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un L i7
What is the Religion of Humanity ?
A DISCOURSE
p
AT
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL,
MAY i 6th, 1880,
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.
LONDON :
SOUTH PLACE, FINSBURY.
PRICE TWOPENCE,
i
Mcfi
2.9 2.
�LONDON :
Waterlow & Sons Limited,
LONDON
WALL.
�WHAT IS THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY?
^JpHE phrase Religion of Humanity has been
much and vaguely used; and best phrases so
used are liable to degenerate into cant. There is some
thing pleasant to everybody in the word “Humanity”;
no doubt all sects would claim that theirs is the
religion of humanity. Even sects with creeds based
upon a curse on human nature would declare their
religion adapted to, and revealed to save, humanity,
therefore the religion of humanity.
Among more liberal people we sometimes hear the
word ‘ humanitarian ’ used for a believer in the
religion of humanity. ‘ Humanitarian ’ was coined
to represent the doctrine that the nature of Jesus
was human as distinguished from divine or angelic :
it is a good sign when such theological disputes are
so far past that their phrases are put to more
substantial work.
And this other phrase, the
Religion of Humanity, which I believe came from
the mint of Positivism, also shows a tendency to do
various duty. To the majority it probably means a
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religion which believes in the perfectibility of
mankind; it would include the idea of human
progress, also the sentiment of charity, of sympathy
with mankind, and a spirit of benevolent reform.
No doubt underneath the humanitarian hypothesis
of the nature of Jesus there was at work a faith in
human nature; and under any conception of a
religion of humanity there would be found the spirit
of love to man, the feeling of fraternity, and belief in
a happy destiny for all mankind.
These high feelings will, however, be reinforced in
proportion as it can be made clear to our minds
whether there is any sense in which that group of
sentiments in us which relate to humanity can be
defined as a religion; if so, in what sense it is a
religion distinct from other so-called religions; and
whether it is one which is fully credible to us,—
whether, that is, it represents the facts and phenomena
regarded by the religious sentiment.
That which we call ‘ Humanity ’ is the totality of
all that is moral in nature ; all that distinguishes and
chooses, which discriminates right from wrong, good
from evil, where all nature not human is unmoral—
gives equal support to good and bad,
All history is the history of the war of mankind
against external nature ; when we go beyond history
to tradition, and behind tradition to mythology, we
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we find this and only this—man combating Arctic
frost and torrid heat, tempest and flood, the barren
ness, the ferocities of the earth, the pitiless cruelties
of the pestilential and the rainless atmosphere. That
siege of man against nature has never been relaxed ;
it goes on still; and in that time man has learned
that his own nature represents all that is moral in the
universe he can comprehend.
I say represents : for certain animals seem
capable of love and mutual service; but they possess
this in the ratio of their approach to human nature,
and of their association with it. Therefore they
are man’s humble constituency; their feebler
minds and affections are represented by him as
against the inorganic universe, their common
enemy.
Now, this ancient interminable war
between man and inanimate nature has not been
one of sentiment, but of necessity. To wage it
has always been the condition of human existence
on the planet; all the animals that could not
wage it to some extent have become fossil; and
man would have followed them into extinction if
he had not steadily resisted his hostile environment.
But during all this war man’s sentiments were on
the side of his great adversary. He sang hymns
to the sun which consumed him, to the storm
which beat upon him; evoked a vast array of
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deities out of the elements, and prostrating himself
before them in one moment, in the next arose to
fight and conquer their cruelty.
Primitive man ascribed to the gods as their
particular realm all the elements and regions of
nature which he himself could not control.
His
own empire was built up in practical hostility to
this elemental empire of the gods.
It was the
necessity of the humanised world that it should
ever be encroaching on the gods’ world, turning
the chaos they had created to order and use.
Thus there was no love lost between the two.
Man’s attitude towards the gods was fear; and
that of the gods towards man was deemed to be
jealousy, sometimes fear also, lest he might build
a tower high enough to besiege heaven, or seize
on the apples of immortality. There resulted a
divorce between man’s practical life and his theology.
That set of beliefs, and diplomatic ceremonials to
the sky which were called religion, had nothing ,
to do with man’s humanity, which was necessarily
devoted to constant revision and correction of that
nature supposed to be the creation of the gods.
All of which may seem very childish notions.
Yet the so-called religions of the world have been
generally cast in the same mould; and that is the
shape they bear to this day.
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The wild powers of nature are translated by
theology and catalogued in the creeds. Where do
you find the doctrine of satisfaction or expiation?
Where do you find any basis for the doctrine that
no deity can forgive an offence except the penalty
be suffered and the law satisfied? You find it in
every creed, but you do not find it in the heart
and life of humanity.
People do not so exact
from others rigid legal satisfaction.
The parent
who worships a god demanding satisfaction, forgives
the child daily without any satisfaction. Humanity
could not have survived if it had practised the
theology of invariable expiation. But you will find
that dogma a reflection of the unswerving course
of natural objects, the unvarying sun and seasons,
the ever-recurring remorseless powers that now freeze,
now bring famine, and listen to no entreaties.
Where will you find the doctrine of vicarious
suffering?
Not in the voluntary life of humanity.
The judge or the parent may worship a deity
satisfied by the suffering of the just for the unjust,
but he would be shocked at any suggestion in the
court or the home that the innocent should, be
made to suffer for the guilty. And in the house
hold or in society, who would deliberately visit
the sin of a father upon his children ?
Where
then, do the creeds get these notions ? From the
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hard forces of nature, which punish transgressions
of natural law even though they be virtuous deeds,
secure the good of one by sacrifice of another;
now make the mother victim of the child, next
the child heir of the parent’s infirmities.
We might indeed go through the whole list of
dogmas that make up what is called religion, and
we should find them to be a rough translation of
nature’s roughness; not religion at all, because
confusing good and evil; unrelated to the moral
sentiment; a crude primitive science, or attempt
at a scientific theory of nature. Those which were
anciently deities personifying the inorganic aspects
of nature, are now abstract dogmas reflecting the
same thing; and as when they were deities or
demons, so now when they have become dogmas,
they represent precisely all that part of nature
which it is the business of humanity to resist,
restrain, or even exterminate.
We must, indeed, never forget that human .
beings are much better than their creeds; that
inside their stony dogmatic walls are cultured
spots of humane feeling; that they speak and act
gently while they worship wrath, and deal justly
while worshipping an unjust deity. There is a
blessed necessity which exterminates from the
practical life anti-social principles; and while it
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allows tongues to recite what creeds they please,
holds heart and hand to their need and duty
with an iron grip. Nevertheless mankind are not
passing unharmed through this opposition between
their dogmas and their humanity.
It is a very
serious thing that men should throw the sanctions
of sentiment and piety around deified reflections of
that inorganic world which it were man’s real
religion to master, and make into his own human
image and likeness.
These ancient ‘ religions ’
have adopted many humane sentiments, some of
them even patronise human life and its joys; but
they never make humanity the main thing, the
great religous force and director: all that immense
power of piety, devotion, enthusiasm, which to
gether make religion, are still on the side of the
inorganic universe and its traditional phantasms.
We may then answer our question, ‘ What is
the Religion of Humanity,’ by saying, it is a
religion which transfers to the moral and intellectual
forces which are mastering nature all the piety
that now worships personifications of the ob
structions mastered.
There is need that our
sentiment and our work should be on the same
side in this great struggle of humanity with
mountain and desert, volcano and flood. It is a
grievous anomaly to worship the mountain-god
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while we tunnel the mountain, and praise the
lightning-god while we raise a rod to divert his
bolt.
That kind of homage and praise are due
to skill and to science, and hard-handed labour;
not to the wild powers they are levelling and
curbing for us.
It may be said that such
adorations of natural forces do no harm; they
are directed to powers that cannot hear or heed
them.
But there is harm done when the finest
seed are sown on clouds, instead of in a soil
where they might bear fruit. We can little dream
what a reinforcement of the human work of the
world it would be if all the devotion and wealth
lavished on deities and dogmas were directed to
aid and animate man in his tremendous task of
humanising his world.
But, it may be asked, and it is the anxious
question of many hearts, is there no God of nature,
no God in nature? Is there no power above our
selves—or power not ourselves—that makes for
righteousness? And, if there be none, are we not
orphans? Are we not robbed of all heart and
hope in our struggle with earthly evil, having no
certainty of ultimate success ?
The Religion of Humanity answers, Yes, there is
a God in nature, a God and ruler of nature; but
that divine parent is nowhere discoverable except in
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the spirit of humanity. You may cry for help to
glowing suns and circling stars, to gravitation and
electricity, to ocean and sky, or to all of them
together; but no help or ray of pity will you get
until you have turned to lean on the heart and arm of
human love and strength. For these are the answers
of the universe to your cry. The proof of love in
nature outside you is a loving heart inside you.
Nature has laboured through untold ages to give you
that heart to rest upon, that hand to clasp yours.
We must credit nature with -what has come out of
it. Wild as are the forces around us, terrible as is
this vast machinery roaring around us,—amid which
we move like wondering children, or at some misstep
of ignorance are caught up and crushed, we may
still say that out of it all was evolved the thinker to
warn us, the man of skill to devise good for us, the
man of science to show us the safe path, the
physician to heal us, the artist to beguile us on the
way, the poet to cheer us; the friend, the lover, the
father, the mother, who try to guard us, or, if we are
wounded, seek to heal our wounds. All these were
evolved out of nature. They show us nature pointing
us to humanity,—to humanity, the crown and hope of
nature’s own self, the power which nature has created
for its own deliverance,—in distrusting which we
distrust the only God in nature, the God manifest
within us, and in the sweet humanities around us.
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Therefore must we love nature. As we go froth to
contend against its inorganic forces, we recognise
that our contest with nature is a friendly contest, for
deliverance of that inanimate world itself which
suffers the pains of labour until now, awaiting its
adoption into the liberty of the sons of God : it is
the steadfast transfiguration of nature in a light
higher than any dawn, a grandeur which its beauties
but faintly hint and symbolize.
In these days when, under the fierce light that
beats upon the throne of superstition, the ancient
images are falling from many household shrines,—
images which, however low their origin, have been
hallowed by the tender pieties and associations
twining around them,—there is a pathetic cry on
the air. The fine gold has waxed dim! the white
statues are crumbling ! ‘ Give us back our gods ! ’
cried the pagans of old when the Christians
shattered the fair idols of Europe; ‘Give us back
our Saints, our Blessed Mother,’ cried the Catholics
when Protestantism broke up the altars; ‘Give us
back our Faith, our divine Lord,’ cry Protestant
hearts in turn.
But know they not why these
perished and can never return? They could not
do the work of humanity; they could not hear,
they could not heed the cry of hearts that needed
something more than statues, pictures, or sentimental
beliefs.
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The other day we heard of the Holy Virgin
appearing in Ireland. The press even sent reporters
who gathered detailed information about the light
that was seen, and Mary, Joseph and John in the
midst. But in their descent these heavenly beings
did not bring bread to save one starving Irish
family. That was left to Saint America who came
over with a loaded ship, and is now doing for poor
human beings what the Virgin Mary does only for
her own altars and priests.
The heretic is not heartless because he cannot be
silenced by the piteous appeal of piety that its
idols and illusions shall be spared. He is listening
to a more sorrowful cry than that; it comes from
the great deeps of human agony, want, evil, despair;
it is a cry ever burthening the air, but never heeded
by the idols which have neither eye, ear, heart,
nor hand. How sweet those idols seem to those
who decorate them, cover them with devotion,
heap on them their gold, their love, and bathe
them with their tears; even so cruel they seem
to one who knows that it is for want of just
that devotion that millions of human beings find
this world a hell.
Poor Humanity, how is it tortured even by those
abstract dogmas, which inheriting the sway of demons,
have power to pervert the human heart; to make it
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act cruelly, unrelentingly, like the brutal elements
they embody in words and images !
I picture
Humanity as poor Juliet in her agony. There she is,
the beautiful soul, the perfect heart, the supremest
thing in nature ! Around her an environment of
persons who represent the wild elements. The vin
dictive feud of Montague and Capulet, cruel as
venom of serpents; parents who have taken pea
cock pomp into their breast instead of hearts; a silly
ignorant nurse.
They all represent the inorganic
elements surviving in human nature, pride, ignorance,
vengeance; these not hidden there as shameful things
but consecrated as duty and dignity: this is the lot
with which that heaven, to which Juilet has prayed all
her life, has surrounded her gentle soul in its sore
need 1
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the Lottom of my grief ?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away !
But the mother, slave of her lord, has gone. Then
once more to the clouds Juliet cries, ‘ O God ! ’ No
answer. The poor ignorant nurse alone is left her.
O nurse! how shall this be prevented ?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven ;
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth ? —comfort me, counsel me.—
Alack, alack, that Heaven should practice stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself!
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Alas, Juliet finds that heaven is against her. She
thinks how different it would be if Romeo were only
able to leave earth and be god for a time. She meets
religion presently: the sympathetic, helpful friar, is a
disguise for the Religion of Humanity. For this friar
is a true holy father where the lordly father had
failed ; he does not point Juliet or Romeo to heaven
nor bid them pray, sing, or confess. When Romeo
has slain one in his desperation, the friar gets him off
to a safe place. He has drugs, and secret schemes,
by which he tries hard to outwit the inorganic tempers
that are crushing the lovers. He fails in the end ;
but that torch he holds over the dead faces of those
he sought to save, is the torch of the true Religion,
burning through a midnight of tragedies on to the
hour that shall raise its light to be a flaming dawn.
Do you ask what tidings more glad can the Religion
of Humanity bring to hearts in their agony, the agony
caused by the discord, pride, ungentleness of
spirit in men and women ? Why, it brings hope of a
time when hearts will not be proud and harsh,
because religion will have concentrated all its power
of renovation upon them. Religion will recall its
protecting forces from the nature-gods and gather
them all around human beings, to love them, help
them, save them; so that when Juliet cries ‘O God!
her father shall be at hand, her mother shall serve her
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as if Juliet were the one Holy Virgin, so that no
human being shall ever be brought up to fancy that
there is any higher religion than to promote human
happiness, purity, and wisdom.
The religion of humanity thus has its meaning
and promise for the individual heart, for the soul
with its own grief, in that it brings back piety from its
wanderings to seek out and love the divine in every
heart; but it also holds out to the world at large a
hope unknown to any theology, the promise of a
perfectly developed Humanity implying a perfect
world. For this religion shows mankind to be the
creator, and a loving creator ; whose eternal design is
not the salvation of certain elect ones, of those only
after they are dead, and from evils that do not exist,
but the salvation of all, of the living, from actual
evils. It reveals to each generation that it is not only
the heir of all the ages, but the incarnation of their
summed-up powers; that this trust bequeathed from
all preceding generations, represents not only man in
the past, but all that preceded man; every bird that
ever sang to its mate, every tiger that ever defended
its young; nay, every atom that ever clung to its
fellow-atom amid the star-mist, in the first throb of
that spirit of life which has climbed on to the
splendour of reason and glory of a heart, beside
which the sun and moon are mere sparks.
�This is the Holy Mother. This is the ever-blessed
unwearied Madonna bearing the man-child in her
arms. A legend runs that when Mary was travelling
in Egypt, and her arm failed from long bearing her
babe, a third hand grew out to sustain Jesus : even so
is it with the maternal spirit which is caring for the
world, watching over human hearts, bearing it onward.
Does the old support fail ? Io, another ! Already our
dear Mother is many-handed. Wherever are love,
thought, sympathy, and a devotion to truth and right,
there are her sustaining arms. Her unwearied watch
is with the student seeking truth and wisdom, with
the reformer, the philanthropist, the physician, the
man of science, the poet, the artist. Wherever there
is one who is contriving a new benefit for the earth,
some relief from evil, some mitigation of pain, some
beauty which shall soothe and delight earth’s wayworn pilgrims, some sweet song to beguile sorrow and
pain into self-forgetfulness, win hearts from vain
regrets, cast a sunbeam into the darkened breast of
guilt, proffer a draught of Lethe to the lips of Despair
and Death, there is our divine Father, and there our
heavenly Mother, majestic and beautiful: nature is
glorified in them : with them are the sign and seal by
which all nature, however wild, is for ever bound to
follow and obey their eternal attraction.
This Religion of Humanity therefore has not the
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disadvantages of some new sect or new idea: it
not only exists already, but it has existed for ages.
I believe it to be the only religion that does really
exist, and that alone which the great teachers have
taught.
It is a very common experience with those who
abandon an established church, sect, or creed, that
they never cease to honour the great teacher said
to have founded that church or creed. Most free
thinkers feel that they love Christ much more
genuinely than Christians. The same phenomenon
appears throughout the world. Wherever there is a
protestant movement we hear the cries, ‘Not
Buddhism but Buddha!’ ‘Not Confucianism but
Confucius!’ ‘Not Christianity but Christ!’
It
is not difficult to see why we love the teacher while
opposing the system named after him. The teacher
represented the religion of humanity. No matter
what he taught, he was another step; he sought to
remove some evil or error, and added something to
the growing life of the world.
But the system
which has borrowed his good name is invariably
one based on that which he resisted. Every socalled religion is a new edition of the old nature
worship : it is a system trying to sanction its power
with the prestige of a breaker of systems. But
such power can never be built up except by reversing
�the freedom and humanity of the system-breaker,
because it must rule by bribe and menace. There
never was a prophet who did not teach love,
forgiveness, gentleness; there never was a system
which did not make its prophet teach wrath,
expiation, satisfaction. ‘ Love your 'enemies,’ says
the prophet as he was; £ Depart into fire,’ says the
prophet as the system makes him.
As time goes on this anomaly is seen.
The
human religion is at work; people grow ashamed
of their dogmas; they more and more dwell on the
sweet parables, the kindly deeds, the human side of
their prophet; they try to hide and forget the awful
character which the system assigns him.
But it is
impossible : that awful character is an old role in the
drama of the gods; Jehovah had to play it, and
Jove, and Jesus; every successful name has to be
put to that part if a creed is to survive after it is
unloved and unbelieved. So, steadily, as know
ledge and liberty advance must such systems
crumble and their idols follow them; when their
supernatural terrors have become grotesque and
their celestial promises antiquated, there are left
only the vulgar fears and interests to which an
existing order appeals, and from that moment the
familiar face of selfishness is seen beneath the mask
of piety.
Such is the process now going on;
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by it true and faithul hearts are hourly set
free; and there is fair prospect of seeing a
swiftly-growing and expanding spiritual union among
the really religious, though the discovery that what
each sincerely loves in his prophet his seeming
opponent loves equally; and what he discards is
that which none can love, though it may be
tolerated. No man loves Jesus for his miracles:
no heart responds to his curse on a figtree; none
rejoices in his formula for cursing the goats at the
last day. The Jesus beloved is he who spoke of
the forgiven prodigal, who wept tears over his dead
friend, knew the scripture of the lilies and the
waving corn, promised peace, and gave men rest in
the faith that even as they forgave the trespasses of
men all the more would the divine love forgive
them.
That is the Jesus really beloved by the
sincere and lowly hearts that are not concerned in
Christianity as a politic system; and they do not
love him more than those called ‘infidels.’
There is one belief concerning Christ in which all
sects, churches, Secularists, Theists, Atheists agree:
they all agree that he was a man. Some believe he
was a God-man, others a miraculous man; all agree
that he was a man. That then is the only doctrine
that can be pronounced literally Catholic, that is
universal. And as the definition of a man grows
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truer, and as more and more mankind come to feel
how dependent they are for all advancement upon the
fidelity and wisdom of great and good men, it will
not be thought derogatory to Jesus that he should be
called a man. But it will be found derogatory to
connect him with the thundergods of primitive ages.
It will be resented more and more as a lowering of
his goodness and greatness to call him the incarnation
of Jehovah, whose biblical record is one of wrath,
injustice and cruelty. As Jove and Jehovah have
died of inhumanity, so will the Doomsday Christ pass
out of human love and belief. It will be realised
that the whole thought and work of Jesus was to
abolish that system of belief which Jehovah repre
sented, and all the gods like unto him. Those
personifications of crude, cruel nature, and Jesus
representing the love and morality which soften and
subdue nature, are practically opposite principles, and
their necessary combat makes all the serious contro
versies of our time.
When the orthodox talk of God becoming man, we
have only to say,—Let him be a real man and we can
believe on him. Remove from him the theologic
costume of miracle, of unforgiving last day wrath, of
ceremonial and ritual preserved from' the ancient
worship of the elements by cowed and terrified
barbarians; give us the great heart and brain, the real
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man as he was, ally him with the grand work of
humanity on earth, unite him with his true brothers,
his peers of every age and race, and be sure there
will be no heart on earth which shall fail to surround
him with love and homage !
Already there are signs that this is the way
Christianity is tending. The character of its defence
has completely changed. We no longer hear its
defenders resting it upon miracles or upon Judaic
history, but upon the morality and the humanities
they believe bound up with it. They plead for the
social and domestic virtues, and say that to the
masses these rest upon Christianity. That is a good
sign.
It is necessary to prove to them that
Christianity does not come into this moral tribunal
with clean hands; that it carries into innumerable
homes a book containing cruelties and obscenities,
as God’s word; that it propagates superstition, and
teaches man to rest for safety upon metaphysical
dogmas rather than righteousness : but, while main
taining this, we may gladly recognise the happy
change by which the dogmas are being steadily
overlaid by considerations of practical virtue. This
I believe will go on until out of these transitional
controversies shall emerge the full-formed religion
of Humanity, to be loved and honoured of all,
and to include all races in a fraternal competition
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to promote the health, happiness, and virtue
of the family of man.
Christian apostles felt
and foresaw this.
‘ Be not deceived,’ cried one,
‘ he who doeth righteousness is righteous.’ Said
another, ‘ Pure religion and undefiled is to visit
the widow and the fatherless in their affliction, and
to keep oneself unspotted by the world.’ A third
added, ‘ Love is the fulfilling of the Law.’ Equally
was this the testimony of Zoroaster, of Buddha, of
Confucius. In this religion have the prophets and
sages lived and died ; and this will remain for ever
the religion of the faithful and true, the helpful and
the just, when all our controversies have died away.
When the dogmatic systems have taken their place
among other relics of antiquated philosophy, there
will still be growing and expanding in the earth the
religion of humanity,—the hatred of pain, which
superstition worshipped; hatred of all sacrifice of
human welfare; passionate horror of all evil, and that
which inflicts suffering; passionate love of all that
promotes welfare; concentration of all powers within
and without to the humanisation of man and his
world; and the immortal hope that Humanity will
survive for ever, conquer all evil, attain perfect know
ledge and joy. .This religion will flourish over the
graves of all idols and creeds,—and this is the
Religion of Humanity.
�SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL.
WORKS TO BE OBTAINED IN THE LIBRARY.
BY M. D. CONWAY, M.A.
The Sacred Anthology: a Book of Ethnical s. d.
Scriptures...........................................
.... 10 0
The Earthward Pilgrimage.................................
5 0
Do.
do.......................................... 2 6
Republican Superstitions .................................
2 6
Christianity .......................
.............
... 1 6
Human Sacrifices in England
.......................
1 0
Sterling and Maurice...........................................
0 2
Intellectual Suicide...........................................
0 2
The First Love again...........................................
0 2
Our Cause and its Accusers.................................
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Alcestis in England......................
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Unbelief : its nature, cause, and cure ............. 0 2
Entering Society
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The Religion of Children.................................
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What is Religion ?
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Atheism: a Spectre...........................................
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The Criminal’s Ascension.................................
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Idols and Ideals (including the Essay on Chris
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The Dyer’s Hand
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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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What is the religion of humanity?: a discourse at South Place Chapel, May 16th 1880
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 2. Printed by Waterlow and Sons, London Wall. With a list of works to be obtained in the Library of South Place Chapel at end of pamphlet.
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[South Place Chapel]
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G3347
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Religion
Ethics
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (What is the religion of humanity?: a discourse at South Place Chapel, May 16th 1880), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Free Thought
God-Attributes
Human Nature
Humanism
Moral Theology
Morality
Morris Tracts
Positivism
Religion and Ethics
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Text
THE AGE OF LIGHT,
•
BT
J. KASPARY,
Humanitarian.
LONDON:
F. FARRAH, 282, STRAND.
1872.
THE GOD OF NATURE.
The existence of human intelligence and animal instinct proves
to reasoning beings the existence of unchangeable laws, according
to which the universe is governed; and the existence of these laws
proves to reasoning beings the existence of an eternal, immutable,
all-pervading, omnipotent and infinitely wise just and merciful
Being. For the universe is composed of dividable substance or
matter, and of beings or souls incapable of division, and both
classes of essential existence have changeable qualities. As the
acquisition of human intelligence and animal instinct, however,
would be impossible in an universe subject to changes according
to varying laws, and can be acquired only by life-producing souls
from the contemplation of, and reasoning on, the changes which
take place in matter and souls according to immutable laws, the
existence of human intelligence and of animal instinct there
fore proves the existence of unchangeable laws. But as neither
the whole universe nor any of its component parts has an immu
table nature or unchangeable qualities, there must necessarily
exist an eternally immutable and all-pervading cause for the pro
duction of similar effects (or change of quality) in similar means
(or matter and souls) everywhere, at all times, and even in opposi
tion to the wishes of the whole human race. The existence,
therefore, of unvarying laws according to which changes take
place, consequently proves the existence of an essential Being,
possessing a nature or the attributes of eternity, immutability,
omnipresency and omnipotency, and this Being I call the “ God
of Nature.” As all souls have derived their intelligence and
instinct, or their true ideas of wisdom or goodness, from the ob
servation of, and reasoning on, the immutable laws, which I call
“ God’s Laws of Nature,” every person possessing adequate
intelligence will know, and those having true instinct will believe,
that the “ God of Nature” i3 infinitely wise, just and merciful.
For “God’s Laws of Nature” are the only infallible criterion
by which intelligent and virtuous persons can distinguish wisdom
from folly, morality from immorality, or good from evil. Since
those thoughts desires and acts only are wise, moral or good.
�9
which are rewarded by God according to His nature or laws with
progressive happiness, and those are unwise, immoral or evil, that
are corrected by Him with increasing misery. The existence of
the “God of Nature” excludes, of course, the possibility of
miracles; for the occurrence of even a single miracle would dis
prove. the existence of immutable laws, the existence of human
intelligence and animal instinct, and consequently the existence of
the “ God of Nature/’ Believers in false gods are therefore the
only persons who have faith in miracles, because Pagans have
neither the intelligence to know, nor the instinct to believe, in the
“ God of Nature
since they have either not sufficiently culti
vated themselves, or their intelligence and instinct have been
perverted by the belief in such fictitious idols as Brahma, Jehovah,
Jupiter, the Holy Ghost and Allah, or in such real idols as
Chrishna, Christ, Kabir and Mary, the mother of the Christian idol.
All the miracles recorded in such Heathen Mythologies as the
Vedas, Bible, Tripitakas and the New Testament, are therefore
either fables suggested by priestcraft, or tricks wrought by piously
deceitful jugglers, or natural occurrences which have been re
garded as miraculous by the superstitious and ignorant
All
persons, however, who have no knowledge of, or belief in,
“God of Nature,” but worship any of the fictitious or real idols,
which theMoseses and Aarons have made for the people, are deluded
Pagans, and will be corrected by God with physical and mental
pain until they are converted into Humanitarians, when the
Religion of God will teach them that the only way of salvation is
the worship of the “ God of Nature ” by the acquisition of wis
dom and the practice of goodness.
The Lecture at Midland Railway Arch,
Delivered by the Humanitarian, J. KASPARY,
SUPERIOR TO ASD SUPERSEDING
The Ten Commandments of the Bible,
Probably composed and engraved on stone by Moses, but ascribed to Jehovah.
As Christian Jesuits have no longer the power in England to
imprison, torture and murder by Law, the intelligent and honest
persons who advocate true science and philosophy (the real words
of God), and therefore speak against the paganism, superstition,
and immoral doctrines, contained in the Christian Scriptures and
Creeds., the modern Jesuits are compelled to resort to the primitive
Christian practice, either of flattering mental idleness and en
couraging wickedness by promising salvation in return for
credulity, or by committing pious frauds in favour of their creed
and against the opinions of their opponents. One of the Bible
defenders, for instance, knowing that it is impossible to defend
Christianity, or to attack the Religion of God by fair means, told
the writer’s audience at Chelsea Bridge, only a few weeks ago, that
�3
the Ten Commandments secured to the working classes of this
country their Sunday, of which the Religion of God wanted to
rob them, giving them instead only four Mondays in the whole
year as days of rest and recreation. The few Christians present,
of course, cheered the eloquent defender of the Bible—for when did
deluded Christians and similar Heathens by mistake not love their
greatest enemies and hate their truest friends ?—the majority of
the audience, however, being composed of thinking men and women,
scarcely needed to be reminded that every Christian who does not
work on Sundays and rest on Saturdays breaks the Fourth Com
mandment of Moses, and that the Religion of God teaches “Every
Sunday, and the first Monday in January, April, July, and Octo
ber, you shall keep holy throughout the globe, as days of rest and
recreation.” This Bible defender, therefore, committed two pious
frauds,—one in favor of the Bible, and the other against the
Religion of God. The writer believes, however, that when this
Christian will cease to be his own greatest enemy, he will make
atonement by speaking truthfully against Christian paganism and
superstition and in favor of the Religion of God; for every sane
and honest person will acknowledge in time that the Lecture at
Midland Railway Arch is infinitely superior to the Ten Command
ments of the Bible, but if there be conscientious representatives
of Judaism or of any Christian sect who differ from this opinion,
they are invited to debate or to correspond with their brother, the
Humanitarian, J. KASPARY, 5,
Row, High Holborn,
London, W. C.
THE LECTURE AT MIDLAND RAILWAY ARCH,
Delivered on the two first Sundays in September, 1871, contains a translation by the
Humanitarian, J. KASPARY, of the following Eight Commandments, which the God
of Nature Himself eternally teaches by His laws of nature to every human being possess
ing adequate intelligence and goodness:—
1. You shall know that Z alone am God, the ever conscious, omnipresent, omni
potent, and infinitely wise, just, merciful, and holy Being, in Whom the universe
exists, and Who eternally pervades all divisible and indivisible essence (matter and
souls). You shall, therefore, neither believe in fictitious beings (the creatures of
human imagination, as, for instance, Brahma, Jehovah, Jupiter, Allah, the Devil,
and the Holy Ghost), nor bow down to any real idols (the objects in nature and art,
as, for instance, the sun, the elements, animals, Mary, Jesus, a golden calf, Jehovah’s
ark, and the crucifix). You shall, however, devote your whole life to worship Me
with the acquisition of wisdom and goodness ; for I, your only Lord and God, reward
the good with progressive happiness, and correct the evil with increasing misery, yet
pardon even the greatest sinners after their purification by repentance, and after
their consecration by an abode in the garden of virtues.
2. You shall not swear, but speak what you know or believe to be the truth,
your affirmation being Yes, your negation No.
3. You shall not believe that the invented Jehovah created the world in six days,
and rested on Saturday, or that the body of the real Jesus rose again from the grave
on Sunday or in similar pious frauds of priestcraft; for I, the only Lord of all
existence am eternally active, producing all the phenomena throughout infinite space
according to My own immutable nature. You shall, therefore, regard as equally
holy all the seconds of eternity and every part of the infinite universe ; but in com
memoration of the blessing I conferred upon the human race (by rewarding with a
knowledge of the only true religion your best human friend), on the first day of the
week, you shall on that day exclusively serve Me with mental and moral culture and
�rational enjoyments. Those who minister for the instruction and pleasure of the
people shall serve Me with rest and recreation the next day. On the other six days
of the week (with the exception of a few days during the year), you shall serve Me
with working moderately for the commonwealth. Remember that I am the Lord
of active life, resting death, and life and death-like sleep, clothing you with a new
body or taking it from you, rewarding you with happiness or correcting you with
misery, according to your merits.
4. You shall be loving and grateful children towards your parents, but follow only
their good example and precepts. And when Z, the foundation of life, bless you
with children, you shall set them a good example by taking care of your own and
their physical, mental, and moral health, that Z, the universal parent, may reward
mankind with increasing bliss, and change your eternal abode into a progressive
paradise for your present and innumerable future human lives.
5. You shall not take your own life nor that of any other human being, except in
self-defence. You shall, therefore, not execute even the greatest tyrants and mur
derers when you have taken them prisoners, but liberate them after their conversion
into Humanitarian defenders of liberty. You shall, however, risk your life in the
defence of others, and rather endure imprisonment, torture, and death, than lend
yourself as a tool in an offensive war, when Zwill clothe you with a new, superior
human body and place you under the most favorable circumstances, rewarding you
with long and happy lives.
6. You shall marry only one of the other sex from rational love, and (during your
married life; forget self in the happiness of your partner, when bliss will pervade
your whole being. I shall visit, however, with misery those who prefer celibacy, or
pollute themselves with seduction, adultery, and polygamy.
7. You shall restore inherited property, stolen from the people by cunning and
force, and use your superior talents, not to accumulate excessive private fortunes, but
to enrich the commonwealth, when happiness will be your reward. Z shall correct,
however, with increasing mental and physical pain the dishonest stewards who
take more than their proper share from the gifts I have given them for distribution,
the dishonest idlers who deprive society of due labour and other thieves, until they
become converted into honest people.
8. You shall use your present and future conscious existence to examine yourself,
either to exterminate stupidity and wickedness and to develop the intelligence and
goodness acquired in your former human lives or in the present one, or to create
more talents and good desires within yourself by your thoughts and acts. Z will
bestow all My blessings upon those who keep this, My commandment, for in it are
contained all the ways that lead through the infinite regions of eternal bliss.
The Lectures at Chelsea Bridge,
Delivered by the Humanitarian, J. KASPARY,
SUPERIOR TO AND SUPERSEDING
The First Four Chapters of the New Testament,
AND
The Sermon on the Mount,
Composed by, and receiving interpolations from unknown Christians, but ascribed
to Jesus and Matthew.
The Lectures at Chelsea Bridge have been composed, delivered,
and published, in order to convince Christians that the Religion
of God, which the Humanitarian, J. Kaspary, is advocating,
teaches wiser doctrines than even the Sermon on the Mount. The
whole world will admit in time that the Lectures at Chelsea
Bridge, which contain only a small part of the eternal and infinite
Religion of God, are superior to the first seven chapters of the
New Testament ; but contemporaries, who differ from this opinion,
are earnestly requested to make an impartial comparison. These
lectures and the other publications of the Humanitarian, J. K.,
�5
will be sent to the Pope, Roman Catholic and Protestant Arch
bishops, and Bishops of Great Britain and Ireland, the Lower
House of Convocation, and the most eminent Ministers of Dissen
ters. Humanitarians invite and accept the representatives of any
Christian church or sect to examine with their representative in
debate the superiority of the Religion of God over Christianity.
They are confident that truth, though taught and defended by a
lisping foreigner, will prove victorious over error, thotigh advo
cated by the most eloquent English Christians.
THE LECTURE AT CHELSEA BRIDGE,
Delivered on Sundays in June, 1872.
Avoid the extremes of credulity and excessive scepticism, but
examine impartially and be a rational believer of probabilities in
matters in which certainty is unattainable. The superstitious
Christian who believes that Mary was still a virgin after the con
ception of her first son and that therefore Jesus had no human father,
does not indulge in much greater folly than the extreme sceptic who
denies the existence of the man Jesus on account of the impro
bable events recorded of him: for the unwise credit either every
thing or nothing, but the wise reject only fables and other evident
untruths. Humanitarians will therefore believe that weak Joseph
seduced frail Mary, and then made the best reparation by marrying
her, an example every seducer ought to imitate. This marriage of
Joseph with pregnant Mary undeniably proves to the intelligent
reader of the Gospel the seduction of Mary by Joseph, and at
least Joseph’s belief that Jesus was his son.
You shall neither honour nor despise any person on account of
ancestors, but regard all children as brothers and sisters, assisting
every one to exterminate stupidity and evil desires by the develop
ment or creation of intelligence and goodness. It is, therefore, no
disgrace to Jesus that he was procreated before the marriage of
his erring, ignorant and despised parents, or, if it were true, that
he was the descendant of the great criminal David. It is, however,
the height of Pagan folly to esteem persons because their ancestors
have been such great knaves, murderers, thieves, adulterers and
seducers, as most founders of Christian aristocratic families have
been.
The unknown Christian who wrote the genealogy of Joseph, the
husband of Mary, in order to make the reader believe that Jesus,
as the son of Joseph, was the descendant of David (Matt. i. 1—17),
cannot be the same person as the piously deceitful author, who
invented for Jesus a fictitious father, called the Holy Ghost
(Matt. i. 18—25): for every intelligent and honest critic of the
Gospels will admit that the first seventeen verses were most pro
bably composed for the perversion of the Jews, by a perverted
Jew who believed in the Biblical Messiah, whereas the last eio-ht
verses of the first chapter, ascribed to Matthew, were most pro
bably invented for the perversion of the Gentiles by a perverted
�6
Gentile who believed in the incarnation of the deity: as this idea
was always and is still rejected by the Jews but was accepted by
almost all the Heathens of antiquity, and even to-day the majority
of the inhabitants of the East Indies believe as strongly in the
incarnation of the second person of their Trinity as the veriest
Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Wesleyans, Methodist
Ranters, Mormon Saints and High Churchmen. The truth of the
axiom that of two contradictory propositions only one can be
true, but both may be false, will perhaps be evident even to Gospel
believers. If, therefore, the first seventeen verses (especially
Matt. i. 17) of the New Testament are true, the rest of the chap
ter (especially Matt. i. 25) must be the greatest Christian untruth;
but were even the Holy Ghost a reality, and not a mere personifi
cation of Christian priestcraft, then Matt. i. 1—17 which wants to
prove that Jesus, as the son of Joseph, was a descendant of David
and the promised Messiah of the Jews, must be a great pious
fraud of primitive Christian Jesuits. Even school boys, when
counting the generations from Abraham to Jesus in the Gospel,
will find that the Christian Holy Ghost (the reputed inspirer of
the unholy Scriptures) was deficient in arithmetic : for Matt. i. 17
states that from Abraham to Jesus are three times fourteen
generations, which according to the wisdom of this world make
forty-two generations, but according to the infallible Gospel
(Matt. i. 2—16) there are fewer than forty-two generations.
Learned Christians therefore act consistently when after swallow
ing the camels of the Scriptures they (like Dr. Newman and Arch
bishop Manning) do not strain at Papal infallibility and other
gnats of Roman Catholicism. The preceding remarks justify the
statement that only dupes conscientiously believe in the first
chapter of the Gospel: for every intelligent and honest reader
must disbelieve in the cunningly devised fables which are the
foundation-stones of Christian superstition and paganism.
You shall not pervert reason and morality by Trinitarian and
other forms of paganism and superstition, but advocate a religious
education, which alone can develop or create intelligence and good
ness in the human soul and convert mankind into Humanitarians
and our earth into a real paradise. You poison, however, the
mind of your children and perpetuate human misery by recom
mending such wolves in sheep’s clothing as the Vedas, Bible,
Tripitakas, Koran, and other Mythologies of priestcraft, since all
revealed irreligions teach more or less that folly and vice are wis
dom and virtue, and vice versa. The second chapter of the New Tes
tament, for instance, inculcates the belief in astrology, dreams
and fortune-telling. Hence the traders in Christianity have been
compelled to keep the people in ignorance, or to pervert reason by
a Biblical education which inculcates credulity, called faith, as the
highest wisdom and virtue; but stigmatises rationalism, or the re
jection of Christian fables and immoralities, called infidelity, as
the greatest folly and vice.
�7
A truly religious life consists in the acquisition of intelligence
and goodness. For intelligence is the acquired quality of the
human soul which enables man to distinguish wisdom from folly.
The acquired quality of goodness, however, inspires persons to
love and to follow the principles of virtue, but to hate and to
reject those of vice. Paganism and superstition seduce Christians
to become Ascetics, like John the Baptist, and to believe in the
third chapter of the Gospel which approves of the folly of bap
tism, and contains a silly tale, viz., that “the heavens (which have
never been shut) were opened and Jesus saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove lighting upon him : And lo, a voice from
heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.” Humanitarians will best show their pity towards deluded
Pa er an s who believe in such fables by converting them into Humani
tarians, when the converts will purify themselves from Christian
stupidity and corruption by mental industry and good thoughts
desires and acts, and also practice external cleanliness by a fre
quent application of water, without indulging in the superstitious
rite of the Baptists and of the pilgrims to the rivers Ganges and
Jordan.
The existence of the a God of Nature,” of course, excludes the
existence of beings like the Christian Devil. For the belief in
all the various fictitious devils has its origin in the personification
of temptations which arise in corrupted human nature or through
unfavorable circumstances. The inherent egotism, ambition, stu
pidity and wickedness, and the external conditions created by
them, are therefore the only real devils which tempt human beings.
For instance, egotism and ambition enter especially on a fierce
struggle for the expulsion of wisdom and love, when men of
genius are starving in garrets, laughed at or hated by the very
people who ought to reverence and love them most. “ Follow us,”
say Egotism and Ambition to a talented young politician, “ and
our servants, the knaves and their dupes, will shower upon you
riches, honour and power. Hitherto you have listened to Wisdom
and Love and their advice has rendered you poor, despised and
powerless. We shall make of you, however, not only a leader of
the great egotistical and stupid party, but a prime minister, the
defender of church and throne on which our empire rests, and the
creator of archbishops and peers in whom the egotistical and am
bitious multitudes find their models and masters.” The aspiring
young politician listens to the seducers and follows their advice,
yet tries to delude himself with the belief that he is cheating
them, that the end in view justifies the means, that his actions are
inspired by wisdom and love, and that he has changed from a
liberal Cosmopolitan into a conservative Nationalist, not for the
sake of riches, honour and power, but for the sake of educating
the great egotistical and stupid party in the divine principles of
wisdom and love. In countries, the inhabitants of which are
mostly fools, all successful politicians must have been panderers to
�aristocratic or popular folly and vice. For none but Humanitarian
politicians will perseveringly try and succeed in obtaining a good
end by pure means. It is less wicked, however, in Pagan or
Atheistic politicians to employ impure means to obtain the good
end of establishing a Republic (or the government by the best and
the wisest), than the evil end of perpetuating a Monarchy (or the
government by the most vicious and stupid, if he happens to be
the Prince of Wales).
The geniuses of wisdom and love, however, have been and will
be repeatedly sent by the infinitely wise, just and merciful God
of Nature to illuminate the dark atmosphere of popular supersti
tion and vice, by unveiling some of the divine and inextinguishable
Light of the eternal Religion of God, the spreading of which
may be delayed, but cannot be prevented, by the friends of dark
ness or the servants of egotism and ambition. Light is therefore
in the world, although the blind people do not know it, but grope
in darkness till comparatively intelligent and good persons, who
have preserved their sight by resisting the blinding process of
priestcraft, cure them of their mental blindness. As egotism and
ambition have no dwelling-place in devotees of wisdom and good
ness, the temptations resulting from external circumstances are
easily conquered. For, wisdom teaches Humanitarians that our
own happiness, or progress in the paradise of bliss, is secured in
proportion as we forget self and become the most attentive and
loving children of our Father, the best brothers and sisters of
human beings, and the kindest masters and mistresses of useful and
harmless animals.
THE LECTURE AT CHELSEA BRIDGE.
Delivered on Sunday, July.31st, 1870.
True philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, will create eternally progressive heavens
in themselves and a real paradise npon earth, since the infinitely wise Teacher
inevitably rewards with happiness those who acquire wisdom, but corrects by misery
those who, from mental idleness, remain ignorant and credulous. Blessed, therefore,
are the rich in intellect, for their’s is the republic of heaven ; but miserable (until
their conversion) are the poor in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of hell.
Wretched are the credulous sinners, for the God of Nature will certainly not com
fort them that waste the present by mourning over an iniquitous past, and by intoxieating themselves with the poisonous spirit of priestcraft, instead of employing their
time in making themselves happy Humanitarians, since the God of Nature gives peace
to those who were formerly sinners and are now working out their future salvation, or
that will employ the rest of their present life in exterminating stupidity and evil desires
by the persevering acquisition oi wisdom and the practice of goodness. Blessed,
therefore, are the true Humanitarians, or the constant followers of the Religion of
God, for He will always give them cause to rejoice.
Proud tyrants and meek slaves are not Humanitarians, but miserable sinners, for
the God of Nature corrects with mental or physical pain those who establish or main
tain such pernicious institutions as priesthoods and hereditary aristocracies; hut
eternally blesses those courageous and liberty-loving Humanitarians, who enlighten
and regenerate human souls and establish the divine Republic upon earth.
happy are the converts that desire to live righteously, but happier are those
Humanitarians that actually lead a virtuous life.
The God of Nature is merciful even towards the greatest sinner, but blesses
especially those who exercise mercy towards their erring brothers and sisters, and do
not wilfully cause pain to animals.
�Eternally blessed are those human souls that have acquired good desires and great
talents, for the beings that possess such qualities will always have the truest and
most comprehensive knowledge of the God of Nature and be the greatest human
benefactors of mankind.
The credulous (especially those who worship a man as God) cannot but quarrel
among themselves and with those from whom they differ in opinion and language;
but Humanitarians will always live in peace with each other, and consider it as
their special duty to prevent war by exterminating sectarian and national prejudices
(which especially Christian priestcraft and statecraft have implanted in the human
mind) and by inspiring mankind with the eternal truths that the God of Nature is
our common father, that every human soul is His child, and that, therefore, all men
and women are our brothers and sisters. Ambition and credulity, however, will
always govern credulous slaves; but love and wisdom cannot but lead enlightened
Humanitarians. More blessed than the peace makers are therefore the peace preservers,
who consider mankind as their family and the whole earth as their residence; but
miserable are the war makers, who are either deluded by ambition or by superstition.
The greatest crimes any person can commit are preventing the credulous from
being converted into Humanitarians, by knowingly telling falsehoods, and by com
mitting other pious frauds in support of any priestcraft, or by wilfully misrepre
senting and perverting the Religion of God, or by slandering and persecuting Hu
manitarian teachers. Their own greatest enemies are also those talented persons, who
devote none of their time to the teaching of the people, and those wealthy persons
who do not assist in the promulgation of the Religion of God according to thenmeans. Those blessed men and women, however, who (from love towards the God
of Nature and man} set good examples and perseveringly make known the intel
lectual, moral,social, and political truths of the eternal and unerring Religion of God
(regardless of slanders and persecution of the very persons who will be most
benefited by the exertions of such true Humanitarians), develop their own heavens in
themselves, and cause the growth of their own paradise upon earth.
The Religion of God is the light of the world, which (more or less) has been shut
out from the people by the various walls of superstition, raised by deluded or ambi
tious priests in order to keep the multitude in darkness or twilight. The duty of
Humanitarians, however, is to pull down these pernicious walls, so that the light
emitted by God may illuminate all the atmosphere in which man moves. The love of
superstition and the aversion to knowledge, which many persons have contracted,
will, however, speedily pass away when man compares the beautiful realities and ten
dencies of the Religion of God with the revolting fictions and consequences of
priestcraft.
Humanitarian teachers will destroy the pernicious laws, invented by priests and
blasphemously ascribed to the God of Nature, but they will expound more clearly
the truths taught to their predecessors and contemporaries, and discover some of the
eternal commandments of the God of Nature as yet unknown to man. The vicious
teachers of erroneous doctrines (such as are contained in the Bible and sanctioned in
the sermon on the Mount—Matthew v. 17—19) enlarge the kingdom of hell within
themselves and others, as well as the vale of misery upon earth, until they are con
verted into Missionaries of the Religion of God, when they will change their own hell
and that of others into a heaven, and this earth from a vale of misery into a pro
gressive paradise.
,
Do not kill any man except in self-defence, nor any harmless animal except foi
food and other useful purposes ; do not torture even dangerous or obnoxious animals
but kill them quickly.
If your brothers and sisters speak the truth and act justly, feel grateful, and if they
slander and persecute you, be not vexed but pity them and defend yourselves.
Good desires, created by virtuous thoughts and acts, and great talents, created by
mental industry, are the only acceptable sacrifice man can offer to the God of Nature
but evil desires, created by vicious thoughts and acts, and stupidity, created by
mental idleness, profane His altar, which is every human soul. Do not, therefore
desecrate yourselves by causing unnecessary mental or physical pain to man or animals
but consecrate your souls by contributing to the happiness of sentient beings.
A man or a woman ought to marry only from rational love ; i.e., with the desire
and means to make the other party happy. A marriage without rational love is
worse than prostitution, for it leads to adultery, and a gradual suicide and murder
Divorce will never take place between husband and wife whose marriage is inspired
by rational love; but it is better that ill-assorted couples voluntarily agree to a
separation than that they should respectively commit adultery or mutually embittei
and shorten their lives. It is no sin for the divorced husband and wife to contract a
second alliance, but it is licentious for either man or woman to marry again aftet
�10
having been twice separated. The children of separated parents shall be supported
by both their father and mother, and will alternately reside with either parent but
during infancy exclusively with their mother.
r
’
Folly and dishonesty invented swearing, but wisdom and honesty will abolish it •
for lying is encouraged if statements which do not deserve credit without an oath aré
believed m, because the liar became a perjuror. Do not, therefore, swear at all but
always speak the truth; for those who swear, tacitly admit that their bare word is not
to be trusted.
Resist evil with all your might, but do not revenge yourself. If any man, there
fore, smites you on the right cheek do not turn to him the other also, but defend your
self, and pardon his assault, for stupidity, cowardice and vindictiveness make tyrants
and enemies, but intelligence, courage and forgiveness convert them into your equals
and friends. If thieves will sue you at law and take away your coat, let them not have
your cloak also, but take care of your property; for folly makes knaves, but wisdom
com erts them into honest people. Judiciously lend to them that want your assistance
without waiting till people ask you, and do every thing to oblige, but nothing from
compulsion.
Imitate the infinite wisdom and love of our ever living Father, who pervades all
human souls, but rewards with the knowledge of His presence only true Humani
tarians, or those who deserve it ; yet mercifully corrects the evil, and comforts His
repentant children. Love therefore your friends and deserve their friendship by
making them and yourself happy through mutual promotion of wisdom and good
ness, Love also your enemies by converting them into your friends throughbyour
courageous self-defence ; the consequent correction which this inflicts upon them, and
the kindness and regard for their welfare which you will afterwards display towards
these erring beings.
Persons, who give alms to gain the applause of the servants of ignorance and
mediocrity, will scarcely benefit others, but certainly injure themselves. Humani
tarians, however, when judiciously contributing towards any cause that promotes
human happiness, will not trumpet their names in pulpits and newspapers, or on
monuments and institutions (as especially ambitious Christians do) ; but their con
science will tell them that God approves of, and rewards the giving of alms only
when personally- given in secret or when anonymously sent.
Do not esteem and follow European and American hypocrites, who love to turn
up their eyes, and to pray aloud in churches, chapels, and in the corners of the
streets, that they may be seen and honoured by Christian dupes. Also do not par
ticipate in the prayer meetings of evangelical Heathens, who beg much of their
favourite idol, thinking that a man (who was wrongly (crucified by Bible Believers,
more than eighteen centuries ago, and may now be living and persecuted by Christian
Pharisees) is residing somewhere beyond the clouds, and will hear and reward
their blasphemous utterances. Irrational persons, or those who have no knowledge
of an infinitely wise Governor of the universe, can only believe, for instance, that the
immutable God of Nature sends rain because of the prayers uttered by Christians. Our
infallible Father certainly knows better what things we have need of, than His erring
children, the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and other Heathens. Do not therefore
resemble them—for the pernicious influence of begging prayers, seduces the suppli
cants with false hopes, encourages idleness, prevents self-reliance, and the full display
of those mental and physical exertions, which alone can elevate human beings or
ensure their own progressive bliss. The Prayer of Humanitarians, however, can
only reform the wicked and confirm or improve the good, as it cultivates gratitude ;
teaches self-examination, repentance and self-reliance ; inspires good resolves, and
exhorts Humanitarians to lead an exemplary life. Your brother recommends you
therefore to meditate every morning and evening on the following prayer, since there
cannot exist one single human soul that will not feel wiser, better, and happier
after the meditation.
THE PRAYER OF HUMANITARIANS.
“All-merciful God of Nature ! in Whom all beings are, accept my sincere thanks
for Thy goodness. Thou hast given all to all, and I acknowledge that but for the
ignorance, wickedness, and indifference of many erring brothers and sisters, all man
kind would live in a real paradise.
“Accept my vows to love my own soul by enlightening her, to love my own body
by living virtuously, so as to render my present life long and happy.
“I therefore vow to love each and all the members of the human family as myself, by
setting them a good example, by assisting them in their bodily sufferings, and by
enlightening their minds in order to render them, especially children, happier than
�11
myself, since this alone is the true preparation for my own progressive bliss after
death.
“ To fulfil my vows, I solemnly promise to the God of Nature and mankind to per
form the Twelve Principal Duties, and to keep the Constitution of Humanitarians,
and to try with all my might to promote the spread of the ‘Religion of God.’ ”
Fasting, vigils, celibacy, and other mortifications of the body are suicidal, and
consequently irreligious observances ; but the proper use of wholesome food and drink,
moderate sleep and work, marriage with one wife or husband, and living in society,
are religious observances, for they prolong human life. Do not therefore imitate the
pernicious example oi Christian ascetics, monks and nuns, but thankfully enjoy the
present, and the God of Nature will reward you with greater happiness in the future.
Employ your present life in creating and developing heavens in your eternal souls,
or in laying up treasures within yourselves of which all the monarchs and priests
cannot rob°you : for tyrants and knaves may confiscate your property, injure your
bodies, or even deprive you of life, but they cannot take away good desires and
great talents, as these remain inherent in the human soul after the separation from
the temporary body. Men, however, cannot acquire or possess a genius for wisdom
and goodness without improving external circumstances by assisting others to create
heavens within themselves, and by laying up material treasures for contemporaries
and posterity upon earth, which is the only and eternal abode of human souls.
You cannot serve the God of Nature except you love yourselves, by spiritually and
materially enriching the human race. Take care therefore to prolong the present life
of man by providing food, drink, clothes and shelter : for the God of Nature rewards the
human soul with intellect, and successively clothes her with a newly organized body, in
order that man may sow, reap, eat and store up food that nourishes the soul and body.
The thoughtlessness of the ignorant and credulous who erroneously believe that the
God of Nature is both the universal and the special providence of sentient beings, (Mat
thew vi. 25—31,) has diminished the stature of man, and shortened human life : the
thoughtfulness of Humanitarians, however, who know that the God of Nature is only
the universal providence, and that man must be his own special providence, will add to
the stature of man and lengthen human life. Take thought also for your innumerable
future lives by providing your children with better organized bodies and with a bettei
intellectual, moral, and physical education than you received from your parents, so that
the future generations may more easily earn for themselves the necessaries and luxuries
of life, and enjoy greater happiness than yourselves at present. Do not, however, ren
der yourselves miserable by anxieties, but live happily by being provident, by always
trying to improve your circumstances, and by having the implicit faith that the God
of Nature will reward your wise and persevering exertions with success in due time.
The good, think that everyone is animated by pure motives, until they have unde
niable proofs to the contrary ; the wicked, however, believe that everyone is bad, and
attribute impure motives to the most excellent actions ; for man cannot but judge ol
others from himself. The Humanitarian, for instance, thinks that his Christian
opponent, who receives honour and money for defending Christianity, is animated b}
pure motives, even after having convicted him of employing so impure a means a;
uttering falsehoods in the defence of Christianity, and in the attack on the Religion
of God. That very Christian, however, publicly accused his Humanitarian opponent,
who has to give his time and money in return for curses, slander, and persecution, o
teaching the Religion of God from the impure motives of honour and money, althougl
everything shews the contrary. Learn therefore to know and improve yourselves
and you will do justice to the good, exercise charity towards the evil, and point ou
mistakes, not for the purpose of reproaching and offending your erring brothers an
sisters, but of amending them.
As wise physicians visit first those who are dangerously ill, so Humanitarians wi
teach the Religion of God, especially to the ignorant, the deluded, and the viciou
They will perseveringly cast the pearls of knowledge and virtue before the dupes ar.
knaves until they pick them up ; for though these pearls may be trampled under foo
yet they cannot be injured ; and though the sower of them may prematurely lose h
or her life, yet not the consequent blessings, which consist in an eternally progress?
heaven, as well as in long and happy lives, by means of well organized bodies ar
favorable circumstances. Humanitarian teachers of both sexes will thereto
courageously visit the neglected, perverted and vicious : for those who are more ab
to appreciate the Religion of God, and are longing for it, will visit its teachers, ar
become themselves Humanitarian missionaries.
Wise parents encourage their children to grow wiser and to earn their own live I
hood, in order that they may become independent, but dissuade them from becomi.
�12
dependent through idleness and folly. If human parents have sufficient wisdom to
act thus beneficially to their children, how much more does our infinitely wise and
omnipresent Father encourage in His children mental and physical industry the
creators of self-reliance, but dissuade them from folly and idleness, the creators of
begging prayers ? Every one therefore that asketh, receiveth not ; and he that
seeketh in the wrong place, findeth not ; but those who judiciously sow, will reap •
and those who wisely look after realities, will find them.
From Love towards the God of Nature and mankind, perseveringly try to become
the best and wisest human being by desiring and actingfor yourself and others, even
the wisest and best would desire and act for themselves and others under similar
circumstances; but the foolish and evil things the unwise and wicked would that
men should do to them, do you neither to them nor to others.
Beware of the various priestcrafts which come to you in sheep’s clothing but
inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth
good fruits, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring
forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit ; hence all the
various priestcrafts, Christianity included, are corrupt trees, on which are grafted
more or less a few branches of the only good tree, the Religion of God. Every tree
that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore
by the fruits ye shall know that the Religion of God is the only good tree, but that
all the various priestcrafts, called revealed religions, and derived from the Vedas,
Bible, Koran, etc., are corrupt trees, or wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Sinners can only save themselves by real repentance and a persevering trial o
making either a direct or indirect restitution and a return to the path of wisdom, love.f
and the viitues. Humanitarians know that the most ignorant and vicious human
selves, or souls, whether life-producing or not at present, must grow wiser and
better in one of their future lives than the wisest and best of their contemporaries.
The latter, however, will always transcend the former in wisdom and goodness, both
of which are the attributes of the God of Nature, and are therefore infinite. The
gradual conversion of every human self, by means of an infinitely wise, just, and mer
ciful correction in order to convert the sinner from folly and vice to wisdom and
goodness, and the progressive bliss or salvation of all human selves without one single
exception, is the true future that is in store for every man and woman, but it depends
upon the individuals themselves whether they will lay the foundation of their
i heaven in the present life or not.
The Humanitarian, J, KASPARY,
TO HIS BROTHER
The Christian, C. H. SPURGEON.
The so-called Religious Tract Society, 56, Paternoster Row, and 164, Piccadilly,
circulates an Illustrated Handbill entitled “ 7he Freethinker ” the contents of
which are extracted by your permission from your sermons, and printed for the Lon
don City Mission.
As this Tract may prevent credulous believers from becoming reasonable persons, I
feel it my duty to address you, although the most eloquent advocacy of Trinitarian
Paganism and Superstition will certainly not change one single real Freethinker into
a Christian Baptist.
About four years ago, when I listened for the first time to your oratory, I detected
doubt still lurking in your soul ; the vehemence with which you declare your belief
may mislead the credulous (of which your congregations are mostly composed), but
not God, or his real disciples—the true philosophers.
You may intoxicate others and yourself with the spirit of Christian delusion, and
temporarily stupify your reason and conscience ; but this will only increase your
misery Tour brother rejoices, however, in the certainty that you will not be
eternally damned, but that at some time you will save yourself by speaking against
starvation {Atheism) and gluttony (Christianity), and especially by advocating the
G^d)11^’ Ca^n^’ and digesting of wholesome and sufficient food (the Religion of
The love of ignorance, credulity, (both of which are the children of mental idleness)
money and honour, may temporarily detain people in its clutches; but it cannot pre
vent you from becoming a Humanitarian, even in this life, for when you deserve it,
God will certainly ordain you as an Apostle of His religion.
�13
Your brother feels only love and pity towards you, but he hates {not the truths')
the paganism and superstition you are teaching, since you have no right to recommend a wolf because of his sheep’s clothing.
You dare not deny that millions of men (Jesus included) have been murdered be
cause the Bible commanded it, and that millions of men are living now in ignorance,
credulity, slavery’, poverty, and vice, because the teachers and defenders of the Christ
ian Scriptures know that no wise and good person can believe in witchcraft, or in
capital punishment for blasphemy, adultery, disobedience to priests and parents, for
nication and sabbath-breaking (which latter you do yourself every Saturday, though
you teach the ten commandments on Sunday), all of which the Bible commands
and the New Testament sanctions.
When you slipped the anchor of your faith, you merely changed from a credulous
Christian into an unreasonable sceptic, and from the latter you changed into a
Bible idolater. You have, however, no need to retract the false statement that “ once
you were a man of reason,” and that “reason was your captain,” because you have
done so without knowing or intending it.
Every reader of this pamphlet will admit that only an unreasonable person, who
takesfolly for his captain, can say like brother C. H. Spurgeon :—
“ I gloried at the rapidity of my motion, but yet shuddered at the terrific rate with
which I passed the old land-marks of my faith. As I hurried forward, I began to
doubt my very existence ; I doubted if there were a world ; I doubted if there were
such a thing as myself; I went to the verge of the dreary realms of unbelief. I
doubted everything.”
Once you were in one extreme and doubted everything, now you are in the other
extreme, and believe that an ass has spoken, that a woman became pregnant without
having sexual intercourse with any man, that from Friday afternoon, the burial
of Jesus, till Sunday morning, the fabulous resurrection of Jesus are three days and
three nights, and that similar impossibilities invented by pious imposters have taken
place.
Once you were a mental Anarchist, now you are a mental Slave. When will you
deserve to enjoy mental Liberty ?
Do not blame Reason (the greatest gift of God, with which people are rewarded
in proportion to their merits), but blame the folly of man. Will you sneer at liberty
because slaves become anarchists, and vice versa ?
In future, confound neither Reason with credulity and scepticism, nor Liberty with
slavery and anarchy, because those who prejudice the people against reason and
liberty, blaspheme God, and injure themselves and others.
_ Your brother, like yourself, rejected his hereditary superstition ; but God being
his guiding star, Nature his ocean, and Reason his captain he is either sailing on a
calm sea (interspersed with beautiful islands, each transcending in beauty the pre
ceding ones), or anchoring in safe harbours during storms.
Parents and teachers had instructed you to remain in one of the narrow pools of
Christianity, but when you grew up, and your taste became developed, you found the
water putrid from the filth which priests had accumulated during many centuries.
You then left your native pool for the ocean, but instead of apprenticing yourself to
the greatest captain, commanding the best constructed ship (until you became
superior to your master, and could improve upon his vessel or invent a new and
better one), you plunged bodily into the breakers (like a reckless boy) and the waves
threw you bleeding upon the rocks. Howling, you left the ocean for that narrow
and putrid pool of Christianity, in which you are now living in the society of thcBaptists.
The arguments of hell moved you toplunge into the ocean and afterwards return tu
your present pool, but the arguments of heaven will move you to follow my example.
For at present you do not stand upon a rock of adamant, but you are gradually
sinking into the mire from which the Religion of God alone can extricate you.
Dr. Mosheim (the greatest Protestant authority in ecclesiastical history, who lived
and died as an orthodox Lutheran) states Book I, P. II, Ch. II, that,—
“ A variety of commentaries, filled with impositions and fables, on our Saviour’s
life and sentiments, were composed soon after his ascent into heaven, by men who.
without being bad, perhaps, were superstitious, simple, and piously deceitful. To
these were afterwards added other writings falsely ascribed to the most holy apostle?
by fraudulent individuals.”
This proves that the early Christians were as piously deceitful as the unknown
authors and interpolators of the accepted Gospels and the present Jesuits, who
knowingly tell falsehoods in order to promulgate or to maintain their paganism and
superstition.
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You say:—“Now, lashed to God’s (say priests’) gospel more firmly than ever,
standing as on a rock of adamant, etc.” Your supposed rock is rotten and crumbling.
After the revision of the gospel by the Houses of Convocation, you will find that
former Christian priests or monks have made the following remarkable interpolations
even after the year 350, viz :
Matthew v, 44 ; Mark xi, 26, and xvi, 9—20; Luke ix, 56, and xxiii, 34 ; John viii,
I—11; and 1 John v, 7.
My brother, C. H. Spurgeon, has based his faith on parchments, and upon the
honesty and infallibility of ancient miracle-workers and fortune tellers, but not upon
those of Spiritualists and Mormons. He swallows the camels of the Trinity, and of
the infallibility and honesty of the inhuman Moses and Samuel, as well as those of
Pope Peter and Jesuit Paul, but he strains at the gnat of the infallibility of the
Roman Catholic Pope.
I have not written a single word in this letter with the intention of offending any
person; but, nevertheless, I beg pardon for the necessary pain I must cause in order
to effect the cine of my mistaken brothers and sisters.
Do not prostitute your talents as an orator to render the people credulous, but
merit eternally progressive bliss by becoming a teacher of the Religion of God, and
assisting me to convert the English into a nation of Humanitarians.
I take the liberty of sending you my pamphlet, treating of the Religion of God,
which please to accept and to peruse. I shall also be most happy to correspond, converse, or debate with you (as two brothers who differ from each other ought to do)
whenever convenient for you and possible for me.
This letter will be published as an antidote against Christian tirades, designed to
bring reason and freethought in disrepute, but from personal regard towards you, I
shall not circulate this letter among your congregation.
There are not yet many persons fit to be Freethinkers, but there are many who are
able to promulgate the discoveries of worthy Freethinkers and all sane persons can
understand these real words of God. With or without your assistance you may rest
assured, however, that the whole human race will in time acknowledge the Religion
of God, so that every person will become a Humanitarian.
London, 13th July, 1870.
Pl
ci,
_
_______________________ _
■ “
’
f'Fifteen Doctrines of the Religion of God.
1. The God of Nature, beside whom there are no other gods, is
an eternal, omnipotent and indivisible Being of infinite wisdom,
justice and mercy, whose intellectual essence pervades the whole
universe, or all souls (undividable beings) and matter (dividable
substance). The God of Nature is therefore, to speak figuratively,
the soul of the whole universe and the latter is His body, or, to
cjj Quote the poetical language of Pope—
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“ All are but parts of one stupendous Whole,
Whose Body Nature is, and God the Soul.”
fee' 2. The whole universe, or all undividable beings and dividable
Pa substance, is eternal. The God of Nature is therefore not the
a Creator of souls and matter but the eternal Organizer of the latter
d0>nd Rewarder and Corrector of sentient beings.
m; 3. The eternal earth, one of the innumerable stars, consists of
nia finite portion of matter, is the abode of a limited number of souls
1 ter0^ different species and has eternally all the requisites for the pro
mi: gressive happiness and misery of its human inhabitants.
sta
species of human souls is not only the highest species of
eai individuals on earth but in the whole universe. The wisest and best
Gc human soul is therefore the greatest being next to the Godof Nature.
o. The eternal human soul produces all the phenomena, called
vei
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�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The age of light
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Kaspary, Joachim
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. P. 11 cropped so that characters missing at end of line. Contents: The God of nature -- The Lecture at Midland railway arch -- (delivered on the first two Sundays in September, 1871) -- The Lectures at Chelsea bridge (delivered on Sundays in June, 1872) -- The Lecture at Chelsea bridge (delivered Sunday, July 31st, 1870) -- The Prayer of humanitarians -- The Humanitarian J. Kaspary to this brother the Christian, C.H. Spurgeon -- Fifteen doctrines of the Religion of God.
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F. Farrah
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1872
Identifier
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G5328
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Natural theology
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The age of light), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Humanism
Natural Theology