheld by the greatest of Christian Churches
throughout the whole of its existence. We have the whole
question of the State ignored, with a complete absence of
any recognition of the fact that man is a member of a
social organism, whose salvation is only to be gained
through the salvation of the whole. We find slavery
endorsed, and women deliberately relegated to an inferior
position, with an absence of an adequate code for the
rearing of a family. We have a number of moral maxims,
largely useless because of their vague character, some harm
ful because of the extravagant form in which they are
cast, and all without the intellectual perception of the
conditions that make a sane morality possible. And finally,
we have the whole of these teachings crystalised in organisa
tions that have admittedly acted with disastrous influence
on the world’s welfare. People of all shades of political
and social opinion, it is sometimes said, look to Jesus for
guidance. They may, but their doing so is surely evidence
that no clear rule of guidance is to be found in that quarter.
For real help, man is thrown back upon himself, and
although many—some for interested purposes, sjme for
other reasons—continue to cloak the fruits of human
experience with a religious covering, one day we may
hope the non-essential will be discarded, and honour given
where it is due.
Issued for the Secular Society, Ltd., and Printed and Published by
The Pioneer Press (G. W. Foote & Co., Ltd.), 41 Grays Inn Rd.,
London, W.C.I.
�
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Christianity and ethics
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Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
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Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 18
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Christianity
Ethics
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RELIGION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “ HACKNEY AND KINGSLAND GAZETTE.
Sir,—As you have for some time past been favouring your readers
with the views of several of the ministers of the neighbourhood on Theology,
perhaps you will kindly find space for the following views of a layman on
what he presumes to call “ Religion,” and oblige,
Yours respectfully,
I believe in Rational Christianity, pure and simple, or Christian mo
rality, as was taught by Christ; in contra-distinction to the adulterated
clerical Christianity now so prevalent, and which has almost elbowed the
Christianity of Christ out of the world; whereby superstition and foolish
rites and ceremonies are substituted in the room of pure morality, true vir
tue, and genuine religion. I believe the Christianity of Christ to he
“ Peace on earth, goodwill to man,” the love of God and our neighbour,
universal charity and benevolence, and the golden rule of “ doing to
others as w7e would have them to do unto us,” and not in the incomprehensible
creeds and unintelligible dogmas of popular theology. I believe in a God
of perfect justice, who rewards the good in exact proportion to their merits,
and proportionately punishes the wicked ; such punishments being correc
tive and purifying : “ whatsoever a man sows so shall he reap.” That the
favour of God and happiness are to be procured by repentance and amend
ment; by personal not by vicarious agency. That well-matured reason and
conscience are the best guides to be depended on, and if we neglect or re
nounce their directions and admonitions, we lay ourselves open to all man
ner of delusion and priestcraft, hateful to God and destructive to mankind.
That instead of stereotyped creeds, blind zeal, and religious persecution for
“righteousness’ sake,” we should promote love, peace, temperance, gratitude,
charity and universal benevolence : so as to reduce religion to that plain,
simple system^ of aiming to attain that abstract perfection as taught by
Christ, wJ^Bjd“ Be ye perfect.” The principles to promote $hese are few
and easy: lst/l^^e is a God, an Almighty Creator, to whom all existence
belongs and is subject) and who ought to be worshipped by all mankind.
2nd, That by his7 immutable laws, the good are rewarded and the wicked
punished here and hereafter. 3rd, That repentance and reformation are
.required to obtain the one and escape the other. 4th, That true religion
�2
is that which was stated by Christ, “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and soul and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself.”'
To love God is to love all “ Good,” as truth, justice, charity, and every
good work ; to love truth is to love the “ God of Truth,” &c.
I do not believe in the orthodox view of the atonement, that Christ
came to reconcile God to us, but rather that he came to reconcile us to God..
I do not believe in the necessity of his having to be crucified, and to take
upon himself the sins of all, before man could be saved ; if such were the
case how infinitely grateful we ought to be to those orthodox Jews who
cruelly put him to death, in order that we might be saved ! Neither do I
•believe in the orthodoxy of the present day, which says “there are three
Gods all equal,” and yet so unequal that one God is ever interceding, and
endeavouring to appease the wrath of another God ! if so, one must be in
the wrong ! I believe in the absolute perfection of a Divine Creator, and
who does not thus require to be changed in order that endless punishment
may be averted, for temporary sins. I believe that God is love, and that
his “ mercy” and not his chastisement “ endureth for ever.”
I do not believe in “ original sin” and that man was pre-ordained to
be its victim ; nor in the destruction of unbaptized infants, as the Roman
and Anglican priests tell us. I prefer Christ’s doctrine ; he says “ of such
is the kingdom of Heaven.” I do not believe in that best friend of priest
craft,—a personal devil, and who is said to be more mighty than the Allmighty in obtaining the greatest number of immortal souls, thus having
power to thwart God’s providence,—nor in a material hell-fire, which is
ever consuming those souls. I do not believe “ in three Gods, yet one
God” which the Church of England says we must believe or “ without
doubt perish everlastingly.” Its creeds are to me downright blasphemy.
1 do not believe that the Bible was divinely inspired” from beginning to
end and was all written by the “finger of God.” I believe the Bible was made
for man, not man for the Bible, that it is an historical, moral and spiritual
teacher, not altogether correct, but containing many truths and many
errors ; a compilation of different works by different authors, written at
different periods, and by the most learned and wise men of their day, but
that neither they nor their works are infallible, as the science of geology
and astronomy, and even their own contradictions prove. That men in
after ages collected and bound together such of these books as they thought
proper and called them the Bible, and that these selfsame human beings,
at the Council of Nice, &c., rejected such other books as they thought
of less worthy note ; that these men were also as learned and wise as the
times would permit, but not infallible and possibly not altogether without
prejudice or partiality.
I believe real Christianity to be absolute religion, which thinks and
works ; goodness towards man, and piety towards God; undogmatic, un
sectarian, liberal, broad and free, preached wdth faith and applied to life,
being good and doing good. There is but one real rel i gih we need
only open our eyes to see, and which requires neither creeds nor catechisms
to discern; only live it, in love to God and man, and we are blessed by
Him who liveth for ever, in spite of all that priests and their dupes may say
to the contrary, for thank God they are not to be our judges, other
wise few would escape.
�RELIGION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “ HACKNEY AND KINGSLAND GAZETTE.”
Sir,—As you have for some time past beeD favouring your readers
with the views of several of the ministers of the neighbourhood on Theology,
perhaps you will kindly find space for the following views of a layman on
what he presumes to call “ Religion,” and oblige,
Yours respectfully,
C.
I believe in Rational Christianity, pure and simple, or Christian mo
rality, as was taught by Christ; in contra-distinction to the adulterated
■clerical Christianity now so prevalent, and which has almost elbowed the
Christianity of Christ out of the world; whereby superstition and foolish
rites and ceremonies are substituted in the room of pure morality, -true vir
tue, and genuine religion. I believe the Christianity of Christ to be
“ Peace on earth, goodwill to man,” the love of God and our neighbour,
universal charity and benevolence, and the golden rule of “ doing to
others as we would have them to do unto us,” and not in the incomprehensible
creeds and unintelligible dogmas of popular theology. I believe in a God
-of perfect justice, who rewards the good in exact proportion to their merits,
and proportionately punishes the wicked ; such punishments being correc
tive and purifying : “ whatsoever a man sows so shall he reap.” That the
favour of God and happiness are to be procured by repentance and amend
ment; by personal not by vicarious agency. That well-matured reason and
■conscience are the best guides to be depended on, and if we neglect or re
nounce their directions and admonitions, we lay ourselves open to all man
ner ot delusion and priestcraft, hateful to God and destructive to mankind,
that instead of stereotyped creeds, blind zeal, and religious persecution for
“righteousness’ sake,’ we should promote love, peace, temperance, gratitude,
charity and universal benevolence : so as to reduce religion to that plain,
simple system of aiming to attain that abstract perfection as taught by
Christ, who said “ Be yeperfect.” The principles to promote these are few
.and easy: 1st, There is a God, an Almighty Creator, to whom all existence
belongs and is subject, and who ought to be worshipped by all mankind.
2nd, 1 hat by his immutable laws, the good are rewarded and the wicked
punished here and hereafter. 3rd, Ihat repentance and reformation are
.required to obtain the one and escape the other. 4th, That true religion
�2
is that which was stated by Christ, (t Thou shall love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and soul and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself.”'
To love God is to love all “ Good,” as truth, justice, charity, and every
good work ; to love truth is to love the “ God of Truth,” &q.
I do not believe in the orthodox view of the atonement, that Christ’
came to reconcile God to us, but rather that he came to reconcile us to Gods
I do not believe in the necessity of his having to be crucified, and to take
upon himself the sins of all, before man could be saved ; if such were the
case how infinitely grateful we ought to be to those orthodox Jews who
cruelly put him to death, in order that we might be saved ! Neither do I
believe in the orthodoxy of the present day, which says “ there are three
Gods all equal,’" and yet so wnequal that one God is ever- interceding, and
endeavouring to appease the wrath of another God! if so, one must be in
the wrong ! I believe in the absolute perfection of a Divine Creator, and
who does not thus require to be changed in order that endless punishment
may be averted, for temporary sins. I believe that God is love, and that
his “ mercy” and not his chastisement “ endureth for ever.”
I do not believe in “ original sin” and that man was pre-ordained tn
be its victim ; nor in the destruction of unbaptized infants, as the Roman
and Anglican priests tell us. I prefer Christ’s doctrine ; he says “ of such'
is the kingdom of Heaven.” I do not believe in that best friend of priest
craft,—a personal devil, and who is said to be more mighty than the Allmighty in obtaining the greatest number of immortal souls, thus having
power to thwart God’s providence,—nor in a material hell-fire, which isever consuming those souls. I do not believe “ in three Gods, yet one
God” which the Church of England says we must believe or “ without
doubt perish everlastingly.” Its creeds are to me downright blasphemy.
I do not believe that the Bible was divinely inspired” from beginning toend and was all written by the “finger of God,” I believe the Bible was made
for man, not man for the Bible, that it is an historical, moral and spiritual
teacher, not altogether correct, but containing many truths and many
errors ; a compilation of different works by different authors, wr itten at
different periods, and by the most learned and wise men of their day, but
that neither they nor their works are infallible, as the science of geology
and astronomy, and even their own contradictions prove. That men in
after ages collected and bound together such of these books as they thought
proper and called them the Bible, and that these selfsame human beings,
at the Council of Nice, &c., rejected such other books as they thought
of less worthy note ; that these men were also as learned and wise as the
times would permit, but not infallible and possibly not altogether withottt
prejudice or partiality.
I believe real Christianity to be absolute religion, which thinks and
ivorks ; goodness towards man, and piety towards God; undogmatic, un
sectarian, liberal, broad and free, preached with faith and applied to life,
being good and doing good. There is but one real religion, which we need
only open our eyes to see, and 5vhich requires neither creeds nor catechisms
to discern; only live it, in love to God and man, and we are blessed by
Him who liveth for ever, in spite of all that priests and their dupes may say
to the contrary, for thank God they are not to be our judges, other
wise few would escape.
�
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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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Religion. To the editor of the "Hackney and Kingsland Gazette."
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Conner, W.E.
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[1865]
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[s.n.]
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Theology
Religion
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Religion. To the editor of the "Hackney and Kingsland Gazette."), 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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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 2 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A letter to the editor of the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette. Pencilled inscription on front page below the printed 'yours respectfully C.' : 'W.E. Conner, formerly of So. Pl. Chapel". An illegible word pencilled opposite the Conner signature. Reprinted from the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette, October 7, 1865. Ink stain on front page.
Christianity
Conway Tracts
Rationalism
-
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Text
THIRD
THOUSAND.
n.waaja CcM StA*m *1
No. 4.— TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
ON THE HUMAN CAUSES
,
WHICH HAVE CONCURRED TOWARD THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF BENJAMIN CONSTANT,
BY WILLIAM MACCALL.
Long before our era Polytheism had arrived at its highest point of relative perfection.
But relative perfection is transitory, like everything which belongs to our nature.
Imperfect in JEscliylus, perfect in Sophocles, Polytheism declined the moment it
attained that perfection, since germs of its decay are preceptible in Euripides. Those
germs were numerous.
,
First, the gods had been multiplied to excess by personifications and allegories.
Hence a strange confusion in doctrines, in fables, and in ceremonies.
, , •
Secondly, a disproportion, always increasing between the dogmas of Polytheism and
the state of knowledge, had arisen.
Thirdly, the physic d sciences by unfolding to mankind the natural causes ot events
which they had formerly considered miraculous, had given a deadly blow to religious
traditions.
.
Fourthly, the inevitable struggle between religious power and political power had
produced a disastrous effect on the opinion of the multitude.
.
Fifthly, philosophy, after having1, long marched by the side of Polytheism, had turned
against it, because Polytheism had wished to oppress philosophy.
Sixthly, the most discordant opinions had been crowded together in the occult portion
of religion, and the depositories of this mysterious portion, proud, as is usually the case,
of possessing secrets, had allowed the people to divine them.
From all these causes had resulted, for the enlightened class, an attachment to one or
other of many philosophical opinions which all were opposed to Polytheism ; and, for the
people, a brutal infidelity, as mad as the maddest superstition, since like superstition it
was founded on no examination.
.
Yet, in the midst of all these things, the religious sentiment yearned for food. Raillery
in undermining belief, does not destroy the need of believing; it merely makes the need
ashamed to show itself. But the need is thus only rendered the more irritable, and
the more ardent, because in giving ourselves up to it in secret, we can only satisfy
it incompletely, in haste, and with much vexation. And then, when we are found out,
we pretend to laugh at ourselves, to get rid of the ridicule of others.
At such an epoch as that described, the state of the hum in race is one of the strangest,
and that estate be’comes soon one of the saddest of all states. Scepticism has destroyed
all conviction in the very roots. Morality is overthrown less by the direct effect of
infidelity, than by the recollection of the religious traditions which survive that infidelity.
Those traditions in credulous times, served as a prop to moral ideas: the prop breaking,
�2
those ideas fall into ruin. It is not always certain that such or such a religion does good,
while people believe iu it; but it is very certain that every religion does harm when it is
no longer believed.
The world, at the time when Christianity appeared, was exactly in that position.
Tired of the infidelity of which, for a moment, it had been so proud, a portion of the
human race tried to fill the gap caused through a lost faith, by the adoption of foreign
religions ; another portion substituted for that faith the extravagances of magic; and a
third portion tried to cling to the fallen religion.
This last attempt is that alone which interests us, because it was the cause of the
struggle which Christianity had to sustain, and of the obstacles which it had to combat.
It is, therefore, with that attempt that we have exclusively to occupy ourselves.
When an endeavour is made to restore a religion which has fallen into discredit, those
who desire to clothe it once more with authority or favour are never agreed as to what
parts of it, it is useful or possible to conserve or to re-establish.
Consequently, immediately before the fall of Polytheism, we see its partizans dividing
themselves into two very different paths, though both the paths promised to conduct to
the same goal. The first wished that a return should be made to Polytheism, such as it
had been professed in the times of a simple and submissive piety, and previously to
philosophical doubts and objections. Transmitted, they said, from generation to genera
tion, anterior to all abstract speculations, which end in nothing but vague conjectures,
has it not, during a long succession of ages, assured the purity of morals, the tranquillity
of states, the happiness of nations. Instead of following the gropings of pretended sages,
who contradict each other, and give each other the lie, would it not be better, they said,
that man should adopt, as rule of truth, the teachings of his fathers; and that he should
take for guide those favoured men, the illustrious ancestors of the human race, and the
disciples of the gods in the grey dawn of the world.
None of the works which contained this system of orthodoxy in Polytheism has come
down to us; but Plutarch shows us, by an example, what was the logic of its defenders.
The infidels of that time had drawn objections against the divinity of oracles, from the
barbarous style often employed by the priestess of the Delphic Oracle, nearly in the same
way as the infidels of the eighteenth century had sought for arguments against the Bible
in certain expressions which appeared rude and singular. The orthodox Polytheists, far
from admitting that the style of the Delphic priestess was barbarous, replied that it only
seemed such to a generation unworthy of feeling its simple and primitive beauties, and
that it was not the language of the gods which it was necessary to change, but men whom
it was necessary to render capable anew of appreciating its sublimity.
Thus, far from acknowledging the truth of the charges which infidelity brought against
the imperfections and supposed rudeness of preceding notions, they affirmed that these
accusations were only dictated by the presumption of man—always such a lover of novelty.
Let us not crush down religion, they insist, under arbitrary modifications; let us, on the
contrary, crush down, under the yoke of religion, those rebellious minds whom the habit
of rash inquiry hath corrupted, and who aspire to sacrifice holy traditions to their vain
and false scrupulosities.
This party wished the books of Cicero to be burned. It rejected the interpretations
of philosophers; it proved, by incontrovertible facts, that the morals of the community
had been much more strict and pure in the degree that men had adopted, with a more
literal faith, the fables, which a presumptuous reason affected to despise—it repeated
that which the great men of past ages had affirmed; and it had this advantage, that it
presented something fixed, while those who diverged from the rigour of orthodoxy offered
nothing but what was vague and undecided.
These efforts, however, could obtain no success. Man does not resume his respect for
that which has ceased to seem to him respectable. Below the surface of apparent enthusiaism for the ancient Polytheism there was nothing but calculation. At this epoch of
its decline, men desired to believe in it, because the misery of doubt made the joys of a
sincere faith be regretted; just as, at an anterior epoch, they bad tried to maintain Poly
theism, because they considered it useful that others should believe therein. But its
feebleness was too clearly exhibited. When beliefs have fallen, ancient associations
hover round the altars which men wish to surround with a majesty which has been
eclipsed. If infidelity is no longer a proof of knowledge, or subject of glory, it has, at
least, become a habit; and in the same way that in its commencements religious remini
scences assail the unbelievers, infidel reminiscences assail the men who would wish to
make themselves religious.
The orthodox defenders of Polytheism, therefore, could obtain no success. But another
party arose whose hopes appeared plausible, and whose concessions to the spirit of the
�3
age .necessarily rendered the resistance of opinion less violent, by throwing over the
adversaries of the religion which they defended all the odium of obstinacy and hostility.
This party tried to explain, allegorically or metaphysically, the fables which shocked
contemporary convictions ; it justified them by a mysterious sense. Poetry, on the one
hand, and philosophy on the other, furnished it with the means of apology and explanation,
and nothing is more curious than to observe the efforts of the most ingenious men of the
second and third centuries of our era, to combine two incompatible things—the most
exalted enthusiasm of which they felt the need in the reconstruction of a faith, and the
most arid abstractions of which their philosophy made for them a not less imperious
necessity. We cannot give examples here, for these would throw us away from our
subject; but all those who have read the Enneades of Plotinus, must have remarked that
he sets out with the supposition of a first principle destitute of intelligence, of all physical
or moral quality, to arrive at a system through means of which he blends himself by
ecstasy, four times a day with the Divinity.
These innovators, Polytheists more in appearance than in reality, could not, therefore,
succeed better than the orthodox Polytheists. They composed a religion of unintelligible
distinctions, and of incompatible notions; and that religion was susceptible of acquiring
neither the favour of popularity, like the ancient Polytheism, when in all its force ; nor
the strength of reasoning, like the philosophical doctrines. The state of opinions re
mained, therefore, necessarily the same, and continued to float between infidelity as
theory, and superstition as practice.
A new religion was, therefore, necessary; a younger and stronger religion, whose
standard had not yet been profaned, and which filling men’s souls with a real exulta
tion, should smother doubts instead of discussing them, and triumph over objections by
not permitting them to spring up.
This religion could be nothing but Theism. There is in the religious sentiment a ten
dency toward unity ; if man arrives at unity only after many successive revolutions,
the reason is, that the circumstances in which he finds himself, disturb his sentiment,
and give to his ideas a different direction. Ignorance assigns to every effect of detail a
cause apart; selfishness divides the divine power to bring it more within its reach ; rea
soning founds its syllogisms on the deceitful evidences of external appearances. But
ignorance is dispersed, selfishness becomes enlightened, and reasoning is perfected by
experience. The more the regularity of effects is evident, the more the unity of causes
grows probable. The view of disorders, of catastrophes, of exceptions, in short to the
general rule, had procured for polytheism its superiority. It becomes known now that
those exceptions are only apparent, and polytheism thus loses its principal bulwark.
At the same time, the need of theism makes itself more strongly felt in the heart of
man than ever; he has arrived at the last term of civilisation; his soul satiated, fatigued,
exhausted, inflicts on itself sufferings of its own, more bitter than those which come to
him from without. What can he do against those sufferings, with those gross low gods,
whose protection, exclusively material, sufficed for his ignorant ancestors? What can he
do with the fetiche which procured for the savage nothing but success and abundance in
hunting or in fishing? What can he do with those divinities of Olympus who, doing
nothing but punish crimes, preserve human families from external woes only ? He needs
other gods—gods who may understand and re-animate him, restore to him a force which
he has lost, save him from himself, probe his most secret wounds, and know how to pour
into them with a succouring hand, the blessings of an indulgent pity. Such are the gods
—or rather, such is the god that he needs; for numerous divinities, limited in their
faculties, divided in their interests, imperfect by those very limits, and by that very
division cannot fulfil those delicate functions.
Also immediately before the establishment of Christianity, unity had become the
dominant idea of all systems, as well religious as philosophical. It was celebrated by the
poets; it was claimed by the learned as the forgotten discovery of the remotest antiquity ;
it was taught by the moralist; it 6tole into the works of writers without any distinct
consciousness ou their part, and reproduced itself under the pen of simple compilers.
When this doctrine of unity did not compose the principal and avowed part of a system,
it was yet announced as its result. When it was not on the foreground of the picture, it
was yet visible in perspective : here, combined with the popular belief; there, presented
as the explanation of that belief; even the people created for themselves sensuous images
of the abstract notion. Everywhere were placed on the domestic altars statues, where
were united and confounded the attributes of all the divinities.
In this state of things, the human mind seemed arrived at the extremest frontier of
Polytheism; and it might have been thought that only one step remained for it to make
to proclaim the unity of God, and to erect into a practical religion that sublime theory.
�4
But the same civilisation which had rendered the duration of Polytheism impossible had
deprived man of that youthfulness of feeling, of that interior energy, of that power of
conviction, of that faculty of enthusiasm, which are conditions so indispensable for the
establishment of a new religion, and which must exist if the hesitations of philosophers,
the complicated and confused secrets of priests, the aspirations and the fugitive regrets of
souls suffering, but enfeebled and discouraged, are all to blend into a body, and to compose
a faith—public, national, and revered as sacred.
Theism thus existed everywhere, as a principle ; but nowhere was it found in organic
application.
It was not, in the nature of things, for authority to give Theism a helping hand.
Authority saw in Theism scarcely anything else than a doctrine, the foe- of established
order, and saw it under a distinct form only among philosophers, whom it believed to be
dangerous.
The priests in their revelations to the initiated sometimes thrust it aside altogether.
They forced it always into unnatural alliance with the ancient traditions ; and where it
would not bind itself to the artificial connection, it was to these traditions mysteriously
interpreted that the priesthood gave the preference.
Many philosophers adopted Theism ; but it was unceasingly discussed, submitted every
day to a new examination, cited before the tribunal of those who commenced to frequent
the schools of the philosophers, and understood by each in a different manner. A num
erous portion of its partisans rejected the influence of ceremonies, the efficacy of
prayer, the hope of supernatural succours, and made thus of Theism an abstract opinion,
which could not serve as the basis of a religion.
In the upper ranks of society the tendency to Theism existed no doubt, but the pressing
and continual interests of the earth easily smothered that inner voice. Among nations
exceedingly civilised, men of information are very ardent for their interests, and very
moderate in their opinions; now moderate parties conserve what exists, but anything
like creation is greatly above their strength.
The people would not admit as religious an opinion which had no wholeness, no con
sistency ; they repeated some formulas which impligd the unity of God, but rather by
imitation than from conviction. Whilst the habits of infidelity rendered for the upper
class the revival of a religious form almost impossible, magic rendered for the multitude
that revival almost superfluous, because it offered to the imagination more powerful allure
ments, and to hope, promises of a nearer execution.
To gather the human race round Theism, a banner would have been enough ; but no
arm was strong enough to raise the banner, which remained useless on the ground.
Nevertheless this memorable revolution was effected. An extraordinary circumstance
restored all at once to men’s souls sufficient energy, to men’s minds sufficient authority
to give a positive form to human desires, human needs, and human hopes. We treat here
of this circumstance under its human relations ; but we must confess it would afford us no
pleasure to combat the opinion which assigns divine causes to this important revolution.
Certainly when we contemplate man, such as he is, when he has rejected all religjpus
faith; when we behold the religious sentiment powerless and vague, precipitating itself
sometimes into magic, and sometimes into ecstacy and delirium; enthusiasm practising
extravagancies so much the more incurable that they start from reasoning to arrive
methodically at madness; reasoning offering, as the result of eight centuries of labours, at
first only nothingness, then chimerical and contradictory hypotheses; the intelligence
successful in destroying everything, but incompetent to re-establish anything; dare we
say that, at such an epoch, celestial pity hath not come to the succour of the world;
that a lightning flash hath not rent the cloud to show the right path to our wandering
race ; that a divine hand hath not aided men to leap over the barrier against which they
were dashing themselves to pieces?
All would then resume its customary order. Man, abandoned anew to himself, would
recommence his labour; his mind would struggle, in accordance with its nature, round
this great discovery; he would give it imperfect forms; he would lower its sublimity.
Calculation, egoism, monopoly, would strive for its possession ; but man would still pre
serve the ineffaceable remembrance of it; an immense step would be taken, and, by
degrees, purer forms, juster conceptions, would permit him to enjoy this inestimable
blessing in all its fullness and purity.
At the epoch which forms the subject of our researches, the religion of the Hebrews
was the only one whose adherents had possessed not only a mechanical attachment to
religious forms, but a profound conviction. At the same time, the fundamental dogma
of their religion was conformable to the universal need of the human race. It was at
that torch that the religious sentiment was rekindled.
�0
But if the fundamental dogma of the Jewish religion responded to the demand of every
soul, there were terrible things in that religion.
Assuredly, we do not place ourselves among the detractors of the Mosaical law ■ we,
by no means, forget the superiority of its doctrine, both taken as a whole, and in many
of its parts, over all contemporary religions. But, its very sublimity had contributed
to stamp on it an excessive severity—a severity necessitated by its disproportion with
the ideas of the people who professed it, and likewise with those of the neighbours of that
people—neighbours who, simply by being so, had become its enemies.
Add to this, the spirit of all the Jewish priesthood, similar in many respects to that
of all the sacerdotal corporations of antiquity, and which the very obstacles it had been
compelled to vanquish had rendered more stern and suspicious.
It seems to us that the doctrine of Moses has not been sufficiently distinguished from
the spirit of the priesthood, which was the organ and the defender of that doctrine.
Nevertheless, in this distinction may be found the solution of all the difficulties which
have appeared to give so many advantages to the enemies of religious ideas, and of
Christianity.
However, our object is not to judge here the Jewish religion. It is sufficient for our
purpose, that at the moment when Polytheism was approaching its downfal, and when all
faiths were shaken, the Jewish religion alone, still living and rooted in the soul of a people,
offered Theism as a rallying point to the rest of the human race.
Notwithstanding if the Theism of the Hebrews had presented itself to the nations who
had revolted from Heathenism under the forms which it had assumed at its origin among
the people who professed it, it is doubtful whether it would have obtained the success
which has made of the adoration of one God only the universal belief of all civilised countries.
Minds accustomed to the subtleties of a philosophy which had refined on every com
bination of ideas and every form of dialectics, would probably have rejected a doctrine
whose dogmatical simplicity imposed articles of faith, instead of presenting a series of
reasonings.
The almost total absence of notions on the nature of the soul and its immortality would
have offended these same minds, prepared by Platonism, to deliver themselves to hopes
and to rush into hypotheses on the future existence of man.
The character of the God of the Jews, represented as despotical, fierce, and jealous,
could not have accorded with the milder and more abstract conceptions of the sages of
Greece. The multitude of rites, of ceremonies, and of superstitious observances, would have
fatigued men, the most religious of whom thought that internal worship constituted the
most acceptable homage that could be offered to the Supreme Being. Finally, the very
morality of Judaism, which made of the assent to certain propositions the principal and
indispensable virtue, would have contrasted too strongly with the universally adopted
principles of tolerance.
But the Jews, who had for a long time been initiated, and especially since their sojourn
at Alexandria, in all the discussions of philosophy, had made in this career progress
almost equal to that of the Pagan philosophers. They had shown themselves not less
subtle than these in metaphysical researches; and toward the epoch when Christianity
appeared, Judaism had undergone modifications sufficient to cause whatever doctrine
might spring from its bosom to attract curiosity, to fix attention, and soon to captivate
the suffrages of a great number of enlightened men. It was, therefore, leaning on the
one hand on Judaism, and gathering the fruits of all the labours of preceding centuries,
among nations more advanced than the most of the Jews, that Christianity appeared in
the world.
It has often been asserted that Christianity was adopted at the time of its appearance,
only by the vilest and most ignorant classes; nothing is falser, and nothing would have
been more inexplicable.
It was by the progress of knowledge that the human race had been driven from Poly
theism to Theism. Christianity was the purest of the forms of Theism, and yet we are
to believe the absurdity that it was only embraced by the populace, in whom, of course,
the progress of knowledge must have had least power to produce any effect.
It was, on the contrary, in the nature of things, that men of all classes should adopt
Christianity. The religion which, at such a moment, was most suitable, or rather which
alone was suitable, was one which should elevate mau above all visible objects, binding
him again to none of the religious institutions which had fallen into discredit; to none of
the political institutions which had grown oppressive; the only religion possible, was one
which, at a time when nations were nothing but gangs of slaves, in whom patriotism could
not exist, should gather together all nations round the same faith, and transform those
into brothers who had ceased to be fellow-citizens.
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The Christian religion combined all these advantages. By proscribing sensuality, the
love of riches, all ignoble passions, by announcing, beyond the grave, a life more impor
tant by its eternal duration, than all the felicities of earth, it attracted all those who had
preserved the sentiment of human dignity. By proclaiming an immediate revelation, a
direct communication with the Divinity, and a succession of inspirations, obtained by
faith and prayer, and accompanied by supernatural forces, it pleased those whom Neo
Platonism, and the thirst of the marvellous had accustomed to desire a habitual commune
with superhuman natures. By substituting ceremonies, simple, modest, and few in
number, for rites, some of which were revolting, and others of which had fallen into dis
credit, it satisfied reason. It offered to the poor freedom, to the oppressed justice, to the
slaves libertv, as a right. Finally, and this, at such a moment, was not one of its
smallest advantages, it refrained from all philosophical and metaphysical researches, re
searches for which, if there was a prevalent taste, there was a no less prevalent dislike, it
refrained from all questions on the nature and substance of God, all hypotheses on the
laws and forces of nature, and the action of the invisible world, all discussions on destiny
in opposition to Providence. It disclosed but one fact, and offered only one hope. Now,
man had need of a stone to repose his head upon; lie had need of a fact, a miraculous
fact, in order that, delivered from the torment of doubt, he might breathe freely, gather
up his energies again, and begin once more the great intellectual labour.
Also, the faith in Jesus Christ was embraced even at its first proclamation, by a
multitude of persons, who were strangers neither to opulence nor instruction. Pliny
attests, that already, under the reign of Trajan, persons of every condition met at the foot
of the cross. Men of consular dignity, senators, matrons of the noblest extraction, had
devoted themselves to this worship. Christians, as they said themselves, abounded at
the court, in the camps, in the Forum. Nevertheless, when the standard was once raised,
a struggle could not fail to ensue ; and in that struggle Christianity encountered among
its enemies, authority, the priests, a portion of the philosophers, and the populace.
Authority never examines, it judges by appearances. It saw a society of men who re
jected all external worship; it declared them atheists.
In its relation with human existence, Christianity was diametrically opposed to the
idea which statesmen, in an infidel age especially, form of the utility of religion. In their
eyes it must be intimately connected with the interests of society. This life is the end,
religion a means. The Christians, on the contrary, considered life as a means to another
end. Their enthusiasm for a future world delivered them from all cares relating to this
world, and from every occupation mixed up with a transitory and perishable present.
The love of country, of which governments always speak the more, the less a fatherland
exists, was menaced by the contempt of the Christians for earthly tilings. This was
ascribed to them as a crime; and the accusation brought against them then has been
raised by the pens of their modern detractors. But what fatherland were they accused of
deserting? Was that a fatherland, that chaotic assemblage of a thousand nations who
were gagged and lettered, instead of being united, and who had nothing in common but
the same misery, under the same yoke ?
The means of authority against opinion are the same in all countries, and in all ages—
the hateful spy, the informer as hateful, persecutions, punishments. The effects of these
means are also always the same; the oppressed obtain the sympathy of every soul of true
valour, and of true worth ; they give, in the midst of adversity, in the presence of death,
sublime examples of fortitude and of sacrifice. What matters that the frequency of the
persecutions and the number of the martyrs have been somewhat exaggerated ? Was
the courage of the martyrs the less admirable on that account ? That is a miserable im
partiality which places itself between the instruments of persecution and their victims.
The cruelties which authority expended against Christianity undoubtedly accelerated
its progress. There is something contagious in the spectacle of disinterestedness, of intre
pidity, and of hope, in the midst of a corrupt and degenerate race.
Persecution has this peculiarity, that when not revolting it is proved thereby not to
have been necessary : the people who suffer it had nothing formidable. But when it is
necessary, it becomes revolting, and thereby it becomes useless.
To this consideration, applicable to Christianity as to all opinions which are proscribed
or threatened, add a circumstance characteristic of the epoch—we mean the contradictions
into which authority rushed, from its consciousness of not being supported by any moral
force. Galerius, one of the most ferocious enemies of Christianity, stopping suddenly in
his career of blood and tyranny, terminates an edict, in which he accords to Christians a
momentary tolerance, by inviting them to implore for him the Divinity whom they
adore—a singular proof of the feeble conviction of the Polytheists, of even those of
them who were the most violent in their efforts to restore the vanquished religion,
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and of the secret instinct which drew them toward that faith which was the object of
their fury.
The priesthood could not have more success than authority had against the new religion.
In vain, the priesthood collected their scattered forces and formed monstrous alliances
against the common enemy. In vain, it made an appeal to all the doctrines, which, it
.mattered not at what epoch had crept into the religion which it wished to defend—doctrines
which, for a long time, the priesthood had rejected. By a mistake sufficiently natural,
the priests thought to fortify themselves by the number and diversity of their troops,
whilst that very number and the motleyness of its discordant auxiliaries, brought the
priesthood still more into discredit.
The priests tried to preserve or to re-establish their domination over the minds of the
people, by increasing ceremonies and traditions, to which they endeavoured to give an air
of antiquity. Ear from reforming what was indecent in the mysteries which had become
all but public, they rather relied upon their indecency, as being likely to be agreeable to
the corruption of the age. They introduced into those mysteries every kind of privation
by the side of every kind of obscenity. They introduced into those sanguinary cere
monies, mutilations, voluntary tortures, which they imposed as a duty on the initiated.
And at the same time, playing the part of half-philosophic jugglers, the priests of the
ancient religion proposed their doctrine rather than imposed it: their rites were frightful,
but their language was timid. They carried hesitation even into anathema, and lifting
one hand to hurl the thunder of a curse, with the other they made a sign that they were
ready to enter into a compromise, but no compromise was possible. They offered to place
the new god among the ancient divinities. The followers of Christ indignant at such a
thought, forced to the combat adversaries who would have preferred negotiations.
In our days an attempt has been made to praise polytheism for this tolerance, for this
mildness, for these conciliatory intentions; in effect, disarmed as it was at this epoch, or
rather annihilated, its appearances were less vehement, its style more courteous than
those of nascent Christianity; but the fact is, that Christianity existed, whilst polytheism
was a vain shadow. Its forbearance, its complaisances, all the qualities which we admire
in it were only the virtues of the dead. Men began once more to struggle because they
began once more to live, and far from seeking in this energetic struggle a subject of accu
sation against Christianity, we ought to thank it for having re-animated the life of the
soul, for having awakened the dust of the graves.
Whilst the Christians marched, surrounded by incontestable miracles, because they
were filled by an indestructible conviction, their rivals opposed to them fictitious and
puerile prodigies, easily called in doubt, and the pale copies of those which they imi
tated ; for they imitated Christianity to resist it, thinking to combat it with its own arms.
One of the blunders and one of the misfortunes of the vanquished, is to conclude from the
victories of their adversaries the power of their means, and to make use of the same
means, without inquiring whether it is not the purpose for which the means are em
ployed which gives them their force.
The Christians had on their side reasoning and force. When directing reasoning
against their adversaries, they had no fear of compromising their own cause, which had
its protector in Heaven, and could not be compromised. The Pagans also tried reason
ing and enthusiasm ; but their enthusiasm was feeble and forced; their reasoning reacted
against themselves, and were more injurious to what they affirmed, than to what it was
their intention to contest.
We have already spoken of that fraction of philosophers who tried to prop up the
ruined edifice of polytheism, and we have indicated the course which struck their efforts
with an incurable impotence.
As to the populace, it cried—the Christians to the lions ! just as soon after it cried —
the Pagans to the stake ! It tore in pieces, or saw with joy torn in pieces men, in the
name of Jupiter; as soon after it saw them, with the same delight, turn in pieces in the
name of the Homousia, or of the Homoousia. It showed itself that which it is always_
drunk with rage, in favour of force, wherever it perceives force to be*, and displaying the
same fury, and passing into the same intoxication in the opposite direction when force
passes from one party to another.
Clear and coherent, simple and precise, calming the earthly passions which the human
race had in satiety, delivering it from the atmosphere of corruption when it breathed with
agony and with a profound disgust at itself, and having a root in all primordial memo
ries ;—in philosophy, by doctrines which it possessed pure, while rendering them less
subtle—in history, by the traditions of a people whose ancient splendour it consecrated,
without proposing them as objects of imitation—in ancient usages, whilst retrenching
what of minute, of severe, and of hostile they had; freeing Reason from the interminable
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difficulties of dialectics—speaking to the soul the language which it had need to hear—
Christianity could not fail to triumph over a host of enemies not agreed amoDg them
selves, without fixed systems, having at their disposal nothing but brutal force, and fore
seeing their defeat at the very moment when they were employing atrocious means to
retard it.
Christianity, therefore, of necessity triumphed. A new order of things commenced for
man, and that order of things sent from the height of Heaven by an omnipotent hand,
after having regenerated corrupt nations, softened and civilised barbarous tribes.
No doubt, whatever was imperfect in the nature of man mixed almost from the birth of
the Gospel a fatal alloy with this universal amelioration.
The intolerance which under the reign of Polytheism seemed an exception to its funda
mental principles, appeared to become during a long time the permanent spirit of Chris
tianity. The Christian priesthood arrogated to itself an authority similar to that which
had bound down under its yoke the great number of the ancient nations; it extended this
terrible authority over nations which till then had escaped its despotism. Morality, falsi
fied and perverted, fell soon into dependence on subtle interpretations and arbitrary prin
ciples. The human faculties were struck with immobility, and succeeded in reconquering,
I do not say their legitimate liberty, which has always been disputed to them, but the
right to exist, only by passing through a persecution which fell heaviest on the most
enlightened and courageous men.
Nevertheless, let us consider more closely these great incon"eniences. Will they not
equally be found in the Polytheism of nations subject to sacerdotal corporations ? Trans
port the belief and the priests of Egypt to Madrid, or to Goa, you will have—in the name
of Isis and of Horus—inquisitors, not inferior in ferocity or in hypocrisy to any of their
modern colleagues; and you will have, in addition, human sacrifices, licentious orgies,
revolting ceremonies, which have never stained the most corrupt Christianity.
Besides the philosophers who have praised the tolerance of Polytheism, have fallen,
perhaps involuntarily, into a singular error. The tolerance which they have boasted of
in this faith did not repose on the respect which society owes to the opinions of indi
viduals. The nations tolerant toward each other in their national capacity, were
nevertheless ignorant of that eternal principle, the only basis of all enlightened tolerance,
that each and every one has the right of adoring his God in the manner which seems to
him the best. The citizens were, on the contrary, bound to conform to the worship of
the city. They had not the liberty to adopt a foreign worship, though that worship
might be authorised for the strangers who were its followers. The independence of thought,
the independence of the religious sentiment gained, therefore, nothing by this tolerance of
Polytheism.
Certainly the zeal of Chosroes, who was not willing to enter into treaty with his
enemies, unless they rendered homage to his gods; the reciprocal furies of the Teutyrites
and the Ombrites; the fierce wars which the inhabitants of Oxyrinchus and Cynopolis
carried on till the Romans forced them to be at peace; the hatred which divides in India
the adorers of Schiva and of Vishnu; the proscriptions to which the Brahmins and
the Buddhists have been alternately exposed, sufficiently refute the eulogies lavished, in
hatred of Christianity, on the religions which it supplanted.
Let me frankly state that wherever the power of the priests is not restrained by just
limits, there has been intolerance; and if we consider the substance of all faiths, real
tolerance has existed hitherto; only in Christianity, when uninfluenced by all foreign
power. It is there alone that the supreme God, the father of all men, of all love, of all
goodness, does not reproach his creatures with the efforts which they make to serve him
with greater zeal. Their errors can excite only his pity; all adoration is equally
agreeable to him when the intentions are equally pure.
Is the other accusation better founded? If the axiom, that it is better to obey God
than men has conducted fanatical Christians to the greatest crimes—if it has been main
tained, under this pretext, that cruelty, that refinement in torture, that forgetfulness of
the bonds of blood and of affection, perjury towards the partisans of another faith, were
the duties of true Christians, open the Sehastabade, the Bhaguat-Gita, the Zendavesta, you
will find those disastrous precepts inculcated in a manner much more positive and much
more fervent; and there is this difference, that among the Persians and the Hindoos their
abominable morality is found in their sacred books themselves, whilst among Christians
it is only found in those miserable commentators who falsify the texts of scripture to serve
the interest of their corporation and caste.
Finally, if an insolent tyranny has sometimes, in the name of Christ, who disarmed it,
chained the march of the human faculties, that noblest gift of Providence, were those
faculties freer among Polytheistic nations, to whom the slightest alteration of their faith
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in the figure, in the attributes of the gods, the smallest knowledge of writing, the slightest
participation in the services were interdicted?
Thus, under whatever point of view we look at Christianity—even when it was cor
rupted by men—it was a great deal superior to the Polytheism of the majority of nations;
and, freed from that corruption, which is foreign to it, it has advantages which the most
perfect Polytheism could not possess.
A great mistake has been made as to the sense of an assertion which serves as basis to
the author’s work on religion. Because the author has distinguished the forms of
religion from the religious sentiment, it has been supposed that he professed an equal
indifference for all those forms. But, on the contrary, he believes these forms to be pro
gressive—some being always better than others, and those which are better always arising
at the time when they are most needed.
And this system is not that of a modern writer; it is that of Saint Paul, who says, in
express terms, that when man was yet a child, he was under obedience to the first and
rudest instructions which God had given him, and that the state of ignorance having
passed away, God sent Christ on the earth to abolish the ancient law. Thus, according to
the doctrine of the first Christians themselves, God proportions his instructions to the
state of man; his first instructions which Saint Paul speaks of as not of an elevated kind,
were what was necessary to nations in their early stages. Those instructions became
useless, when the infancy of nations ceased. Is it irreligion to recognise this progression
in the Divine goodness ? The Pharisees said so to the apostles, and the Roman Emperors
said it to the Christian martyrs.
[Benjamin Constant, the author of the preceding essay, was born at Lausanne, in
Switzerland, on the 25th October, 1767. He died on the 8th December, 1830. He was
a voluminous author, an eloquent orator,and a distinguished and disinterested patriot; in
the great struggles for liberty in France from 1815, he occupied a foremost place. He
wrote a work on religion, in five volumes, which, if not the profoundest, is one of the
clearest, most ingenious, and most instructive on the subject. His essay, just given,
easily accounts for the origin and growth of Christianity, without the introduction of any
supernatural and miraculous machinery ; for when Constant speaks of the supernatural
and the miraculous, it is not in the English sense of those words, that is, as indicatingarbitrary interferences with the immutable laws of the universe. The essay is valuable
for another reason, for are not the tricks which the Christian priesthoods at present are
employing to support their exhausted systems and institutions, exactly similar to those so
distinctly and forcibly indicated by Constant, as having been employed by the Polythe
istic priesthood for a kindred purpose.]
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION.
Theology is the science of Religion. It treats of man, God, and the relation between
man and God, with the duties which grow out of that relation. It is both queen and
mother of all science; the loftiest and most ennobling of all the speculative pursuits of
man. But the popular theology of this day is no science at all, but a system of incoher
ent notions, woven together by scholastic logic, and resting on baseless assumptions. The
pursuit thereof in the popular method does not elevate;—there is in it somewhat not holy.
It is not studied as science, with no concern except for the truth of the conclusion. We
wish to find the result as we conceived it to be; as Bishop Butler has said, “People habi
tuate themselves to let things pass through their minds, rather than to think of them.
Thus by use they become satisfied merely with seeing what is said, without going any
further.” Our theology has two great Idols, the Bible and Christ: by worshipping
these, and not God only, we lose much of the truth they both offer us. Our theology
relies on assumptions, not ultimate facts ; so it comes to no certain conclusions—weaves
cobwebs, but no cloth.
The popular Theology rests on these main assumptions—the divinity of the Church,
and tiie divinity of the Bible. What is the value of each ? It has been found con
venient to assume both. Then it has several important aphorisms, which it makes use of
as if they were established truths, to be employed as the maxims of Geometry, and no
more to be called in question. Amongst these are the following: Man under the light of
nature i§ not capable of discovering the moral and religious truth needed for his moral
and religious welfare; there must be a personal and miraculous mediator between each
man and God; a life of blameless obedience to the law of man’s nature will not render us
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acceptable to God, and ensure our well-being in the next life; we need a superhuman
being to bear our sins, through whom alone we are saved; Jesus of Nazareth is that
superhuman, and miraculous, and sin-reconciling mediator ; the doctrine he taught is re
vealed Religion, which differs essentially from natural Religion; an external and contin
gent miracle is the only proof of an eternal and necessary truth in morals or religion;
God now and then transcends the laws of nature, and makes a miraculous revelation of
some truth ; he does not now inspire men as formerly. Each of these aphorisms is a gra
tuitous assumption, which has never been proved, and of course all the theological deduc
tions made from the aphorisms, or resting on these two main assumptions, are without
any real foundation. Theologians have assumed their facts ; and then reasoned as if the
facts were established;—but the conclusion was an inference from a baseless assumption;
thus it accounts for nothing. “We only become certain of the immortality of the soul
from the fact of Christ’s resurrection,” says Theology. Here are two assumptions : first,
the fact of that resurrection; second, that it proves our immortality. If we ask proof of
the first point, it is not easy to come by it; of the second, it is not shown. The theologi
cal method is false; for it does not prove its facts historically, or verify its conclusions
philosophically. The Hindoo theory says, the earth rests on the back of an Elephant, the
Elephant on a Tortoise. But what does the Tortoise rest upon ? The great Turtle of
popular theology rests on—an assumption. Who taught us the infallible divinity of the
Bible, or the Churches? “Why, we always thought so; we inherited the opinion, as
land, from our fathers, to have and to hold, for our use and behoof, for ourselves and our
heirs, for ever.” Would you have a better title? We are regularly “ seized” of the doc
trine ; it came, with the divine right of kings, from our fathers, who, by the grace of God,
burnt men for doubting the truth of their theology.” This is the defence of the popular
theology. We have freedom in civil affairs; can revise our statutes, change the administra
tion, or amend the constitution: have we no freedom in theological affairs, to revise, change,
amend a vicious theology? We have always been doing it, but only by halves, not looking
at the foundation of the matter. We have applied good sense to many things,—Agriculture,
Commerce, Manufactures,—and with distinguished success; not yet to Theology. We make
improvements in science and art every year: men survey the clouds, note the variations of
the magnetic needle, analyze rocks, waters, soils, aud do not fear that truth shall hurt
them, though it make Hipparchus and Cardan unreadable. Our method of theology is false,
no less than its assumptions. What must we expect of the conclusion ? What we find, j
If a school was founded to teach Geology, and the professors of that science were
required to subscribe the geological creed of Aristotle or Paracelsus, and swear solemnly
to interpret facts by that obsolete creed, and maintain and inculcate the geological faith
as expressed in that creed, in opposition to Wernerians, Bucklandians, Lyellians, and all
other geological heresies, ancient or modern ; if the professors were required to subscribe
this every five years, and no pupil was allowed the name of Geologist, or permitted
peacefully to examine a rock, unless he professed that creed ;—what would men say to
the matter? No one thinks such a course strange in Theology; our fathers did so before
us. In plain English, we are afraid of the truth. “God forbid,” said a man, famous in his
day, “ that our love of truth should be so cold as to tolerate any erroneous opinion ”—but
our own. Any change is looked on with suspicion. If the drift-weed of the ocean be
hauled upon the land, men fear the ocean will be drank up, or blown dry; if the pinetree rock, they exclaim, the mountain falling cometh to naught. How superstitiously
men look on the miracle question, as if the world could not stand if the miracles of the
New Testament were not real.
The popular Theology does not aim to prove absolute Religion, but a system of doctrines.
Now the problem of theology is continually changing. In the time of Moses it was this :
To separate Religion from the Fetichism of the Canaanites and the Polytheism of the
Egyptians, and connect it with the doctrine of one God. No doubt Jannes aud Jambres
exclaimed with pious horror, “ What! give up the garlic and the cats which our fathers
prayed to and swore by ! We shall never be guilty of that infidelity.” But the Priest
hood of Garlic came to an end, and the world still continued, though the Cats were not
worshipped. In the time of Christ, the problem was: To separate Religion from the
obsolete ritual of Moses. We know the result. The Scribes and Pharisees were shocked
at the thought of abandoning the ritual of Moses I But the ritual went its way. In the
time of Luther, a new problem arose: To separate Religion from the forms of the Catholic
Church. The issue is well known. In our times, the problem is: To separate Religion
from whatever is finite,—church, book, person,—and let it rest on its absolute truth.
Numerous questions come up for discussion: Is Christianity absolute Religion? What
relation does Jesus bear to the human race? What relation does the Bible sustain to it ?
We have nothing to fear from truth, or for truth, but every thing to hope. It is about
Theology that men quarrel, not about Religion; that is but one.
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Coming away from the Theology of our time, and looking at the public Virtue, as
revealed in our life, political, commercial, and social, and seeing things as they are, we
must come to this conclusion: Either Christianity—absolute Eeligion—is false and
utterly detestable,—or else modern Society, in its basis and details, is wrong, all wrong :
there is no third conclusion possible. Christianity demands a divine life ; Society, one
mean and earthly. Christianity says—its great practical maxim—•“ We that are strong
ought to bear the burdens of the weak;” Society—“ We that are strong must make the
weak bear our burthens;” and it does this daily. The Strong do not compel the Weak
as heretofore, mainly with a sword, nor bind them exclusively in fetters of iron : they
compel with an idea, and chain with manacles unseen, but felt. Who does the world’s
work?—hethat receives most largely the world’s good? It needs not that truisms be
repeated. Now it is a high word of Christianity—“ He that is greatest shall be (your
servant.” What is the corresponding word of Society? Everybody knows it. Bo we
estimate greatness in this way, by the man’s achievements for the public welfare ? Oh
no! we have no such vulgar standard! Men of “ superior talentsand cultivation,”—do
we expect them to be great by serving mankind ? Nay, by serving themselves !
Eeligion is love of God and man. Is that the basis of action with us ? A young man
setting out in life, and choosing his calling, says this to himself: “ How can I get the
most ease and honours out of the world, returning the least of toil and self-denial ? j” That
is the philosophy of many a life; the very end of even what is called the “ better class ”
of society. Who says, “ This will I do ; I will be a man, a whole complete man, as God
made me; take care of myself, but serve my brother, counting my strength his, not his
mine ; I will take nothing from the world which is not honestly, truly, manfully earned? ”
Who puts his feet forward in such a life? We call such a man a fool. Yes, Jesus of
Nazareth is a fool, tried by the penny wisdom of this generation. We honour him in our
Sunday talk ; hearing his words, say soleniDy, as the parasites of Herod, “ It is the voice
of God, not of a man! ” and smite a man on both cheeks who does not cry, Amen ! But
all the week long we blaspheme that great soul, who speaks though dead, and call his
word a fool’s talk. This is the popular Christianity. We can pray as well as the old
Pharisee—“ Lord, we thank thee we are not as other men; as the Heathen Socrates,
who knew nothing ; and as the ‘ Infidel,’ who cannot believe contradictions and absurd
ities. We say grace before meat; attend to all the church ordinances; can repeat the
creed, and we believe every word of both thy Testaments, Oh Lord! WhaWouldst thou
more? We have fulfilled all Eighteousness.”
Alas for us ! we have taken the name of Jesus in our church, and psalm-singing. We
can say “ Lord! Lord ! no man ever spake as thou.” But our Christianity is talk ; it is
not in the heart, nor the hand, nor the head, but only in the tongue. Could that Great
Man, whose soul bestrides the world to bless it, come back again, and speak in bold words,
to our condition, follies, sins, his denunciation and his blest beatitudes, rooting up with
his “ Woe-unto-you, hypocrites ! ” what was not of God’s planting, and calling things by
right names—how should we honour him ? As Annas and Caiaphas and their fellows
honoured that “ Gallilean and no prophet ”—with spitting and a cross. But it costs little
to talk and to pray.
A divine manliness is the despair of our churches. No man is reckoned good who does
not believe in sin, and human inability. We seem to have said—“ Alas for us ! we defile
our week days by selfish and unclean living; we dishonour our homes by low aims and
lack of love, by sensuality and sin. We debase the sterling word of God in our soul; we
cannot discern between good and evil, nor read nature aright, nor come at first-hand to
God; therefore let us set one day apart from our work; let us build us an house which we
will enter only on that day trade does not tempt us ; let us take the wisest of books, and
make it our oracle; let it save us from thought, and be to us as a God ; let us take our
brother to explain to us this book, to stand between us and God; let him be holy for us,
pray for us, represent a divine life. We know these things cannot be, but let us make
believe.” The work is accomplished, and we have the Sabbath, the Church, the Bible,
and the Ministry ; each beautiful in itself, but our ruin when made the substitutes for
holiness of heart and a divine life.
In Christianity we have a religion wide as the East and the West; deep and high as
the Nadir and Zenith ; certain as Truth, and everlasting as God, But in our life we are
heathens. He that fears God becomes a prey. To be a Christian, with us, in speech and
action, a man must take his life in his hand, and be a lamb among the wolves. Does
Christianity enter the counting-room, the senate-house, the jail ? Does it look on ignor
ance and poverty, seeking to root them out of the land ? The Christian doctrine of work
and wages is a plain thing: he that wins the staple from the maternal earth; who ex
pends strength, skill, taste, on that staple, making it more valuable; who aids men to be
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healthier, wiser, better, more holy—he does a service to the race —does the world’s work.
To get commodities won by others’ sweat, by violence and the long arm, is bobbery—the
ancient Roman way; to get them by cunning and the long head, is trade—the modern
Christian way. What say Reason and Jesus to that? No doubt the Christianity of the
Pulpit is a poor thing: words cannot utter its poverty; it is neither meat nor drink ; the
text saves the sermon. But the Christianity of daily life, of the street—that is still
worse: the whole Bible could not save it. The history of Society is summed up in a
word—Cain killed Abel ; that of real Christianity also in a word—Christ died for
his Brother.
From ancient times we have received two priceless treasures: the Sunday, as a day of
rest, social meeting, and religious instruction; and the institution of Preaching, whereby
a living man is to speak on the deepest of subjects. But what have we made of them ?
Our Sabbath—what a weariness is it 1 what superstition defiles its sunny hours 1 And
Preaching—what has it to do with life? Men graceless and ungifted make it handiwork;
a sermon is the Hercules-pillar and ultima Thule of dullness. The popular religion is
unmanly and sneaking; it dares not look Reason in the face, but creeps behind tradition,
and only quotes—it has nothing new and living to say. To hear its talk, one would think
God was dead, or at best asleep. We have enough of church-going, a remnant of our
father’s veneration, which might lead to great good; reverence still for the Sabbath, the
best institution the stream of time has brought us ; we have still admiration for the name
of Jesus—a soul so great and pure could not have lived in vain. But to call ourselves
Christians!—may God forgive that mockery ! Are men to serve God by lengthening the
creed and shortening the commandments ? making long prayers, and devouring the weak ?
by turning Reason out of doors, and condemning such as will not believe our Theology,
nor accept a priest’s falsehood in God’s name?
Religion is Life. Is our Life Religion? No man pretends it. No doubt there are
good men in all churches, and out of all churches; there have been such in the holds of
pirate ships and in robbers’ dens. I know there are good men and pious women, and I
would go leagues long to sit down at their blessed feet, and kiss their garments’ hem.
But what are the mass of us? Disciples of absolute Religion? Christians after the
fashion of Jesus of Nazareth ? No: only Christians in tongue. It is an imputed righteous
ness that we honour; not ours, but borrowed of Tradition; an “ historical Christianity,”
that was, but is no more. A man is a Christian if he goes to church, pays bis pew-tax,
bows to the parson, believes with his sect, is as good as other people. That is our religion;
what is lived, which is preached: “ like people, like priest,” was never more true.
It is not that we need new forms and symbols, or even the rejection of the old. Bap
tism and the Supper are still beautiful and comforting to many a soul. A spiritual man
can put spirit upon these. To many they are still powerful auxiliaries. They commune
with God now and then—through bread and wine, as others converse with llim forever
through the symbols of nature, the winds that wake the “ soft and soul-like sound” of the
pine-tree; through the earliest violets of spring and the last leaf of autumn; through
calm and storm, and stars and blooming trees, and winter’s snows and summer’s sun
shine. A religious soul never lacks symbols of its own—elements of communion with
God. What we want is the Soul of Religion—Religion that thinks and works: its Sign
will take care of itself.
With us, Religion is a nun. She sits, of week-days, behind her black veil, in the
church; her hands on her knees; making her creed more unreadable; damning “infidels”
and “carnal Reason:” she only comes out in the streets of a Sunday, when the shops are
shut, and temptation out of sight, and the din of business is still as a baby’s sleep. All
the week, nobody thinks of that joyless vestal. Meantime strong-handed Cupidity, with
bis legion of devils, goes up and down the earth, and presses Weakness, Ignorance, and
Want into his service; sends Bibles to Africa, on the deck of his ship, and Rum and
Gunpowder in the hold, knowing that the church will pray for “the outward bound.”
lie brings home—most Christian Cupidity!—images of himself which God has carved in
ebony—to Christianize and bless the sable sou of Ethiopia ! Verily we are a Cliristain
people! zealous of good works! drawing nigh unto God—with our lips! Lives there a
savage tribe our sons have visited, that has not cause to curse and hate the name of
Christians, who have plundered, polluted, slain, enslaved their children ? Not one, the
wide world round, from the Mandans to the Malays. If there were but half the Religion
in all Christendom, that there is talk of it during a “ Revival ” in a village—at the base
ness—political, commercial, social baseness daily done in the world, such a shout of
indignation would go up from the four corners of the earth, as would make the ears of
Cupidity tiDgle again, and hustle the oppressor out of creation.
The Poor, the Ignorant, the Weak, have we always with us: inasmuch as we do good
�13
unto them, we serve God ; inasmuch as we do it not unto the least of them, we blaspheme
God, and cumber the ground we tread on. Was there no meaning in that old word—
“ Tie that knew his Lord’s will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes ? ”
They are already laid upon us. Religion meant something with Paul; something with
Jesus: what does it mean with us ? A divine life from infancy to age ? Divine all
through ? Oh no! a cheaper thing than that: it means talk, creed-making, and creed
believing, and creed-defending. We, Christians of the “ nineteenth century,” have many
“inventions to save labour;” a process by which “ a man is made as good a Christian in
five minutes as in fifty years.” Behold Christianity made easy ! Do men love Religion
and its Divine Life, as Gain and Trade ? Is it the great moving principle with us ?
something loved for itself—something to live by ? Oh no! Nobody pretends it.
No wonder young men, and young women too, of the most spiritual stamp, lose their
reverence for the Church, or come into it only for a slumber—irresistible, profound, and
strangely similar to death. What concord hath freedom with slavery ? Talent goes to
the world, not to the churches. No wonder Unbelief scoffs in the public print, “ beside
what that grim wolf, with privy paw, daily devours apace, and nothing said.” There is
an unbelief, worse than the public scoffing, though more secret, which needs not be spoken
of. No wonder the old cry is raised, The Church in danger, as its crazy timbers sway
to and fro, if a strong man tread its floors. But what then ? What is true never fails.
Religion is permanent in the race—Christianity everlasting as God. These can never
perish, through the treachery of their defenders, or the violence of their foes. We look
round us, and all seems to change: what was solid last night, is fluid and passed off
to-day; the theology of our fathers is unreadable ; the doctrines of the middle-age
“ divines” are deceased like them. Shall our mountain stand ? “ Everywhere is insta
bility and insecurity.” It is only men’s heads that swim; not the stars that run round.
The soul of man remains the same: Absolute Religion does not change ; God still speaks
in Reason, Conscience, Faith—is still immanent in his children. We need no new forms:
the old, Baptism and the Supper, are still beautiful to many a soul, and speak blessed
words of religious significance. Let them continue for such as need them. We want
real Christianity, the Absolute Religion, preached with faith, and applied to life,— Being
Good, and Doing Good. There is but one real Religion; we need only open our eyes
to see that; only live it, in love to God, and love to man, and we are blessed of Him that
liveth forever and ever 1—Theodore Parker.
CALVINISM.
It makes God an awful king. The universe shudders at his-presence ; the thunder and
earthquake are but faint whispers of his wrath, as the magnificence of earth and sky is
but one ray out from the heaven of his glory. He sits in awful state. Human flesh
quails at the thought of Him;—it is terrible to fall into His hands, as fall we must. Man
was made not to be peaceful and blessed, but to serve the selfishness of the All-King, to
glorify God, and to praise him. Originally, man was made pure and upright; but to
tempt beyond his strength the frail creatue He had made, God forbade him the exercise of
a natural inclination, not evil in itself. Man disobeyed the arbitrary command;—he fell.
His first sin brought on him the eternal vengeance of the all-powerful King; hurled him at
once from his happiness; took from him the majesty of his nature; left him poor, and
impotent, and blind, and naked; transmitting to each of his children all the guilt of the
primeval sin. Adam was the “federal head of the human race:” “By Adam’s fall we
sinned all.” Man has now no power of himself to discern good from evil, and follow the
good ; his best efforts are but filthy rags in God’s sight; his prayer an abomination. Man
is born totally depraved ; sin is native in his bones; hell is his birthright. To be any
thing acceptable to God, he must renounce his nature, violate the law of the soul. He is
a worm of the dust, and turns this way and that, and up and down, but finds nothing in
nature to cling by and climb.
°
God is painted in the most awful colours in the Old Testament. The flesh quivers
while we read, and the soul recoils upon itself with suppressed breath, and ghastly face,
and sickening heart. The very Heavens are not clean in his sight. The grim, awful
King of the world, “ a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children,”
“angry with the wicked every day,” and “keeping anger forever,” “ of purer eyes than
to behold iniquity,”—He hates sin, though he created it, and man, though he made him
to fall, “ with a perfect hatred.” Vengeance is His, and He will repay. He must, there
fore, punish man with all the exquisite torture which infinite Thought can devise, and
�14
Omnipotence apply ; a Creditor, He exacts the uttermost farthing; a King, “ upheld by
his jury,” the smallest offence is high-treason—the greatest of crimes. Ilis code is
Draconian : he that offends in one point is guilty of all. Good were it for man that he
had never been born—extremest vengeance awaits him;—the jealous God will come upon
him in an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him asunder. Hence comes the doc
trine of “ eternal damnation,” a dogma which Epicurus and Strato would have called it
blasphemy to teach.
But God, though called personal is yet infinite. Mercy, therefore, must be a part of
His nature. He desires to save man from the horrors of hell. Shall he change the
nature of things ? That is impossible. Shall he forgive all mankind outright? Theinfinite King forgive high treason ! It is not consistent with divine dignity to forgive the
smallest violation of his perfect law. A sin, however small, is an infinite evil: He must
have an infinite “ satisfaction.” All the human race are sinners, by being born of woman;
the damning sin of Adam vests in all their bones;—they must all suffer eternal damna
tion, to atone for their inherited sin, unless some “ substitute ” take their place.
Now it has long been a maxim in the courts of law,—whence many forensic terms have
been taken and applied to theology, especially since the time of Anselm,—that a man’s
property may suffer in place of his person; and since his friends may transfer their pro
perty to him, they may suffer in his place “ vicarious punishment.” Thus before
Almighty God, there may be a substitute for the sinner. This doctrine is a theological
fiction; it is of the same family with what are called “ legal fictions ” in the courts, and
“ practical fictions ” in the street—a large and ancient family, it must be confessed, that
has produced great names. But no man can be a substitute for another; for sin is infinite,
and he finite. Though all the liquid fires of hell be poured from eternity on the penitent
head of the whole race, not a single sin, committed even in sleep, by one man, could be
atoned for. An infinite “ ransom ” must be paid to save a single soul. God’s “ Mercy ”
overcomes his “Justice;” for man deserves nothing but “damnation:” He will provide
the ransom. So He sent down His Son, to fulfil all the law—which man could not ful
fil,—realising infinite goodness, and thus merit the infinite reward, and then suffer all
the tortures of infinite sin as if he had not fulfilled- it, and thus prepare a ransom for all;
“purchasing” their “salvation.” Thus men are saved from hell by the “vicarious suf
fering ” of the Son. But this would leave them in a negative state—not bad enough for
hell—not good enough for heaven. The “ merits ” of the Son, as well as his sufferings,
must be set down to their account; and thus man is elevated to Heaven by the “ imputed
righteousness ” of the Son.
But how can the Son achieve these infinite merits, and endure this infinite “ torment,”
and “redeem” and “save” the race? He must be infinite, and then it follows; for all
the actions of the Infinite are also infinite, in this logic. But two Infinites there cannot be.
The Son, therefore, is the Father, and the Father the Son. God’s justice is appeased by
God’s mercy;—God “sacrifices” God, for the sake of man. Thus the infinite “satisfac
tion” is accomplished; God has paid God the infinite ransom for the .infinite sin; the
“ sacrifice ” has been offered; the “ atonement ” completed ; “ we are bought with a price.”
As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Now, in the very teeth of logic, this system under consideration maintains that God did
not thus purchase the redemption of all; for such “forgiveness” would ill comport with
his dignity. Therefore certain “ conditions ” are to be complied with, before man is en
titled to this salvation. God knew from all eternity who would be saved, and they are
said to be “ elected from before the foundation of the world ” to eternal happiness. God
is the cause of their compliance—for man has no free will,—hence foreordination; they are
not saved by their own merit, but by Christ’s,—hence “ particular redemption; ” having
no will, they must be “ called ” and moved by God, and if elected, must come to him,—
hence “ effectual calling; ” if to be saved, they must continue in “grace,”—hence the
“ perseverance of the saints.” The salvation of the “elect,” the damnation of the non
elect, is all effected by the “decrees of God,” the “agency of the Holy Spirit,” the
“satisfaction of Christ; ”—all is a work of “divine grace.”
The doctrine of the “Trinity” has always been connected with this system. It does
not embrace three Gods, as it has often been alleged, but one God in three persons,—
as the Hindoos have one God in thirty millions of persons, and the Pantheists one God
in all persons and all things. The Father sits on the throne of his glory ; the Son, at his
right hand, “intercedes” for man; the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and the
Son, “calls” the saints, and makes them “persevere.” This doctrine of the Trinity
covers a truth, though it often conceals it. Its religious significance—the same with
that of Polytheism—seems to be this: God does not limit himself within the unity of his
essence, but incarnates himself in man,—hence the Son; diffuses himself in space and in
spirit, works with men both to will and to do,—hence the Holy Ghost.—Theodore Parker.
�15
THE SPIRITUALISTS.
“ Changes are coming fast upon the world. In the violent struggles of opposite interests, the
decaying prejudices that have bound men together in the old forms of society are snapping
asunder, one after another. Must we look forward to a hopeless succession of evils, in which
exasperated parties will be alternately victors and victims, till all sink under some one power,
whose interest it is to preserve a quiet despotism ? Who can hope for a better result, unless the
great lesson be learnt, that there can be no essential improvement in the condition of society,
without the improvement of men as moral and religious beings ; and that this can be effected
only by religious Truth ? To expect this improvement from any form of false religion, because
it is called religion, is as if, administering to one in a fever, we were to take some drug from an
apothecary’s shelves, satisfied with its being called medicine.”—Andrew Norton : Statement of
Reasons, <£>c., Preface, p. xxii. xxxiii.
This party has an Idea wider and deeper than that of the Catholic or Protestant—namely,
that “ God still inspires men as much as ever ; that He is immanent in spirit as in space.”
This relies on no church, tradition, or scripture, as the last ground and infallible rule;
it counts these things teachers, if they teach, not masters —helps, if they help us, not
authorities. It relies on the divine presence in the soul of man ; the eternal Word of
God, which is Truth, as it speaks through the faculties he has given. It believes that
God is near the soul, as matter to the sense; thinks the canon of revelation not yet closed,
nor God exhausted. It sees Him in Nature’s perfect work ; hears Him in all true scrip
ture, Jewish or Phoenician ; feels Him in the inspiration of the heart; stoops at the same
fountain with Moses and Jesus, and is filled with living water. It calls God Father, not
King; Christ brother, not Redeemer; heaven home; Religion nature. It loves and
trusts, but does not fear. It sees, in Jesus, a man living manlike, highly gifted, and
living with blameless and beautiful fidelity to God, stepping thousands of years before the
race of man; the profoundest religious genius God has raised up ; whose words and works
help us to form and develope the native idea of a complete religious man. But he lived
for himself; died for himself; worked out his own salvation—and we must do the same,
for one man cannot live for another, more than he can eat or sleep for him. It is no
personal Christ, but the Spirit of Wisdom, Holiness, Love, that creates the well-being of
man ; a life at one with God. The divine incarnation is in all mankind.
The aim it proposes is a complete union of man with God, till every action, thought,
wish, feeling, is in perfect harmony with the Divine will. It makes Christianity not°the
point man goes through in his progress, as the Rationalist—not the point God goes
through iD his development, as the Supernaturalist; but Absolute Religion, the point
where map’s will and God’s will are one and the same. Its source is absolute, its aim
absolute, its method absolute. It lays down no creed, asks no symbol; reverences exclu
sively no time nor place, and therefore can use all time and every place. It reckons
forms useful to such as they help; one man may commune with God through the bread
and the wine, emblems of the body that was broke, and the blood that was shed in the
cause of truth ; another may hold communion through the moss and the violet, the moun
tain, the ocean, or the scripture of suns which God has writ in the sky—it does not make
the means the end; it prizes the signification more than the sign. It knows nothing of
that puerile distinction between Reason and Revelation; never finds the alleged contra
diction between good sense and Religion. Its Temple is all space; its Shrine the good
heart; its Creed all truth ; its Ritual, works of love and utility; its Profession of faith a
divine life-works without, faith within, love of God and man. It bids man do duty, and
take what comes of it—grief or gladness. In every desert it opens fountains of living
water; gives balm for every wound, a pillow in all tempests, tranquillity in each distress.
It does good for goodness’ sake ; asks uo pardon for its sins, but gladly serves out the
time. It is meek and reverent of truth, but scorns all falsehood, though upheld by the
ancient and honourable of the earth. It bows to no idols of wood or flesh, of gold or
parchment, or spoken wind; neither Mammon, neither the Church, nor the Bible, nor yet
Jesus, but God only. It takes all helps it can get; counts no good word profane’ though
a heathen spoke—no lie sacred, though the greatest prophet had said the word. Its re
deemer is within—its salvation within, its heaven and its oracle of God. It falls back on
perfect Religion; asks no more—is satisfied with no less. The personal Christ is its en
couragement, for he reveals the possible of man. Its watchword is, Be Perfect as God.
With its eye on the Infinite, it goes through the striving and the sleep of life ; equal to
duty, not above; fearing not whether the ephemeral wind blow east or west. It has the
strength of the Hero, the tranquil sweetness of the Saint. It makes each man his own
priest, but accepts gladly him that speaks a holy word. Its prayer in words, in works
m feeling, in thought, is this—Tiiy will be done!—its Church that of all holy souls’
the Church of the first-born, called by whatever name.
�16
Let others judge the merits and defects of this scheme. It has never organized a
church; yet in all ages, from the earliest, men have more or less freely set forth its doc
trines. We find these men among the despised and forsaken; the world was not ready to
receive them. They have been stoned and spat upon in all the streets of the world. The
“ pious ” have burned them as haters of God and man ; the “ wicked ” called them bad
names and let them go. They have served to flesh the swords of the Catholic church,
and feed the fires of the Protestant. But flame and steel will not consume them ; the
seed they have sown is quick in many a heart; their memory blessed by such as live
divine. These were the men at whom the world opens wide the mouth, and draws out
the tongue, and utters its impotent laugh ; but they received the fire of God on their
altar, and kept living its sacred flame. They go on the forlorn hope of the race; but
Truth puts a wall of fire about them, and holds the shield over their head in the day of
trouble. The battle of Truth seems often lost, but is always won. Her enemies but
erect the bloody scaffolding where the workmen of God go up and down, and with divine
hands build wiser than they know. When the scaffolding falls, the temple will appear.—
Theodore Parker.
.i
TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
No. I—THE BIBLE: WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT. Br
Theodore Parker, Minister of the Second Congregational Church,
Boston, Mass.
No. II.—CHRISTIANITY: WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT.
By Theodore Parker.
No. III. — PRIESTLY SYSTEMS REPUGNANT TO CHRISTIAN
PRINCIPLES. By Rev. Thomas Wilson, A.M., late of Corp. Chris.
Cambridge, and St. Peter’s Norwick.
No. IV.—ON THE HUMAN CAUSES WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO
TIIE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. Translated from
the French of Ben. Constant, by Wm. Maccall, Author of “ The
Elements of Individualism,” “Agents of Civilization,” “Education of
Taste,” &c.
Will be Published on the First of March.
No. V. — INFALIBILITY, CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT.
By
Rev. James Martineau, Professor of Moral Philosophy, &c., Manches
ter New College.
Glasgow:—John Robertson, 21 Maxwell Street,
��
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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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On the human causes which have concurred toward the establishment of Christianity
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Constant, Benjamin [1767-1830]
MacCall, William (tr)
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Place of publication: [Glasgow]
Collation: 16 p. ; 20 cm.
Series title: Tracts for the times
Series number: No. 4
Notes: Publisher's series list on back page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[John Robertson]
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[n.d.]
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N176
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Christianity
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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 (On the human causes which have concurred toward the establishment of Christianity), 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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Text
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English
Christian church
Christianity
Church history
NSS