1 10 19 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/3a8352ad14ad98f5140fbfb5d02be4ea.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=XsYExnUpNf-OnFlb0zEELJYGivINCBxKcRzg1ZAEbadgu5XZYLQFFSUIak7nVRH2SX3zzIUOOfct6c3LD6v8SFVlFArAminfBE08yXML-Ga2rebkLKUp-tu6Q79aE5M8Ru55UKRXpp8h4V5vx3zzVXXR2lK9fu5GugbBvPEBCPn-wc5z8%7E6Z7n%7EBc4dTa6HZRZl4od47XSy3hRMIY7eT9VFzk9JOSiTLeNZ%7E93mAu53LfcNpecisa%7EQnaflpH-z4-CfRVOfKnSFykJRgVTjy3FXtJoobpQKu9L2M6%7ECM0aXIeb0zXll7n6mTkv2o9hD1f6el3p-9By1biT5YDxgqcQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f52f1d9a317cbdf7c324be273b67217b PDF Text Text Ti N?hJ5 ’ r' NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY • a ; O0,. 1 KloviSirn, .'/ ■••4t a. ’••< C^AgV- J A THE SERVICE OF MAN / T �Clairvaux, Fitzjohn's Avenue, N. IK May i6tll, 1886. My dear Clodd. The book which I wish to publish is entitled “ The Service of Man: An Essay towards the Religion of the Future. ” It is, of course, largely founded on Positivist principles, but by no means exclusively so. And, as a matter of fact, Comte is never referred to or even named. Great harm has been done to Positivism by forcing Comte crude and simple down people's throats and winding tip every paragraph, like the prayers in the liturgy, with “ through Auguste Comte our Lord." But that is not the chief reason why I have chosen this course. I differ often so deeply and completely from Comte that I cannot take him as my sole authority; and, on the other hand, to controvert him was not desirable or needed. The object of the book is to show how the Service of God, or of Gods, leads by natural evolution to the Service of Man ; from Tlieolatry to Anthropolatry. Always yours most sincerely, Jas. Cotter Morison. �THE SERVICE OF MAN AN ESSAY TOWARDS THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE BY JAMES COTTER MORISON [issued for the rationalist tress association, ltd., by arrangement WITH MESSRS. KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & CO., LTD.] WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. 1903 ��JAMES COTTER MORISON : IN MEMORIAM1 James Cotter Morison is in a special sense one who has left his work even more in the memory of his friends than in permanent fruit before the public. At school and at college this man, who in general acquaintance with ancient scholarship and in wide historical know­ ledge seldom met any superior, was, as happens so often, unmarked by prizes and the ordinary academic honours. Like John Ruskin, John Morley, Algernon Swinburne, and so many of our best writers, he passed through Oxford without official recognition or public honour—gathering, perhaps, all the more that he never entered into any competitive race, a thirst for books, a full harvest of knowledge, and a true zest for historical literature. Though he had no university distinctions, he made many friends at Oxford, and was at once marked by generosity of nature and sympathetic charm in conversation. With John Morley, his contemporary, of the same college, he maintained a life-long friendship, and perhaps a still closer communion of literary interests with the famous scholar, tutor, and ulti­ mately Head of Lincoln College, Mr. Mark Pattison. We can many of us recall the graceful and sympathetic account of his old tutor which Morison wrote on the death of the Rector. Sympathetic charm, affection, gene­ rosity, fertility and grace in social converse, were the leading qualities of Morison’s nature. There have been of course in our day many men of greater learning; though Morison’s knowledge was very wide and well possessed. There have been many men of more brilliant wit; though he would often delight a room by the point and felicity of his talk. There have been some men of more astonishing fancy and poetic imagination; though neither fancy nor imagination was wanting in him. But what in a really supreme degree was the mark of Morison’s conversation was, not so much its learning, its wit, its fancy, its ingenuity, but that which is often wanting when learning, wit, and fancy are most abundant—I mean genuine sympathy, the sense of contact of spirit with spirit. He was no master of mono­ logue, no habitual teller of stories, no lecturer, no egotist in society. He loved to find at their best those around him, to put himself in contact with their hearts, their brains, their experience; he drew out what was in his companions, he stimulated their curiosity, gratified their interests, gathered from them all he could, gave them all he knew, exchanged with them knowledge, and suggested to them fresh fields, new ideas. There was keen intellectual activity in this. But there was far more of affec­ tionate sympathy. In this quality he had no superior in the society in which ’This appreciation was originally delivered to the Positivist Society then meeting at Newton llall, and is reproduced here in a slightly abridged form. �6 JAMES COTTER MORISON: IN MEMORIAM he lived. I almost doubt if he had an equal. Let us do full justice to this rare, this beautiful quality. It is one very different from that which is often admired as con­ versational brilliance. I am not one of those who would set much store by con­ versational brilliance in itself, where the brilliance is an end, the habit one of display, the motive egoism. The sym­ pathetic union of mind with mind, the touch of one character upon another, the genuine desire to give new life and put fresh warmth into a friend’s spirit— this is, surely, a moral faculty of singular value and true social delight. And how rare is it! There are learned men, clever men, men of bounding elasticity of mind and temper, who instruct, amuse, dazzle us. But how often do they stand apart by themselves to themselves, from fastidiousness of intellect, from self-absorption, from a certain hardness and coldness of nature, taught them in the long stern work of their lives. How rare are those who, having given their lives to study, have the freshness and freedom of a college lad, when for the first time in his life he begins to feel all the charm, the uses, the emotion of true conversation! How seldom do the brilliant men really relish the brilliance of others, at least in the first comer or the stranger. How often is the scholar dull, the wit irritating, the student sententious, the great talker fatiguing. Now Morison, who was certainly scholarly, witty, learned, and brilliant, was never, I think, fatiguing; for he was always first and foremost sympathetic : his sympathy covered all he did, coloured and warmed all he said. Sympathy is the bond of Humanity. In the magnificent aphorism of Comte, “ If the kingdom of Heaven belong to the poor in spirit, the kingdom of Man belongs to the rich in heart.” Though men speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not sympathy, it profiteth nothing. Though men under­ stand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not sympathy, it is nothing. Sympathy covereth a multitude of sins. Sympathy is but one side of the great Apostle’s untranslatable and illimitable dycon)—and Morison had sympathy. Sympathy stands out in his social life, in his friendships and his admirations, and it stands out in his literary works. It shines forth in his intense love of music, the most sympathetic of the arts. It shines out in his love of art, and his study especially of architecture. It stands out in his early college life ; in his life in Paris, where he lived long in the centre of a Positivist group ; in his life in London; in his devoted regard for men who in turn taught, fascinated, and delighted him—men so very different, yet who each left impressions on his mind :—first, I think, and earliest, Mark Pattison; then perhaps Cardinal Man-| ning ; afterwards Thomas Carlyle ; and, lastly and finally, for the last five-andtwenty years of his life, our venerated chief, M. Pierre Laffitte. Few men of our time have ever understood Paris and Frenchmen more intimately than he. And it was by his sympathy and affectionate instinct even more than by his long experience and incessant study. I well remember his life in Paris, where he lived some years with his wife and family, as a link between literary Englishmen and French republicans—a link, too, to some extent, between classes of Parisians who are very seldom seen in the same room, and who are not very willing so much as to �TF. rSmORISON: IN MEMORIAM Bonverse or act together. Yet Morison, as one outside the strife of class and party in Paris, by virtue of his kindly and genial bonhomie, would gather together those who seldom met elsewhere. I well remember his Paris home, where there came men of mark in the world of letters and the world of politics; Louis Blanc and some of the older school of socialists, some of the younger revolu­ tionists, conservative politicians, and young men already of promise in the administration, physicians, - lawyers, journalists, and artists, mingled with workmen, clerks, employes, typical men of the Parisian democracy. All felt at home—all were friendly, bright, and at ease. In Morison’s home it was difficult for any man not to feel at ease, not to be bright and friendly. He led them to feel what he was himself. He was brilliant, sympathetic, genial, and the source of brilliance, sympathy, and good fellowship in others. There were but few other houses in all Paris where such men could meet and be at ease. It was his gift. It is a rare gift, and a precious. Sympathy, I have said, was the key­ note of his nature; sympathy was the keynote of his best work in letters. It is sympathy, even more than eloquence, more than study, more than art, which makes his St. Bernard a really fine and permanent work. It is a beautiful book, a true book, a conclusive book, what a book ought to be. It is one of those books which are, in a way, decisive on a great crucial social problem. The deepest question of our day is thisDo men in society require any spiritual guidance ? Is a spiritual power a real thing; is it a possible thing? Is a Church an evil or a good ? And, as matter of history, was the Catholic Church a blessing or a 7 curse ? As a matter of religion, had the Catholic Church anypermanent residuum of good in it at all ? I know no problem in social science, in morality, in religion, so crucial as this—no task which litera­ ture can so usefully undertake. On this great problem Morison’s St. Bernard is decisive, final, crucial, so far as history is able to decide. It is the life of one of the most perfect natures recorded by man, engaged in one of the most central duties, in one of the most typical epochs in all human story. It is a life told with entire simplicity, the most genuine enthusiasm, with exact historic truth, with no unscientific weak­ ness, with no foolish blindness to hard fact, with perfectly rational sense and self-possession. But a picture of a most vivid personality, with complete under­ standing of its meaning, and with all the issues, the circumstances, all the problems manfully faced and laboriously worked out. It is no pedant’s work; it is no mere student’s monograph; it is not a literary tour-de-force. It is a noble portrait of a real saint. And the brush of the painter is dipped in sympathy. Now, it is no slight thing to reach inwards into the depths of the spirit of a true saint. When a famous painter was asked how he mixed his colours, he answered, “Sir, I mix them with brains.” If Morison had been asked how he studied history, he might have replied, “Sir, I study it with sympathy.” His St. Bernard was written in sympathy, and it was prepared with sympathy, under the influence of three men—how very different, and yet each having much to tell us about an Abbot of the Middle Ages—Cardinal Manning, Thomas Carlyle, and Auguste Comte. It was in preparing his book on St. Bernard that Morison first acquired �8 JAMES COTTER MORISON: IN MEMORIAH that deep interest in the Catholic Church, that real insight into the Catholic Church as a historic power, which he retained during life, and which breaks out in fine fragments in his latest book. It was then that he sought permission, and obtained the privilege, of passing some weeks within a Cistercian monastery, where he submitted to the sternest and most exacting form of monastic disci­ pline. It was a teaching which coloured and deepened his whole mind through life. This fragment about twelfth-century monasticism was dedicated to Thomas Carlyle “ with deep reverence and grati­ tude ; while writing it Morison was pro­ foundly influenced by his intercourse with the author of “Past and Present”; but the moral or theory of the book is already drawn from the teacher whom he was soon to know more intimately, in whose teaching he remained finally ab­ sorbed—I mean Auguste Comte. . The same spirit of sympathetic enthu­ siasm glows throughout another picture of Catholic zeal, the beautiful monograph on Joan of Arc. It comes out in a richer way in the address which he gave in Newton Hall on the 31st of December, the Day of the Dead, on the human idea of subjective immortality. In a very different vein, also, it essentially colours those two excellent studies, the Lives of Gibbon and of Macaulay, where the effort to judge these famous writers at their best so often appears through mani­ fest disagreement with their judgment and their tone. It is a curious example how resolutely bent was Morison’s mind on a really appreciative spirit (to use that somewhat ill-favoured word) that he used to say, in writing his Life of Macaulay, that he was constantly in fear of rather overdoing the effort to show abundant justice to a writer for whose style, method, and historical standpoint he himself had so strong a distaste. In his historical, as in his critical work, there is always the same mark—if we must use that clumsy word—the appre­ ciative spirit, the irresistible eagerness to get at the best side of an author, of a book, of an institution, of a historical character, to feel with their senses and to place himself in their position. In how many an essay, monograph, review— now, alas I forgotten, or soon to be for­ gotten; too many, I fear, unsigned, un­ known even to his closest friends;— through how many of them does this appreciative spirit run! In such historical monographs as I have mentioned, in his graceful and thoughtful lectures, in his enthusiastic estimate of Dr. Bridges’s book on Richelieu and Colbert, in his reminiscences of Mark Pattison, in his essay on Art, in the piece on Madame de Maintenon, in scores of short pieces full of just judgment and various know­ ledge. It is mournful to think how scattered, how unknown, how perilously near to final waste and extinction, is so much good fruit of head and heart, which was not knit up into unity and system in life. Most mournful of all is it to think on the long years of labour that he gave to his History of France, the fruit of so much ripe study, of such instinctive insight into character, of such grasp of institutions—all now, we fear, gone to waste, to uselessness, and final nothing­ ness. It is the law of our life—a law inexorable, solemn, and full of warning. As the old Hebrew poet said : “ Let me know mine end, and the number of my days : that I may be certified how long I have to live. For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain : he heapeth up riches, and cannot �JAMES COTTER MORISON: IN MEMORIAM tell who shall gather them.” “In the morning it is green, and groweth up : but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.” Or, as the great Persian poet said :— 9 have been disposed to make, that the book is in any sense an exposition of the Positivist conception of what the Service of Man may become. I cannot myself look on it as an exposition of Positivist opinion at all. It was not so “ With them the seed of wisdom did I sow ; And with mine own hand wrought to make it designed by the author; it is not so in grow ; execution or result. And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d:— The book is a fragment, or rather a I came like Water, and like Wind I go 1 collection of fragments, introductory to “ There was a door to which I found no key : a work that has never been written. There was a veil past which I might not see : Continually before the book appeared I Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was—and then no more of Thee and can remember Morison explaining to me Me.” his purpose. The present book, he Happily we have risen above the said, was in no sense to be a Positivist mysticism of the Hebrew poet, the utterance. It should not contain Comte’s scepticism of the Persian poet. In his teaching ; it should not refer to Comte. thoughts about life and about death It should handle certain topics of religion Morison was neither mystic nor sceptic, and social morals which stood on the but Positivist. It would have been threshold of the question. Ultimately, strange indeed if one so intensely sym­ he said, he hoped to complete a book pathetic had not trusted in Humanity; on constructive lines, which was, in fact, to be the substantive and positive view and he did trust in Humanity. I have said nothing of his last work— of the Service of Man—a far more The Service of Man. It was but a important and far more extensive task, fragment—indeed, not so much a frag­ as he felt it to be. The essays now ment as a bundle of fragments—-some­ before the public wTere the critical, preli­ what hastily thrown together into a minary part. The Service of Man in its volume when he felt the approach of ultimate form, I can well remember his death, arranged with little cohesion and saying, was to be a sort of “ Whole Duty plan, and put out when his mortal of Man,” from the Positivist point of disease had already insidiously sapped view, in simple words which the least educated could understand. his energy. That book has not been written. I I know nothing about it so excellent know not if any portions of it exist. as its beautiful title, a phrase which in itself is worth many books, and will And, as that is the case, as the con­ prove quite an epoch in the growth of structive and positive treatise on the our faith. The Service of Man has Service of Man is wanting, I almost many noble passages and fine sugges­ regret that the critical and controversial tions ; but for my part I can hardly part has ever been put forth. Most judge of its meaning or its tendency in assuredly, to my thinking, not a little in the absence of the conclusive work to the book as we have it now is in no sense which it was simply a collection of intro­ Positivist teaching, is not even compatible ductory chapters. Most emphatically with Positivist teaching. We should be do I deny the suggestion which some failing in our duty if we allowed it to be �13 JAMES COTTER MORISON: IN MEMORIAM publicly assumed that this book as it stands impressionable, so elastic, could not be is in the remotest degree an embodiment rigid, would be over-indulgent to himself of the Human Religion. It was not so and to others, would be too ready to meant; assuredly it is not so in fact. yield, to receive, to assimilate, too care­ There is much in it which, on moral and less of discipline, moral and mental, too religious grounds, I should myself most eager to see truth anywhere and good in emphatically repudiate, as entirely alien all things. A nature of inexhaustible to the whole spirit of Comte’s teaching. sympathy like his, a brain of such vivid I mean much that is said about the receptive impulsiveness, was far too problem of population, and still more prone to submit to the impression of much that is said as to the origin of the every powerful mind, of every fascinating moral sense and the nature of man’s book, of every creative and fertile con­ moral responsibility. Even at this ception, and in each case was too willing moment, and on this occasion, and full to exaggerate its value. And Morison as I am of affection and regard for my not seldom did exaggerate the value of dead friend, I cannot pretend any sym­ things, and of books, and of men. To the main conceptions of Humanity pathy with the strange paradox : “ The sooner the idea of moral responsibility he was uniformly true, to the great con­ is got rid of, the better it will be for ception of the Service of Man, to “ the society and moral education.” If these cultivation of the heart, as incomparably words are to be taken literally, I say a the most important both to our own thousand times—No ! Society and moral happiness and that of others,” and finally education rest on the idea of moral re­ to the beautiful idea of Subjective sponsibility as the very cornerstone of Immortality in Humanity. In the last the entire edifice. letter that I had from him—just before In spite of this, Morison, as I say, his death—he said : “ I am obviously in accepted in its main spirit the faith in the last lap of life’s race, but how far Humanity, and for the last twenty years through it I cannot say. I have been of his life clung to it as a final and suf­ thinking much of Comte’s views on the ficient basis of belief. But not, be it objective and the subjective life. And said, without considerable reserves, much I seem never to have realised them occasional fluctuation of mind, and some before. I feel that the transition will definite antagonism. We here have no be rather a boon than a pain.” The absolute standard of orthodoxy ; we pro­ same idea was finely worked out in his fess no verbal adhesion to all Comte’s impressive discourse on the Day of the utterances; we do not set up to judge Dead. each other’s orthodoxy, or to censure He died in the faith of Humanity, each other’s backslidings from the truth. supported by the confidence and hope that Man does not end here as the I do not desire to be judged myself. beasts that perish, but continues to live Most assuredly I shall not presume to judge him. He read and accepted in the memory of those who loved him, Comte freely for himself, even as we claim in the continuance of much true work and beautiful teaching, in the mighty to read him and accept him for ourselves. Like all of us, Morison had the defect of continuous life of Humanity itself. In his qualities. A nature so versatile, so the absence of specific directions, his �JAMES COTTER MORISON: IN MEMORIAM family provided for his burial in the way that they felt most congenial to their feelings. And, in the absence of specific directions, that is the natural and obvious course that awaits us all. But none the less it is our duty here to keep alive, as we best are able, the memory and the work of our departed friend and brother. A life of such activity, of such culture, of such varied accomplishments, of such high designs and difficult tasks —in so large a part marred, mutilated, buried in the grave, by his long malady and too early death—such a life has profound and solemn lessons for us. How truly does it speak in those pathetic words of the teacher of old : “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day : the night cometh when no man can work.” Let us, too, work the works of Humanity, as our dead friend yet speaks to us, in the Service of Man ; for it is Humanity that has sent each of us, which has taught us, fed us, protected us, and has set us to work—to work at what?—at what else can man work but at the Service of Man? The night cometh when no man can work with his hands, when no man can work visibly, no man can work con­ sciously, but when we all work invisibly, in the consciousness of others—unseen, but really—when our brains, our hearts, our good deeds continue to work in Humanity. Death is for each of us not the end of life, unless it be made the end by the heartlessness, the indiffer­ ence, the cruelty of those who survive ii on earth. The grave has not the victory, unless we who stand beside it and live deliberately choose to bury in it the memory, the love, the work of our dead friends, relations, and teachers, with tlH same final abandonment with which we bury in it their bones. We are each of us some fraction, some organ, some representative (how­ ever humble and unknown) of the Humanity which confers on every worthy servant a truly immortal life. Whether or not there be to any a lite beyond the grave is a question which depends on those who survive. For children, relatives, friends, contempo! raries of all sorts, the higher duties of Family, of Friendship, of Humanity, do not end as the fresh sods are piled upon the grave. They only then begin. Th J last sad offices are over. The moral 1 the spiritual, the religious uses of death! the moral, the spiritual, the religious ideas of life after death, then truly begin —not so much for our dead parent, friend, teacher, fellow-worker—no, rather, they begin for us. Let us think of our dead friend and fellow-labourer as we knew him at his best, with his warm heart, with his generous nature, with his bright vivacity! with his intensely sympathetic impulses! and think not that he is dead, but that he sleepeth—that the best of him yet lives and works in our lives, in our thoughts, and finally in the bosom of the Humanity which made him. Frederic Harrison. �CONTENTS Pace Chapter I. Introductory - II. The Decay of Belief III. Wiiy Men Hesitate- - - - - - -13 ...... ... . . . IV. The Alleged Consolations of the Christian Religion V. On Christianity as a Guide to Conduct - - - 32 - 42 VI. Morality in the Ages of Faith ----- VII. Wiiat Christianity has Done VIII. The Service of Man - 52 - 69 ...... 94 IX. On the Cultivation of Human Nature - - - - 16 29 • - 103 �THE SERVICE OF MAN Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY A ruined temple, with its fallen columns and broken arches, has often been taken as a suggestive example and type of the transitory nature of all human handi­ work. “Here we see”—so runs the parable of the moralist—“ the inevitable end of man’s most ambitious efforts. Time and the elements cast down and consume his proudest fabrics. He builds high, and decorates with sculp­ tured ornament his palaces and fanes. But his work is hardly finished before decay begins to efface its beauty and sap its strength. Soon the building follows the builder to an equal dust, and the universal empire of Death alone survives over the tombs of departed glory and greatness.” The parable of the moralist is only too true. Decay and death are stamped not only on man and his works, but on all that surrounds him, on all that he sees and touches. Nature herself decays as surely, if not as rapidly, as the work of his hands. The everlasting hills are daily and hourly being worn away. Alps, Andes, and Himalayas are all in process of a degradation of which there is no repair. Nay, the Sun himself, the universal author and giver of life in our planet, is only a temporary blaze—a fire perhaps already more than half burnt out, hastening to its final consummation of cold and lightless ashes. And pro­ bably no other fate is in store for the countless stars which bespangle the nightly firmament. The animalcule, whose existence is measured by a summer’s day, and the galaxy which illumines the heavens for millions of ages, are alike subject to the common law of all life—growth, decay, and death. Some may think that an exception ought to be made to this statement in favour of the perennial vitality of Truth. Truth, it will be said, does not wear out, decay, and die. The Elements of Euclid are as true now as they were two thousand years ago. Truths obtained by induction and verified by experiment, or by correct deduction from true principles, do not change and pass away with the generations of men who hold them. It is therefore rash, such objectors would say, to assert that all things con­ nected with man are destined to ultimate extinction. His reason is independent of time, and has that in it which belongs to eternity. All must see this in regard to the incontrovertible truths established by science; many see it in tuitions of the mind, and others in doctrines of religion supposed to be divinely revealed. It is often added that it is fortunate for man that, amid the constant change going on in the phenomenal world, a permanent reality does exist, on which he can lay hold—eternal truth. It would be careless to overlook the importance of this counter-statement. About the permanence of truth there can be no question. Whether it be obtained by observation, generalisation, or deduction, verified by experiment and proof, we may safely assert that such truth will last as long as the human mind remains constituted as it is. But does that entitle us to claim eternal duration for any truth ? No one believes that the human race will last for ever. �M THE SERVICE OF MAN There is a probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that neither man nor his dwelling-place will exist beyond a certain, though it may be a very large, number of years. Now, when the human race shall have ceased to exist, would it be correct to say that the truths cognised by the human mind will survive it ? This could only be maintained by an idealist, who should place their continued existence in some extra-mundane Eternal mind—as that of God—which may be an article of faith, but hardly of reason. Moreover, if true propositions can exist after all the minds which could affirm them have disappeared, why should they not exist before the phenomenal ap­ pearance of those minds ? Can we consistently say that the propositions of Euclid existed in the Carboniferous era ? If so, why not assert that all the truths yet to be discovered in the remote future exist at present ? There is no question that things undreamt of in the philosophy and science of to-day will be trite commonplaces two or three thousand years hence. But are they truths now or yet ? Not only they are not, but the great probability is that, if they were expressed in words now, they -would be denounced as wild and dangerous errors. So that it is still legitimate to say that even truth exists for a time, while we admit that verified truth will have a duration co-equal with that of the human race. It is to be observed that the only truths that belong to this permanent class are the truths of simple observa­ tion, or of rigorous scientific inference. They have always been few in number, if compared with the multitude of pro­ positions held to be true by the mass of mankind. They are now increasing with unprecedented rapidity, owing to the great development of the scientific spirit in modern times. They obviously stand quite apart from the truths supposed to be derived from divine revelation. The latter differ from them both as to the method by which they were obtained, and especially in their durability. Lengthy as may seem the existence of the great religions of the world when measured by our small scale of chro­ nology, yet their transitory, not to say ephemeral, character is manifest to reflection, and even to observation. Go where we will on the earth’s surface, we find traces of bygone men—of their tombs, of their ashes, their temples— which testify to the former existence of religious beliefs nowr extinct. These beliefs embodied the most precious and profound of all truths in the devout conviction of those who held them, but they were so far from permanent that often they move the wonder and even the laughter of after-ages. Perishable as are brick, stone, and marble, they have outlived in countless instances the faiths which once wrought them into majestic architecture in their own honour. Temples often survive their creeds by thousands of years. Wind, rain, and frost disintegrate the roof and the walls of a shrine with more or less rapidity, according to climate; but they are not so swift or potent to destroy the material fabric as knowledge and science are to undermine the conceptions and assump­ tions on which the religious beliefs were founded, and for which the sumptuous fanes were erected in a spirit of reverence and sacrifice. Not less marked in another respect is the difference between the truths derived from religion and the truths derived from science. The truths of science are found to be in complete harmony with one another. Where this harmony is wanting, it is at once felt that error has crept in unawares. We never give a thought to the alternative hypothesis, that truths in different sciences or departments of knowledge may be inconsistent and mutually hostile, and yet remain truths. On the contrary, we find that the dis­ covery of new truth has invariably among its results the additional effect of corrobo­ rating other and older truths, instead of conflicting with them. In the history of science it has often happened that a �INTRODUCTORY newly-discovered truth has proved incon­ sistent with prevalent opinions, which had the sanction of tradition in their favour. But the position has always been felt to be intolerable, and that one of two things must happen—either the new truth must reconcile itself with the old opinions, by the necessary modifica­ tion ; or the old opinions must reconcile themselves with the new truth by a similar process. In astronomy the heliocentric theory, and in biology the circulation of the blood theory, produced the latter result, and revolutionised those two sciences by expelling a number of previously unsuspected errors. In modern times, on the other hand, the plausible theory of spontaneous genera­ tion has been forced to beat a retreat through its proven' inconsistency with older truths firmly established. Now, with regard to the truths announced with the credentials of a divine revelation, we find a very different state of things. There seems to be no exception to the rule that, the older religions grow, the more infirm do they become, the less hold do they keep on the minds of well-informed and thought­ ful men. Their truths, once accepted without question, are gradually doubted, and in the end denied by increasing numbers. This fate happened to Greek and Roman polytheism, and according to all appearances it is now happening to Hindooism, Islam, and to both Protestant and Catholic theology. We have to consider what a very surprising fact that is, on the supposition that any one of these religions is true. All the chief dogmas of the Christian and Mohamme­ dan creeds have been for several centuries before the world. They once were not v only believed, but adored. Now the numbers of those who doubt or dispute them are increasing every day. Time has not been their friend, but their enemy. Instead of becoming more firmly rooted in men’s esteem and con­ viction, instead of revealing unexpected connection and compatibility with other truth, instead of being supported by an 1! ever-growing mass of evidence which would make their denial insane rather than unreasonable, they are seen more and more to lack the proofs and credentials never wanting in the case of genuine truth, from which they differ in this important respect—that, whereas scien-l tific truth, though often disputed and opposed on its first presentation to the world, invariably ends by becoming absolutely certain and unquestioned, religious conviction begins with un­ doubting acceptance, and, after a shorter or longer period of supremacy, with the growth of knowledge and more severe canons of criticism, passes gradually into the category of questioned and disputed theories, ending at last in the class of rejected and exploded errors. That the world, in its cultivated! portions, has reached one of those great turning-points in the evolution of thought which mark the close of an old epoch and the opening of a new one, will hardly be disputed by any well-informed person. The system of Christian theology and thought which arose out of the ruins of the Roman empire has beejii gradually undermined, and its authority] so shaken that its future survival is rather an object of pious hope than of reasoned judgment. Apologists, indeed, are not wanting, they are per* haps never so numerous; but they cannot stem the torrent which is rushinsa away from theology in the direction of science, and that negation of theology! which science implies. Regarded as a question merely of speculation, the crisis is one of the most interesting which the world has seen, only to bq compared to the transition from poly­ theism to Christianity, in the early centuries of our era, and to the great Protestant revolt from Rome. But the speculative interest pales before the momentous practical interest of the crisis. A transfer of allegiance from one set of first principles to another, especially on subjects relating to morals and conduct, cannot be effected without considerable loss of continuity and order �16 THE SERVICE OF MAN by the way. Many will halt between Humanity. A common and lofty stan­ the two regimes, and, owning allegiance dard of duty is being trampled down in to neither, will prefer discarding all the fierce battle of incompatible prin­ unwelcome restraint on their freedom of ciples. The present indecision is action. The corruption of manners becoming not only wearisome, but under the decaying polytheism in the injurious to the best interests of man. Roman world, the analogous corruption Let Theology be restored, by all means, during the Reformation and the Renais­ to her old position of queen of the sance, offer significant precedents. It sciences, if it can be done in the light of would be rash to expect that a transition, modern knowledge and common-sense. unprecedented for its width and diffi­ If this cannot be done frankly, on the culty, from theology to positivism, from faith of witnesses who can stand crossthe service of God to the service of Man, examination in open court, let us could be accomplished without jeopardy. honestly take our side, and admit that Signs are not wanting that the prevalent the Civitas Dei is a dream of the past, anarchy in thought is leading to anarchy and that we should strive to realise in morals. Numbers who have put off I that Regnum Hominis which Bacon belief in God have not put on belief in I foresaw and predicted. Chapter II. THE DECAY OF BELIEF Opinions and systems of thought as well as institutions, which enjoy a con­ siderable lease of life in the world, have many of the characteristics of organisms, or at least of organs belonging to ani­ mated beings. The fact that they came into existence and survived during a longer or shorter period proves that they discharged a function of more or less utility ; that they were in harmony with the surrounding conditions, and hence found both exercise and nourishment for their support. If in time they gradually cease to discharge a useful function, become atrophied and disappear, their case is almost exactly parallel to the rudimentary organs found in so many animals, which, having ceased to be of use, become shrunken and meaningless, and only persist in an abortive form by virtue of the law of heredity. Such ■organs in the body politic resemble these analogues in the body natural, in that they often continue to exist long after their presence has ceased to subserve any useful purpose of life. The common trait of rudimentary organs belonging to either category, biological or sociological, is that they survive their use, that they are nourished and live at the expense of the organism in which they exist, and long after they have ceased to make any return for the support they obtain. In the animal world rudimentary organs may or may not be noxious to the organism in which they inhere; in the social organism they unquestionably are so, especially by their occupying the room and preventing the development of active and efficient organs which would succeed and replace them. That the Christian religion is rapidly approaching, if it has not already reached, this position, is a part of the thesis main­ tained in these pages. The decay of belief now general over Christendom �THE DECA Y OF BELIEF may be regarded from two points of view, and traced up to two distinct causes— one rational, the other moral. The current faith has come increasingly into conflict with science in proportion as the latter has extended in depth and area. The isolated points of collision of former days have been so multiplied that the shock now is along the whole conter­ minous line between science and theo­ logy ; and it would not be easy to name a department of inquiry-which has not, in some measure, contributed aid to the forces arrayed against the popular belief. More important still is the changed tone of feeling with regard to this subject. Time was, and even a recent time, when the prestige of Christianity was so great that even its opponents were overawed by it. But now men are ready to openly avow that they find a great deal in the Christian scheme which is morally shock­ ing ; and in the estimation of many minds nowadays, probably the moral difficulties outweigh the intellectual. Nothing is more common than the assertion that any objections now made to Christianity are worn-out sophisms, which have been answered and disposed of over and over again by previous apolo­ gists. Sometimes we are told that the objections are as old as the time of Celsus, and were refuted by Origen ; but, gene­ rally, Bishop Butler is the favourite cham­ pion who is credited with a preordained victory over all opponents, past, present, and future. Butler was so great a man, and his work, considered as a reply to the shallow deism of his day, was in many respects so successful, that it argues a certain irreverence for his character to load him with false praise and unmerited laurels. But these claims often made for Butler and others have their interesting and instructive side. They show how little apt the theological mind is to see the real points at issue, and to recognise the full gravity of the present crisis. To suppose that argu­ ments directed against such disputants as Toland, Collins, or Tindal—pertinent as they might be, and, indeed, for the 17 most part were—are equally potent when directed against the methods and results of modern science, implies a complete misconception of the true bearings of the question under discussion. In the early eighteenth century the light of science had hardly got beyond the first glimmer­ ings of dawn. Mathematics and as­ tronomy were the only sciences which had passed into the positive and final stage. Chemistry, geology, biology, historical criticism, were not yet in a position to speak with authority even on subjects in their own province, and were far from being in possession of vast stores of verified truth obtained by rigorous application of correct methods, such as now impose respect on the most ignorant and careless. The deists were, to say the least, as unscientific as the theologians. Their fancies about the “light of Nature,” which was to replace the Christian re­ ligion, were as arbitrary and absurd as any mythological legend. Tindal de­ clared the light of Nature to be a “ clear and certain light which enlightened all men,” and from this fact he inferred that “our duty both to God and man must, from the beginning of the world to the end. remain unalterable, be always alike plain and perspicuous”; a doctrine which had the serious defect of being contra­ dicted by the total experience of the human race. Butler had no difficulty in showing that to advance such opinions was to “talk wildly and at random.” No blame attaches to the deists, able and worthy men most of them, for not transcending the knowledge of the age. They attempted prematurely to solve a problem, before the means of solution were at hand. What they would have liked to do was to give a rational explanation of Christianity as an historical phenomenon ; but they had neither the historical nor the scientific knowledge requisite for such an undertaking. They consequently fell back on such vague metaphysical conceptions as the “light of Nature,” and essayed to show that Christianity was not mysterious, or that it was as old as the creation—mere c �i8 THE SERVICE OF MAN sophisms which they probably believed, but which were quite incapable of scien­ tific proof. It is not a little surprising that apologists in the present day should be able to deceive themselves as to the immeasurable distance which separates arguments of this kind from the in­ ferences unfavourable to theology de­ duced from science. Theobjectof science is not to supply hostile data for the use of agnostics against religion; though there is reason to think that many do believe that to be its chief end and aim. The object of science is knowledge, the increased number of those truths which are capable of verification and proof. If here and there its conclusions conflict with the current theology, the fact is of secondary importance, and of no per­ manent interest at all to science as such, which is concerned with positive, not negative, results. Every statement and proposition in the most elementary scientific primer probably conflicts with some theology or other. Yet it often seems to be assumed that the sole or the chief object of the labours of scientific men was to find means and arguments to damage the Bible. Scientific men, a most hard-worked and industrious class, have a better appreciation of the value of time, and of the wisdom of minding their own business. They, ho doubt, come upon results which are fatal to the currently-received opinions about the Bible. But these results interest them much less than they do those who are assured that the Bible is the Word of God. The tables have been turned since the days when Science timidly sued for leave to examine nature, and to draw a few conclusions of her own. Then Theology was queen, and made her power felt. Inquirers worked then, so to speak, with a halter about their necks, and were anxious, above all things, to appease their mighty enemy by every mark of deference and docility. Now the old sovereign has become the suppliant—a rather importunate and intrusive suppliant—but still by her demeanour, if not her -words, admitting that she has been discrowned. She no longer, with haughty bearing, issues her anathemas on the progress of the human mind, but she is in great anxiety to show that, appearances notwithstanding, this progress is not incompatible with her pretension. Geology seems to contra­ dict Genesis in a very direct and final way. “That is all your mistake,” says Theology; “ Geology and Genesis are in most perfect union; in fact, the science confirms the Scripture so wonderfully that each reflects light on the other.” The fact that the geology thus warmly accepted now was once resisted with energy and anger as an impious and futile science is passed over. New light as to its harmony with Scripture -was not noticed until it had attained a position of power which made it more desirable as a friend than as a foe. The fact is suggestive. A convenient mode of showing the way in which science has cut the ground from under the feet of theology will be a quotation from a once famous and remarkable book, which in its day, and for a long time after, was regarded, with justice, as a powerful piece of argument in favour of the current religion. Dr. Samuel Clarke was a man of con­ siderable ability and of very great attainments ; he was also a man of high and honourable character, and his Boyle lectures, commonly known as his two discourses, On the Being and Attri­ butes of God, and on The Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation, enjoyed an immense popularity, not only at home but abroad, all through the eighteenth century. The book is now read only by the curious in religious archaeology. In an elaborate argument, intended to show that, although the Christian doctrines “ may not be dis­ coverable by bare Reason unassisted by Revelation, yet when they are discovered by Revelation they are found most agreeable to sound, unprejudiced Reason,” Clarke proceeds to prove that the account in Genesis of the formation �THE DECA Y OF BELIEF of the earth is entirely credible, in the following passage : “ That, about the space of six thousand years since, the earth was without form and void—that is, a confused chaos, out of which God formed this beautiful and useful fabrick we now inhabit, and stocked it with the seeds of all kinds of plants, and formed upon it man, and all other specimens of animals it is now furnished with—is very agreeable to right reason. For though the precise time, indeed, when all this was done, could not now have been known exactly without Revelation; yet, even at this day, there are remaining many con­ siderable and very strong rational proofs which make it exceedingly probable (separate from the authority of Revela­ tion) that this presentframe arid constitu­ tion of the earth cannot have been of a very much longer date. The universal tradition delivered down from all the most ancient nations of the world, both learned and barbarous ; the constant and agreeing doctrine of all ancient philosophers and poets con­ cerning the earth’s being formed within such a period of time out of water and chaos ; the manifest absurdities and con­ tradictions of those few accounts which pretend to a much greater antiquity; the numbers of men with which the earth is at present inhabited ; the late original of learning and all useful arts and sciences; the changes that must neces­ sarily fall out naturally in the earth in vast length of time, as by the sinking and washing down of mountains, the consump­ tion of water by plants, and innumerable other such-like accidents—these, I say, and many more arguments drawn from Nature, Reason, and Observation, make that account of the earth’s formation exceedingly probable in itself, which, from the revelation delivered in Scripture­ history, we believe to be certain.”1 This passage shows what a compara­ tively easy matter the defence of the Bible was in Dr. Clarke’s day. He could, 1 Truth and Certainty of Christian Tci'etalicn, p. 187 ; edition 1724. without fear of serious contradiction, make assumptions which no one would venture to make now. The “ strong rational proofs,” which show that the earth cannot be much more than six thousand years old, would be hard to find. Why the shrinking and washing down of mountains was evidence of the recent date of the earth is difficult tosee; and the “ consumption of water by plants,” implying that the water of the globe was being rapidly used up and annihilated, is an interesting example of old notions on chemistry. In the earlier discourse on the existence of God, Clarke had been enthusiastic over the support given to his thesis by the dis­ coveries of his day :— “ If Galen, so many ages since, could find in the construction and constitution of the parts of the human body such undeniable marks of contrivance and_ design as forced him then to acknow­ ledge and admire the wisdom of its author, what would he have said if he had known the late discoveries in anatomy and physics, the circulation of the blood, the exact structure of the heart and brain, the uses of numberless glands and valves for the secretion and motion of the juices in the body: besides several veins and other vessels and receptacles not at all known or so much as imagined to have any existence in his days, but which now are discovered to serve the wisest and most exquisite ends imaginable ?”T Bacon’s famous maxim, that “a little philosophy inclineth men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds back to religion,” is now being reversed. The early glimpses of the marvels of nature afforded by modern science undoubtedly were favourable to natural theology in the first instance. Knowledge revealed so many wonders which had not been suspected by ignorance that a general increase of awe and reverence for the Creator was the natural, though not very 1 Page 103. �20 THE SERVICE OF MAN logical, consequence. But a deeper philosophy, or, rather, biology, has rudely disturbed the satisfaction with which “ the wisest and most exquisite ends ” were once regarded. It is now known that, for one case of successful adaptation of means to ends in the animal world, there are hundreds of failures. If organs which serve an obvious end justify the assumption of an intelligent designer, what are we to say of organs which serve no end at all, but are quite useless and meaningless ? Such are the rudimentary organs in plants and animals, the design of which seems only to point to an unintelligent designer. ■ “Some of the cases of rudimentary organs are extremely curious—the presence of teeth in foetal whales which, when grown up, have not a tooth in their heads, and the presence of teeth which never cut through the gums in the upper jaws of our unborn calves....... Nothing can be plainer than that wings are formed for flight; yet in how many insects do we see wings so reduced in aize as to be utterly incapable of flight, and not rarely lying under wing-cases, firmly soldered together.”1 Again: “Eyes which do not see form the most striking example of rudimentary organs. These are found in very many animals, which live in the dark, as in caves or under­ ground. Their eyes often exist in a welldeveloped condition, but they are covered by membrane, so that no ray of light can enter, and they can never see. Such eyes, without the function of sight, are found in several species of moles and mice which live underground, in serpents and lizards, in amphibious animals (Proteus, Cacilia), and in fishes; also in numerous invertebrate animals, which pass their lives in the dark, as do many beetles,crabs, snails,worms,”etc.2 Another strange instance is “ the rudiment of the tail which man possesses in his 3-5 tail vertebrae, and which, in the human embryo, stands out prominently during 1 Origin of Species, p. 450. a Haeckel, History of Creation, vol. i., p. 13. the first two months of its development. It afterwards becomes completely hidden. The rudimentary little tail of man is an irrefutable proof of the fact that he is descended from tailed ancestors. In woman the tail is generally by one vertebra longer than in man. There still exist rudimentary muscles in the human tail which formerly moved it.”1 That facts of this nature, which have only been a short time before the world, should fail to convince theologians brought up in a completely different order of ideas is in no wise surprising. The due weight of facts will no more be allowed than the due weight of argu­ ments, by minds which habit and educa­ tion, and, perhaps, even a sense of duty, have combined to bias against them. But the effect on the younger and suc­ ceeding generations is very great, and is already perceptible. When theology was attacked in front with metaphysical argu­ ments, such as were used by the old deists, it was able to make a very stout and plausible resistance. But now its position, in military phrase, has been turned ; the heights around it and behind are occupied by an artillery which render further defence impossible. Take the instance of the origin of man. The whole scheme of Christian theology is mean­ ingless except on the assumption of the fall of man from a primitive state of innocence and virtue. Unless theolo­ gians are prepared to throw over St. Paul, they must hold that “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Perhaps no one doctrine ever believed by man has had a more terrible history than that of “ original or birth-sin,’’which, as the Ninth Article says, is “the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s 1 Ibid, vol. i., p. 289. �THE DECA Y OF BELIEF wrath and damnation.” But if ever a thesis was demonstrated, it is that man has not fallen, but risen, and that from the lowest level of animal existence. No court of justice ever witnessed a more complete discomfiture of an unfounded claim to a noble title and estate than the defeat of this theological claim for man, that he was made in the image of God, placed in Paradise in a state of purity, from which he fell through disobedience. The result is serious. The New Testament endorses the fall in the most emphatic way ; the Incarnation itself had no other object than that of neutralising its effects. Yet it is proved to be a mere fiction of a primitive cosmogony. The general rejection of miracles is another symptom of the decay of belief. The once active controversy as to the possibility of miracles has become nearly extinct, because one of the parties to it has been growing steadily in numbers and authority, while the other party has declined. The refuters of Hume address constantly-decreasing audiences, and the belief in miracles will shortly (like the belief in witchcraft in the seventeenth century) die a natural death among the educated classes. The notion that the testimony of men, however worthy and sincere, can suffice to establish a mira­ culous event is no longer felt to be serious. The testimony of credible witnesses is valueless, unless they be competent witnesses as well—competent to observe with patience, accuracy, and coolness the alleged facts. Were such observers present at the working of the miracles in Palestine which Paley patronises ? The argument against miracles has gained immensely in force since Hume’s day through the growth of the historic method, and the larger con­ ceptions of human evolution which have led to the incipient science of sociology. Hume’s principle was tersely and fairly enough stated by Paley thus : “ That it is contrary to experience that testimony should be true, but not contrary to experience that testimony should be 21 false a true statement, but not beyond the reach of plausible objection, as Paley showed. The moment we introduce the historic element, the question seems transferred to a higher court. Primitive, early, and unscientific man is at all times and everywhere prone to see miracle in everything that appears odd or strange to his limited experience, Ignorant of nature’s laws, he finds no difficulty in assuming their violation ; he lives in an atmosphere of fiction, fable, and myth, and much prefers a miraculous explanation of an event to a rational or real one. The belief in miracles is universal in wholly unscien­ tific times. With the growth of culture it diminishes; with the extension of science it disappears. Miracles are never supposed to occur except where and when an antecedent belief in them exists. In other words, the belief in miracles depends not upon objective facts, but on the subjective conditions of the witnesses’ minds. Paley tried to parry the obvious, objection that the best way to silencethe gainsayers of miracles would be torepeat them. “ To expect, concerning a miracle, that it should succeed upon repetition is to expect that which would make it cease to be a miracle; which is contrary to its nature as such, and would totally destroy the use and purpose for which it was wrought a remark less acute than Paley’s remarks usually are. Assuming that a miracle reveals the presence of a supernatural power, why should its repetition destroy its miracu­ lous character; above all, why should it destroy its use? If miracles are intended to convert the stiff-necked and hard of heart, what more likely way of bringing them to submission than the repetition of miracles? And, according to Scripture, this was pre­ cisely the way in which Pharaoh, King of Egypt, was humbled. He resisted the miracles wrought by Moses and 1 Paley's Evidences: Preparatory Considera­ tions. �22 THE SERVICE OF MAN Aaron with stubbornness all through the first nine plagues ; but the universal slaying of the first-born broke even his spirit. Such must always be the effect of repeated miracles; and there can be no doubt that even at this day, in the midst of all this science and scepticism, if mira­ cles were again wrought in a public place and manner, so as to remove the sus­ picion of trickery and legerdemain, the effect of them would be greater than ever it was. Suppose a prophet of God were to appear among us, and announce that he had a revelation to make. According to Paley, his only way of making it would be by miracle; he therefore would per­ form miracles. As all difficulties vanish before Almighty power, one miracle would be the same as another to him; and let us suppose him to walk on the water, down the centre of the Thames, from Putney to Mortlake. May we not be sure that one such achievement would produce a sensation perfectly over­ whelming, not only in London, but to the furthest limits of the civilised world ? If he rapidly followed up this miracle by others—fed with a few loaves the crowds on Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday, or those on Epsom Downs on the Derby day ; gave sight to a man notoriously blind from his birth, or raised from the ■dead a putrescent corpse which had lain four days in the grave—can we remotely conceive a limit to the excitement which would ensue ? Would not such a re­ action against current scientific notions set in as would sweep everything before it ? Supposing always that the miracles were bona-fide miracles, such as are assumed to have been wrought in Judsea some eighteen hundred years ago, we may even be sure that many, if not all, of the chief men of science would be among the most impressed, if not the most ex­ cited, and be prompt to own that they had made a great mistake in asserting the invariability of nature’s laws. A complete recast of the philosophy of the inductive sciences would be one of the least results of a manifestation of genuine miracles. As for its effect on the cause of religion, there can be little room for doubt. The passionate yet hopeless yearning, which now fills so many minds, to retain a rational belief in the super­ natural would be replaced by a serene joy over the triumph of faith. It may suit Paley to say that repetition of miracles would destroy their use, but he must be a lukewarm theologian who does not at times wish from the depth of his heart that an authentic miracle could be produced. Yet it is at this momentous crisis in the religious affairs of the world, when the enemy is carrying one position after another, and has all but penetrated to the citadel of belief, that no miracles occur—that no miracles are claimed, except, indeed, of the compromising species made at Lourdes, and now and then of a fasting girl exhibited in Belgium and in Wales. When no one doubted the possibility or the frequency of miracles they abounded, we are told ; that is, when, by reason of their number and the ready credit accorded to them, their effect was the least startling, then they were lavished on a believing world. Now, when they are denied and insulted as the figments of a barbarous age, when the faith they might support is in such jeopardy as it never was before, when a tithe of the wonders wasted in the deserts of Sinai and the “ parts beyond Jordan ” would shake the nations with astonishment and surprise—when, in short, the least expenditure of miracle would produce the maximum of result— then miracles mysteriously cease. This fact, which is utterly beyond contest, has borne fruit, and will yet bear more. Instead of a short chapter, a long volume would be needed to set forth in detail even a spicileghtm of the rational­ istic arguments which have operated to produce a decay of belief. Any one interested in the subject will easily find them in the appropriate quarters—in the attacks on, and still better, in the defences of, the Bible. The width of the breach between reason and faith, between theology and science, is hardly denied ; and the noteworthy fact is that only one �THE DECA Y OF BELIEF of the parties hopes for, or believes in, an ultimate reconciliation. Reason and science have made up their minds on the subject, and would gladly leave it alone, and attend to their own affairs. It is theology that cannot resign herself to a permanent quarrel, and is always pursuing science with a mixture of entreaty and reproach, and begging the latter to hear her cause over again, and not to say with cruel harshness that the separation is for good and all. We may, therefore, leave this side of our subject with a concluding observation. On no point were apologists more confident than on the impossibility of explaining the uprise of Christianity otherwise than by a supernatural principle. In the words of Archbishop Whately, “No complete and consistent account has ever been given of the manner in which the Christian religion, supposing it a human contrivance, could have arisen and prevailed as it did. The religion exists—that is, the phenomenon; those who will not allow it to have come from God are bound to solve the phenomenon on some other hypothesis less open to objection; they are not, indeed, called on to prove that it actually did arise in this or that way, but to suggest (consistently with acknowledged facts) some probable way in which it may have arisen, reconcilable with all the circumstances of the case. That infidels have ’never done this, though they have had nearly two thousand years to try, amounts to a confession that no such hypothesis can be devised which will not be open to greater objections than lie against Christianity.”1 The passage is interesting on other grounds than the particular one with which we are concerned, and leaves us the alternative of a low opinion either of Whately’s candour or of his perspicacity. The suggestion that infidels had or could have been “trying” for nearly two thousand years to concoct an hypothesis adverse to Christianity could only be 1 Logic, bk. iii., § 17. 23 based on a strange ignorance of the state of the human mind during at least three-fourths of that period, or on the safety of such an innuendo in the dark ages when the Logic was published (1829). But this need not detain us. The important point to observe is how completely Whately’s assertion that a rational explanation of the origin of Christianity has never been given has, by the Biblical and historical studies of the last half-century, been overthrown. Strauss, F. Ch. Baur, Keim, and Hausrath, to name only the chief writers, have made the early history of Chris­ tianity at least as intelligible as other scholars have made the early history oil Rome. To the unhistoric minds of the eighteenth century, the uprise of a religion in Palestine in the first centurl claiming supernatural authority, seemed as extraordinary and unaccountable as d similar phenomenon would have been in Paris or London. The religious passions! especially among uncivilised races, were at once disliked and misunderstood. Even Robertson the historian could only see in the Crusades “a singular monu­ ment of human folly.” There was sup­ posed to be no alternative between a truly divine relation and an artful fraud designed by priests for their own benefit. Whately’s phrase, “ supposing ChriB tianity a human contrivance,” points to this crude notion. With enlarged con­ ceptions of the variety of man’s nature, and historical development, the sponta­ neous appearance of such a religion^as Christianity is now seen to be quite natural and regular in such an age as t® first century. The mythopceic faculty of the human mind at certain stages is capable of more wonderful achievement than any exhibited in the New Test® ment, and is at this day in full operation in British India, weaving legends and creating gods with unchecked luxuriant® Meanwhile, the historical character of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and the genuineness of several epistjjes ascribed to St. Paul, have been grave® impugned, and, in the opinion of many, �24 THE SERVICE OF MAN seriously damaged ; an opinion not shaken by the counter-efforts of the Christain apologists. Again, the fortress of theology has been surrounded and commanded by the forces at the disposal of knowledge. But mere rationalism, however cogent to some minds, often remains power­ less on others, and those frequently possessing the best qualities of intellect and character. The deepest change which this age has seen in reference to men’s attitude towards the current theology has taken place, not in the region of the understanding, but in that of the heart. It is not so much that the Bible, with its miracles and legends, is felt to be untrue and incredible by the trained reason ; a great number of theological dogmas are felt to be morally repulsive and horrible, by the more humane conscience of modern times. This change of sentiment is so great and far-reaching that there is no wonder that its import is imperfectly seized, or even wholly missed by those whom the accidents of education and surroundings have preserved from its influence. It is a change not less momentous than that which placed the Christian converts of the Roman period in the position of passionate hostility to the immoralities and indecencies of decaying polytheism. Even divines are becoming aware that the eternity of hell­ torments is a doctrine of waning efficacy, on which it is easy to insist too much. Some are discovering that it lacks Scrip­ tural authority, and beseech us not to believe that anything so dreadful is delivered in the Word of God. The minimising of irksome tenets is a fre­ quent resource and an unfailing symptom of decaying faith. Julian and his pagan sophists essayed to spiritualise offensive Greek myths. There is no ground for doubting the bona fides of such attempts, but they rarely succeed. The obvious question, “ If your new interpretation is the right one, why was it not discovered before ? why did what you admit to be dreadful error receive apparently for a j I I ! 1 I long time Divine sanction ?” cannot be answered; and the question is followed by another: “If your predecessors taught error in the dogmas you discard, what guarantee have you to offer that those dogmas which you still maintain may not some day be discovered to be equally untenable ? How can you be sure that your successors, when hard pressed by the science of their day, will not, like yourselves, find good reasons for throwing them over ?” The eternity of hell torments is a doctrine discarded by a number of divines, who yet cling to the doctrines of the Incarna­ tion and the Atonement. There is nothing to assure us that, in a hundred years’ time, these also will not be discovered to be unscriptural. The Christian theology, in its main features, was evolved during the most calamitous period which the human race has lived through in historic times. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire still remains the greatest catastrophe on record ; the slow death protracted over five centuries of the ancient world. Every evil afflicted men in that terrible time : arbitrary power, the most remorse­ less and cruel; a grinding fiscality, which at last exterminated wealth ; pestilences, which became endemic and depopulated whole provinces ; and, to crown all, a series of invasions by barbarous hordes, who passed over the countries like a consuming fire. It wTas in this age that the foundations of Christian theology were laid—the theology of the Councils and the Fathers. The conception of God, of his relation to and dealings with the world, was evolved in a society wThich groaned under unexampled oppres­ sion, misery, and affliction. Needless to say, it was an age of great and almost morbid cruelty : the games of the circus were a constant discipline of the inhuman passions. After the empire had vanished, for long centuries there was no great improvement. The barbarism of the Frankish period may be seen at full length in the pages of Gregory of Tours. The Carling empire was an oppressive �THE DECA Y OF BELIEF tyranny ; the Feudal Age, one of lawless rapine on the part of the strong, and cowering anguish on the part of the weak. It was in this evil time that the Christian Theology was evolved, com­ mencing with the great doctrines defined by the Fathers, and afterwards reduced to a logical system by the scholastics, especially by St. Thomas, the Angel of the schools. With such visible rulers of the world before them, it is no wonder that men formed very dark and cruel notions of the invisible ruler, who disposed of all things. Cruelty, injustice, arbitrary power, were too familiar to be shocking, too constant to be supposed accidental or transitory. The real world before their eyes was taken as a dim pattern and foreshadowing of the ideal world beyOnd the grave. God was an Almighty Emperor, a transcendental Diocletian or Constantine, doing as he list with his own. His edicts ran through all space and time, his punishments were eternal, and whatever he did his justice must not be questioned. And thus those words came to be written, “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault ? For who hath resisted his will ? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dis­ honour?”1 which, probably, have added more to human misery than any other utterances made by man. St. Paul’s teaching fell on a fertile soil. For some fifteen hundred years the human con­ science was not shocked by it. Since the rise of the Arminian theology there has been a gradual and growing revul­ sion of feeling, and now it is said plainly that the “ potter has no right to be angry with his pots. If he wanted them different 1 Romans ix. 18-21. 25 he should have made them different.” The pretensions of an “ omnipotent devil desiring to be complimented ” as all­ merciful, when he is exerting the most fiendish cruelty, are no longer admitted in abashed silence. But if the great difficulty of hell and eternal punishments were happily surmounted, there remain, in the whole Christian scheme of redemption, moral iniquities and obli­ quities which no good man of the present day, whatever his religion or theology, would willingly be guilty of himself. The notion that God wanted to be pro­ pitiated by the death of the innocent Christ is a thoroughly base and barbarous one; natural enough in rude ages, when costly sacrifice was a recognised mode of appeasing angry deities, but repellent now. Hardly the most depraved man, in his right mind, would accept the vicarious punishment of one who had not offended him in lieu of one who had. A high-minded man would endure almost anything rather than countenance such an enormity. The idea is barbarous, well worthy of Chinese conceptions of justice, content if the executioner gets a subject to operate on, but indifferent whether it be the culprit or not. Yet this cruel and barbarous notion is the centre of the Christian religion; at least, it has not yet been discovered to be unscriptural, I believe. Again, Satan may well give latitudinarian theo­ logians trouble in this world as in the next. When they have explained away his eternal function of tormenting souls in hell, they will have to extenuate his strange temporal avocations on earth, and to explain how they can be permitted by a merciful God. A fallen angel of vast skill, subtlety, and guile is allowed to tempt men and women, even young children, to commit sin, to allure them away from Christ, to jeopardise their hopes of Paradise. And God, who permits this, is supposed to hate sin. If he had wished sin to abound, what could he have done more than to allow the arch-fiend, aided by legions of minor devils, to go about like a roaring lion �26 THE SERVICE OF MAN seeking whom he may devour, with con­ stant access to men, nay, to their most inward minds, whispering evil thoughts, stimulating criminal passions, and, how­ ever often driven away by holy prayer, ever renewing his assaults on poor souls, up to the last moment of mortal agony, when he oftener succeeds than fails in carrying them off to his place of torment? Christ’s petition, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one,” has never been heard, or it has not been granted. We are always being led into temptation; we are never delivered from the evil one on this side of the gates of death. A supernatural being who wrecked man’s felicity in Paradise, and brought sin and death into the world, is appointed to the office of tempting men at all times, in all places, throughout life; he is able to enter into the minds of his victims and pervert their souls, in society and in solitude, in sleep, and even in prayer, capable of assuming all disguises, even to appearing as an angel of light. A human seducer, however artful and vile, is restricted as to times and opportunities in corrupting the innocent. Satan has constant and in-, visible access. Now, a parent or guardian who allowed children under his charge to associate with bad characters would be justly condemned as wanting in a sense of duty and humanity. But God permits something infinitely worse, by the whole difference between an immortal evil spirit and the most profligate of earthly tempters. Let any human father try and imagine the anguish with which he would see his innocent, inexperienced daughter walking arm-in-arm with an accomplished and fascinating seducer. Would not his instantaneous step be to put an end to such corrupting inter­ course ? Would not public opinion largely condone violent measures on his part, if it should appear that the designs of the villain had been crowned with a calamitous success? Yet the heavenly father is supposed to see this and far worse every hour and minute of the day; to see the young, the weak, the unprotected, assailed by a supernatural tempter, his own creature, his rebel angel, wholly evil and malignant; and to see him succeed in his attempt to ruin souls. And then the betrayed, poor human victim, not the fiend, is punished. The fiend, indeed, is punished, but not for these acts against humanity. The righteous God promptly avenged insubordination and disrespect to himself. But ever since man’s creation Satan has had compensations. His dominion is ever extending (as all orthodox theologians admit that the number of the damned far exceeds that of the saved), and he is well entitled to boast in the words of the poet : “ To reign is worth ambition though in Hell ; Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” The old answer to such considerations was that they were horribly profane, and “ must be put down with a strong hand.” They impiously meddled with “mysteries” which man in his fallen state could not fathom, but must reverently adore. To which it is now replied that there is no mystery at all in the matter. Barbarous and cruel ages have ever generated bar­ barous and cruel religions. Nay, obscene and revolting rites and practices, which cannot be named, have been, and still are, sanctioned by religion. These were outgrown by the progressive nations of the West when Christian monotheism pre­ vailed. And now Christian monotheism is sharing the fate of its predecessors ; it is being superseded by the growing con­ science of mankind. But the fact is that these somewhat old-fashioned controversies about the credibility of miracles, the evidences of Christianity, the authenticity of portions of Scripture, and similar topics, are now dwarfed and overshadowed by a far mightier question which has come to the front with great rapidity in this age. The being and attributes of a God have been a subject of esoteric discussion in the schools of philosophers for centuries, but only recently have been seen to pass from the closet to the market-place, and to become one of the deepest questions �THE DECA Y OF BELIEF of the day. No more surprising change of fundamental conceptions will be recorded by the future historians of philosophy than that which has super­ vened in the last twenty-five or thirty years in reference to the idea of God. Up to a recent time the sturdiest sceptics as to the truth of revelation were mostly deists or pantheists, and often repudiated atheism with warmth. The wittiest scoffer who ever attacked Christianity, Voltaire, was a firm deist, and declared that if God did not exist he would have to be invented. The extreme school of Diderot and D’Holbach, even in the sceptical eighteenth century, failed of a wide acceptance. Now the conception of God is freely treated by many of the leaders of philosophical and scientific opinion as a transitory phase of thought which the growth of knowledge has finally terminated. The natural history and evolution of the idea of God is traced in calm outline from its cradle to its grave—from its nascent form in Animism to its metaphysical presenta­ tion as an inscrutable First Cause, the absolute, unconditioned, and unrelated to the phenomenal world. The idea of God has been “ defecated to a pure transparency,” as one eminent writer phrases it; it has been “ deanthropomorphised,” to use the language of another. A new and widely-current word has been invented to designate the large class of persons (mostly persons of exceptional knowledge and ability) who refuse to entertain any more the idea of a single divine Being, maker of all things in heaven and earth. Agnostics are to be met with on every side ; the place of honour is given to their articles in the most popular monthly reviews; and, just as in the fourth century the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation were discussed in the streets of Constantinople by shopkeepers and their customers, so now, at dinner parties and gatherings of both sexes, the existence of God emerges from time to time as a topic of conversa­ tion, ending often in negative conclusions. Every middle-aged man can remember a 2I time when such a transformation of sentiments and opinions would have appeared beyond the pale of possibility. As in the case of the Christian theology, the difficulties are twofold! intellectual and moral, which have extin­ guished in many minds the traditional belief in a Supreme Being. So long as men were able and content to believe in an anthropomorphic deity—an infinitely glorified and exalted man—then difficul­ ties were not perceived; a feeling also of religious awe daunted the mind from looking up and scrutinising even its own conceptions with a steady gaze. But the growth of knowledge and a higher morality have made the concep­ tion of an anthropomorphic God less and less endurable, even to professed theologians, who have been as ready as philosophers to dehumanise the deity. But the difficulty is that, in proportion as the conception of God is stripped of its human attributes and removed away into the absolute, in the same proportion does the conception cease to offer an object capable of exciting human sym­ pathy, and, what is not less important, does it cease to be conceivable. “Simi­ larly with the logical incongruities^ more and more conspicuous to growing intelligence. Passing over the familiar difficulties—that sundry of the implied divine traits are in contradiction with the divine attributes otherwise ascribed; that a god who repents of what he has done must be lacking either in power or foresight; that his anger presupposes an occurrence that has been contrary to his intention, and so indicates defect of means—we come to the greater difficulty: that such emotions, like all emotions, can exist only in a conscious­ ness which is limited. Every emotion has its antecedent ideas, and antecedent ideas are habitually supposed to occur in God. He is represented as seeing and hearing this or the other, and as being emotionally affected thereby. That is, the conception of a divinity possessing these traits of character ntcessarily continues anthropomorphic, �28 THE SERVICE OF MAN not only in the sense that the emotions ascribed are like those of human beings, but also in the sense that they form parts of a consciousness which, like the human consciousness, is formed of successive states. And such a con­ ception of the divine consciousness is irreconcilable with the unchangeableness otherwise alleged, and with the omnis­ cience otherwise alleged. For a con­ sciousness, constituted of ideas and feelings caused by objects and occur­ rences, cannot be simultaneously occu­ pied with all objects and all occurrences throughout the universe. To believe in a divine consciousness, men must refrain from thinking what is meant by con­ sciousness—must stop short with verbal propositions; and propositions which they are debarred from rendering into thought will more and more fail to satisfy them. Of course, like difficulties present themselves when the will of God is spoken of. So long as we refrain from giving a definite meaning to the word ‘ will,’ we may say that it is possessed by the Cause of all things, as readily as we may say that love of approbation is possessed by a circle; but when, from the words, we pass to the thoughts they stand for, we find that we can no more unite in consciousness the terms of the one proposition than we can those of the other. Whoever conceives of any other will than his own must do so in terms of his own will, which is the sole will directly known to him, all other wills being only inferred. But will, as such, is conscious, if it presupposes a motive, a prompting desire of some kind; absolute indifference excludes the con­ ception of will. Moreover, will, as implying a prompting desire, connotes some end contemplated as one to be achieved, and ceases with the achieve­ ment of it; some other will referring to some other end taking its place. That is to say, will, like emotion, necessarily supposes a series of states of conscious­ ness. The conception of a divine will, derived from the human will, involves, like it, localisation in space and tinlfe; the willing of each end excluding from consciousness, for an interval, the willing of other ends, and therefore being incon­ sistent with that omnipresent activity which simultaneously works out an infinity of ends. It is the same with the ascription of intelligence. Not to dwell on the seriality and limitation implied as before, we may note that intelligence, as alone conceivable by us, presupposes existence independent of it and objective to it. It is carried on in terms of changes primarily wrought by alien activities—the impressions gener­ ated by things beyond consciousness and the ideas derived from such impressions. To speak of an intelligence which exists in the absence of all such alien activities is to use a meaningless word. If to the corollary that the First Cause, considered as intelligent, must be continually affected by independent objective activities, it is replied that these have become such by act of creation, and were previously included in the First Cause; then the reply is that, in such case, the First Cause could, before their creation, have had nothing to generate in it such changes as those constituting what we call intelligence, and must therefore have been unintelligent at the time when intelligence was most called for. Hence it is clear that the intelligence ascribed answers in no respect to that which we know by the name. It is intelligence out of which all the characters consti­ tuting it have vanished.”1 On the moral side it is found impossible to reconcile the attributes of mercy and benevolence in the Creator with the con­ dition of the animal world, which presents an almost continued scene of carnage and cruelty, and has done so from its commencement. Not only are the stronger carnivora fashioned and armed for the purpose of hunting and killing their prey—a gazelle or antelope, in a state of nature, is compelled to fly three times daily for its life—but innumerable 1 Herbert Spencer, Nineteenth Century Re­ view, 1885. �WHY MEN HESITATE parasites exist in the bodies and at the expense of animals generally much their superiors. “ Of the animal kingdom as a whole, more than half the species are parasites.” If each individual species, as Agassiz said, is an “ embodied creative thought of God,” his benevolence must be acknowledged to be of a singular character. The best apologists admit that a mere metaphysical deity, an absolute First Cause defecated to a pure transparency, is not enough. What they wish to restore is a belief in the God to whom they learned to pray by their mother’s knee. And they are abundantly justified from their point of view in such a wish. The only God whom Western Europeans, with a Christian ancestry of a thousand years behind them, can worship, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; or, rather, of St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, and of the innumerable “blessed saints,” canonised or not, who peopled •, the Ages of Faith. No one wants, no | one cares for, an abstract God, an Un­ j knowable, an Absolute, with whom we stand in no human or intelligible relation. What pious hearts wish to feel and believe is the existence, “ behind the veil” of the visible world, of an invisible Personality, friendly to man, at once a brother and God. The unequalled potency of Chris­ tianity as a religion of the heart has ever consisted in the admirable conception of the Man God, Jesus Christ. Even a I power hostile to man, if conceived as I embodied in a person, has been felt pre­ ferable to vague, passionless, unintelligent force; because a hostile person could be propitiated, could be appealed to, could be brought over to mercy and goodwill ; by prayer and sacrifice. That is to say, I that an anthropomorphic God is the only | God whom men can worship, and also I the God whom modern thought finds it increasingly difficult to believe in. I Chapter III. WHY MEN HESITATE The series of arguments and considera- : has Rationalism, after such brilliant tions against the current theology, of j victories, not triumphed completely ? which a very imperfect summary was Why is the British Sunday without a attempted in the last chapter, might parallel in Europe ? Why on that day seem sufficient to bring about a rapid are museums and theatres still closed, extinction of the vulgar belief; and and the churches and chapels full ? The possibly that extinction is not so far off obvious answer that we are the most as both those who wish it, and those conservative of races is not satisfactory. who deprecate it, may be apt to think. We can overturn quickly enough institu­ Still, whatever may be the case in tions with which we arc really dis­ France and Germany, Christianity, if contented. The inference is that the moribund, is by no means dead, in this mass of Englishmen, in spite of the wide country at least: the land which has prevalence of agnostic views, are not yet done most to work out the philosophy satisfied in their hearts that an improved of Evolution is perhaps still the most substitute for Christianity can be found. Christian in faith and practice remaining Intellectually, their allegiance to it has in the world. The question arises, Why been much shaken, but their feelings �THE SERVICE OF MAN have not been changed in a similar degree. This may be explained in two ways. First, a certain slow-footed sure­ ness in the national character, which refuses to move with haste in matters of paramount importance. Among the peoples who embraced the Reformation, the English were the most tardy in their open and general revolt from Rome. Secondly, in no country has Christianity of late years been less offensive to any class of dissidents. Unlimited religious liberty has permitted every shade of religious or irreligious sentiment to assert itself after its own heart, in its own fashion. Even the Established Church, once so insolent and oppressive, has, on the whole, shown a wise spirit of compromise and toleration, and is, perhaps, less hated now than at any past period of its history. A touch of genuine persecution would long ago have caused an explosion, which would not only have annihilated the Establishment, but have reacted injuriously on the other sects. In the absence of the stimulus given by persecution even to unpopular opinions, agnosticism has had to make its way on its own merits, so to speak, on a fair field, and certainly with no favour. Among certain groups, with whom intellectual cultivation is the main business of life, it has had a great success, far greater than could have been expected in only a recent past; but it has not extended and penetrated through the great mass of the middle and upper classes. And the obvious reason is that agnosticism, so far, has not only not had feeling with it, but it has had feeling against it. A belief in the unknowable kindles no enthusiasm. Science wins a verdict in its favour before any competent intellectual tribunal; but numbers of men, and the vast majority of women, ignore the finding of the jury of experts. They cling passionately to the belief in the supernatural; they listen even with patience and flattering hope to the deeply suspicious and suspected pro­ fessors of spiritualism and thought-read­ ing, athirst for a hint, a suggestion, an evanescent fact, which would lighten the gloom of the grave. Above all, they will believe, in spite of science and the laws of their consciousness, in a good God, who loves them and cares for them and their little wants and trials, and will, if they only please him, take them at last to his bosom, and “ wipe the tears for ever from their eyes.” “ A. l’enfant il faut sa mere, A l’ame il faut son Dieu.” In this respect, at least, Carlyle was a true son of his age, and expressed one of its deepest heart-pangs in that bitter cry of the Everlasting No :—“ To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead in­ difference, to grind me limb from limb. O the vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death ! Why was the Living banished thither companionless, con­ scious ? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God ?” That is the true voice of a Christian man who has lost his faith. Some thousand or fifteen hundred years of Christian train­ ing has given this passionate turn to the feelings, this infinite craving for sympathy with the Invisible Lord; who must exist, men fondly say, because to doubt him is to despair. Again Carlyle is representa­ tive : “ Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendours—of that Truth, and Beginning of Truth, fell mysteriously over my soul. Sweeter than Day-spring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla; ah ! like the mother’s voice to her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults ; like soft streamings of celestial music to my too exasperated heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnelhouse with spectres; but godlike, and my Father’s !” How little the celestial music soothed the exasperated heart of the care-laden man, his tragic biography is a melancholy witness. �WHY MEN HESITA TE Though perhaps the chief, the yearn­ ing for divine sympathy is not the only ground of men’s hesitation to follow the guidance of intellect in this matter. The idea still prevails that Christianity is, after all, the best support of morality extant. What system of ethics, it is asked, can compare with the Sermon on the Mount ? There are even some who hold that paradise and hell can ill be spared ; the one as incentive to good, the other as a deterrent from evil. How can you expect, it is inquired, self-sacrifice, devotion to duty, if man is to die the death of a dog, and to look for no here­ after? It is assumed as obvious to common-sense that in that case we shall eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Self-indulgence the most gross, crime the most unscrupulous, are taken for granted to be the natural and spontaneous pre­ dispositions of man, if he did not dread having to pay dear for them in the next world. Wickedness and sin are what he naturally likes, virtue and righteousness what he naturally detests. The pleasures of lying, robbery, impurity, and murder are beyond dispute j they would fill the cup of enjoyment to the brim, could one only get it without fear of after-conse­ quences in the lake of brimstone. Who can be so ignorant of human nature, nay, of his own heart, as to doubt of these all too fascinating temptations and attractions ? As it is, even with the fires of Tophet flaming in the distance, men cannot resist their allurements, or prefer “ The lilies and languors of virtue To the roses and raptures of vice.” Therefore, it is only too certain that a general abrogation of Christianity would be at once followed by a reign of universal licence; and, by the lower order of apologists, it is not seldom broadly hinted that that is the desired result. Take away the mingled fear and hope of a future state of rewards and punishments, and what possible check can be imagined to the universal indulgence of unbridled desires ? Without staying to point out that reasoners of this class, whatever their other merits, cannot be complimented on their estimate of human nature, and that they, at least, can with little grace reproach any opponents with degrading man, we have to remark that the con­ clusions of the reason, so far as they are adverse to Christianity, are here met not with arguments, but with threats, with appeals to the passions of a very powerful kind; and that it can excite no surprise that, on the whole, passion has the advantage in the conflict. We shall try to examine these points with some care, and inquire (i) if religion has really been in the past the solace and consolation it is asserted ; (2) whether Christianity is such a stay and support to morality as it is said to be; and (3) whether a general outbreak of crime and debauchery may be expected as a natural result of the disappearance of the established theo­ logy? �32 THE SERVICE OF MAN Chapter IV. THE ALLEGED CONSOLATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION It is worthy of remark that, in propor­ tion as Christianity has met with intel­ lectual opposition, a progressive tendency has been shown by divines to veil the harsher and more inhuman features of their creed. The older race of theo­ logians, with no fear of criticism before their eyes, spoke out freely; they preached high doctrine, and found an austere pleasure in dwelling on the awful judg­ ments of God. The small number of the saved, the multitude of the damned, the narrowness of the way which leads to life, the breadth of that which leads to destruction, were topics on which they loved to dwell and the congregation to ponder. To a large extent this tone has been dropped, and replaced by one to which it is the direct contrary. Preachers prefer to dwell on the cheerful and bright side of religion—on its glorious promises, on the delights of the heavenly Jerusalem. They certainly speak with much less unction of the “wrath to come”; and if they say nothing to impair the belief in God’s justice, which leads him to punish sin with endless torments, they enlarge more on his “mercy” and “the things he hath prepared for them that love him.” In some cases religion is chiefly recom­ mended as offering a graceful and pleasing appendix to life, as depriving death of its sting and the grave of its victory, and opening a prospect up to the sunlit heavens, amid clouds and glory and the most sublime scenery that can be imagined. This change of tone, which, as a broad matter of fact, cannot, I apprehend, be denied, has followed on as a wide result of the great humanitarian movement which began towards the middle of the eighteenth century. When legislation and manners were equally marked by cruelty; when criminals were tortured to death, and prisoners kept in noisome dungeons reeking with jail fever and swarming with vermin; when popular sports largely consisted in inflicting pain on men and animals—it is no wonder that gloomy and inhuman views of religion passed without challenge, or even with favour. The alteration of feeling, together with its cause, were quaintly expressed by an American divine, who had been reproached by an English visitor for too slight an insistence on the eternal damna­ tion of the wicked : “ Our people would not stand it, sir,” was the reply. But the point which more immediately con­ cerns us is whether the old religion of terror, or its modified and softened modern version, was or is such a source of solace and inward joy as is commonly assumed. Any one who has had the privilege of knowing intimately one of those rare and beautiful souls in whom a single-hearted piety seems spontaneous would be slow to deny that such solace may exist. The meek and chastened spirits do occasionally know that peace of God which passeth all understanding. But it is equally certain that that peace is subject to painful interruptions, and that in almost exact proportion with the growth of a tender and watchful con­ science does the liability to such eclipses increase. It is the presumptuous, not the truly devout, who dwell always in a complacent conviction of their accep­ tance and favour with God. All spiritual doctors abound in warnings against the two opposite dangers, on the one hand, of over-confidence, self-righteousness, Pharisaism ; on the other, of despair and hopeless despondency of ever pleasing God. The proud content of the Pharisee �THE ALLEGED CONSOLATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 33 can never be put to the credit of religion, not worthy of thy consolation, nor of as it is the temper which is most of all any spiritual visitation; and, therefore, thou dealest justly with me when thou condemned by true piety. “ Humility, leavest me poor and desolate. For if I and modesty of judgment and of hope, could shed tears as the sea, yet should I arc very good instruments to procure mercy and a fair reception at the day of not be wrorthy of thy consolation. Where­ fore I am worthy only to be scourged our death; but presumption or bold and punished, because I have grievously opinion serves no end of God or man, and is always imprudent, even fatal, and and often offended thee, and in many things greatly sinned; so, then, on a true of all things in the world is its own greatest enemy : for the more any man account, I have not deserved even the presumes the greater reason he has to smallest consolation.”1 Cardinal Wiseman, in his preface to fear.”1 Any solace, therefore, of this kind, derived from religion, must be the English translation of the works of repudiated and struck off the account as St. John of the Cross, has the following illegitimate and in a manner fraudulent remarkable passage : “ It may be con­ —a deadly spiritual sin seizing the reward sidered a rule in this highest spiritual of perfected saintliness. It is the anxious life that, before it is attained, there must and careworn penitent whom we have to be a period of severe probation, lasting consider, those who, when they have often many years, and separating it from done all that they can, still regard them­ the previous state, which may have been selves as unprofitable servants. Theo­ one of most exalted virtue. Probably, many whom the Catholic Church honours logians prescribe elaborate remedies against despair as a “ temptation and a as saints have never received this singular horrid sin ”; but it is a sin to which the gift. But in reading the biography of humble, the meek, and the truly devout such as have been favoured with it, we shall invariably find that the possession are exposed, and not the wicked and worldly. How often it has been pushed of it has been preceded, not only by to the destruction of reason, resulting a voluntary course of mortification of in religious madness, the statistics of sense, fervent devotion, constant medi­ insanity are there to show. Even when tation, and separation from the world, it stops short of this fearful consumma­ but also by a trying course of dryness, tion, and appears in the milder form of weariness of spirit, insipidity of devo­ desponding anxiety, and fear lest the tional duties, and, what is infinitely sinner has lost favour in the sight worse, dejection, despondency, tempta­ of God, those moments of coldness tion to give up all in disgust and almost and tediousness of spirit form a heavy despair. During this tremendous proba­ deduction from the hours of peace and tion the soul is dark, parched, and way­ happiness enjoyed between, as every less, as earth without water, as one book of devotion, from the Psalms staggering across a desert, or, to rise to downward, abundantly shows. “ My a nobler illustration, like Him remotely God, my God, look upon me; why hast who lay on the ground on Olivet, loathing the cup which He had longed for, beyond thou forsaken me: and art so far from my health, and from the words of my the sweet chalice which He had drunk complaint ? O my God, I cry in the with His apostles just before.” A prince day-time, but thou hearest not: and in of the Church may, no doubt, be trusted to speak correctly on this matter. the night-season also I take no rest.” In order to show that these afflictions Thomas a Kempis denies that the are not peculiar to Catholics, a few truly contrite sinner has any ground even sentences may with advantage be quoted to hope for consolation. “ Lord, I am ’ Holy Dying, ch. v., § 6. 1 Imitation, iii. 52. n �34 THE SERVICE OF MAN from that strange book of Bunyan’s, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners:—“ And now was I both a burden and terror to myself, nor did I ever so know as now what it was to be weary of my life and yet afraid to die. Ob, how gladly now would I have been anybody but myself, anything but a man, and in any condition but my own, for there was nothing did pass more fre­ quently over my mind than that it was impossible for me to be forgiven my transgression and to be saved from wrath to come........ I found it hard work now to pray to God, because despair was swallowing me up. I thought I was, as with a tempest, driven away from God, for always when I cried to God for mercy this would come in, ‘ ’Tis too late; I am lost: God has let me fall, not to my correction, but to my condemnation.’ About this time I did light on that dread­ ful story of that miserable mortal, Francis Spira—a book that was to my troubled spirit as salt when rubbed into a fresh wound. Every sentence in that book, every groan of that man, with all the rest of his actions in his griefs; as his tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, his twisting and languishing and pining away under that mighty hand of God that was upon him, were as knives and daggers in my soul. Especially that sentence of his was frightful to me : ‘ Man knows the begin­ ning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof?’ Then would the former sen­ tence as the conclusion of all fall like an hot thunderbolt against my conscience, for you know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. “ Then should I be struck into a very great trembling, insomuch that at some­ times I could for whole days together feel my very body as well as my mind to shake and totter under the sense of this dreadful judgment of God that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin. I felt also such a clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason of this my terror, that I was especially at sometimes as if my breast­ bone would split asunder: then I thought concerning that of Judas, who, by his falling headlong, burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out.” If we admit that such periods of depression are at last more than com­ pensated by the ecstasy which may follow them, yet it is obvious that the religious life, in its highest forms, is very far from uniformly leading through paths of pleasantness and peace, as is sometimes assumed. A state bordering on despair, which lasts for years, is no light matter; and it would be no conclusive proof of a carnal mind to hesitate before encounter­ ing such anguish, even with the ultimate certainty of its transmutation into ineffable joy. But, as Cardinal Wiseman tells us, there is no certainty of such in this life: only in heaven can the Christian hope for an adequate return for his spiritual trials in this world. “ If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable,” said St. Paul of himself and fellow Christians; and it follows that neither in the design nor in the result is Christianity adapted to confer the highest earthly happiness : it is not a present solace, but the promise of one hereafter. A future life, however, is one of the most enormous assumptions, with­ out proof, ever made; and yet, on this immense postulate, all the alleged con­ solations of religion of necessity hang. By considering the case of the truly religious, we have discussed the question, on the most favourable terms to Chris­ tianity, as a source of happiness. The profoundly pious are at times refreshed with the “ beatific vision ” in the course of their pilgrimage. But there are numbers of the half - converted, the ■worldly, the openly wicked, who believe enough to be full of anxiety and fear, and yet never attain to assurance of complete peace with God; and perhaps these constitute the majority of professing Christians. If you obtain access to their inmost thoughts, you will rarely find that �THE ALLEGED CONSOLATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 35 religion has been a consolation to them, but a perpetual source of inward unrest and alarm, though they never have had the strength or the grace to turn finally to God. These pains of the spirit are by no means the only trials which the Christian has to encounter. The preva­ lence of heresy and schism has ever afflicted devout men in proportion to their devoutness. One of the peculiar­ ities of this age, indeed, is the extra­ ordinary cessation of controversy and absence of new doctrines within the Christian communion. Never, perhaps, since the Council of Jerusalem, has there been so marked an abeyance of serious theological dispute. Middleaged and old men, who can remember the Tractarian controversy and the Gorham controversy, when the coun­ try was filled with tumult about matters of faith, can appreciate the strange, great calm which now prevails. Whether true believers have any reason to rejoice in the change may be doubted. The differences within have been fol­ lowed by far more serious hostilities from without, and it is the deadly war -with the sceptic and the infidel which justly pre-occupies the earnest thoughts of Christian men. This last state, which is worse than the first, tends to make us forget how painful were the anxieties as to the threatened prevalence of “grave error,” whenever serious controversies arose: what fiery pamphlets were published by deans, archdeacons, and even by bishops; what agitated letters appeared even in the secular newspapers ; what meetings were convened, and what danger to Christian verity was apprehended if the faithful did not see to it. The world has rolled so far away from this state of things that even those who witnessed it retain but an imperfect recollection of the remote scene. Who can easily recall the excite­ ment consequent on the publication of so anodyne a work as Professor Jowett’s edition of St. Paul’s Epistles? How difficult to remember the time when the illustrious Master of Balliol was a perse­ cuted man, considered more than passing rich with forty pounds a year, for teaching Greek as it had not been taught by a Regius professor from time immemorial? But faith was still lively and vigilant, even in that recent past—a very pale reflection of its former brightness, no doubt. To realise what it once was, and what mental distress it could cause, we must have recourse to reading; and, with such historical imagination as we can command, revive an extinct con­ troversy : not one of the mightier disputes of the sixteenth century, the dust-cloud of which reached up to the heavens and obscured the stars; but a relatively minor one, and only an episode in that, the fate of Jacqueline Pascal. Jacqueline, the younger sister of Blaise Pascal, was remarkable for talent and beauty even in her own family, in which beauty and talent were hereditary gifts. Like Pope, she lisped in numbers, and composed verses which were not con­ temptible before she had learned to read. Her grace of person and manner caused her to be invited to play in a comedy before Richelieu, and, though only nine years of age, she so charmed the Cardinal that he recalled her father, who had incurred his displeasure, from exile. We have letters of hers written in her twen­ tieth year, in which she gives to her sister, Madame Perier, a lucid and intelligent account of a conference between her brother Blaise and Descartes, when they discussed the discovery of the barometer, and the phenomena of atmospheric pressure. But religion already occupied all her thoughts, and she resolved to become a nun of Port Royal, though, out of deference to her father’s wish, she refrained from taking the veil until after his death. “ She made all her prepara­ tions in my presence,” says her sister, Madame Perier, “ and fixed the. fourth of January as the day for entering the convent. On the eve of that day she begged me to speak about it to my brother, to avoid taking him by surprise. ....... He was much touched, and retired �36 THE SERVICE OF MAN very sad to his room without seeing my sister, who was in a small apartment where she was wont to pray. She did not leave it till my brother had gone, fearing that the sight of her might give him pain. I gave her the tender mes­ sages he had charged me with, after which we all went to bed. But I could not sleep. Although I approved heartily of her resolution, its magnitude so filled my mind that I lay awake all night. At seven the next morning, as I saw that Jacqueline did not rise, I thought that she also had not slept, and I found her fast asleep. The noise I made .awakened her, and she asked me the time. I told her, and inquired how she felt, and if she had slept well. She replied she was well, and had had a good night. Then she arose, dressed herself, and went away ; doing this, as all things, with a tranquillity and composure of soul which cannot be conceived. We took no farewell of each other from fear of breaking down, and I turned away from her path when I saw her ready to go out. In this way she left the world; it was the fourth of January, of the year 1652, she being twenty-six years and three months old.” Sister Jacqueline, of Saint Euphemia Pascal, was for nine years a nun at Port Royal, and became subprioress and mistress of the Novices. In the latter character the duty of teaching young children to read devolved upon her, and she introduced into the convent the new system of giving merely the phonetic value of the letters and not calling them by misleading names, which was the invention of her brother Blaise, and obtained afterwards great renown in the “Grammaire Generale” of Port Royal. But the pious Jansenist foundation was already doomed. The Jesuits had not yet avenged the Provincial Letters. Strong with the support of the pope and the king, they produced a formulary, the signature of which was compulsory on all ecclesiastics. It referred to the eternal question of the Five Propositions, ind declared that they were in the book Augustinus of Bishop Jansenius, and were contrary to the faith. Much subtlety was employed to find a means of signing it in a non-natural sense, and the chiefs of the Jansenist party, to escape destruction, visibly wavered. But Jacqueline, like her brother Blaise, was made of sterner stuff, and resisted all compromise with passionate zeal. At last the great authority of Arnauld and Nicole prevailed upon their followers to accept the bitter cup prepared for them by their enemies. Pascal swooned away when this decision was taken. Jacqueline yielded at last to the pressure of her superiors, and signed the formulary, but with such grief and anguish of soul that she predicted she would die of it; as, indeed, she did in less than six months. The affliction of the just and the prosperity of the wicked has always been a serious difficulty to pious persons who combined reflection with devotion. “ Wherefore do the wicked live, become old,, yea, are mighty in power? Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.”1 And the prophet goes on to say in his anguish : “ God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked........ He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant........ My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death ; not for any injustice in mine hands : also my prayer is pure.”2 Probably few religious persons have escaped the bitterness of feeling that they were unjustly chastened, that the rod of God was upon them and not upon the wicked. They no doubt repelled the thought with an “ Aflage Satana I ” regarding it as a snare of the tempter. But because the thought was banished from the mind, was the load removed from the heart ? This is a trial which theologians must admit is all 1 Job. xxi. 7-9. 2 Job. xvi. II, 14-17. �THE ALLEGED CONSOLATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 37 their own—a clear addition to the weary weight “ of all this unintelligible world.” Agnostics at least, when smitten by the sharp arrows of fate, by disease, poverty, bereavement, do not complicate their misery by anxious misgivings and painful wonder why they are thus treated by the God of their salvation. The pitiless, brazen heavens overarch them and believers alike; they bear their trials, or their hearts break, according to their strength. But one pang is spared them, the mystery of God’s wrath that he should visit them so sorely. The exceeding bitter cry of the dying Jesus, “ My God, my God, why hast thou for­ saken me?” never comes to their lips, for it never rises in their hearts. “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.” A fitting yet terrible end of the Passion ; for what more awful thought could come to a devout believer in God than that he was forsaken of God ? It may well have been tin's, even more than the nails through his feet and hands and the spear in his side, which broke the heart of the Son of man, and made Him yield up the ghost. Christ’s followers have discovered consolations and viatica in the hour of death which were denied Him. But the most truly humble and devout at times find their chief anguish there where they have most looked for relief. A more pious, God-fearing woman than the charming French poetess, Madame Desbordes Valmore, could not easily be found. But her life was one long scene of bitter trial, poverty, and bereavement. At last the cup runs over, and this plaintive cry escapes her: “Yes, Camille, it is very poignant; here I am alone, without brothers or sisters, alone and severed from all the dear souls I have so loved, without the con­ solation of surviving them and being able to accomplish their desire, which was ever to do some good........ What can one say in the presence of these decrees of Providence? If one has deserved them, the case is more sad. I often search my heart and try to find out what may have caused me to be so heavily smitten by our dear Creator ; for it is impossible for his justice to punish thus without a cause, and that thought very often suffices to overwhelm me.”1 The above extracts will probably be considered sufficient to show that it is by no means so plain as it is often assumed to be that the loss of the Christian religion would deprive men of immense consolation and an abiding source of inward happiness amid the trials of life. There is a serious set-off on the other side, and this was admitted with no difficulty in the days when the faith was menaced by no danger. “ Do not seek ” says Jeremy Taylor, “ for deliciousness and sensible sweetness in the actions of religion, but only regard the duty and the conscience of it. For although, in the beginning of religion most frequently, and at other times irregularly, God complies with our infir­ mity, and encourages out duty with little overflowings of spiritual joy and sensible pleasure and delicacies in prayer, so as we seem to feel some little nearer of heaven, and great refreshment from the spirit of consolation; yet this is not always safe for us to have, neither safe for us to expect and look for; and when we dor it is apt to make us cool in our inquiries and waitings upon Christ when we want them ; it is running after him, not for the miracles, but for the loaves; not for the wonderful things of God and the desire of pleasing him, but for the pleasure of pleasing ourselves.”2 Now­ adays the effort made is in the opposite direction, and to dwell on the “ sensible pleasures ” and “ delicacies in prayer,” in order to enhance the contrast between the bright glory and prospects afforded by the religious life, and the gloomy and hopeless future which are supposed to afflict the infidel. The object now is to make religion attractive, and it has been pursued with very marked success. Let any one compare the taste and beauty 1 Sainte-Bcuve, Lundis, vol. xii. 2 ZfoZj' Living, cap. iv., § 7. �38 THE SERVICE OF MAN of a choral service in a modern church Meditations of James Hervey, which ran or cathedral with the harsh and grating through numerous editions when it first ugliness which made “ going to church ” appeared, and was still a favourite with in the days of our youth an ascetic pious folk in the earlier portion of the exercise. The coarse, untutored voice present century. Such pompous and of the village shoemaker or tailor who tawdy fustian one would hope could acted as clerk; the hideous boxes called hardly have been accepted for eloquence, pews; the dolorous and droning music ; had it not been supposed to convey vital the whole framed in a choice specimen religious truth. As a poetaster of the of Georgian architecture, barbaric with day expressed it: white-wash and clumsy ornament, will still “ In these loved scenes what rapturous graces return to the memory in a dreamy mood. shine, These things have gone, and are replaced Live in each leaf, and breathe in every line ; What sacred beauties beam throughout the by what is very often a real artistic suc­ whole, cess ; good music and singing, the dim To charm the sense and steal upon the soul.” religious light of stained windows, flowers, mosaics, or paintings, in Soul and sense are charmed in this wise: churches often not untouched by the “The wicked seem to lie here, like spirit of mediaeval beauty. This great malefactors in a deep and strong dun­ reform in the ordering of divine service geon ; reserved against the day of trial. has passed beyond the limits of the ‘ Their departure was without peace.’ ■Establishment, and penetrated even Clouds of horror sat lowering upon their among the dissenters, whose chapels no closing eyelids; most sadly foreboding longer display the resolute deformity of the blackness of darkness for ever. a past age. The outward change has When the last sickness seized their been preceded and accompanied by a frame, and the inevitable change ad­ deeper inward change; the doctrine of vanced ; when they saw the fatal arrow terror has been laid aside, and replaced fitting to the strings; saw the deadly by a doctrine of mildness and hope, so archer aiming at their life; and felt the much so that few realise the gloomy envenomed shaft fastened in their vitals horrors of the old creed. The younger —good God ! what fearfulness came generation has hardly an idea of the : upon them ! What horrible dread over­ dismal spiritual pit in which their fathers whelmed them ! How did they stand lived. In the eighteenth century the shuddering upon the tremendous preci­ case was still worse. The chill shade of pice, excessively afraid to die, yet utterly religious dread spread beyond the circle unable to live.—O ! what pale reviews, of the professedly devout, and darkened what startling prospects, conspire to life and literature. Only profane revellers augment their sorrows I They look back­ ■ passed out of it, and their example was not ward ; and behold ! a most melancholy edifying. In what a cavern of black scene! Sins unrepented of, mercy slighted, thoughts did Samuel Johnson pass his and the day of grace ending. They look life, and what a fearful “ Horror of the forward, and nothing presents itself but Last” got hold of him in his latter days. the righteous Judge, the dreadful tribunal, Edward Young, who inveighed against and a most solemn reckoning. They wealth and honours in order to obtain roll around their affrighted eyes on them, adjusted with skill and care the attending friends, and, if accomplices in -strains of his venal muse to the popular debauchery, it sharpens their anguish to taste, and sang that consider this further aggravation of their guilt, That they have not sinned alone, “A God all mercy is a God unjust.” but drawn others into the snare. If Few books in the last century were more religious acquaintance, it strikes a fresh popular with serious persons than the gash into their hearts, to think of never �THE^LLEGED CONSOL A ELONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 39 seeing them any more, but only at an unapproachable distance, separated by the unpassable gulph.”1 Will any one presume to say that, for one death-bed which has been smoothed by religion, a thousand have not been turned into beds of torture by such teaching as this ? But we must go back to the palmy days of Calvinism, to Scotland in the seventeenth century, to realise fully the revolting devil-worship which once passed under the name of Christianity, and, what is more, really was Christianity, gospel­ truth, supported by texts, at every point taken from Scripture. No class of litera­ ture lies buried deeper in oblivion than old-fashioned theological literature. Its brilliant but transitory life is followed by a perennial death, from which there is no resurrection. Dead divinity is the deadest thing that ever lived. Only now and then a literary historian recalls one of these vanished spectres; the mass of believers are content to ignore their spiritual ancestry. Take the case of the Rev. Thomas Boston, a minister of the Church of Scotland, who lived in the latter end of the seventeenth and begin­ ning of the eighteenth century. Boston was one of the most shining lights of the Scottish Church, and his most famous book, Human Nature in its Fourfold State, was for a long period almost placed on a level with Holy Scripture. It is certainly a very wonderful book, written with great power, and eloquence of a kind which might well impose upon readers who accepted the writer’s pre­ mises. It seems written in a white heat of sustained passion, in which the devil­ worshipper (for Boston is nothing else), persuaded that he had conciliated his devil for his own purposes, deals dam­ nation on all poor wretches not so favoured, with an exultant and fiery joy which is really astounding to witness. The man would have delighted, one would say, to be a stoker in the infernal regions. Out of a volume of five hundred * Meditations among the Tombs, vol. i., p. 94. pages I select a page or two which are nothing but average specimens of a tone of thought which I apprehend would be generally repudiated by theologians now­ adays ; so far have we declined from Christian verity1:— “ Consider what a God he is with whom thou hast to do, and whose wrath thou art liable unto. He is the God of infinite knowledge and wisdom; so that none of thy sins, however secret, can be hid from him. He infallibly finds out all means whereby wrath maybe executed towards the satisfying of justice. He is of infinite power, and so can do what he will against the sinner. How heavy must the strokes of wrath be which are laid on by an omnipotent hand ! Infinite power can make the sinner prisoner, even when he is in his greatest rage against Heaven. It can bring again the several parcels of dust out of the grave, put them together again, re-unite the soul and body, summon them before the tribunal, hurry them away to the pit, and hold them up with the one hand, through eternity, while they are lashed with the other. He is infinitely just, and there­ fore must punish; it were acting contrary to his nature to suffer the sinner to escape wrath. Hence the execution of his wrath is pleasing to him; for though the Lord hath no delight in the death of a sinner, as it is the destruction of his own creature, yet he delights in it, as it is the execution of justice. ‘ Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest.’ Mark the reason : ‘ For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness’ (Ps. xi. 6, 7); ‘I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted’ (Ezek. v. 13); ‘I also will laugh at your calamity ’ (Prov. i. 26). Finally, he lives for ever, to pursue the quarrel. Let us therefore conclude, ‘ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ ”2 1 Boston’s book first appeared in 1720. It has been republished by the Religious Tract Society. 2 T. Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State. The Misery of Man's Natural State. Motive 4. �40 TIIE SERVICE OF MAN Again, in another place of the same which makes them, like Pashur (Jen chapter, Boston says : “ There is wrath xx. 4), ‘a terror to themselves.’ God upon his soul. He can have no com­ takes the filthy garments of their sins, munion with God ; he is ‘foolish, and which they were wont to sleep in securely, overlays them with brimstone, and sets shall not stand in God’s sight ’ (Ps. v. 5). them on fire about their ears, so they ....... There is war between Heaven and them (natural men), and so all commerce have a hell within them.” It may be doubted if, among all the is cut off........ God casts a portion of worldly goods to them, more or less as a aberrations of the human mind, anything bone is thrown to a dog; but, alas, his so horrible as this was ever attained wrath against them appears, in that they elsewhere; and this was the creed of the poor Scots for more than two hundred get no grace........ They lie open to fearful additional plague on their souls, even in years. In reading the works of such a man as Boston, one is tempted to admit this life. Sometimes they meet with one of his favourite dogmas, that the deadening strokes, silent blows from the heart of man is deceitful above all things hand of an angry god; arrows of wrath, and desperately wicked. He evidently that enter into their souls without noise. ‘ Make the heart of this people fat, and gloats and revels in the ideas of wrath, make their ears heavy, and shut their brimstone, fiery strokes, stunning blows, eyes, lest they see with their eyes ’ (Isa. and all the apparatus of his infernal torture-chamber. There is a sort of vi. 10). God strives with them for a while, and convictions enter their con­ concupiscence of lust in his passion for cruelty; it tickles his prurient appetite, sciences ; but they rebel against the light; and, by a secret judgment, they and reaches to a depravity almost insane. receive a blow on the head; so that If he stood alone, the case would be from that time they do, as it were, live merely one of pathology; but he was a and rot above ground. Their hearts are representative man, and spoke in the deadened, their affections withered, their names of millions in this country and consciences stupefied, and their whole abroad. The power of the human mind souls blasted ; ‘ cast forth as a branch to throw up and nourish poisonous and withered ’ (John xv. 6). They are growths of this kind is a very sad and plagued with judicial blindness. They regrettable one. It has stained with shut their eyes against the light; and blood many pages of history, and is not, they are given over to the devil, the one is sorry to say, an abomination con­ god of this world, to be blinded more fined to Christians. The inhuman fana­ (2 Cor. iv. 4). Yea, ‘ God sends them tics of the French Revolution—-Marat, strong delusions, that they should believe Hebert, Fouquier-Tinville, and Robes­ a lie ’ (2 Thess. ii. 11). Even conscience, pierre—are inferior specimens of the same like a false light on the shore, leads breed. But their lust of cruelty, hideous them upon rocks, by which they are as it was, had not the infinite scope and broken in pieces. They harden them- ■ transcendental character of Boston’s ; selves against God, and he leaves them I yet the Reign of Terror in France, which to Satan and their own hearts, whereby ‘ lasted but a few months, is still pointed they are hardened more and more. to by Christians as a supreme instance They are often ‘ given up unto vile affec­ of the wickedness into which unbelievers tions ’ (Rom. i. 26)........ Sometimes they inevitably fall. The reign of terror in meet with sharp fiery strokes, whereby Scotland, which lasted two centuries, is their souls become like Mount Sinai, quietly dropped out of memory, or where nothing is seen but fire and smoke, certainly is never consigned to the ever­ nothing heard but the thunder of God’s lasting infamy which is supposed to have wrath, and the voice of the trumpet of a overtaken the atheists. On the whole broken law, waxing louder and louder, this is an advantage, and the less we deal �THE ALLEGED CONSOLA LIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 41 in retrospective anathema the better; but then all parties should benefit by the amnesty. Even Carlyle, who ever remained a sort of distorted Calvinist, could see that nothing was gained by “shrieking” over the horrors of the French Revolution ; and agnostics would do well to abstain from hard words about Calvinists. Determinists and evolution­ ists must hold that all phenomena of the human mind, whether welcome or otherwise, had a very good reason, for their existence, in that they were caused like any other phenomena. Calvinistic or Terrorist principles cannot be too forcibly condemned, discouraged, or counteracted. Like frightful forms of disease, they show what terrible evils human nature is exposed to. But we do not properly blame disease, if we are wise; we strive to combat it and prevent its recurring again. The poor victims of disease, whether mental or physical, rather deserve our pity than our scorn. They contracted it because they were exposed to its noxious germs. The antecedent evolution of Scotland and France had produced the moral miasma and the minds ready to receive it, which led to the breaking out of those two dreadful pestilences, Scotch Calvinism and French Terrorism. While they pre­ vailed in their greatest virulence, the minds of men were deformed and made hideous, as their bodies might be by small-pox or elephantiasis. In this slight retrospect over the darker side of theology, I should misrepresent my meaning if I seemed to blame the men who held opinions, according to my view, very pernicious. Our war should not be with men, but with dogmas, principles. The dogmas, under the con­ ditions, were inevitable, just as the Plague of London, under the then conditions of over-crowding and neglect of cleanliness, was inevitable. But we cannot blame the men who suffered from the Plague; we cannot even blame their ignorance of the laws of health, because they could not then have known better. We now do know better, and we keep down the Plague. In the same way, Calvinism was a creed held by men who could not know better. The antecedent history of Scottish thought had led to a super­ stitious adoration of a fragment of old oriental literature, the Bible, which was supposed to contain the authentic will and testament of the Creator of the universe. This supposed divine word had been, so it was thought, somewhat kept in the background and slighted by the powerful Catholic Church, which had reigned supreme for centuries, and pressed on men’s minds with no light yoke. Every word of this old oriental book, very interesting and valuable in its way, as a specimen and picture of primitive culture, was imagined to be in the handwriting of the Most High. Every bloody deed recorded, every fantastic and horrible thought enun­ ciated, such as must appear in such a document or collection of documents compiled in such an age, was regarded as approved and authenticated by Almighty Wisdom. When these and similar facts are considered, it does not seem inexplicable that the Scotch and other Calvinists thought and acted as they did. They came to horrible results and conclusions, but these were logical conclusions from the premises. Similarly Rousseau and Robespierre were the most logical of men. The fault lies in the premises—in the one case, that the Bible is the wTord of God; in the other, that the Contrat Social is the utterance of pure reason. �42 THE SERVICE OF MAN Chapter V. ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT The next point to be considered is whether the Christian religion is really so strong and efficient a support of morality as it is common to suppose. An affirmative answer is generally taken for granted, as if the case were too obvious to admit of doubt or even of argument. The purity and elevation of the ethics of the gospel are indeed often asserted to be a sufficient proof of its divine origin. Those theologians who wince somewhat under the scientific argument against miracles recover all their self-possession when they dwell on the ethical side of their creed. If the casting out of devils from demoniacs is admitted to present difficulties, on the ground that it was and still is a common Eastern superstition to regard lunatics as possessed by evil spirits, a superstition which the evangelists shared with their countrymen and contemporaries, it is maintained that the Sermon on the Mount is its own evidence of divine inspiration. “ Never man spake like this man.” The spiritual depth and sublimity of Christ’s teaching must, it is argued, be superhuman, from the fact that to this day it has never been sur­ passed or approached, and never will be in the most remote future. It is agreed that all the great changes and improve­ ments that have been made in public and private morals, between pagan and modern times, must be set down to the vivifying effects of Christianity, which has raised women, struck the fetters from the limbs of the slave, moralised war, conquest, and commerce—in short, done every good thing that has been done in the last sixteen or eighteen centuries. This is that moral evidence for Chris­ tianity which is far more convincing than the evidence derived from works of power. Not that the latter is to be slighted or ignored; but one speaks to the heart, and must abide valid and persuasive through all time; the other addresses the head, and perhaps may not always be equally cogent. Now, it will not be necessary for the purpose of this inquiry to dispute the claims thus advanced. Many of them indeed are obviously without foundation, as the raising of the status of women and the liberation of the slave. But, for the sake of argument, and to avoid complicated side issues, let them be granted; and even then we maintain that it can be proved that Christianity is not favourable to morality in the way and degree commonly supposed. And by morality is meant right conduct here on earth ; those outward acts and inward sentiments which, by the suppression of the selfish passions, conduce most to the public and private well-being of the race. Paley, with that clear, but at times somewhat cynical, common sense which marked his acute intellect, is willing to admit that “ the teaching of morality was not the primary design ” of the gospel. “ If I were to describe,” he goes on to say, “ in a very few words, the scope of Christianity as a revelation, I should say that it was to influence the conduct of human life, by establish­ ing the proof of a future state of reward and punishment—‘ to bring life and immortality to light.’ The direct object, therefore, of the design is to supply motives, and not rules ; sanctions, and not precepts. And these were what mankind stood most in need of. The members of civilised society can, in all ordinary cases, judge tolerably well how they ought to act; but without a future state, or, which is the same thing, without credited evidence of that state, �ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT ■43 they want a motive to their duty; they which conduces, to happiness, either in want, at least, strength of motive, suffi­ ourselves or others, here, is evidently a cient to bear up against the force of trivial matter compared to the conduct passion and the temptation of present which conduces to happiness hereafter. advantage. Their rules want authority. An eternal future must, in minds capable The most important service that can be of even remotely realising such an idea, rendered to human life, and that, con­ overwhelm and crush into insignificance sequently, which one might expect a minute, temporal present. Even a beforehand would be the great end and long temporal future suffices to do this. office of a revelation from God, is to The inconveniences, for instance, of a convey to the world authorised assurances sea-voyage which is going to land us in of the reality of a future existence. And an abiding home in the Colonies or although doing this, or by the ministry India are borne with comparative of the same person by whom this is equanimity or indifference, on the done, moral precepts or examples, or ground that they will soon be over, illustrations of moral precepts, may that it does not very much matter, as be occasionally given, and be highly the real object is not to live happily at valuable, yet still they do not form the sea, but to prepare for happiness and original purpose of the mission.”1 In prosperity in the distant land for which other words, the purpose of the mission we are bound. A colonist does not was to make men fit for a future state of prepare the outfit of a seaman, does not reward, and to supply sanctions which look upon the ship which carries him as would deter them from conduct which his permanent dwelling-place. He no would make them fit for a future state of doubt secures what comfort he can at punishment. Salvation in the next sea ; but, if he is a wise man, his medi­ world is the object of the scheme, not tations are directed to his future life on morality in this; and, although the two land beyond the ocean. It would be objects may occasionally coincide, it is very questionable prudence in him to only a casual coincidence. Such dif­ learn seamanship or navigation, to study ference of ends must lead to a difference charts, and make himself master of the of means. The road which is intended position of shoals and rocks. He would to lead to happiness in heaven must say that such matters concerned persons diverge from the road which is intended who intended to pass their working lives to lead to happiness limited to this on the sea, whereas he had wholly earth. And if anybody says that he different objects in view; the soil, the does not see the necessity of such climate, and the crops proper to the divergence, that happiness in heaven country he intended to inhabit were the may well be only a prolongation of things that concerned him. The parallel happiness on earth, he may be asked only fails in the inadequacy of . the to reflect on the inevitable dwarfing and analogy between the longest life in a subordination of this life, a transitory colony and eternal life in heaven. If space of a few years, to a prospect of life is only a short voyage, destined to eternal life in heaven. Clearly, if this terminate in paradise or hell, what life is only a short, probationary trial­ thoughtful person could care how he scene, preparatory to entrance upon passed it? If, moreover, he were told eternity; if, moreover, conduct here is on good authority, or such as he con­ supposed to influence or decide our sidered transcendently good, as. being status there, happiness in this life is not divine, that happiness during this life’s a thing to be considered by prudent and voyage was more than likely to risk thoughtful persons; and the conduct eternal happiness -hereafter, his in­ difference to happiness here would probably become enmity to it. He 1 Evidences of Christianity, Part II., cap 2. �44 THE SERVICE OF MAN would lend but a careless ear to those utterances of representative Christian doctors. who urged him to study the conditions It is admitted by all Christians that and follow the conduct, often painful and irksome, which conduced most to man is saved only through the merits earthly happiness. He would say, as and passion of Christ. But difficulties good Christians have always said: “That arise concerning the true doctrine of jus­ is not the one thing needful. What do tification. The Protestants, speaking I care for happiness in this vale of tears ? generally, hold that a man is justified by My thoughts are naturally engrossed faith alone. The Catholics hold that co­ with the means of securing eternal operation with grace is needed on the happiness in the world which is to part of man to ensure salvation. It will come.” And the reply would be dictated not be necessary to enter the labyrinth by prudence and common sense. How of subtle disputations which have sur­ it happens that, as a matter of fact, so rounded this question from the days of few persons, who yet believe, or say they the Reformation. To the impartial do, in the future state of reward and spectator itwouldappear that the Catholic punishment referred to by Paley, by the view is the more rational, and the Pro­ admission of all preachers, take this testant the more scriptural. But this serious view of their position and duties, domestic quarrel among theologians does is a matter of interesting inquiry, but not concern us at this moment, inasmuch one which does not concern us at this as all Christian doctors agree that true moment. repentance and turning to God, however If these arguments are sound, and I these may be brought about, are rewarded scarcely apprehend that they will be by salvation. Past sins, nay, a whole disputed, it follows that on a priori life of sin, if repented of before death, grounds we should be justified in con­ are a far less obstacle to entrance into cluding that morality would be waived paradise than the most exemplary and as an end, in comparison with salvation, virtuous life, if unaccompanied by true among the most devout Christians. faith in Christ. And this, surely, is to And this is what we find does happen. discountenance morality in the most It happens also in all Churches and sects, direct way, making it the “ filthy rags ” showing that it is not an accidental but of which the Calvinists have so much to an essential characteristic of the Christian say. That this is the genuine doctrine scheme. But this is a very inadequate of all Christians I proceed to show by a statement of the case as it really stands. few quotations. The Established Church It is not going too far to say that the may well come first with the eighteenth doctrine of all Christians in the final article of her creed. “ They also are to result is antinomian and positively im­ be had accursed that presume to say, moral. They do not only not support and That every man shall be saved by the strengthen morality as they claim to do ; Law or Sect which he professeth, so that they deliberately reject and scorn it. he be diligent to frame his life according They place on a level the most virtuous to that Law, and the light of Nature. and the most flagitious conduct, carried For holy Scripture doth set out unto us on throughout a long lifetime; and this only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby certainly must be held to be putting as men must be saved.” great an affront on morality as it is pos­ True faith and repentance at the last sible to inflict. moment, even in articulo mortis, are suf­ As these assertions may be regarded as ficient to blot out a life of sin. “ There savouring of paradox, I proceed not to never was a doubt in the Church,” says give more or less plausible reasons for Dr. Pusey, “ that all who die in a state of accepting them as true, but to prove grace, although one minute before they them, and that by the most authoritative were not in a state of grace, are saved. �ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT ....... We know not what God may do in one agony of loving penitence for one who accepts His last grace in that almost sacrament of death.”1 Thus penitence is everything and morality nothing. Years of sin which may, which are sure to have caused widespread moral evils, to have been a source of corruption and leading astray to the weak and ignorant, are all obliterated by one moment of loving penitence ; that is, they are oblite­ rated as regards their effects on the sinner’s status in the next world. He is washed in the blood of the Lamb, and goes to glory. But the partners and companions of his sins, whom he pro­ bably seduced, the women he ruined, the youths his example depraved, they sur­ vive and will be punished, unless, indeed, they follow his example to the letter, and close a life of wickedness by an act of timely repentance ; and in that case, like him, they will be as well off as if they had led the most virtuous of lives. Can any one presume to say that such doc­ trine encourages morality ? What could discourage it more ? The article just quoted, and the words of Dr. Pusey, may be allowed to stand warrant for the English Church in this particular. Now let us turn to the Catholic Church. And we will take as her representative an illustrious Saint and Doctor, whose works have received the approbation of his superiors, St. Alphonso de’ Liguori. In the first chapter of a book called The Glories of Mary, it is written: “We read in the life of Sister Catherine, of St. Augustine, that in the place where she resided there was a woman of the name of Mary, who in her youth was a sinner, and in her old age continued so obstinate in wickedness that she was driven out of the city, and reduced to live in a secluded cave ; there she died, half consumed by disease, and without the sacraments, and was conse­ quently interred in a field like a beast. Sister Catherine, who always recom­ 1 What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punish­ ment, p. 115. 45 mended the souls of those who departed from this world, with great fervour, to God, on hearing the unfortunate end of this poor old woman, never thought of praying for her, and she looked upon her, as did every one else, as irrevocably lost. One day, four years afterwards, a suffering soul appeared to her, and exclaimed, ‘ How unfortunate is my lot, Sister Catherine ! Thou recommendest the souls of all those that die to God ; on my soul alone thou hast not com­ passion?’ ‘And who art thou?’ asked the servant of God. ‘ I am,’ she replied, ‘ that poor Mary who died in the cave.’ ‘And art thou saved?’ said Catherine. ‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘by the mercy of the Blessed Virgin Mary.’ ‘And how?’ ‘ When I saw myself at the point of death, loaded with sins, and abandoned by all, I had recourse to the Mother of God, saying, “Lady, thou art the refuge of abandoned creatures : behold me at this moment, abandoned by all; thou art my only hope; thou alone canst help me; have pity on me.” The Blessed Virgin obtained me the grace to make an act of contrition. I died, and am saved ; and, besides this, she, my Queen, obtained that my purgatory should be shortened, by enduring, in intensity, that which otherwise would have lasted for many years. I now only want a few masses to be entirely delivered; I beg thee to get them said, and on my part I promise always to pray for thee to God and to Mary.’ Sister Catherine immediately had the masses said; and after a few days that soul again appeared to her, shining like the sun, and said, ‘ I thank thee, Catherine : behold, I go to Paradise, to sing the mercies of my God, and to pray for thee.’ ”z Nothing can be more plain. A life from youth to old age continued in “obstinate wickedness” is cancelled by an act of contrition, and, after a short 1 The Glories of Mary, translated from the Italian of St. Alphonso de’ Liguori, founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. By a Father of the same congregation. Page 19. (London, 1852.) . �46 THE SERVICE OF MAN purgatorial purification, the sinner appears “ shining like the sun.” Could a life of blameless self-denial and virtue have led to a better result ? The book I quote is full of such stories. Here is another :— “ Belluacensis relates that in an English city, about the year 1430, there was a young nobleman, called Ernest, who, having distributed the whole of his patrimony to the poor, became a monk, and in the monastery to which he retired led so perfect a life'khat he was highly esteemed by his superiors, and this esteem was greatly increased by their knowledge of his tender devotion to the most Blessed Virgin. It happened that the city was attacked by the plague, and the inhabitants had recourse to the monastery, in order that the religious might help them by their prayers. The abbot commanded Ernest to go and pray before the altar of Mary, forbidding him to leave it until he should have received an answer from our Blessed Lady. The young man, after remaining three days in prayer, received an answer from Mary to the effect that certain prayers were to be said: this was done, and the plague ceased. After a time Ernest cooled in his devotion towards Mary: the devil attacked him with many temptations, and particularly with those against purity, and also to leave his monastery. From not having recommended himself to Mary, he unfortunately yielded to the temptation, and resolved to escape by climbing over a wall. Passing before an image of Mary which was in the corridor, the Mother of God addressed him, saying, ‘ My son, why dost thou leave me?’ Ernest, thunderstruck and repentant, sunk to the ground, and replied, ‘But, Lady, dost thou not see that I can no longer resist; why dost thou not assist me?’ ‘And why hast thou not invoked me?’ said our Blessed Lady. ‘ If thou hadst recommended thyself to me, thou wouldst not have fallen so low; but from henceforth do so and fear nothing.’ Ernest returned to his cell, his temptations recommenced, again he neglected to recommend himself to Mary, and at last fled from his monastery. He then gave himself up to a most wicked life, fell from one sin into another, and at length became an assassin; for, having hired an inn, during the night he used to murder the poor travellers who slept there. Among others, he one night killed the cousin of the governor of the place. For this crime he was tried and sentenced to death. It so happened that before he was made a prisoner, and while evidence was being collected, a young nobleman arrived at the inn. The wicked Ernest, as usual, determined to murder him, and entered the room at night for this purpose; but lo! instead of finding the young man, he beheld a crucifix on the bed, all covered with wounds. The image cast a look of compassion on him, and exclaimed, ‘ Ungrateful wretch! is it not enough that I have died once for thee? Wilt thou again take my life ? Be it so. Raise thy hand, strike!’ Filled with confusion, poor Ernest began to weep, and, sobbing, said, ‘ Behold me, Lord; since thou showest me such mercy, I will return to thee.’ Immediately he left the inn, to return to his monastery, there to do penance for his crimes; but on the road he was taken by the ministers of justice, was led before the judge, and acknowledged all the murders he had committed. He was sentenced to be hung, without having the time given him to go to confession. He recommended himself to Mary, and was thrown from the ladder; but the Blessed Virgin pre­ served his life, and she herself loosened the rope, and then addressed him, saying, ‘ Go, return to thy monastery, do penance, and when thou seest a paper in my hands, announcing the pardon of thy sins, pre­ pare for death.’ Ernest returned, related all to his abbot, and did great penance. After many years, he saw the paper in the hands of Mary, which announced his pardon; he immediately prepared for death, and in a most holy manner breathed forth his soul.”1 1 The Glories of Mary, p. 48. �ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT It is quite clear that an ardent zeal to save souls is compatible with great indifference as to bodies. One would like to know what became of the poor travellers whom the ruffian Ernest murdered in their sleep. Was time granted them to make an act of con­ trition ? But it is absurd to take such a narrative au serieux. What is serious is the unmistakeable character of the teach­ ing implied. And can anything be imagined more cynically immoral ? Here is a man represented as falling into the most abominable anti-social crime which it is possible to commit. The wretch deserved a hundred deaths for his dastardly midnight murders; conduct more injurious than his to society simply cannot be conceived. Yet he is not only saved from the gallows by the Mother of God herself, but his life is prolonged in order that he may have time to repent and to get his precious soul taken to heaven — a place which, by the way, if it contain many such characters as he, would offer very un­ pleasant company to moral men. And let no one reject with impatience the above specimens of Christian teach­ ing on the ground that they are not Christian at all, but abject popish superstitions and inventions. Our next witness to prove that in this matter all Christians agree in vilipending a moral life and conduct, and placing it below a life of crime, provided the latter be terminated by an act of repentance and turning to God in time to cheat the devil, shall be the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, who will not be suspected of any leaning to Romish error. This is what he says : “Regeneration is an instantaneous work, and justification an instantaneous gift. Man fell in a moment....... Shall the devil destroy us in a moment, and Jesus be unable to save us in a moment?”1 Again: “ My dear hearer, whoever thou mayest be, whatever thy past life may have been, if thou wilt trust Christ, thou 47 shalt be saved from all thy sin in a moment; the whole of thy past life shall be blotted out; there shall not remain in God’s book so much as a single charge against thy soul, for Christ, who died for thee, shall take thy guilt away, and leave thee without a blot before the face of God.” Again : “ Ah ! my friend, let me assure you....... that there is hope for the vilest through the precious blood of Jesus. No man can have gone too far for the long arm of Christ to reach him. Christ delights to save the biggest sinners....... O ye despairing sinners, there is no room for despair this side the gates of hell. If you have gone through the foulest kennels of iniquity, no stain can stand out against the power of the cleansing blood....... You great sinners shall have r.o back seats in heaven! There shall be no outer court for you. You great sinners shall have as much love as the best, as much joy as the brightest of saints. You shall be near to Christ; you shall sit with him upon his throne; you shall wear the crown; your fingers shall touch the golden harps; you shall rejoice with the joy which is unspeakable and full of glory....... Thirty years of sin shall be forgiven, and it shall not take thirty minutes to do it in. Fifty, sixty, seventy years of iniquity shall all disappear as the morning’s hoar - frost disappears before the sun.”1 Two things are to be remarked in connection with these quotations : First, that we have here a singular agreement on one particular point, among divines who usually are in complete antagonism. Dr. Pusey, St. Alfonso de’ Liguori, and Mr. Spurgeon may be regarded as repre­ sentatives of opinions as widely divergent as could well be found among men calling themselves Christians. Yet they agree in the opinion that no amount or duration of sin can be accounted as a bar to salvation, provided a suitable act of repentance or contrition has been 1 “ A Sermon to Open Negiectersand Nominal 1Jesus at Bethesda: a sermon delivered by I Followers of Religion;” March 24th, 1867. C. H. Spurgeon, April 7th, 1867. �48 THE SERVICE OF MAN performed on “ this side of the gates of hell.” They differ at once if you ask for details as to how the act of contrition or repentance is to be carried out. Mr. Spurgeon bids the sinner turn to Jesus. St. Alfonso tells him to have recourse to the Mother of God ; the mere words of which precept the great Baptist minister would probably regard as savouring of blasphemy. But the result is the same. A long life devoted to sin can be blotted out in a moment by a change in the sinner’s mind. Secondly, this result has exclusive reference to the next world. By the hypothesis in each case, the life in this world is supposed to be as good as over ; and it has been a life of iniquity, says Mr. Spurgeon; of obstinacy in wickedness, says St. Alfonso. But para­ dise is attained, nevertheless. Now, can this doctrine be regarded as one leading to morality in this world? Must it not, rather, have a directly opposite effect ? As many as believe it—and how many millionshave ?—are invited,nay entreated, to believe also that it makes absolutely no difference as to their future welfare whether they lead virtuous lives here below or the most profligate, provided they repent a moment before death. Preachers may insist as they will on the dangers of deferring repentance to the last, on the awful results which will follow if the sinner is suddenly cut off, without having had time to make his peace with God. One part of their teaching destroys the effect of the other part. They admit, they proclaim that repentance, however late, will take the sinner to heaven. Human nature being as it is, we cannot wonder that the result in this world is varied, and on the whole very unsatisfac­ tory. The minute minority of naturally pious and tender minds embrace the cross with passion and ardent love, not unmixed with holy fear; they realise fully that they stand in jeopardy every hour; they work out their salvation in fear and trembling, and not unfrequently are exposed to a strain too severe for their faculties, and they become, like Pascal, morbidly anxious about their future state, or, like Cowper, they pass the limits of sanity, and fall for a longer or shorter time into utter despair. But these are the small minority of times d'elite. The bulk of mankind are com­ monplace all round, in their virtues and vices equally ; and they languidly believe and languidly practise their belief; but so imperfectly and perfunctorily that it is the universal complaint and lamenta­ tion of preachers of all denominations that the world lieth in wickedness and is dead in its sins. Nothing could be more frank and candid than Mr. Spurgeon’s language to his congregation on this head : “ You sin, and yet you come to a place of worship, and tremble under the word ; you transgress, and you weep and transgress again....... You are as religious as the seats you sit upon, but no more; and you are as likely to get to heaven as those seats are, but not one whit more, for you are dead in sin, and death cannot enter heaven.”1 Bourdaloue, the greatest preacher in the classic age of French pulpit eloquence, said : “ Nous sommes Chretiens, et nous vivons en pai'ens ; nous avons une foi de speculation, et dans la pratique toute notre conduite n’est qu’infidelite. Nous croyons d’une fagon, et nous agissons de l’autre....... Avoir la foi, et vivre en infideles, voila ce qui fait le prodige....... Ah! Chretiens, faisons cesser ce prodige, accordons nous avec nous-memes ; accordons nos mceurs avec notre foi; autrement que n’avonsnous pas a craindre de cette foi profanee, de cette foi scandalisee, de cette foi deshonoree ?”2 Again, he says: “ N’entend on pas dire sans cesse que tout est renverse dans le .monde, que le dereglement y est general; qu’il n’y a ni age, ni sexe, ni etat, qui en soit exempt; qu’on ne trouve presque nulle part ni religion, ni crainte de Dieu, ni probite, ni droiture, ni bonne foi, ni justice, ni charite, ni honnetete, ni pudeur; que ce n’est partout, ou presque partout, que libertinage, que 1 “ A Sermon to Open Neglecters,’’etc. 2 “ Sermon sur la Religion Chretienne.” �ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT 49 dissolution, que mensonges, que tromperies, qu’envie de s’aggran dir et de dominer, qu’avarice, qu’usure, que concus­ sions, que medisances, qu’un monstrueux assemblage de toutes les iniquites.”1 “ The title of Christian,” says Wilber­ force, “ implies no more than a sort of formal general assent to Christianity in the gross, and a degree of morality in practice, little, if at all, superior to that for which we look in a good Deist, Mussulman, or Hindoo.”2 It seems difficult to reconcile these candid admissions by eminent authori­ ties with the current claim made for Christianity as a supremely moralising influence. But we can hardly be wrong in tracing the general failure of preachers to arouse their flocks to the fact, already dwelt on, that they undo with one hand what they do with the other; that, anxious above all things to save souls in the next world, and making that infinitely the most important object, they one and all present the doctrine of Justification, though varying much from one another in minor points, in a form which neces­ sarily depreciates the value of morality in this world. With one voice they tell men that all they do is evil and wicked, and that there is no health in them. They dwell with exaggerated language on the sinfulness of sin and the extent and vileness of human corruption. But, except in a few special cases of unusually sensitive natures, they do not awaken the prick of conscience; men feeling in a dumb, inarticulate way, that their tone is unreal and conventional, or even merely professional. Even when they do alarm the conscience they as promptly send it to sleep again by their doctrine that a moment’s repentance can put everything straight, and that one plunge in the blood of the Lamb will remove all the guilty stains from a sinner’s soul. Mr. Spurgeon, in the sermon from which I have already quoted some passages, avows th's very openly. “ It is the easiest thing,” he says, “ in the world to impress some of you by a sermon, but I fear me you never will go beyond transient impressions. Like the water when lashed, the wound soon heals. You know, and you know, and you know, and you feel, and feel, and feel again, and yet your sins, your selfrighteousness, your carelessness and wilful wickedness, cause you, after having said, ‘ I go, sir,’ to forget the promise and lie unto God.” But the eloquent preacher had apparently forgotten what he had himself said on the previous page, or at least he had not sufficiently weighed the natural effect of his words. “ Thirty years of sin shall be forgiven, and it shall not take thirty minutes to do it in.” It is no wonder if men and women, with hearts and minds made dull and heavy with toil and trouble, should remember more easily and pleasantly the consola­ tion conveyed in the last remark than the objurgation of the previous one; and should dwell more on the efficacy of repentance when once set about than on its immediate need and urgency. Con­ sequently, we find that it is the most scrupulous and tender consciences which have most difficulty in embracing the great Protestant dogma of justification by­ faith alone. “The essence of Luther’s gospel is this : that a person so affected, that is, with scruples of conscience, has only one great struggle to go through in order that he may attain the indefectible promise of eternal salvation, and that the struggle is not against those sins, but against his own conscience, which would fain impede his full assurance of immediate pardon.”1 The records of execution show, on the other hand, that malefactors of the deepest dye have often little or no difficulty in turning to Jesus when circumstances compel it. This is acknowledged by the Christian Observer2: “Thousands of deeply peni­ tent and humble-minded persons have lived many years, and perhaps died, in a state of deep depression, because they 1 Opuscules: Petit Nombrc des Plus. 2 Practical View, cap. iv. 1 Ward, Ideal of a Christian Church, second edition, p. I712 January, 1884, p. 16. E �5° TIIE SERVICE OF MAN could not attain to that confident assur­ of the Jewish nation which made them ance that their sins were, pardoned at last insupportable to the Roman which they were told was essential to world. Yet, was he punished or made salvation; while murderers have gone to do penance, to make amends to the to the gibbet, exulting in strains of society he had injured ? The human rapture, as though they were being law did indeed give him his deserts by carried to the stake as faithful martyrs hanging him as a thief and probably a murderer, and so far morality was of Jesus Christ.” But the most momentous authority avenged. A powerful deterrent was for holding a life of wickedness on earth applied, not unlikely to prevent others immaterial, and no impediment to the from doing otherwise. But Christ undid promptest ascent into heaven, provided all the effect of that salutary severity in an act of contrition has been performed a moment when he promised him imme­ in time, has yet to be cited. It is that diate salvation, and for what ? For of Christ himself as he hung upon the deferential speech to himself, which the cross. “And one of the malefactors hypothesis that Christ saw to the bottom which were hanged railed on him, saying, of his heart will not allow us to regard If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. as a piece of artful time-serving, suggested But the other answering rebuked him, as politic in his desperate circumstances; saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing but which, without that hypothesis, would thou art in the same condemnation ? undoubtedly be open to such a suspicion. And we indeed justly; for we receive Thus preachers have the very highest the due reward of our deeds: but this authority for asserting that turning to man hath done nothing amiss. And he God, even at the last moment, wijj save said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me a soul in the next world, the admitted when thou comest into thy kingdom. object of Christianity; and agnostics And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say have equally a right to declare that unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me ; Christianity thereby shows itself hostile to morality in this world. The penitent in paradise.”1 This is almost exactly parallel with thief’s life, we may assume, was a per­ the case cited by St. Alphonso of the nicious one as far as this world was woman “ who was a sinner.” Though concerned. What good could his repen­ it is not mentioned in the gospel, we tance do to any denizen of this earth ? may suppose and grant that the penitent If it be said that it might lead others to thief made a due act of contrition; that repent after a life of crime, the answer is Christ was able to see to the bottom of that in proportion as they resembled him his heart, and that he truly repented they also would be qualifying for heaven, him of his sins. Does that in the least and not for well-doing in this world. remove the slight which Christ passed Man may injure his fellows in their most upon morality by taking him to paradise vital interests ; he may rob, murder, “ go in spite of his past evil life ? What did through the foulest kennels of iniquity ”; his repentance do to cancel that ? The there shall not remain in God’s book a evil that he had done in the world was single charge against his soul, provided still left working behind him : his bad he looks to the bleeding Lamb. On the example; the insecurity to person and other hand, the best of good works are property involved in his robber’s career; of no account, are worse than “filthy the pain and suffering he had caused in rags,” and no doubt have the nature of any case; all his immorality, in short, sin “ unless they be consummated in was left to work on, and contributed, no real vital communion with Christ.” It doubt, its share to that frightful depravity would not be easy to conceive a doctrine more injurious to morality than this Christian scheme, on which the morality 1 Luke xxiii. 39-43. �ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT 5i of the world, as on the surest foundation, men may become the worst, and vice versa, as they may be touched by grace is supposed to rest. Indeed, this inherent opposition or not, it is obvious that morality is a between morality and the gospel has figment of the fancy, having no sub­ been held by large sections of Christians stantial existence or foundation in the as an article of faith. “ Luther,” says nature of things. The difference is not Moehler, “not only taught that Christ between good and bad men, whose had not come to impart to men a purer goodness and badness depend on their ethical code, but even maintained that moral endowment fins the training they he had come to abolish the moral law, to receive, but between the recipients of liberate true believers from its curse both grace and the non-recipients ; and thesefor the past and for the future, and in are interchangeable according to the that way to make them free. The good pleasure of God. We can never evangelical liberty which Luther pro­ tell, therefore, whether the greatest pounded announces that even the sinner now may not become the greatest decalogue shall not be brought into saint before his end; nor whether the account against the believer, nor its best of men may not suddenly become violation be allowed to disturb the prodigies of wickedness. This unknown conscience of the Christian, for he is factor of Grace vitiates all calculation. exalted above it and its contents.” No doctrine more inconsistent with the Moehler goes on to say that the re­ facts of human nature can well be con­ formers refer to Christ not as the ceived, and therefore no more misleading strengthener and sanctifier, but exclu­ guide of conduct could be adopted. sively as the forgiver of sins; “they Imagine such a theory applied to agri­ regarded the mediator only in his culture, and that there was no reason, capacity of pardoner.” The great apart from the grace of God, why the Catholic divine is at pains to show the most fertile soil should not become superior moral tone of his communion the most barren, or the reverse. If in this respect. But the extracts just such were the case, what inducement cited from St. Alphonso de’ Liguori i would a farmer have to choose good prove that the Catholic Church has no land and cultivate it with care ? The advantage over the Protestant on this worst land might serve him as well as. point. The Virgin takes the place of the best, and bring him overflowing, Christ as a free pardoner of the grossest crops; and that with no effort on his sins, in consideration of an act of con­ part, for “ God giveth the increase.” He has only to wait or pray for fertilising trition and genuine repentance. To the above considerations it may grace. Or apply it to the raising of be added that the doctrine of grace is horses or cattle. The grazier or breeder presented in a way to become a standing cannot trust to the qualities of his stock. rebuke and depredator of morality. His thoroughbreds may suddenly become “Humility,” says Canon Liddon, “is valueless animals, which no one would the condition and guarantee of grace; take at a gift; while his neighbour, who and, as St. Augustine says, there is no had nothing but screws and low-breeds, reason, apart from the grace of God, has all at once a magnificent collection of why the highest saints should not be the superb cattle. Men differ at least as worst of criminals.”1 In that statement much as animals in their inherited quali­ I suppose all theologians would concur. ties; and to say that a man naturally But it is easy to see how fatal such a courageous, high-minded, benevolent, doctrine is to a systematic culture of and just can become vile and cruel, morality. If, at any moment, the best cowardly or criminal, is not a whit less irrational than to say that a thorough­ bred Arab can become a cart-horse. The 1 Oxford Sermons ; VI. �52 THE SERVICE OF HAN faulty theory leads, as a matter of course, to disastrous practice. It is no exaggera­ tion to say that the vigilant, painstaking cultivation of the moral side of man’s nature has never been taken in hand with earnest persistence, because theology has always been celebrating the power of grace, to the depreciation of ethics. A miracle of grace, which removes the heart of stone and replaces it by a heart of flesh, might always be expected, or at least hoped for. Punctual performance of the moral law, social duty to the com­ munity and individuals, could well be postponed without harm, in view of the celestial transfiguration which converts a sinner from a bond-slave of Satan into a saint of God. If this conversion takes place in the last hour or minute of life, we have seen that, by the unanimous con­ sent of theologians of all schools, it is enough; the object has been attained; a soul has been saved ; the sinner’s past wickedness has been blotted out, as regards its effects upon him. But its effects on society are not considered, and the result must be, and is, solely injurious to morality as far as it relates to conduct in this world. That depends on the per­ formance of social duty; salvation depends on repentance and the subjective attitude of the soul towards God. And this re­ pentance is powerful to cancel any number of previous breaches of the moral law. In other words, morality is not the one thing needful, but repentance is. Chapter VI. MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH In the previous chapter we saw on the best evidence, that of eminent doctors in various denominations, that true Christian doctrine postponed morality to repen­ tance; and that salvation in the next world depended on other things than good conduct in this. The obvious inference was, that under such a scheme morality must necessarily be more or less slighted and undervalued, and that the alleged support afforded to ethics by the Christian religion must be either denied or considerably diminished. It will be perhaps useful to confirm this abstract deduction by examples taken from the past of the actual working of Christian doctrine. If only a tithe of the compliments which it is usual to pay that doctrine be true, it is clear that the more we retrograde into the ages where it held undisputed sway over men’s minds, the more moral we ought to find the public and private life of the world. Wickedness and crime are assumed to be the natural result of neglected religion. No other cause is usually thought of in explaining the atrocities of the French Revolution. Here we see, it is remarked, the proper effect of atheism and for­ saking of the divine light of the gospel. Again, the corruption and immorality of the lower Roman Empire show what becomes of man when left to himself. The line of argument is too familiar to need further repetition of it. Now, we may profitably consult history as to the truth of these assumptions. Do we find, as a matter of fact, that the Ages of Faith were distinguished by a high morality? Were they superior in this respect to the present age, which is nearly on all hands acknowledged not to be an age of Faith ? The answer must be in the negative. Taking them broadly, the Ages of Faith were emphatically ages of crime, of gross and scandalous �MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH wickedness, of cruelty, and, in a word, of immorality. And it is noteworthy that in proportion as we recede backward from the present age, and return into the Ages of Faith, we find that the crime and the sin become denser and blacker. The temperature of faith rises steadily as we penetrate into the past, almost with the regularity which marks the rise of the physical temperature of the air as we descend into a deep mine ; but a neglect and defiance of morality are found to ascend in a corresponding ratio. This, it must be owned, is an anomalous result, if morality be indeed so dependent on Christianity as is commonly supposed. When all men believed and doubted not, we should have found, according to the Christian hypothesis, a godly world; devout people living always with the great Day of Judgment before their eyes, crushing down the lusts of the flesh, in view of the tremendous penalties pre­ pared for those who indulged them. But we find nothing of the kind. On the contrary, we find a state of things to which our imaginations are scarcely able to do justice in these comparatively tame and moral days. A progressive improve­ ment has taken place in men’s conduct, both public and private; but it has coincided not with an increase, but with a decay, of faith. This, beyond any question, is the most moral age which the world has seen ; and it is as certainly the least believing age since Christianity became the religion of the West. The inference is plain, that Christianity has not been so favourable to morality as is usually assumed. Let us turn back, and take a brief ex­ cursion through the ages behind us. The present century need not detain us long. Most persons would admit that the state of morals when George the Fourth was king left much to be desired. The scandals of the Court were bad enough ; but no Court, however bad, can compromise a nation. The mass of the population was coarse, insolent, and cruel, and permitted things which would not be tolerated for a moment now. That there 53 were exceptions, not only of individuals, but of whole though small classes, no one would deny. The Clapham Sect was a conspicuous example in a corrupt world ; and many of the dissenters were truly pious, God-fearing people, who had turned away from the prevailing grossness. But these were only fractions of the nation. The general tone was low, violent, and brutal. The drinking, gambling, prize­ fighting, cock-fighting, bull-baiting Eng­ land of the Regency is hardly to be realised in these decorous days ; though old men “ still creep among us,” who can partly resuscitate it for us, if carefully questioned. Let one of those venerable seniors be induced to describe the con­ dition of London in his youth, and no hearer will have any doubt as to the' extraordinary change for the better which has taken place in the last two genera­ tions. From this century we pass into history; and as the object is to ascertain the moral tone of previous ages, let us quote the following passages from a writer, who was selected by common acclamation as “ the great moralist,” and was one of the most brave, noble, and conscientious men who have ever lived, Samuel John­ son :—“ He talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery, by which the peace of families was destroyed. He said : ‘ Con­ fusion of progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; and, therefore, a woman who breaks her marriage vows is much more criminal than a man who does it. A man, to be sure, is criminal in the sight of God; but he does not do his wife a very material injury, if he does not insult her; if, for instance, from mere wanton­ ness of appetite, he steals privately to her chambermaid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly to resent this. I would not receive home a daughter who had run away from her husband on that account.’ ”r This was Johnson’s settled opinion, as, eleven years after, we find Boswell recording another conversation, in which the same 1 Croker's Boswell, chap. xxi. �54 THE SERVICE OF MAN thought recurs : “ I mentioned to him a cannibals in India, who subsist by dispute between a friend of mine and plundering and devouring all the nations his lady, concerning conjugal infidelity, about them. The president is styled which my friend had maintained was by Emperor of the Mohocks, and his arms no means so bad in the husband as in are a Turkish crescent. Agreeable to the wife. Johnson : Your friend was their name, the avowed design of their in the right, Sir. Between a man and i institution is mischief, and upon this his Maker it is a different question ; but i foundation all their rules and orders are between a man and his wife, a husband’s I founded. An outrageous ambition of infidelity is nothing. They are connected doing all possible hurt to their fellow­ by children, by fortune, by serious con­ creatures is the great cement of their siderations of community. Wise married assembly, and the only qualification women don’t trouble themselves about required in the members. In order to infidelity in their husbands.”1 exert this principle in its full strength Now, this is a very good instance of and perfection, they take care to drink the improvement which has taken place themselves to a pitch that is beyond the in the course of the last hundred years. possibility of attending to any motive of That very offence for which Johnson said reason and humanity, then make a he would not receive his daughter home, general sally, and attack all that are so if it were committed by a husband, is unfortunate as to walk the streets now so universally admitted to be an through which they patrol. Some are injury of the most serious kind that the knocked down, others stabbed, others statutory law of the land does precisely cut and carbonadoed........ The particular what Johnson said he would not do—give talents by which these misanthropes are protection to the injured wife. distinguished from one another consist As we go further back in the century, in various kinds of barbarities which we make a visible approach to the state they execute upon their prisoners. of nature. Cowardly murders and brutal Some are celebrated for a happy outrages are perpetrated almost with dexterity in tipping the lion upon them, impunity and very little loss of credit which is performed by squeezing the by people of the highest rank. The nose flat on the face, and boring out the exploits of the Mohocks must have eyes with their fingers. Others are rendered the streets of London, in the called the dancing-masters, and teach reign of Queen Anne, considerably more their scholars to cut capers by running ■dangerous and disgusting than any swords through their legs........ A third Californian diggings frequented by the are the tumblers, wrhose office is to set rabble and outlaws of Europe and women on their heads, and commit America in the early days of the gold certain indecencies, or rather barbarities, discoveries. A contemporary says : on the limbs which they expose.”1 Slitting “There are a certain set of persons, noses, cutting people down the back, and among whom there are some of too putting women in tubs which were rolled great a character to be named in these down Snow Hill, were among their diver­ barbarous and ridiculous encounters, did sions. they not expose themselves by such The manners and customs of persons mean and ridiculous exploits ”; and their of quality were those of semi-savages. portrait is thus drawn by the Spectator: Thackeray, who knew the period well, “A set of men who have erected them­ does not go too far when he says : “You selves into a nocturnal fraternity, under could no more suffer in a British drawing­ the title of The Mohock Club, a name room, under the reign of Queen Victoria, borrowed, it seems, from a sort of a fine gentleman or a fine lady of Queen 1 Ibid., chap. Ixix. 1 Spectator, No. 324.. �MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH Anne’s time, or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive an ancient Briton.” This is the manner in which “gentlemen” quarrelled in the good old times : Sir Cholmley Dering, knight of the shire for Kent, and Mr. Thornhill fought a duel, in which the former was killed. This caused a judicial inquiry, and “ the first Evidences were such as related to the quarrel begun at the Toy at Hampton Court, April 27th, 1711, who deposed that an assembly of about eighteen gentlemen met there at that time, a difference happened between the deceased and the prisoner. Upon their struggling and contending with each other, the wainscot of the room broke in, and Mr. Thornhill, falling down, had some teeth struck out by Sir Cholmley Dering’s stamping upon him.”1 Naturally a duel followed. “ They fought,” says Swift, “at sword and pistol this morning in Tuttlefields, their pistols so near that the muzzles touched. Thornhill discharged first, and Dering, having received the shot, discharged his pistol as he was falling, so it went into the air.” Thornhill was convicted for manslaughter, but he was apparently soon abroad again, as he was murdered by two men, who stabbed him on horse­ back, five months afterwards, at Turnham Green. The well-known case of the murder of Will Mountford, the actor, by Lord Mohun and Captain Hill, in a ruffianly ambuscade, would seem well suited to show the profligate temper and degraded public opinion in the reign of William the Third. The incident is thus related by Thackeray:— “ My lord’s friend, a Captain Hill, smitten with the charms of the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and anxious to marry her at all hazards, determined to carry her off, and for this purpose hired a hackney coach with six horses and halfa-dozen soldiers to aid him in the storm. The coach, with a pair of horses (the 1 Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, chap, xxxviii. 55 four leaders being in waiting elsewhere), took its station opposite my Lord Craven’s house in Drury Lane, by which door Mrs. Bracegirdle was to pass on her way from the theatre. As she passed, in company of her mamma and a friend, Mr. Page, the captain seized her by the hand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked him sword in hand, and Captain Hill and his noble friend endeavoured to force Madam Bracegirdle into the coach. Mr. Page called for help; the population of Drury Lane rose; it was impossible to effect the capture, and, bidding the soldiers go about their business, and the coach to drive off, Hill let go his prey sulkily, and he waited for other opportunities of revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous was Will Mountford, the comedian. Will removed, he thought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his; and accordingly the captain and his lordship lay that night in wait for Will, and, as he was coming out of a house in Norfolk Street, while Mohun engaged him in talk, Hill, in the words of the Attorney-General,- made a pass and run him clean through the body.”1 Mohun was tried for the murder by his peers of the Upper House, and acquitted by sixty-nine votes against fourteen. “ One great nobleman,” says Macaulay, “ was so brutal and stupid as to say : ‘After all, the fellow was but a player, and players are rogues.’ ”2 This, on the first blush, seems downright atrocious. But there are slightly extenu­ ating circumstances connected with the case which make it a degree less horrible. In the first place, the murder and the judgment, as Macaulay points out, were generally condemned by public opinion. In the second place, the Lords were actuated by a violent esprit de corps, and defending their privileges which were being attacked by the Commons. That which largely neutralises these con­ siderations is the fact that Mohun was a 1 Lectures on the Humourists. 2 Macaulay’s History of England. �56 THE SERVICE OF MAN popular character in London, and that the anecdotists speak very kindly of his practical jokes. In the next reign he was singled out for honourable dis­ tinction, and accompanied “ Lord Macclesfield’s embassy to the Elector of Hanover when Queen Anne sent the Garter to H.E. Highness.” Were the men of that generation infidels, despisers of God’s Holy Word, and demoralised by a ■ dreary disbelief in the unseen world ? On the contrary, they were fanatically religious. Their zeal about spiritual matters was fervid in the extreme. A hint that the Church was in danger filled them with gloomy passion. As soon as Sacheverell’s trial began “ it took up all men’s thoughts, so that other business was at a stand. It was clear from the very outset of the trial that the popular favour was wholly on the doctor’s side. He lodged in the Temple, and came every day in solemn procession through the Strand to West­ minster Hall. A> he passed, great crowds gathered round his coach, striving to kiss his hand and shouting ‘Sacheverell and the Church for ever!’ Those who would not join in the shouts were often insulted or knocked down. The ardour of the multitude was even less justifiably shown by their attacks on some meeting­ houses,in which thepewsweredemolished and burned.”1 The connection between Christianity and morality does not seem very plain here. If we now cross the Channel and examine the condition of morals under the Old Monarchy of France, we shall find that the record of Catholicism in this respect is in no wise purer than that of the rival communion. It is a common opinion that the very great licence of manners which distinguished the French upper classes in the latter part of the eighteenth century was one of the many evil results of the prevalent infidelity propagated by Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire. But such an idea has no 1 Lord Stanhope, Reign of Queen Anne, chap. xii. foundation. Corrupt as was the society which read the novels of Louvetand the younger Crebillon, it was in a variety of ways superior to the society to which Bossuet and Bourdaloue preached, and which flocked to hear the sacred dramas of the spotless Racine. The whole of the reign of Louis XIV. was marked by a great depravity of manners, and his depravity was found quite compatible with an ostentatious and possibly sincere attachment to religion. The king, in spite of the gross immorality of his private life, was a bigot in matters of faith, and he was not an ungraceful or inadequate representative of the people who looked up to him as to an almost supernatural being. No stress need be laid on the laxity of the gay lords and ladies who filled his brilliant Court, although, if a firm belief in Christianity were the safeguard of pure morals, as it is supposed to be, their lives present an unaccountable anomaly; for, as Bour­ daloue said to their faces, they lived like pagans though they believed like Christians. The point of interest for us is to note how largely Christianity failed to overcome the flesh and the devil, even in an age when it had entirely its own way, was zealously supported by the State, and able to wield its tremendous sanctions without pause or hesitation. And, again, what we have to take most account of is the average tone and temper of public opinion with regard to crime and immorality. Sporadic and exceptional crime may occur in any age, and yet cast no reflection on the average standard of morals. It is otherwise when immorality is common, if not general, and when a life of great licence and scandal may be passed without attracting discredit or remark. And this rule applies especially to the conduct of ministers of religion. If the clerical order can indulge in abandoned courses without exciting reprobation, we may be sure that we do an age no injustice in pronouncing its standard of morality . to be low. When the officers of an army give an example of cowardice and �MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH insubordination, we know what to expect of the rank and file. We have many instances during the reign of Louis XIV. which show the great corruption of the clergy in that age, and the little resentment or surprise which it caused. The lives of some of the' most prominent ecclesiastics were openly scandalous. The famous Cardinal de Retz led a life of which any decent layman would now be ashamed. But it may be said that de Retz was one of those political Churchmen who took orders merely with ambitious views to worldly advancement, and who ought not to be considered as true clerics. He also lived in times of revolution, when men’s morality is apt to break down. So we will pass him over. These remarks do not apply to Harley de Champvallon, Archbishop of Paris. He lived in times of profound internal peace, he never played any part in politics, and he was for years the acknowledged leader and representative of the French Church. He was permanent chairman of the Assembly of the French Clergy, and a preacher of such popularity and power that, during a course of his Lenten sermons, the church was kept open at all hours, and footmen, in order to retain the best places, were forced to spend the whole night in them. Yet he was a man of profligate private life, and not so very private, as his amours were notorious. “ Notre Archeveque de Paris, Quoiqu’il soit jeune, a des faiblesses ; Voyant qu’il en avait trop pris, Il a retranche ses mattresses ; Les quatre qu’il eut autrefois Sont a present reduites a trois. ” Several great ladies of the Court—la Marquise de Gonville, la Marechale d’Aumont, Madame de Brisseu—were among his conquests, but Madame de Bretonvilliers was his maitresse en titre, as la Montespan was of Louis XIV. He was not even content with these irregularities, but carried off by force Mademoiselle de la Varenne, a public singer, the mistress of a gentleman 57 named Pierrepont. The latter avenged himself in a way characteristic of the age; he lay in wait with three men, seized the faithless Varenne (who seems to have made no objection to the exchange of a poor for a rich lover) as she was returning to the house the arch­ bishop had given her, and had her unmercifully beaten with rods. It was probably his only mode of retaliation. Meddling with Monseigneur and his pleasures was attended with danger and punished severely. Two priests who had lampooned him were sent to the galleys, one for life. One of the arch­ bishop’s mistresses was the Countess of Northumberland, a former favourite of Charles II. The prelate used to visit her in a convent of Benedictines at Conflans. He died suddenly, at a good old age, in the presence of his last “amie,” la Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, and had his funeral oration pronounced by le pere Gaillard. It appears there was some little trouble in finding a preacher—a fact creditable to the time, as far as it goes. The convents, not without reason, had a bad reputation. Louis XIV., who was not a man to speak evil of religious orders, said of the Carmelites : “Je savais bien qu’elles etaient des friponnes, des intrigeuses, des ravaudeuses, des bro­ deuses, des bouquetieres, mais je ne croyais pas qu’elles fussent des empoisonneuses.”1 “ There were often, says Michelet, “twelve parlours in a convent, in which each nun, without being heard, could converse with her lover or a female intriguer yet more dangerous.”2 But Protestants and infidels are only too ready to believe evil of convents as if they all must necessarily be nests of iniquity—a most unjust supposition. Port Royal at this very time contained women of angelic purity. We may therefore leave them, and pass to the lower ranks of the secular clergy. A good example of the tone of public 1 Madame deSevigne, Lettres, Oct. 15th, 1677. 2 Histoire de France: Louis XIV., note iii. �58 THE SERVICE OF MAN opinion with regard to clerical irregu­ larity will be found in the following story :— “On the 7th of November, 1665, the cure of Saint-Babel was condemned to death for a crime he had committed three years before. He was a man of parts, intelligent in matters of business, but carried away by his passions, and not particular in setting a good example in his parish. He was especially ill-famed for his amours—and amusing stories were told about him, amusing if the tone had not been connected with sin and wholly unbecoming his sacred profession. He was accused in the world of having instructed his female parishioners in an entirely novel manner, and having inspired them with a love remote from the love of God. His turn for gallantry would show itself at such unseasonable moments that on one occasion, having been sent for by a good woman in mortal sickness to hear her confession, he neglected to administer to her the Sacraments, in order to amuse himself in winning the affections of a girl to his liking, whom he found in the house; and thought no more of the salvation of the mistress in his design against the honour of the maid. He forgot his character as a priest as soon as he had seen her personal charms, and love overcame duty. Instead of listening to the confession of the one, he employed his time in making his declaration to the other; and far from exhorting the sick person to die piously, he solicited her who was in good health to live in sin; and, taking her by the hand and the chin, he said : ‘ What a trial it is for me to be called by a person whom age and sickness have reduced to extremity, and what a joy it would be to come and see you who have youth and beauty. I own that I do not like to hear the story of past sins which these good old women relate to us, and that the sins of youth are much more agreeable. Let madame your mistress think over the way in which she has passed her years, and let us consider how we will pass ours ; let her examine and see if she has sinned, and let me know if you can love one who loves you. Do not be surprised if you see me abandon my duties in order to satisfy my inclination, and, if you love me, regard me as a man and not as a cure, and reflect that you can be at once my mistress and my parishioner, and that you will find in me a pastor and a lover equally devoted.’ ” This worthy priest was not interfered with for this and similar indiscretions. He came to an untimely end by being hanged for the more serious offence of murder, into which he was tempted by a natural exasperation at having been placed in a ridiculous and painful posi­ tion by one of his flock. It happened thus. At a short distance from his parish he had a grange in which he kept, not only his corn and fruit, but, when occasion required it, the young­ women whom he fancied. Hetook reason­ able precautions to ensure privacy, and even diverted a road which ran past the grange, in order to escape the curiosity of passers by who might feel a wish to inquire what he was doing in his retreat. Still suspicion was excited, and a peasant, more enterprising and mischievous than the rest, artfully closed the door of the grange and fastened it on the outside, when he had good reason to think that the cure was within, as, indeed, he was, with a young woman, whom he had chosen out of his own church. . The imprisoned pair were forced to wait till liberated by a chance wayfarer, and the exposure of the cure was complete. He vowed a terrible vengeance on his betrayer, and soon carried it out by having him beaten to death. The very next day he said mass for the defunct, but the friends of the latter brought the cure before a local tribunal, which acquitted him. It was only three years later, when a special commission of judges, known as Les Grands-jours d’Auvergne, were sent by Louis XIV. to suppress the unbridled crime in. Auvergne, that M. Guillaume Boyer, the cure in question, came by his deserts. �MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH The Church did all it could to save him. But Colbert was at the head of affairs, and lay-justice had its way. Now, to whom are we indebted for this interesting story? To no other than the illustrious Flechier, the elo­ quent preacher who became Bishop of Nimes. His Memoires sur les Grandsjours <TAuvergne are among the choicest pieces of French prose of the early classical period, not without a flavour of “bel esprit” and “ preciosite,” recalling the Hotel de Rambouillet, but still, by their finesse and style, worthy of the Great Age. But all must admit that the tone of sly humour in which the crimes of the priest are recorded is very singular, and conclusive that clerical irregularities were considered objects rather of mirth and pleasantry than of serious reproba­ tion. Would any clergyman, especially of so high a character as Flechier, dream of speaking of them in such a strain now ? We will next take the case of the famous Abbe de Choisy, as illustrating the kind of life a Churchman might lead under Louis XIV., not only without discredit, but with general respect and esteem. The Abbe de Choisy came of a good family “ of the robe ”—that is to say, he belonged to that rich and powerful class of hereditary civil servants who carried on the government of the old French monarchy. His position in the world is sufficiently shown by the fact that his mother, a woman distin­ guished by her wit and fine manners, could say to the young Louis XIV. that, if he wished to become a polished man, he ought to frequent her society. One may suppose she did not neglect the education of her son, and we know, indeed, that she loved him to excess. This was the result of her bringing up. After leaving the theological seminary—for he was intended for the Church from the first—Choisy immediately became an actor, or rather an actress, and for several months appeared on the stage at Bordeaux. His mother, in his child­ hood, had taken pleasure in dressing 59 him as a girl, partly, perhaps, from private whim, but more probably to please the perverted tastes of Monsieur (Duke of Orleans), the king’s brother, who had a passion for wearing female attire. Choisy was nothing loath, and soon surpassed his Royal Highness in his fondness for a woman’s costume. In order to gratify his propensity, he bought a house, as he himself tells us, in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, in the centre of the “ bourgoisie of the people,” that he might “ dress himself as he liked, among folks who would not complain of anything he did.” He soon became noted for his elegant female attire, and, though his sex was well known, no one seems to have been scandalised. So far from that, his services were requested in the parish church to present the hoi)’ bread and collect the offertory. He became one of the attractions of the church, and a source of great profit to his employers. In one day he collected two hundred and seventytwo livres. People came from other parishes when it was known he was going to collect. “I will admit,” he says, “ that in the evening at the salut (the benediction) I experienced a great pleasure. It was night, when the talk is free. I heard several times, in different parts of the church, people saying, ‘ But can it be true that that is a man ? He has good reasons for wishing to pass for a woman.’ ” It may well be supposed that this comedy was continued beyond the walls of the church, for objects less innocent than making strangers stare. Choisy took a large country house near Bourges, where he passed as la Comtesse des Barres, and spent four years in a round of systematic seduction. Details cannot be given ; they are to be found in his own narrative by the curious in such moral monstrosities. Even more singu­ lar than his turpitudes is the chuckling cynicism with which he relates them. Yet he never lost caste for his rascality. Once only, apparently, was he reproved, by the Due de Montausier, who told him �6o THE SERVICE OF MAN he ought to be ashamed of himself for such conduct; but his clerical brethren seem to have been as accommodating as he could wish. When he went to Bourges he imparted his secret to the cure, which, as he says, it was only fair to do. But the cure was not in the least scandalised, and came to dine and sup at the rake’s house, sitting at table with the innocent little victims, mere children often, of the latter’s licentiousness. But that is not all. When the Cardinal de Bouillon went to Rome to attend the Conclave for elect­ ing a new Pope, he took Choisy with him as his “ conclaviste.” He afterwards occupied the same post in the service of the Cardinal de Retz (a worthy pair), and took a part, if we may believe him, in the election of Odescalchi (Leo XL). He lived till eighty, and was doyen of the French Academy, when he died in great honour as a man of wit and fine manners. It is needless to add that he was “ con­ verted ” before the end, with what profit to the world does not appear. Scotland and Spain share the bad pre­ eminence of having been, each in their way, the most fanatical nations in Europe. It would be difficult to say in which of the two religion was made most repulsive and inhuman. In both countries nearly every object was postponed to the pro­ tection and propagation of the national faith. But Calvinism in Scotland was more blighting and deadly to all things beautiful than Catholicism in Spain. Terrible as it must have been to know that the invisible eye of the Holy Office was fixed upon your movements, and even upon your thoughts, and that at any moment you might disappear behind its dreaded walls, only to emerge in a San Benito in the ghastly procession to an Auto da Fe, yet Spanish life was not blackened and gnawed into hideousness by the Spanish Inquisition as Scottish life was by the Scottish Inquisition. After all, there were joy, laughter, and song in Spain; there were poetry and painting; Cervantes, Calderon, and Murillo, bright children of the South, in whom the world still finds delight. But in Scotland every green and wholesome thing was smitten as by a black frost. “To be poor, dirty, and hungry, to pass through life in misery, and to leave it with fear, to be plagued with boils and sores and diseases of every kind, to be always sighing and groaning, to have the face streaming with tears and the chest heaving with sobs; in a word, to suffer constant affliction and to be tormented in all possible ways—to undergo these things was deemed a proof of goodness, just as the contrary was a proof of evil. ....... It was a sin to go from one town to another on Sunday, however pressing the business might be....... No one on Sunday should pay attention to his health, or think of his body at all. On that day horse-exercise was sinful; so was walking in the fields, or in the meadows, or in the streets, or enjoying the fine weather by sitting at the door of your own house. To go to sleep on Sunday before the duties of the day were over was also sinful, and deserved church censure. Bathing, being pleasant as well as whole­ some, was a particularly grievous offence ; and no man could be allowed to swim on Sunday. It was, in fact, doubtful whether swimming was lawful for a Chris­ tian at any time, even on week days, and it was certain that God had, on one occasion, shown his disapproval by taking away the life of a boy while he was in­ dulging in that carnal practice.”1 Life must have been made intolerable by a system of spies and informers who were paid for delating breaches of the Sab­ bath.2 “ Sometimes a brother and sister, or a man and his wife, walking quietly together, would find themselves under the observation of the emissaries of the Kirk. In short, if fanatical belief in Christianity, coupled with the most intemperate zeal in enforcing the pre­ cepts of the Bible, could have made a people moral, the Scotch should have 1 Buckle, History of Civilisation in England, vol. ii., pp. 395-398. Buckle corroborates every statement by redundant evidence. 2 Chambers’s Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. iii., p. 344. �MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH been a moral people towards the middle and end of the seventeenth century. Nearly a century of gospel-teaching at the highest pressure should, if Chris­ tianity be as favourable to morality as is commonly supposed, have produced very marked results in the form of correct and orderly living. The reality does not correspond with this pleasing inference. Indeed, to judge from the accounts left us by Spalding and other contemporaries, the country districts of Scotland presented a savage scene of lawless violence, frequently ending in murder. Gentlemen, neigh­ bours, and often relatives, quarrel and fight and kill each other like barbarians, with or without provocation. However, homicide, which of all crimes in a peaceful state of society is the most injurious and detested, is often viewed with strange leniency in periods agitated by fervent religious and social or political revolution. In the eyes of ferocious partisans, killing is no murder when it thins the ranks of their enemies. This was the case in Scotland at the time referred to; it was so in France, both under the Red and White Terror; and only recently it was the same in Ireland. We will, therefore, pass over the Scotch man-slaying of the seventeenth century, and refer to that milder form of vice which has nearly usurped' the name of “ immorality ” for its own exclusive use in familiar speech—illicit intercourse between the sexes. On no part of ethics have Christians of all denominations laid greater stress that on chastity, yet with far less result in the way of producing purity of manners than might have been expected, even among those who made a particular display of religion. In 1640 a portion of the Covenanting army was under General Monro, on its way from Banff to Aberdeen. “Then Monro and his soldiers,” says Spalding, marched that night (Friday) to Turriff; Saturday, they marched therefrae to Inverurie and Kintore; Sunday, they marched therefrae to Aberdeen, and by the way, at Bucksburn, they had a 61 sermon taught by their own minister.” They no doubt “hungered and thirsted by the way,” and could not pass the Sabbath, though on military duty, without hearing the Word. But when they reached their quarters in Aberdeen, their behaviour left much to be desired. “Of the performances of the Covenanting troops occasionally posted in Aberdeen, we hear from the commissary clerk of‘daily deboching ’ and ‘drinking,’ night walking, combating and swearing, and bringing sundry honest women-servants to great misery. Sixty-five of this honest sister­ hood were delated before the church courts; twelve of them, after being paraded through the streets by the hang­ man, were banished by the burgh. Several were imprisoned in a loathsome vault, while others, more fortunate, found safety in flight.”1 What was done to the pious profligates who had brought them to this “ great misery ” does not appear. Later on in the century the General Assembly felt called upon to proclaim a general fast on account of the backslidings of the people. “ There hath been a great neglect,” they say, “of the worship of God in public, but especially in families and in secret. The wonted care of sanctifying the Lord’s Day is gone, cities full of vio­ lence, so that blood touched blood. Yea, Sodom’s sins have abounded among us—pride, fulness of blood, idleness, vanities of apparel, and shameful sen­ suality.”2 And there is no reason to believe that this is one of the rhetorical exaggerations of sinfulness common to religious persons in moods of depres­ sion. Referring to a slightly earlier date, Mr. Chambers says: “The number of cases of uncommon turpitude in a time of extraordinary religious purism forces itself upon our attention....... Offences of a horrible and unnatural kind continued to abound to a degree which makes the daylight profligacy of the subsequent 1 Burton, History of Scotland, vol. vi., p. 322. 2 Chambers’s Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 42. �62 THE SERVICE OF MAM reign (Charles II.’s) shine white in com­ parison. ‘ More,’ says Nicoll, ‘ within these six or seven years, nor within these fifty ye irs preceding and more.’ Culprits of all ages, from boys to old men, are heard of every few months as burned upon the Castle Hill of Edinburgh. Sometimes two together—young women who had murdered their own infants— were frequently brought to the same scene of punishment. John Nicoll states that on one day, October 15th, 1656, five persons—two men and three women—were burnt on Castle Hill for offences of the several kinds here glanced at, while two others were scourged through the city for minor degrees of the same offences.”1 The meaner vices of fraud and cheat­ ing, often supposed to be modern inven­ tions from which the pious old times were free, were not uncommon in Edin­ burgh in the seventeenth century. “ The beer, ale, and wine sold in the city were all greatly adulterated. It was customary to mix wine with milk, brimstone, and other ingredients. Ale was made strong and heady with hemp seed, coriander seed, Turkish pepper, soot, salt, and by casting strong wash under the cauldron when the ale was brewing. Blown mutton and corrupted veal, fusty bread and light loaves, false measures and weights, were common. In all these particulars the magistrates were negli­ gent, so that the people were abused and neglected.”2 One does not see how, under the head of morals, the people of the Ages of Faith were superior to the people of to-day. When we consider that the com­ petition was much less severe than it is now; that the size of the towns was many degrees smaller than at present; and that the opportunities of escaping observation and punishment now afforded by our immense cities were then correspondingly less, we must 1 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 242. 2 Chambers’s Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 240. admit that the average of morality was singularly low, although the average of religious belief and zeal was singularly high. The few extracts quoted above give a most inadequate impression of the general violence, grossness, cruelty, and licence of the period during which every effort was made and almost every other worthy object was sacrificed with a view to making the people devoutly Christian. We have surely a right to say, after so large and protracted an experiment, that the moralising element in Christianity has been over-estimated. Here was Christianity at work without any competing principle; it was zeal­ ously supported by the secular power; yet we find crimes of “ uncommon turpi­ tude ” co-existing with “ extraordinary religious purism.” It is not an answer to say that but for Christianity, matters, bad as they were, would have been worse; and for this good reason, that a great improvement in decency, order, and civilisation generally, co­ incided in Scotland with a marked decline in religious fervour, such as set in about the middle of the last century. What is true and quite fair to allege is, that the Scottish people in the seven­ teenth century were in that stage of semi - barbarism in which no moral principle is able to take a firm hold. Only the slow growth of knowledge and industry can civilise such a people. But this is the doctrine of evolution, not of grace. The latter, as emanating from Almighty power, can no more be arrested or withstood by imperfect development in the race than by moral degradation in the individual. At least, that is the theory. In practice, we may observe, the growth of morality depends on con­ ditions widely remote from those which favour the vigour and tenacity of theo­ logical beliefs. As already shown, Chris­ tianity preaches salvation in the next world, not morality in this ; and accord­ ing to the rules laid down we may not doubt that numbers of the Scotch, in the darkest period, after the commission of every crime against human ethics, �MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH were at last touched by grace and were saved, or at least should have been. The point does not admit of verification, and we therefore cannot tell whether celestial happiness did supervene as a compensa­ tion for the miseries of a barbarous exist­ ence on earth. The fact remains that those miseries were not mitigated, but were often very much increased, by a fanatical belief in the words of Scripture. The cruelty and injustice perpetrated in obedience to the disgusting superstition about witchcraft, a thoroughly scriptural tenet, fill up one of the most horrible pages in the history of mankind. Sor­ cerers were burnt in batches of four, five, and even of nine at a time on the Castle Hill. But the more zealous spirits were not satisfied. “There is much witchery up and down our land,” says Robert Baillie; “ the English be but sparing to try it, but some they execute.”1 Our sympathy is justly given, in the first instance, to the wretched victims; but the mental anxiety and terror of their persecutors must have been no light burden. We will now, for a few moments, turn our attention to Spain, the single Euro­ pean country which rivalled Scotland in its zeal for religion. One of the liveliest accounts of that interesting nation will be found in the letters of a French lady, who went to Spain in 1679 to attend upon the young queen Henriette, the daughter of the un­ fortunate Henrietta of England, sister of Charles II. I confine my extracts to the matter in hand—the union, or rather the disconnection, of morality and reli­ gion :—“The frequent assassinations in this country, on account of some affront or other, seem to authenticate these facts. If a man receives a box on the ear or a stroke in the face with a hat, nay, with a handkerchief or a glove; if he be called a drunkard; or a reflecting word happens to pass on his wife’s virtue, these 1 Chambers’s Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 244. 63 must be wiped off with no less than the blood of the aggressor, and that by assassination. For they say it is not just that, after a signal affront received, the offended party should put his life in an equal balance with the offender. They are so tenacious of revenge that they will not lay aside an injury for twenty years after ; if they happen to die before they accomplish it, they will recommend the same upon their death-beds to be exe­ cuted by their children. I had it from credible hands that a certain person of note, dreading the revenge of his enemy, went to the West Indies, where he stayed twenty years, till, hearing that both he and his son were dead, he returned to Spain, yet not without changing his name for his greater security ; but in vain, for, notwithstanding all his precaution, the grandson of his enemy, though not above twelve years of age, found means to hire a ruffian, who assassinated him soon after his return. “ Most of their assassins are natives of the city of Valentia, a wicked generation, who will venture at anything for money, and are always provided with firearms that will discharge without noise, and stilettoes....... I was told that a certain Spaniard of note, having agreed with one of these Bandoleroes, as they call them, of Valentia, for a certain sum of money to dispatch his enemy, but a reconcilia­ tion being made soon after betwixt them, he acquainted the Bandolero with it, desiring him not to put his design into execution, though at the same time he allowed him the money as a voluntary gift. But the assassin replied that he scorned to have any of his money with­ out deserving it, to do which he must either kill him or his enemy. The gentle­ man, being willing to preserve his own life, was forced to let him put in execu­ tion what he had designed against the other, unless he would have resolved to seize him—-a thing of dangerous conse­ quence in Spain, where these ruffians are so numerous and so closely united that they are sure to revenge the quarrel of any of their companions, which makes �64 7'HE SERVICE OF MAN Spain the most doleful theatre of tragical scenes in the universe. “ What is more surprising than all the rest is, that as well those who leave no stone unturned to put their revenge in practice, as those who put them in execution, should engage themselves in certain devotions for the success of their enterprises, at the very time they are going to give the mortal wound to an innocent person of their own religion and country.”1* Now, as regards the Spanish observa- • tion of the seventh commandment: “ The Spaniards are so kind-hearted to one another in love affairs that, if a man meets his mistress in a place where he has no opportunity of conversing with her in private, he need only go into the next house and to request the master (whether he know him or not) to give him the opportunity of talking with a lady of his acquaintance in private in his house, and he is sure it will scarce ever be refused.” What is meant by the euphemistic term “talking ” is made clear ■by the following strange disclosure : “I remember that, talking the other day with the Marchioness d’Alcannizas, one of the greatest and most virtuous ladies I of the Court, she frankly told us that, if a gentleman should be alone with her for half an hour in a convenient place, and not ask her the last favour, she should think he despised her, though she should, at the same time, not grant his request.” Again, we have to notice the co-exist­ ence of a very low moral tone with the most exalted religious zeal and passionate religious belief. It is unnecessary to proceed through the previous centuries with so much detail, otherwise it would be easy to show that the sixteenth century was far more immoral, in the widest sense of the word, than the seventeenth. The Court of the later Valois is painted for us by the gar­ rulous Brantome; and one fails to see 1 The Ingenious Letters of the Lady’s -------Travels into Spain, Harris’s Collection, ii., p. 756> ed. 1705. how it differed, except for the worse, from the Court of Caligula or Commodus. The Italians were more refined, but even more wicked, and impressed the English of Elizabeth’s reign, by no means a squeamish or fastidious folk, with a “ sense of the rottenness of the country whence they obtained their intellectual nourishment, with a sense of frightful anomaly, of putrescence in beauty and splendour, of death in life, and life in death.”1 No one would expect better things of the fifteenth century, in which the Wars of the Roses in England, and the final struggle against English domi­ nation in France, had the usual effect of protracted warfare in injuring morality. That the fourteenth century, the era of the great Schism, of the captivity of the Popes at Avignon, and of the Black Death, should have been a period of extraordinary licence and crime cannot surprise us. Both civil and ecclesiastical government were impaired by the events of the time, and pestilence is usually followed by moral irregularities. So we pass these ages over, and stop for a moment in the thirteenth century, the age par excellence of beautiful things, when chivalry is supposed to have been in its noble prime, when the Church exerted a calm and serene sovereignty over the kneeling nations, when mediaeval art reached its supreme and chaste perfection, when the philosophy and theology of the Latin Church cul­ minated in works almost as intricate and wonderful as the maze of pinnacles, flying buttresses, arches, and columns which, surviving still in the cathedrals of Amiens or Chartres, sing us a deceptive siren song of beauty which lures us to their epoch as to a Golden Age. It was very far from a golden age. On the contrary, it was an age of violence, fraud, and impurity, such as can hardly be con­ ceived now. We will take it in its ideal moment—in the reign of St. Louis, the best of kings, and perhaps the best man 1 Euphorion, by Vernon Lee. �65 MORALm' TN THE AGES OF FAITH who ever lived. We will take as-' a witness one of his most trusted and1 valued friends, Eude Rigaud, Arch­ bishop of Rouen, and we will see what he says of the morals of the clergy of his own diocese, which, like a good pastor as he was, he was constantly visiting for the purpose of discipline and reform. The Regestrum Visitationum^ or the diary of the pastoral visits of Archbishop Rigaud, forms a quarto volume of up­ wards of six hundred closely-printed pages. It extends from the year 1248 101269. Rigaud had been a Franciscan monk, a student at Paris of scholastic philosophy under our famous countryman, Alexander of Hales, and at an early period acquired reputation as a preacher of uncommon eloquence. . A tradition obtained that he had been elevated to the archiepiscopal see of Rouen, where he had gone to preach, on account of the impression produced by his piety and learning on the Chapter. Rigaud wished to refuse the proffered dignity, but his professions were disregarded; the Pope, Innocent IV., relieved him of his vows to reject ecclesiastical honours, and he was consecrated archbishop in the month of March, 1248. In the month of July, in the same year, he began his pastoral visitations. He travelled about from monastery to monastery, and sometimes was entertained at the expense of the monks, but more often at his own. Indeed, the religious houses seem fre­ quently to have been in debt, and hardly in a position to give worthy hospitality to so great a lord as an archbishop. He often discovered, both among the secular and the regular clergy, very unclerical habits and amusements, sometimes inno­ cent, at other times very much the con­ trary. He found the nuns of St. Arnaud had fallen into the evil practice of singing the Psalms and Hours to the Virgin with unbecoming haste—“ cum nimia festinatione et precipitatione verborum,” and ordered, very properly, that one verse should not be begun till a previous one had been finished. The nuns, moreover, did not observe the rule of silence; and ate meat in the infirmary as often as three times a week. A sick sister would have two or three healthy friends to see her, and regale them with a more dainty repast than the usual convent fare. They all had a measure of wine, but some drank more than others, which was not allowed. Some even gave wine to persons outside the convent, with­ out obtaining leave; for this offence they were made to go without wine the next day. The nuns also had a fondness for linen chemises and sheets, which were against the rule, and these luxuries were forbidden. On the whole, the convents for women, which Rigaud visited, seem to have been fairly correct, and certainly did not afford examples of the gross licentiousness of the monks and priests. Many of the latter fell under episcopal censure for irregularities which would not nowadays be considered very serious, and give a notion of a rollicking, schoolboyish tone, which has an odd effect. Riding about on horse­ back in an unclerical garb is noted with disapprobation, and seems to have been a common fault. Buying and selling horses was hardly so venial in a priest; no more, perhaps, was the keeping of dogs for hunting purposes. But it was easy to do much worse. One is surprised to find charges of drunkenness constantly recurring. Frequenting taverns and play­ ing at dice were certainly unbecoming in a clergyman, especially when carried so far as to cause the priest to leave or lose his clothes in the public-house, “ aliquando amittit vestes suas in tabernis.” One is glad to see that Archbishop Rigaud would not. stand such indecorum, and deprived the incum­ bent who had been guilty of it of his living. But these transgressions are insignificant, both in number and gravity, compared with the incessant sin of incontinency, which is alleged on nearly every page in the most aggravated form.. Priest after priest is charged with immoral conduct, some with married women, some with keeping two mistresses at F �66 THE SERVICE OF MAN once, one with incest with his own niece.1 Without a certain monotony of repeti­ tion, it is impossible to convey the impression produced by this protracted catalogue of clerical disorders. “We found the priest of Nesle in ill-repute, on account of a certain woman who is said to be pregnant by him; he also trades, and ill-treats his father, who is the patron of the church he holds. This parson fought with a certain knight with a drawn sword amid a clamour and con­ course of his friends and relations.”2 “ The priest of Gonnetot was charged with criminality with two women, and he went to the Pope about the matter, and when he returned he is said to have offended again. The priest of Wanestanvilla was accused with reference to a woman, one of his own parishioners, and her husband on that account departed over sea. He kept her eight years, and she is pregnant; he also plays at dice and drinks too much; he frequents the taverns, does not abide in his church, and goes with a hawk on his fist when­ ever he likes. Also the priest of Braysur-Seine is accused with reference to a certain woman; and because she refused to live in the presbytery, he went to live with her, and had his food and corn brought to her house. Also the priest of Saint-Just haunts taverns, and drinks till he is full up to the throat. Also Lawrence, priest of Longceil, keeps the wife of a man who is abroad; she is called Beatrice Valeran, and he has a son by her. 3 We found that the 1 “ Item presbyter de Mesnilio David est inobediens et habet pueros suos secum, et concubinam alibi: item duce se invenerunt in domo ipsius et se verberaverunt invicem. Item pres­ byter de Sancto Richario infamatus de quadam conjugata, parochiana sua. Item presbyter Sancti Remigii notatus de ebriositate, non defert capam, ludit ad talos, frequentat tabernam, et ibi multociens verberatur. Item Magister Walterus presbyter de Grandi Curia, infamatus est de propria nepte et de nimia potatione.”—Regest. Visitationum Arch. Rothomagensis, par Th. Bonnin, Rouen, 1852, pp. 20, 21. 2 Ibid., p. 19. 3 Ibid., p. 29. priest of Panlyu was famed for incontinency with a maidservant of his, and likewise with two other women, who afterwards bore him two sons; also he is noted for inebriety; he sells his wine, and makes his parishioners drunk. The priest of Auberville is seriously noted for incontinency,and he married a certain woman with one of his servants, in order that he might have free access to her. Also he had relations with a certain Englishwoman, whom he kept a long time, and sinned with her again after being corrected by the archdeacon; also with the daughter of a poor woman who lives hard by the cross.”1 Although the nuns, compared with the priests, appear to have been well-behaved, we occasionally meet with convents in which there were great disorders. “ We visited the convent of the Blessed Mary of Almeneschiis. There are thirty-three nuns. All are possessed of property: they have saucepans, copper-kettles, and necklaces. They contract debts in the village, and eat and sit at tables in groups. Each nun has money given her to provide for her table and her kitchen. Many are absent from Compline and Matins, and drink after Compline. Sister Theophana is given to drink. They have no regular time for confession or com­ munication. Sister Hola lately had a boy by one Michael of Vai Guido. Secular persons freely enter the cloister and talk with the nuns. They never dine in the refectory. Dionisia Dehatim is accused of ill-conduct with Nicholas de Bleve. They quarrel finely in the cloister and the choir. Alice, the cantatrix, had a boy by a man named Christian. Also the prioress formerly had one boy. They have not got an abbess, as the last recently died.”2 A most improper set of ladies, certainly, considering their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The strange thing is that Archbishop Rigaud did not visit them, so far as appears, with any censure; perhaps their wealth 1 Regest. Visitationum Arch. Rothomagensis, 2 Ibid., p 82. p. 25. �MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH 67 and social position made it impolitic to no doubt because a refractory or litigious do so. Indeed, the grosser sins of the priest, especially by appealing to Rome, flesh are treated with what we should could give rise both to trouble and consider singular mildness. Early lapses scandal.1 The next witness I would like to call from virtue, and even later ones, are pardoned on promise of reform. Only was a cardinal, an intimate friend and in the case of hardened and persevering co-reformer of the great Hildebrand, sinners are strong measures taken. “We Pope Gregory VII., the Blessed Peter warned them,” says Rigaud—and in one Damiani. Unfortunately, the very nature case “them” included Master Walter, of the crimes with which he charges the the priest of Grandcure, who cohabited clergy is so monstrous that it is impos­ with his niece—“ we warned and threat­ sible, even “ in the obscurity of a learned ened them that if we found them again language,” as Gibbon said, to give an accused of similar misdeeds we would idea of their character. Dean Milman punish them severely.”1 And it would can only distantly refer to Peter Damiani’s not be right to suspect the archbishop “ odious book,” the Liber Gomorof a weak toleration of vice for acting so rheanus; and quotes the title of the leniently. The number of offenders was first chapter as an adequate indica­ so great that, if he had suspended or tion of its contents. Any modern must expelled them all, he would have had follow his example. It must suffice few or no priests left to serve the diocese. He probably did the best which the cir­ 1 “ Uni versis presentes litteras inspecturis, cumstances permitted; which was, on Radulphus rector ecclesiae de Sana Villa Rotho­ proof of repeated guilt, to obtain from magensis diocesis, salutem. Noverit universitas quod cum super the culprit a written promise of reform, vestra ut dicebatur, pro irregularitate commissa a me, eo quod, suspenses et together with an undertaking to leave excommunicatus, dicebar celebravisse divina: his church and the country in case of a item super crimine fornicationis et adulterii relapse into his former depravity. Rigaud quod dicebar commisisse cum Robina penildore has preserved for us a great number of de Nova-villa: item super eo quod dicebar lusor ad taxillos, et frequentator tabernarum : item these documents, signed, sealed, and super eo quod dicebar capellanum capellae de sworn to, by the penitents, and they are Rocherobiis vulnerasse graviter cum falcone in capite ; essem apud bonos et graves, et maxime extremely curious. In the first place, they show beyond doubt or cavil that apud reverendum patrem Odonem, Dei gratia, Rothomagensem archiepiscopum adeo diffamatus, the charges were true. Habemus confi- quod dictus pater, nolens dissimulare premissa, tentes reos. In the next place, the poor nolebat super premissis ad inquisitionem contra me procedere, et secundum inquisitionis exigenpriests seem heartily ashamed and sorry, and own without ambiguity, in often tiam me canonicae subicere ultioni. Tandem ego, queerens a dicto patre non judicium sed crude language, the faults they have veniam, promisi, sine vi, sine dolo dicto patri committed; though probably the draw­ spontaneus, quod praedictam ecclesiam meam ing up of these confessions was not resignabo, et habebo pro resignata, quandocunque entrusted to them, but confided to the dicto patri placuerit; volens et concedens quod idem pater possit me privare eadem . ecclesia sterner pens of the archbishop’s secre­ sine strepitu judicii et juris solemnitate in aliquo taries ; they acknowledge that if they non observata, quandocunque suae sederit volunfall again they will have nothing to say tati. Renunciavi autem spontaneus quoad pre­ exceptioni de vi et de metu et litteris a for themselves; that they will give up missaapostolica contra premissa concedendis seu sede their curacies without the noise or fuss etiam impetrandis, et omni auxilio juris canonici of a trial—sine strepitu judicii—and go vel civilis competenti seu competituro per quod away. This appears to have been a dictae resignatio et privatio impedin valeant great point, to get rid of them quietly; vel differi. Juravi praeterea spontaneus, tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis, me contra premissa vel 1 Regest. Visitationum Arch. Rothomagensis, p. 21. aliquod premissorum per me nec per aliurn non venturum” [^Regcst. Visitcitwivuni Arch. Rotho magensis, p. 658). �68 THE SERVICE OF MAN to say that nothing in Aristophanes, Athenaeus, or Petronius, gives a picture of more bestial depravity than the one drawn by a prince of the Church of the manners of his clerical contemporaries. It is “ unspeakable,” and with that remark we must leave the subject. But what about grace, what about belief in God, Christ, and the Bible ? What about the deterrent effect of the fear of hell, of the purifying effect of the hope of heaven? These are questions to which an answer were desirable. And now, what is the moral to be drawn from this unpleasant but necessary review? We have seen that not in one country nor in one age, but all through the Ages of Faith, the most flagrant breaches of the moral law are quite compatible with the most fervent and complete belief in God, in the Bible, and, in short, in Christianity. The usual answer to this objection is that these people may have had faith, but it was not living and saving faith. They believed like the devils, and perhaps did not always tremble like them as well. So let it be. Mere faith, unless it be of a partitular kind, is not enough. The heart must be touched by grace, as well as the mind disposed to assent to certain dogmatic propositions. But agnostics say no more and no less. The touching of the heart is everything, and assent to propositions next to nothing. It is abundantly plain that assent to Christian dogmas offers the slenderest guarantee that it will have the desired effect in touching the heart. There never was a moment, from the first teaching of Christianity till the present day, when sincere pastors have not deplored the condition of the greater part of their flocks. That the whole world lieth in wickedness is the constant burden of their complaint. Could better proof be required or given that the supposed connection between belief and morality is illusory ? And it is easy to see that this is not an accidental but a necessary result. By laying all the emphasis of its teaching on repen­ tance and the subjective attitude of the soul towards God, and not on good works performed to individuals and society, Christianity has not applied its force in the right direction for produc­ ing the maximum of morality. As this was not its aim, it cannot be censured for not having attained it. But it is open to us to point out that this misdirection of force largely accounts for the low morality of the past, and is one of the chief causes of the decline of theology in the present. It is proved by an experience of eighteen hundred years, that the tremendous sanctions which Christianity wields are inoperative on the majority of minds. They do not realise them; the threats are not heard, as it were, by the inward spirit. The immediate connection between wrong-doing and going to hell is not grasped. Hell is a long way off, is not visible, and its deterrent efficacy is weakest when the attraction of sinful pleasure is strongest. Only minds of a fine, imaginative power, and naturally tender consciences, seize the whole im­ port of the Christian message. This fact alone would put Christianity at a disadvantage in dealing with the bulk of mankind. Few persons care for remote dangers or evils ; they banish them from their minds, as suggesting gloomy thoughts, and trust to the chapter of accidents to escape them entirely. When preachers enlarge every Sunday on the peril of the unrepenting sinner’s condition, and tell him that he may at any moment be summoned before the dread tribunal of an angry God, the young and the strong and the giddy accord to them but a languid assent. They feel in robust health, sudden death by accident or disease is the great exception, and pleasure is very delightful, and within reach. It is a maxim of jurisprudence that prompt punishment for wrong-doing is vastly more efficacious than even severer penalties long delayed. Suppose ordinary crime were punished, not with the greatest dispatch compatible with justice, but at a remote period in after life, say, twenty or thirty years after �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE 69 its commission, would not the deterrent lever to keep men in the right way. But effect of the criminal law be even less they were tied down by the terms of the than it is ? But this is by no means all. divine deed and testament, and forced In addition to this disadvantage, Chris­ to use very different language. The tian priests have one and all placed a lamentable doctrine of Original Sin, and greater one in their own way as teachers all that flowed from it, the washing away of morality, by their doctrine of repen­ of sins, flight from the wrath to come, tance and consequent salvation. When, forced them to show that, after all, like St. Alphonso de’ Liguori or Mr. heaven was open, if certain conditions Spurgeon, they teach that any amount were complied with—heartfelt repent­ of crime and sin can be expunged in a ance, turning to Jesus, confession of sins, moment by sincere contrition and turn­ receiving the sacrament; and that, in ing to God, even in the last hour, they that case, previous crime or virtue made remove from the cause of morality in no difference ; all men justly lay under this world all the force and urgency of the sentence of God’s wrath, and if He their exhortations, and transfer them to chose to pardon, it was only out of the celestial happiness beyond the grave. unspeakable riches of His grace. It If they had been able to preach that was not for man to make terms. So good works, and good works only, would that, by exaggerating human depravity take men to heaven, they would have and making all men worthy of hell, they occupied a relatively strong position. If came to admit very bad characters into they could have said to men, “It matters heaven. And quite rightly, from one point not how sorry you are for having done of view. Salvation was their object, not amiss, you must smart for it all the morality. They have not aimed at it, same,” they would have had a powerful and they have not attained it Chapter VII. WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE attempting to estimate the past, we are exposed to two opposite temptations, either of which may lead us into serious error. We may be so impressed by the recent advance of knowledge and the enlarged power of man over nature, the pomp and brilliancy of modern material progress, that we turn with disdain from the humbler science and perform­ ance of our ancestors, and, comparing their poverty with our own riches, com­ placently draw flattering conclusions to our own advantage. This disposition is a common mark of energetic but unedu­ cated minds, of people who have made their way in the world by force of In character, and who nourish a sort of grudge against learning and scholarship. On the other hand, it is a tone so repul­ sive to minds which have made them­ selves acquainted with the past that these are apt to fall into the opposite extreme, and to see with over-clearness the seamy side of the present. The wealth and noisy progress of the present do not impress persons of this type with much respect. They pronounce them to be vulgar and commonplace, and purchased at far too great a cost; nay, by the ruin of numerous lovely and precious things, which the present age does not miss, only because it is too �70 THE SERVICE OF MAR deeply buried in sordid cares and frivo­ lous pleasures to know anything about them. If one class points to the triumph of industry and the victories of steam, the other draws attention to the meanness of our Art, and the foul defacement of natural beauty, and even the polution of the air we breathe and the water we drink by factories, tall chimneys, and the ubiquitous screaming tyrant, the railroad. The admirers of the present look out upon the world, which it is their intention to subdue, as conquerors. They are always for “ opening up ” new countries, which they say conduces to trade and the spread of civilisation. The lovers of the past reply that the march of the so-called civilisation should rather be called the spread of ruin, vice, and disease ; that the traders look upon the world rather as buccaneers than as honest men, that they regard it as their oyster which they mean to open with a steam hammer. The interchange of taunts and reproaches goes on in amotbic response, as of peasants in an idyll, and no doubt will not readily be brought to a close. It is referred to here in order to exhibit the difficulty of a task which, at one time or another, we are nearly all of us compelled to undertake, to estimate and fairly judge the past, if for no other purpose than lighting up and enabling us to direct the present. A clear perception of the road we have travelled is one of the best indica­ tions of our probable course in the future, whether that course be a straight line or a curve. It is obvious, if society be an organism—and few nowadays would deny the fact—that, in order to understand it, we must study its life, behaviour, and habits, on the most extended scale. The present is a transi­ tory phase, which is as insufficient for this purpose as a day or an hour would be for the biological study of one of the higher animals. Both those who wish to break with the past and ignore its teaching as so much dross—the revolu­ tionists ; and those who on various grounds can think of nothing better than an impossible return to it—the reaction­ aries ; will find, and indeed have found already, though the extremes of neither party are very docile to the lessons of experience, that knowledge alone can throw light on our path, and that to take sentiment or passion as our guide is to court catastrophe. Revolutionists, who are too impatient and headstrong to wait for the slow but sure effects of evolution, and reactionaries, who are too selfish or stupid to admit the changes which evolution demands, are equal enemies to progress and human well­ being. Incessant and minute change is one of the conditions of life, but great and sudden change is disease, and no change at all is incipient death. One of the numerous misfortunes which afflict mankind is the difficulty of in­ culcating this truth; it appears to be profoundly offensive to the vulgar of all classes, the majority of the race. A salutary change, let us suppose, is obviously required ; it is announced and advised by a reflective individual or group here and there. If they are not too obscure and insignificant to fail wholly in attracting notice, a clamour arises against their monstrous and un­ heard-of opinions; for critical turningpoints occur in the speculative as well as the practical order; modes of thought and doctrines at times need reforming as much as institutions; they cannot be listened to, they are subversive, atheistic, destructive of man’s best interests, and so forth. The change does not take place, or oftener it is not overtly admitted as needed or salutary; it is kept down and arrested, as far as possible even ignored. But it is going on under­ ground, as it were; its partisans increase, and their anger also, till at last comes a time when the dammed-up current has accumulated an energy which overpowers all obstacles, and it dashes furiously forward, scattering devastation along its course. This is the abstract history of all revolutions in Church or State, in thought or practice. These considerations, even if they be �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE deemed over-trite and obvious, are not out of place as introductory to the subject of. this chapter—an attempt to estimate the action of Christianity in the past. In the last chapter it was viewed in relation to its effect on morals; and facts were adduced which seemed to show that in that respect its operation had been far less salutary and decided than it is customary to assume. At the same time it was shown that morality was never the special objective of Chris­ tianity, and therefore any failure to foster morality could not justly be made a repwach against it. No system can be Dlamed for not accomplishing what it never attempted to do. Luther would have read the previous chapter without discomposure. He would have said: “ No doubt the object of Christianity is to save men’s souls in the next world, not to make them moral in this. And it does save. That is all I want.” On this ground his position is unassailable. Modern apologists have usually forsaken his inaccessible heights, and put in claims, which seem to be more than dis­ putable, for their religion as a guardian of morality. But this is only one side of a large sub­ ject. A doctrine so wide and powerful as the Christian has many other sides, and its energy as a social factor is not to be limited to one point of view. Chris­ tianity has had an immense influence on politics, literature, and philosophy; it has moulded the minds and characters of many of the most distinguished persons who have adorned the human race. But neither its blind friends nor its blind foes can be expected to do it justice, and possibly full justice will never be done to it till it has ceased to exist. Still, an estimate of its value as a social doctrine must ever appear as one of the most important problems presented by history, an at­ tempted solution of which is almost imposed on serious students who are sufficiently withdrawn from theological prepossessions to regard Christianity neither with love nor hatred, but with 7* that sympathy and respect justly due to one of the greatest phases of human evolution. In the learned and profound investi­ gations of continental scholars concern­ ing the origin of Christianity and the growth of the early Church, sufficient attention has not always been accorded to the precise time and place in the order of human evolution in which that religion arose. This is not intended as a reproach to such illustrious men as Strauss, F. C. Baur, Keim, Hausrath, and Renan. They had more immediate work of a specialist kind to do, and might well leave the placing of Chris­ tianity in world-history to others. But the point is of great importance. It may with reason be doubted, if the fact is as often remembered as it should be, that Christianity arose amid the corrup­ tion and decay of the greatest civilisation which the human race had seen, amid the death-throes of the ancient world. From the fact that the New Testament was written before that corruption and decay had assumed their final and fatal form, that St. Paul lived and preached in Antioch the Beautiful; visited Athens while its citizens still retained enough of the old inquiring spirit to “ spend their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear something new ”; and at last came to martyrdom in Rome while the deceptive bloom of imperial splendour still flushed the cheek of the dying mis­ tress of the world—it is often assumed that this proud heathenism and pagan glory were overthrown by the meek and unlearned disciples of the Galilean prophet of God. Nothing can be less true than this assumption. The soft autumnal calm, and purple tints as of an Indian summer, which lingered, up to the Antonines, over that wide expanse of empire, from the Persian Gulf to the Pillars of Hercules, and from the Nile to the Clyde, broken as it was by the year of Revolution of a.d. 69 and the black tyranny of Domitian’s reign, was only a misleading transition to that bitter winter which filled the half of the second and �TIIE SERVICE OF MAN the whole of the third century, to be soon followed by the abiding dark and cold of the Middle Ages. The Empire was moribund when Christianity arose. Indeed, Rome had practically slain the ancient world before the Empire replaced the effete Republic. The barbarous Roman soldier who killed Archimedes absorbed in a problem is but an instance and a type of what Rome had done always and everywhere by Greek art, civilisation, and science. The Empire lived upon and consumed the capital of preceding ages, which it did not replace. Population, production, knowledge, all declined and slowly died. The Christian apologists, headed by St. Augustine, were justly indignant at the pagan slander which attributed the fall of the Empire to the spread of Christianity. Their answer to the objection was complete, as we can see far better even than they did themselves. But what they could not be expected to see, and what we can see very well, is, that the fall of the Empire, including the loss and ruin of the old philosophy and knowledge, was an indispensable condition of the spread of Christianity. If the blood of the martyrs was truly said to be the seed of the Church, the decay of knowledge was an equally needed pre-requisite. It will not be denied that this decay of knowledge was present and startlingly rapid. After the silver age which ended nobly with Tacitus and the younger Pliny, Latin pagan literature almost ceases to exist; and the falling off in the form is not more striking than in the value and quality of the contents. All superstitions revived and flourished apace in the ever-waning light of know­ ledge. A shudder of religious awe ran through the Roman world, and grew more sombre and searching with the progressive gloom and calamities of the time. A spirit wholly different from the light-hearted scepticism of the Augustan age and later Republic stirred men’s hearts, and the strongest minds did not escape it. “ The pagans were not one TV.hit bphind the Christians as regards | belief in miracles and in a future life.”1 The sun of ancient science, which had risen in such splendour from Thales to Hipparchus, was now sinking rapidly to the horizon; and when it at last dis­ appeared, say in the fifth century, the long night of the Middle Ages began. But it was in this period of decaying knowledge and civilisation that the Chris­ tian religion was elaborated and consti­ tuted in the historical form which it practically still wears. The creeds and chief dogmas of the Church were worked out in the period which extends from the Council of Jerusalem to the Councils of Nice, Chalcedon, Alexandria, and Ephesus. No evolutionist would think of speaking in any but respectful terms of the great Churchmen who laid down the lines along which European thought was destined to travel for a thousand years. The sneering tone of sceptics in the last age is wholly out of place, and arose from pure ignorance of the laws which govern social and intellectual development. The Nicene Creed in the fourth century after Christ was as natural and legitimate a product of the conditions of the time as was the Socratic philosophy in the fourth century before Christ. What we have to note is, that the Nicene Creed was the product of an age of decay, of disaster, and ap­ proaching death, so far as civilisation and science were concerned. In every light, one of the most memorable, and in many respects one of the most noble, of human compositions, it yet, as it could not fail to do, bears the marks of its birth-time; and that time was one of extreme calamity, of growing gloom, ignorance, and misery. Within two centuries of its promulgation, the Graeco­ Roman world had descended into the great hollow which is roughly called the Middle Ages, extending from the fifth to the fifteenth century, a hollow in which many great, beautiful, and heroic things were done and created, but in 1 Hausrath, Neute$tani?ntliche Zeit^eschichte^ vol. iii. 489. �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE which knowledge, as we understand it, and as Aristotle understood it, had no place. The revival of learning and the ; Renaissance are memorable as the first sturdy breasting by humanity of the hither slope of the great hollow which lies between us and the ancient world. The modern man, reformed and regene­ rated by knowledge, looks across it, and recognises on the opposite ridge, in the far-shining cities and stately porticoes, in the art, politics, and science of , • antiquity, many more ties of kinship and sympathy than in the mighty concave between, wherein dwell his Christian ancestry, in the dim light of scholas­ ticism and theology. The birth of Christianity being on this wise—viz., having taken place in an era of decay and death of art and philosophy, of knowledge, nf wealth, of population, of progress in every form— and the absence of these things having ! been one of the chief negative conditions of its growth and prosperity, we must look for the sources of its nourishment . in another direction than these; not in knowledge, or the eager questioning spirit which leads to knowledge, but in the humble spirit which believes and accepts on trust the word of authority; not in regulated industry, wrhich aims at constant increase and accumulation of wealth, but in the resigned poverty which, scorning this world, lays up riches in heaven; not in political freedom and I popular government, which aims at the progressive well-being of all, but in the stern rigour of arbitrary power, which coerces the vicious and refractory into a little order during their brief sojourn on earth. In the decline and fall of Rome, or, as it would be better to say, in the I final ruin of ancient civilisation, the con­ ditions favourable to this order of beliefs or doctrines spontaneously emerged. It is obvious that there could be no question of free institutions or settled industry in an age chastened by every scourge of war, pestilence, and famine; by arbitrary tyranny and military despotism. Know­ ledge, agai n, is ever; more sensitive than i i 73 capital to the influence of public and widespread calamities, inasmuch as the love of knowledge is rarer and feebler than the love of wealth in most minds. To a man of the fifth century on the lookrout for any sphere of activity for his energies no prospect presented itself in the least similar to what such a man would see now, or would have seen in Athens under Pericles, or in Rome under the Scipios. Public life existed as little as it does at this day in Russia. The pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake was out of place in a time when daily existence was not safe from the swords of successive barbarian hordes, or, failing these, from the more cruel onslaught of the merciless tax-collector. That is to say, all the outlets through which modem energy is chiefly expended were then closed; a man could not serve the state as a citizen, he could not serve knowledge as a man of science, he could not augment wealth as an artisan or master of industry. There was only one thing left for him to do—to serve God. The last and perhaps the most impor­ tant legacy left by the ancient philosophy to the world was the doctrine of mono­ theism, the belief in a single supreme God. The evolution of this capital idea has never yet been traced with the care it supremely deserves. The common notion that it was wholly derived from the Jews is quite unfounded. The germs of it may be found in Greece in the earliest speculations of the Ionic and Eleatic philosophers. It gradually made its way, by the force of its inherent rationality, against manifold opposition, and among the Stoics reached a dis­ tinctness and elevation little, if at all, inferior to the highest Jewish conception of Jehovah. The Christian deity was a union of the two monotheistic concep­ tions, the Greek and the Jewish. Each element was necessary for the concep­ tion to attain its full universality and power. The Jew never quite trans­ cended his notions of a tribal God, who had been in an exclusive way the God of �74 THE SERVICE OF MAN his fathers from the beginning; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in whom he had a sort of ancestral right of property, who was bound to him, and to whom he was bound, by covenant and mercies and promises, such as no other nation ever imagined. The Jew was, therefore, on a footing of familiarity and intimacy, so to speak, with his God, to which the metaphysical Greek, with his wide discourse of reason, never attained. To the Jew, God is the great companion, the profound and loving, yet terrible, friend of his inmost soul, with whom he holds communion in the sanctuary of his heart, to whom he turns, or should turn, in every hour of adversity or happiness. Hear the Psalmist: “ O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh also longeth after thee, in a barren and dry land where no water is. For thy lovingkindness is better than the life itself: my lips shall praise thee. Have I not remembered thee in my bed, and thought upon thee when I was waking ? Because thou hast been my helper, therefore under the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.”1 On the other hand, the very closeness and specialty of the Jew’s relation to Jehovah made his con­ ception of the deity unsuitable to the office of a cosmopolitan God. I venture to suggest that perhaps the opposition of Peter and the Judaizing Christians to the wider views of St. Paul arose as much from a reluctance to part with their national God as from the narrow, cere­ monial scruples to which it is ascribed. The Greek was as inferior to the Jew in the depth and intensity of his religious sentiment as he was superior in mental reach and philosophic power. For him God is the deity of the intellect rather . than of the heart; He is the symbol of “eternal law all-ruling,”2 and the Hel­ lene all but attained to the impersonal and unknowable reality behind pheno­ 1 Psalm lxiii. 1-4, 7, 8 (Prayer-book Version). 2 “...... iirel oilre ftporois ytpas <lXXo re /J-eifov oilre Oeols, ?) Koivbv ael v6p.ov tv 31kt) vfivetv.” CleanthisHymn., 37, 38. mena, which the last word of recent philosophy propounds as the only rational object of worship. When these two, each in its way powerful and stimulating notions of God, coalesced into one, as they did in the teaching of St. Paul, the effect on the moral and spiritual world was as that of a new force, a new centre of gravity to which all thoughts and feelings naturally tended with an irresistible attraction. The rationality of monotheism as com­ pared with polytheism, of the idea of one all-ruling deity, instead of the anarchy of a crowd of gods and god­ desses thwarting each other, recom­ mended the doctrine to all superior minds, as infinitely truer, simpler, and better. Knowledge had progressed far enough to make the uniformity of nature a credible result of the operations of an eternal mind; but it had not gone far enough to exclude the notions of miracle and of providential interference on the part of the deity with human affairs. Moreover, the God of the Jews had become, through St. Paul, the God of the universe, and the “Father of all; in every age, in every clime adored.” The influence of the combined ideas on contemporary minds, as it is shown in the writings of the Fathers, is very striking. A tone of exultation and radiant joy seems to possess them when they refer to the new-found central object of their worship, which contrasts not only with the sad, desponding tone of the pagans, but even with Israel’s delight in Jehovah, which is rarely without a touch of gloom and fore­ boding, and with the meek resignation of the Middle Ages, which tremble even more than they believe. Compare the Te Deum of St. Ambrose with the Dies Ir<z of Thomas of Alano. The two hymns are parallel, often nearly identical, in thought, but profoundly divergent in sentiment. The one bright, full of hope and trust in God; the other sombre and anxious and care-laden, almost to the verge of despair. Such was the difference between the fifth and the �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE thirteenth centuries. The earlier Chris­ tians, reminded, no doubt, by the paganism which still survived, are never weary of setting forth the superior grandeur and consolation of their faith as compared to that of polytheism; and it is quite easy even for us to see how incalculably the religious sentiment must have been intensified when its scattered rays, dispersed among a crowd of deities, were all united in the barely tolerable splendour of one Almighty God and Lord. Nowhere does the passionate adoration, and flow of unbounded devotion, show itself with more fervour and power than in the Prayer for all Conditions of Men in the Alexandrian Liturgy. The original makes the frag­ ments of it which have survived in modern Liturgies appear very pale and tame. Here is a short specimen :— “ O King of Peace, give us thy peace, keep us in love and charity, be our God, for we know none beside thee: we call > upon thy name ; grant unto our souls the life of righteousness, that the death of sin may not prevail against us or any of thy people. Visit, O Lord, and heal those who are sick, according to thy pity and compassion; turn from them and from us all sickness and diseases ; restore them to and confirm them in their strength. Raise up those who have lingered under long and tedious indis­ positions ; succour those who are vexed with unclean spirits. Relieve those who are in prisons or in the mines, under accusations or condemnations, in exile or in slavery, or loaded with grievous tribute.”1 With these intense and absorbing feelings running in a deep but, after all, narrow channel, the Western European world turned to meet and advance into that dread and frightful time designated as the Fall of the Roman Empire. How a fragment or a germ of civilisation escaped destruction in that great catas­ trophe it is not easy to say. It is admitted on all hands that a great debt * Bunsen, Analecta Ante-Nicena, pp. 24, 109. 75 is owing to the Christian bishops of those days, who were the only officials clothed with authority and honour, who survived the wreck of the Roman bureaucracy. Although this fact re­ dounds rather to the credit of epis­ copacy than of Christianity, still a fair criticism must admit that as, without the previous dignity and prestige obtained by the Christian religion, bishops would not have been there, or in a position to discharge their functions, the final result must be credited to the new faith. It is the more incumbent upon us to acknow­ ledge and assert this as at a later date the part played by Christianity in politics was very nearly wholly evil. In attempt­ ing to estimate, as was proposed, the utility of Christianity in the past, it will simplify our task if we divide the subject under three heads, and consider its Political, Philosophical, and Spiritual action in the world. 1. The Political action of Christianity. Owing to well-known historical reasons, the natural and legitimate action of the politics suggested or approved in the New Testament was a long time in showing itself. The courtliness of the bishops who incensed Constantine and Theodosius was evidence that Christian prelates, as such, had no objection to arbitrary power. But that is hardly a reproach, when nothing but arbitrary power was possible. Under the Catholic feudal regime the Church was more often in an attitude of hostility to the secular power than in alliance with it. While the Church was the rival of the State, and bid high for supremacy, it could not coalesce with the State and support its despotic pretensions. But when, at the end of the Middle Ages, the monarchies of Europe definitively got the upper hand, and aimed straight at arbitrary power, the Church, so far from opposing, was only too ready to help them. A number of texts, which had been overlooked before, were cited to prove the absolute duty of every Christian man to yield passive obedience to kings and governors. It was one of the most critical turning �76 THE SERVICE OF MAN points in human evolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the battle of freedom was fought out. All the monarchies of Europe were moving with rapid strides towards despotism. Nothing can deprive the Dutch of the honour of having been the first to step into the breach and defend, against apparently overwhelming odds, the cause of liberty. The English followed them, nobly but somewhat tardily, under Cromwell. All through this bad time the Christian Church threw its whole weight on the side of oppression; and the point to be noticed is that it had the fullest scriptural warrant for its action, and could not conscientiously have done otherwise. We have all long ago for­ gotten the opposition of our Jacobites to freedom, and the narrow escape we had of falling under arbitrary power. The weak and worthless Stuarts, with their immense ambition and feeble faculties, were not the chief danger. That lay in the adherence to their pre­ tensions of such saintly men as Bishop Ken, and such noble champions of moral purity as Jeremy Collier. And these men, as they believed all scripture, believed also these texts: “ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” “ Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” “ Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.” Professor Sewell, commenting on these passages, says with complete truth: “ It is idle, and worse than idle, to attempt to restrict and explain away this positive command. And the Christian Church has always upheld it in its full extent. With one uniform, unhesitating voice it has pro­ claimed the duty of passive obedience.”1 It may be objected that the Puritans and other Christian sects have taken a different view of their religious duties, and shown themselves brave champions 1 Christian Politics, p. iii. of civil freedom. To which it may be replied that the Puritans, when they were oppressed by Laud and Charles, showed the common human faculty of looking away from and ignoring incon­ venient facts which told against them and their cause ; they passed over these parts of Scripture. Even Locke, in his answer to Filmer, never attempted to expound these formidable texts in a sense favourable to his arguments ; like the able controversialist that he was, he felt that the, less said on that subject the better. But further, the Puritans, by their partiality for the Old Testament, became almost Jewish in sentiment, and imbibed a portion of the anti-monarchical spirit of the Hebrew prophets and priest­ hood. It was not one of these who would have said, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.” And yet, again, the Puritans, when they became supreme in America, showed that they could be as oppressive and intolerant as any Catholics or Anglicans in Europe. It is not necessary to expatiate at any length on the import and effect of this authentic Christian and scriptural teach­ ing. We can easily afford to let bygones be bygones. But when the most im­ modest and unfounded claims are put forward in behalf of Christianity as an unfailing and universal benefactor to mankind, we may certainly be allowed to point out that for two centuries it was a consistent and determined enemy of human liberty and welfare. It took the side of the Stuarts, Bourbons, and Hapsburgs against their subjects, and it was bound to do so by its own principles. An agnostic may pardon this, as one of those errors of which the past is full. But a Christian, who believes in the perennial value and beneficence of his doctrine, must, one would think, expe­ rience certain qualms in moments of retrospection. 2. The influence of Christianity on speculative thought has been far more salutary than it has been on politics, and this not from any accidental circumstance, �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE but in consequence of essential qualities in the doctrine itself. It cannot be a mere accident that, of the three mono­ theistic religions, Christianity alone has produced elaborate systems of theology, which in depth and compass can com­ pare with any systems of philosophy, ancient or modern. The Jews and Mohammedans have each had their disputes and controversies inside their own confessions, from which the odium theologicum has not been wanting; but their puny differences cannot be com­ pared to the splendid, far-reaching dis­ cussions which have repeatedly filled the Christian Churches with the most vigorous and brilliant intellectual life. The sub­ ject cannot be treated adequately here. It will suffice to point to the intellectual revival which followed the spread of Christianity, and gave to the world the whole literature of the Fathers, Greek and Latin, in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, at the very time when pagan literature had fallen into sterility and decrepitude. Even Gibbon, no favour­ able witness, acknowledges this. Of all writers who have used Latin as their mother tongue, it is no exaggeration to say that St. Augustine is by far the most original, suggestive, and profound.' He is a genuine thinker, not a mere rhetori­ cian like Cicero, Seneca, and the rest. The controversies of the fourth century, which have given rise to much tasteless ridicule, notably the Arian controversy, and the witticism suggested that it was preposterous that the world should be divided into hostile camps by a diph­ thong, these controversies were mentally the most stimulating discussions, not only which the age admitted of, but which have ever occupied men’s minds. All the faculties of the reason and logical understanding were brought into play, subtlety the most acute, and discourse of reason the most lofty. When the western world sank into barbarism in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, theological controversy largely ceased; it was a sufficient task for the West to keep alive, and intellectual luxuries 77 had to be dispensed with. But the moment the warmth of reviving civilisa­ tion returned to the stiffened minds of the West, deep and searching controversies recommenced. It would be interesting to show how all this mental activity sprang immediately or remotely from the central Christian doctrine, the Divinity of Christ. A long struggle was needed, to establish that doctrine, but it was, worthy of a long struggle. The difference between “ homoousion ” and “ homoiousion ” is only that of a single letter,, but, as Emile Saisset well said, “ Probe the matter to the bottom; between. Jesus Christ, man, and Jesus Christ,. man-God, there is infinity; there is, if one may so speak, the whole thickness of Christianity.” The subsequent contro­ versies, the Monothelite, the Monophysite, and others, are obviously due to the same origin; and all through the follow­ ing ages, the Scholastic period, the Re­ formation, the Jansenist and Jesuit epoch, down to Strauss and Moehler, the same great doctrine has been, in a greater or lesser degree, a potent stimulus at once of philosophical inquiry and his­ torical research. 3. It is in the action of Christian doctrine on the human spirit that we see its power in the highest and most, characteristic form. Neutral or injuriousin politics, favourably stimulating in the region of speculative thought, its influ­ ence on the spiritual side of characters, naturally susceptible to its action, has been transcendent, overpowering, and un­ paralleled. The restriction to characters “ naturally susceptible ” will probably be resented, but it cannot be denied. The great mass of men have at all times been feebly sensitive to the higher _ spiritual influences of Christianity. It is a fact which all preachers of every denomination are for ever denouncing and lamenting. The true Christian saint is the rarest pro­ duct in every Christian Church. What is even more noteworthy is that the terrible menaces of God’s wrath and damnation, which, till quite recent times, have been universally believed by Christian men, �78 THE SERVICE OF MAN have been equally inoperative; and this to such a degree that the truly con­ verted and repentant sinners, those who have set about working out their salva­ tion in fear and trembling, have ever been lost in wonder and horror at the reckless folly of the bulk of mankind in leading the lives they did, coupled with their nominal beliefs. Convinced and earnest Christians are always compelled to regard it as madness, or a superlative proof of Satan’s power. Volumes of quotations could be given from the highest and best authorities in support of this, as every one conversant with religious literature will be aware. I will restrict myself to two, taken from the works of illustrious men, each in his own confession among the brightest examples of Christian virtue—Blaise Pascal and Richard Baxter. Pascal says :— “ Rien n’est si important a l’homme que son etat; rien ne lui est si redoubt­ able que l’eternite. Et ainsi, qu’il se trouve des hommes indifferents a la perte de leur etre, et au peril d’une eternite de miseres, cela n’est point naturel. Ils sont tout autres & l’egard de toutes les autres choses: ils craignent jusqu’aux plus legeres ; ils les pr^voient, ils les sentent; et ce meme homme qui passe tant de jours et de nuits dans la rage et dans le d^sespoir pour la perte d’une charge, ou pour quelque offense imaginaire a son honneur, c’est celui-R meme qui sait qu’il va tout perdre par la mort, sans inquietude et sans emotion. C’est une chose monstrueuse de voir dans un m£me coeur et en meme temps cette sensibilite pour les moindres choses, et cette etrange insensibilite pour les plus grandes. C’est un enchantement incomprehensible, et un assoupissement surnaturel, qui marque une force toute-puissante qui le cause.” (Pensees, chap, i.) Baxter says : “ Can you make so light of heaven and hell ? Your corpse will shortly lie in the dust, and angels or devils will shortly seize upon your souls, and every man or woman of you will shortly be among other company and in another case than you are now........ O what a place you will be in of joy or torment; O what a light will you shortly see in heaven or hell; O what thoughts will shortly fill your hearts with unspeak­ able joy or horror ! What work will you be employed in ? To praise the Lord with saints and angels, or cry out in the fire unquenchable with devils ? And should all this be forgotten? And all this will be endless and sealed up by an unchangeable decree. Eternity, eternity will be the measure of your joys or sorrows, and can this be forgotten ? And all this is true, sirs, most certainly true. When you have gone up and down a little longer, and slept and awaked a few times more, you will be dead and gone, and find all true that I now tell you; and yet you can now so much forget it. You shall then remem­ ber that you heard this sermon, and that this day, in this place, you were reminded of these things, and perceive these matters a thousand times greater than either you or I could here con­ ceive; and yet shall they be now so much forgotten?”1 That these are only fair samples of the tremendous -stimulants applied by preachers to awaken Christian sinners to a sense of their guilt and danger will be admitted, I suppose, on all hands; and yet it is equally admitted that they are practically of very slight effect. Baxter, a few pages before, had declared that “the most will be firebrands in hell for ever.” And no theologian with a character to lose, till quite recent times, would have had a doubt about it. On theological grounds the matter is sufficiently perplexing. True believers, like Pascal and Baxter, have at all times found that in this particular the con­ duct of men was hardly to be explained. If they believed God’s promises and threats, why were their lives such a practical denial of faith in them? The real answer, which divines could not be expected to give, was that the bulk of men had neither sufficient logic, 1 Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted. �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE imagination, or tenderness of heart and conscience to assimilate the whole im­ portance and bearing of the Christian scheme. A strong head, which accepted the premises of the Christian doctrine, would not hesitate to work out the con­ clusions. But the majority of men have not strong heads. A powerful imagina­ tion, which realised the awful prospect of a future judgment, and the eternity of bliss or woe consequent upon it, would be only too much appalled by the thought; as cases of religious madness sufficiently show. The truly meek and tender-hearted, again, have a natural turn for piety; as we see by the negroes, who seem to obtain a saintly spirit of detachment and self-renunciation with far greater ease than the more energetic races of Western Europe. But when among the Western Europeans the saintly character, under the combined influences of education and natural endowment, is evolved, the result, as might be supposed, is far more striking, on account of their superior fibre and temperament and general brain-power. The true Christian saint, though a rare phenomenon, is one of the most wonder­ ful to be witnessed in the moral world; so lofty, so pure, so attractive, that he ravishes men’s souls into oblivion of the patent and general fact that he is an exception among thousands or millions of professing Christians. The saints have saved the Churches from neglect and disdain. The hope, even the asser­ tion, has always been that all men could be like them, if only—the con­ dition is not easily reduced to words, and cannot be stated in a manner generally satisfactory, but the implication always is that but for some fault in man, or the wiliness of Satan, sanctity might be universal. It would be as rational to say that the poetry of Shakespeare, the music of Beethoven, and the geometry of Lagrange were accessible to all men. The genuine saint is a moral genius of a peculiar kind ; he is born, not made; though, like all men of genius, he is sure, sooner or later, to acquire the best educa­ 79 tion and that most adapted to his powers. Saintliness is not confined to Christianity. There have been Pagan and Moham­ medan saints; and it would not be easy to find, even in the Christian Calendar, men more naturally saintly than Marcus Aurelius and Abu Beker. What needs admitting, or rather proclaiming, by agnostics who would be just is, that the Christian doctrine has a power of culti­ vating and developing saintliness which has had no equal in any other creed or philosophy. When it gets firm hold of a promising subject, one with a heart and a head warm and strong enough to grasp its full import and scope, then it strengthens the will, raises and purifies the affection, and finally achieves a con­ quest over the baser self in man, of which the result is a character none the less beautiful and soul-subduing because it is wholly beyond imitation by the less spiritually endowed. The “ blessed saints ” are artists who work with un­ earthly colours in the liquid and trans­ parent tints of a loftier sky than any accessible or visible to common mortals. Perhaps there is a certain rashness in attempting to illustrate these remarks by concrete instances of saintly detachment and self-renunciation. Hagiology is not a favourite form of literature nowadays; and it must be admitted that in the lives of many saints, especially of mediaeval times, unpleasant traits and circum­ stances connected with the superstitions of the age are often found in close neighbourhood with virtues the most beautiful and attractive. Equity de­ mands that we should make the same allowance for men’s erroneous concep­ tions of duty as we do for their erroneous conceptions of intellectual truth, in accordance with the standards and cul­ ture of the times. We do not think worse of a philosopher’s intellect, who lived in antiquity or the Middle Ages, because he held a number of absurd opinions and theories in astronomy, chemistry, and biology. Those who believe in the empirical origin of moral truth are bound to be consistent and �8o THE SERVICE OF MAN show the same charity in the one case as in the other. If we take the case of Saint Louis, King of France, we must admit that a man of a more saintly character never, perhaps, existed. If we consider the temptations to which his high position necessarily exposed him, and the completeness with which he surmounted every unholy and selfish thought or act, it is difficult not to regard him as the best man that ever lived. Yet it is obvious that in many instances his notions of duty were very wrong or perverted. But though his conscience may not have been always enlightened, his heart was ever right. His abortive and ruinous crusades were the cause of vast misery and harm ; but we cannot wonder that so devout a man strove to carry out one of the great religious ideas and duties of the time, and none the less so because symptoms were arising that the paramount nature of the duty was begin­ ning to be questioned. In his private life he saw sometimes amiss—saw duties where none existed. I refer to his ex­ aggerated submission to the imperious temper of his mother, his excessive and often repulsive self-mortifications. But, this being fully allowed, there remains a clear surplus of untarnished virtue rarely surpassed. There are few tests of a man’s spiritual condition more searching and decisive than the temper with which he bears unmerited insult and railing speech. I do not refer to mere self-command, to the self-respect which forbids an answer in kind, and imposes an external calmness of manner on a swelling indignation within. The man of the world, when it suits him, can attain to this much, which yet is not little, considering the common “ impotentia” of mankind. The question is not one of self-mastery under, but of superiority to, insult, which feels no anger or resentment at insolence or con­ tempt ; and this not from an abject and craven spirit, but from living in a plane of feeling up to which personal insult does not reach. This equanimity in no wise prejudges the question whether injurious language should not be reproved, and in some cases punished, as by a judge for a contempt of court. We are only concerned with that serenity of spirit which is not touched or wounded by opprobrious speech, and all will admit that it is a very rare gift. The following anecdote told of St. Louis shows the way in which he endured insult:— As he was sitting in the Court of Par­ liament, the highest tribunal in France, a woman named Sarrette, who was interested in a suit then being heard, and perhaps dissatisfied with the decision, exclaimed to the king : “ Fie, fie 1 a fine king of France you are; much better were it if another were king. You are only the king of the monks and friars, and the wonder is you are not turned out of the kingdom.” The ushers wanted to strike the woman, and expel her from the court. But Louis would not allow it, and said : “ What you say is very true, and I am not worthy to be king. It would have been much better had it pleased God that another had been put in my place, who knew better how to govern the kingdom and he ordered his chamberlains to give the woman money. In this last act most moralists would admit that Louis was mistaken. To reward a scold for unseemly conduct in a court of justice cannot be considered justifiable. A fine and imprisonment might have tarlght Sarrette a useful lesson; it is clear that she needed one. As a jurist the king was to blame. But the meekness of spirit, which could suggest such an answer to a king and judge, in reply to a gross insult, was surely very wonderful. Louis’s justice, temperance, and entire self-abnegation in every relation of life are too well known from one of the most charming of mediaeval chronicles,, the Mtmoires of Joinville, to make it needful to dwell upon the subject. But to the above-cited example of his humility, it may be well to add an equal proof of’ his firmness, and that in presence of that very priesthood to whom he was accused of being submissive. “ I saw hirm �IVHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE another time,” says Joinville, “at Paris, where all the bishops informed him that they wished to speak with him ; and the king went to the Palace—the law-courts —to hear them. There was Guy, Bishop of Auxerre, who spoke to him as follows, in the name of all the prelates: ‘Sire, the lords who are here, the archbishops and bishops, have charged me to tell you that the Christian faith is perishing in your hands/ The king made the sign of the cross, and said : ‘ But tell me how this comes to pass.’ ‘Sire,’ resumed the bishop, ‘ the reason is that people now­ adays think so lightly of excommunica­ tion that they allow themselves to die rather than be absolved, and will not give satisfaction to the Church. The bishops request you, sire, for the love of God, and because it is your duty, to give orders to provosts and bailiffs that all who have remained excom­ municated for a year and a day should be constrained, by the seizure of their goods, to receive absolution.’ To which the king replied, that he would willingly command it in those cases in which guilt was clearly proven. Where­ upon the bishop answered, that the bishops would not consent, at any price, to that condition, and that the royal power had no right to take cognisance of ecclesiastical causes. Then the king said that he would not interfere; and that it would be against God and reason to force people to obtain absolution when the clergy did them wrong. ‘ And I will give you an example of this,’ he went on to say—‘ the case of the Earl of Brittany, who pleaded in a state of excommunica­ tion for seven years against the prelates of his province, and with such effect that the Pope has condemned them all. If, therefore, I had compelled the Earl of Brittany to seek absolution in the first year, I should have sinned against God and him.’ And the prelates had to sub­ mit,” says Joinville; “and I never heard that the subject was brought up again.” There was no false humility here, but, on the contrary, rare strength, for all it was so softly spoken. Some years after 8i Louis published the famous Pragmatic Sanction, the French equivalent to our English Statute of Praemunire, which laid the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican Church in opposition to the See of Rome. I do not merely admit, but strongly maintain, that St. Louis was a man of such moral elevation and tenderness of nature that in whatever age of the world he might have lived, and whatever creed he had held, he would have been distin­ guished as just, upright, and self-sacri­ ficing in an unusual degree. But I think it equally certain that living when he did, at the brightest moment in the Ages of Faith, when the emotional effect of Christianity was at its height, and least disturbed by intellectual opposition, his spirituality was intensified by his creed, till he seems more like one of the angels who bow before the Great White Throne than a denizen of common earth. And this is the legitimate and consistent result of Christian training carried to its final perfection by lofty and heroic spirits; a complete transcending, not only of the sin and corruption of the world, but a passing away from and beyond the world, and human needs and relations, an upward ascent towards the City of God, even before the end of life. The highest crown the Christian can win is that of martyrdom, suffering death for the faith; by which no benefit is ever supposed to be conferred on men except, perhaps, the example left for imitation by others. The true Christian martyr does every­ thing for Christ. He forsakes all to follow Him, and goes to his doom re­ joicing that he has been found worthy to suffer for His name. The original mould in which Christianity was cast cannot be altered : that of a small congregation of meek and lowly men, exposed to the assaults of the “power of darkness,” which was allowed to prevail for a season. For them the world was no continuing city, for they sought one to come. In the “ tabernacle of this present life they did groan, being burdened,” and were “willing rather to be absent from the G �&2 THE SERVICE OF MAN body and to be present with the Lord.” The notion that the world can ever be a place of peace and virtuous happiness is never countenanced in the New Testa­ ment. The Christian is always considered as one in the midst of a hostile and evil society, from which he must keep apart; and, if only he is prepared, the sooner he can leave it the better. We find, accord­ ingly, martyrs almost without exception professing, no doubt sincerely, the utmost gratitude for being delivered from this mortal life. As Sir Thomas More said, “St. Cyprian, that famous bishop of Carthage, gave his executioner thirty pieces of gold, because he knew he should procure unto him an unspeakable good turn and More himself, when about to suffer, and the executioner asked him forgiveness, kissed him, and said : “Thou wilt do me this day a greater benefit than ever any mortal man can be able to give me.” Heroic constancy, even to death, is the note of the martyr, and indeed of every true Christian. And it is this transcendental character of Christian perfection which has ever made it at once such an imperfect fosterer of morality, and such a stimulator of spirituality and heroic passion. No vestige of self may be suffered to remain in the true con­ fessor’s heart, in which every human desire must be burnt up by love of the Redeemer. A man must “hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also,” to be a true disciple of Christ. How utterly unequal average human nature is to this trancendent pitch of self-sacrifice, the past and present record of Christianity sufficiently proves. But some have been equal to it, and the heroism of the saints has been illumi­ nated by a radiance which seemed to descend direct from heaven. At all times and in all sects, the blood of martyrs has been the seed of the Church. To men, constituted as they are, the voluntary and deliberate laying down of life by confessors for conscience’ sake is always the most impressive and soul­ subduing of spectacles, conquering even the cruelty of the persecutors who are consenting unto their deaths. The “face of an angel,” remarked in the protomartyr Stephen, is not to be for­ gotten, and works miracles of conver­ sion and remorse in the solitude of the conscience, when the ghastly scene of stoning without the city, or the burning in the market-place, returns to the memory in the silent watches of the night; and the faith and meekness of the sufferer rise up like accusers from the world of spirits. The meekness and docility of the victims are a cardinal point. All bravado and self-assertion dim the lustre of the martyr’s crown. “ It has been a reproach to the sufferers in the Marian persecution that, smitten on one cheek, they did not invariably turn the other cheek to the smiter and the remark is true. If we compare the carriage of Rowland Taylor with that of Sir Thomas More, we are sensible of the difference. There can be no question as to the single - hearted piety and selfdevotion of either. But More, partly ■ perhaps by reason of his superior culture and humanist sense of the “ becoming,” showed a sweet resignation which con­ trasts favourably with the boisterous humour and self-consciousness of Taylor. “ His degradation was performed by Bonner : the usual mode being to put the garments of a Roman Catholic priest on the clerk-convict, and then to strip them off. Taylor refused to put them on, and was forcibly robed by another; and then, when he was thoroughly fur­ nished therewith, he set his hands to his side, and said : ‘ How say you, my lord, am I not a goodly fool ? How say you, my masters, if I were in Cheap should I not have boys enough to laugh at these apish toys ?’ The final ceremony was for the bishop to give the heretic a blow on his breast with his staff. The bishop’s chaplain said : ‘ My lord, strike him not; for he will sure strike again.’ ‘ Yes, by St. Peter will I,” quoth Dr. Taylor. ‘ The cause is Christ’s, and I were no good Christian if I would not fight in my master’s quarrel.’ So the bishop �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE laid his curse on him, and struck him not. When he went back to his fellow­ prisoner, Bradford, he told him how the chaplain had said he would strike again, and ‘by my troth,’ said he, rubbing his hands, ‘ I made him believe I would do so indeed !’ ” The saintly spirit would seem to be wanting here. Indeed, the temper which has fitted men for martyrdom has always been liable to the perversion of a fierce fanaticism and stubbornness, in which meek resignation is replaced by a savage combativeness regardless of conse­ quences. In his subsequent behaviour Taylor rose to a much higher strain. The scene on the February morning, by St. Botolph’s church, where his wife and children had waited for him, “suspecting that he might be carried away ”; the dialogue in the gloom, “for it was a very dark morning, and the one could not see the other,” reach the. extreme of tragic pathos. “His daughter Elizabeth cried, saying, ‘ O my dear father! Mother, mother, here is my father led away !’ Then cried his wife, ‘ Rowland, Rowland, where art thou?’ Dr. Taylor answered, ‘ I am here, dear wife,’ and stayed. The sheriff’s men would have led him forth, but the sheriff said, ‘ Stay a little, masters, I pray you, and let him speak to his wife.’ Then came she to him, and he took his daughter Mary in his arms, and he and his wife, and Elizabeth knelt down and said the Lord’s Prayer. At which sight the sheriff wept apace, and so did divers others of the company.” It is needless to repeat further one of the best-known scenes in English history. The point to be noticed is, that Taylor rose to the height of saintliness in pro­ portion as he laid aside his haughty carriage. His answer to the sheriff, who asked him, after his martyr’s ride through Essex to Suffolk, how he fared : “ Well, God be praised, master sheriff, never better; for now I know I am almost at home”; and his meek expos­ tulation to the miscreant who threw a fagot at him, “which brake his face, so that the blood ran down his visage 83 “ O friend, I have harm enough; what needed that ?” attain to the summit of Christian resignation. The death of Sir Thomas More has ever been regarded as one of the most sublime examples of Christian fortitude on record. His perfect sweetness and self-possession have melted all hearts. He did nothing to provoke his fate, but, on the contrary, everything that his con­ science allowed him in order to escape it. At no time was he aggressive or self­ asserting. When condemned, his car­ riage was at once meek and manly. “When Sir Thomas was come now to the Tower-Wharfe, his best-beloved childe, my aunte Rooper, desirous to see her father whome she feared she should never see in this world after, to have his last blessing, gave there attendance to meete him; whome as soone as she had espyed, after she had receaved upon her knees his fatherlie blessing, she ranne hastilie unto him; and without consideration or care of herselfe, passing through the midst of the throng and guarde of men who with billes and halberds compassed him round, there openly in the sight of them all embraced him, not able to say anie word, but : Oh, my father ; oh, my father! He liking well her most naturall and deare affection towards him, gave her his fatherlie blessing; telling her, that whatever he should suffer, though he were innocent, yet it was not without the will of God; and that she knew well enough all the secrets of his hart, coun­ selling her to accommodate her will to God’s blessed pleasure, and bade her be patient for her losse. She was no sooner parted from him and gonne ten steppes, when she, not satisfied with her former farewell, like one who had forgotte herselfe, ravished with the intire love of so worthie a father, having neither respect to herselfe nor to the presse of the people about him, suddenly turned back, and ranne hastilie to him, tooke him about the necke and diverse times togeather kissed: whereat he spoke not a word, but carrying still his gravity, tears fell also from his eyes; yea, there �84 THE SERVICE OF MAN were very few in all the troupe who could refrain thereat from weeping, no not the guards themselves.”1 To give one more instance of Chris­ tian martyrdom; none the less tragic because it was enacted, not amid the tumult and profanity of a public execu­ tion, but in the inner chamber of a man of genius. At thirty years of age, Blaise Pascal determined to “ give up the world,” and began that course of mortification and prayer which, there can hardly be a doubt, shortened his days. He forsook his scientific labours, by which he had won, as a youth, a foremost rank among the mathematicians of Europe, devoted himself to reading the Scriptures and meditating his great work on the Chris­ tian religion ; of which only fragments, in the form of the immortal “ Thoughts,” were ever achieved. The physical priva­ tions and pain to which he subjected his emaciated body are described at length by his sister, Madame Perier, in a bio­ graphy which for simple grace and pathos rivals the best of Walton’s “ Lives.” To avoid wandering and worldly thoughts when engaged in conversation, “ he took an iron girdle full of sharp points, which he placed next to his flesh; and when conscious of an impulse to vanity, or even a feeling of pleasure in the place where he happened to be, he struck the girdle with his elbow in order to increase the pain of the punctures.” He ate a certain regulated quantity of food, whether hungry or not, never exceeding it, however good his appetite, and never eating less, however great his loathing; and this, on the ground that taking food was a duty, which was never to be accompanied by any sensual pleasure. When his sufferings were acute, and his friends expressed commiseration, he would answer, “ Do not pity me; illness is the state natural to Christians, because it places us in the condition we ought ever to be in—suffering evils, deprived of all the pleasures of sense, freed from 1 Life of Sir Thomas More, Knt., by his greatgrandson, Thomas More, Esq.,p. 264, ed. 1726. all the passions which afflict us through­ out life, without ambition, without cupidity, in the continued expectation of death.” He mortified his affections not less than his body, and said that we should never allow any one to love us with fondness; in fostering such attach­ ments we occupied hearts which ought to be given solely to God; that it was robbing Him of that on which He set most store. “ It is not right that others should attach themselves to me. Even if they do it willingly and with pleasure, I should deceive those in whom I excited such a feeling. Am I not about to die ? —the object of their love then will perish. As I should warn people against believ­ ing a falsehood, however profitable to me, I should warn them not to attach themselves to me ; for their duty is to spend their lives in striving to please God, or in seeking Him.” At his death there was found sewn up inside the lining of his doublet two small pieces of parch­ ment and paper, on which were written in identical words a series of brief sen­ tences, of which the meaning was mis­ conceived by Condorcet, who first pub­ lished them. The supposition was, that it was a “ mystic amulet,” which Pascal had worn next his person out of super­ stitious motives. Its real character is perfectly clear: a solemn record of the hour and date of his conversion to God and to a life of asceticism :— The year of grace, 1654. Monday, 23rd of November, St. Clement’s Day, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology. Eve of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others. From about half-past ten at night, till half an hour past midnight. Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob; not of philosophers and learned men. Certitude, certitude. Feeling, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. Deum meum es Deum vestrum. Thy God shall be my God----Oblivion of the world and everything save God. He is only to be found by the way taught in the Gospel. Greatness of the human soul. Righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee. Joy, joy, joy 1 tears of joy. �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE have left him---------------------------- - ----------Dereliquerunt me fontem aquae vivae. My God, wilt thou forsake me ?__-----------------May I not be separated from him for ever. This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Jesus Christ----------------------------- --------------- — Jesus Christ------------------------ ------------------ ;— I have left him : I have fled from him, denied him, crucified him. May I never be separated from him. He can only be kept by the way taught by the Gospel. Renunciation entire and sweet. Entire submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. Eternal joy for one day’s suffering on earth. Non obliviscar sermones tuos. Amen. “ What a noble mind is here o’erthrown will probably be the thought of many readers. And yet, why should that thought arise ? Doctrinal differences apart, can there be a doubt in any candid mind that Pascal strove with all the force and sincerity of his powerful mind and passionate nature to attain Christian holiness, and that he threw himself at the foot of the cross as com­ pletely and unreservedly as a human being could? Are his austerities and mortifications objected to ? The form of his asceticism may be questioned by different schools of theology; but no earnest, thorough-going Christian exists who does not deny himself one way or another, and admit asceticism in prin­ ciple. Indeed, asceticism represents a tendency in human nature far wider than Christianity, and, though liable to frightful perversions, is one of the noblest qualities possessed by man. It is one of the higher forms of courage, which not only endures or disdains suffering, but posi­ tively courts it, and finds a passionate and fiery joy in the sharp sting of pain. If man had instinctively the universal horror of pain which some moralists suppose him to have, he would never have been a hunter or a warrior. The delight of self-mastery in some natures easily gets the upper hand, and leads, according to circumstances, to the volun­ tary search for danger and suffering, or to the stern refusal of sensuous pleasure. 85 “ Quae major voluptas quam fastidium omnis voluptatis ?” asks Tertullian. The spirit of self-sacrifice is just as much a factor of human nature as the spirit of self-indulgence, though, like all the higher gifts, less common. The deplorable thing is that the precious gift should be wasted and thrown away on useless objects. The hero who suffers to save others contributes a direct and tangible good to the world by his action, and even a higher good indirectly by his example. The ascetic who tortures him­ self to please a cruel god does equal harm in both ways, to himself and others. Even the old Hebrew saw this when he wrote that his Lord “would have mercy, and not sacrifice.” As regards Christian asceticism, especially in the grosser forms of physical, self-inflicted torture, it is a subject which has not received, it would seem, the attention it deserves from Church historians. It arose early in the Church, which, like the austerer philosophic sects, the Stoics and Cynics, was led, by the calamities of the decaying Roman Empire, to take a gloomy and despondent view of the moral government of the universe, and to see the finger of an angry God in the in­ cessant woes with which mankind were then scourged. And? indeed, it is not easy to see, on Christian principles, how voluntary and unmerited suffering can be supposed to be displeasing to God. The whole scheme of Redemption supposes that God was so pleased with the suffer­ ings of the innocent Christ that, in con­ sideration for them, He forgave guilty man. The sufferings of Jesus were entirely voluntary ; His buffetings, scourgings, crucifixion, were all endured to expiate man’s sin; the ransom for his dis­ obedience, the precious blood-shedding which obtained innumerable benefits. If Christians would imitate Christ, should they not do so in this particular, the most characteristic of His office ? . If agony unspeakable, born by the Divine Son, the Lamb without blemish, was well-pleasing to His father, why should it be otherwise in sin-stained man ? �86 THE SERVICE OF MAN Protestant notions on this subject may be more rational, but they are far less scriptural. The whole idea of Chris­ tianity, as given in the New Testament, is steeped in suffering. “ Blessed are they that mourn”; “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” Why? Because “great is their reward in heaven.” The worship of the Man of Sorrows was not intended for the tender and the comfortable. “Who­ soever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” Those who assume a tone of sneering and contempt, for the mortifications of the Catholic saints, show that they are true heretics in the primitive sense of the word, inasmuch as they choose and select those words and parts of Scripture only which suit their preconceived views. Let us be rationalists by all means ; but let us be consistent rationalists, and consider the Bible as an interesting fragment of ancient Semitic literature. Those who profess to regard it as the Word of God, and yet ignore and neglect some of its clearest precepts, are not consistent. Any vitality which the Catholic revival of these latter years may have had in Europe or America is clearly traceable to its superior deference to the para­ mount and universal authority of those Scriptures which all Christians admit as binding in the last court of appeal. To return, however, to our more immediate subject—the spirituality of mind stimulated by Christianity, in the higher types of the Christian character. Within quite recent times three women have died, who, for complete detachment and recollection, for pro­ found sincerity and devotion to the Cross, may justly be regarded as the equals of any of the saints of old. I do not for a moment pretend to say that there have not been others equally devoted and sincere. Probably there have been many, to me unknown. But these are incontestably eminent enough in Christian virtue to serve as types of that spirituality which is the most characteristic result of profound Christian belief consistently carried out. The result is in many ways touching, and beautiful in the extreme. It is such flowers of exquisite perfume and beauty, grown in the garden of the soul, which still arrest the attention of a rationalistic age. And nothing can show how far the modern world has drifted away from the old Christian point of view than the fact that these three sweet saints have made so slight an impression upon it. Had they lived and worked as they did, in the Ages of Faith, their tombs would already have become sacred shrines, to which troops of pious pilgrims would be crowding to kneel and pray. Sister Agnes Jones, Mother Margaret Hallahan, and Sister Dora Pattison are the three pious women to whom I refer. Their lives have been written by loving hands; and, in the long series of religious biographies, more touching and graceful portraits would not easily be found. Amid many points of difference as to theological opinion, social position, and character, they yet had striking points of likeness. The passionate love and affection with which they inspired all who came within their influence show what warm-hearted, generous natures they possessed. Language seems to fail their biographers in attempting to render the devotion with which they were regarded. A dying pauper in the Liverpool workhouse said he thought he was in heaven when Agnes came to his bedside. A patient of Sister Dora stood “ up and reverently pulled his forelock as if he had pronounced the name of a saint or angel,” every time he mentioned her. Of Margaret it is written: “What struck me most in our dearest mother was her largeness of heart, and the total absence of self in all her words and actions.” A common trait of these remarkable women was a splendid physique and immense bodily strength. Agnes, the least distinguished �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE in this respect, was yet capable of enduring extraordinary bodily fatigue. “ After a whole night on duty in St. Thomas’s Hospital, she thinks it lazy to go to bed, and spends the day in walking and paying visits.”1 Of Dora, the surgeon of the Epidemic Hospital said : “ Sister Dora could set up all night and work all day with little or no rest; and, as far as I could judge, she was neither physically nor mentally the worse for it. Her strength was superhuman. I never saw such a woman.” And this will not appear an over-statement in the light of the following anecdote : “A delirious patient, a tall, heavy man, in the worst stage of confluent small-pox, threw him­ self out of bed in the dead of night, and with a loud yell rushed to the door before she could stop him. She had no time for hesitation, but at once grappled with him, all covered as he was with the loathsome disease. Her combined strength and determination prevailed, and she got him back into bed, and held him there by main force until the doctor arrived in the morning.”2 Margaret, if possible, was still stronger. Her biographer says: “ Possessed of extraordinary muscular power, she was rather proud of hearing herself called as strong as Samson; and when about seventeen years of age, seeing some men hesitate to lift a great iron stove, she thought to put them to shame, and carried it unassisted to the top of the house.” All three were brave, but Dora was lion-hearted beyond compare, and would face drunken ruffians in the slums of Walsall, into which the police would only venture with caution. All had powerful minds, though in no one of them had education been carried very far. Indeed, Margaret was wholly illiterate, and never mastered ortho­ graphy, geography, or arithmetic. Agnes had the usual education of a young lady of family and position forty years ago. Dora probably was the best trained of 1 Life, by her sister, p. 160. 2 Life, by Miss Lonsdale, p. 159. 87 the three. But native vigour of mind supplied all defects, and each showed a great faculty of government and organi­ sation, though in different degrees. Agnes, who died young, had not time to show her full power; but the last three years of her life, in charge of the Liverpool workhouse, with its fifteen hundred inmates, testified to her gifts in that direction. Dora was a lovely, fascinating despot, bending all hearts and wills by her supreme charm and force. Margaret was a born ruler, with thoroughly imperial qualities, who could have governed a state in perilous times as well as she governed her convents. If one might venture, in short, to imitate the nomenclature applied to the great Scholastics, we might call Agnes the Soror Angelica, so ineffably meek, resigned, and nunlike she was, for all her Protestant training; Dora the Sotor Practica, with her unequalled power of achieving work, whatever it might be; Margaret the Soror Dominatrix, by reason of her grand and imposing mind and character, which, in spite of her low birth and want of culture, made her more than the equal of the scholars, nobles, and ecclesiastics of her own Catholic Church. Now, is it not evident that all these women were simply women of extraor­ dinary genius ? Dora’s conversation was bewitching ; her alternate humour and pathos were the delight and solace of her nurses and patients, and made an ob­ server say that it was easy to see that she might have been a great novelist, if she had not chosen to be something greater and better. Margaret, though she could not spell the simplest words, showed, in her incessant correspondence, great powers of style. Agnes, though inferior to either in these respects, always writes with a simple, clear, and direct vigour which proves what a calm, strong brain she had. No one of them gave a thought to literature, but one sees that literature was easily within their reach, if they had aimed at it. Their distinction was founded on character, the supreme quality; warm, fearless �88 THE SERVICE OF MAN hearts, exquisite tenderness of con­ science, passionate self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty. Christians by training and inclination, they realised in their fervent hearts the meaning and purport of the gospel. According to the terms of their belief, “ they forsook all and followed ” Christ in their several ways— the Evangelical Agnes, the High-Church Dora, the Catholic Margaret. But even their pious biographers admit that, apart from the gifts of grace, which they were not likely to undervalue, their natural powers and endowments were extra­ ordinary. Of Margaret it is said that even at the first meeting the most prominent features of her character could not escape notice; “ the firm will, the clear and rapid judgment, the boundless power of sympathy, which won her the title of ‘ everybody’s mother.’” Miss Lonsdale tells us how “ a hard, sarcastic Scotchman,” who was a professed unbeliever, remarked of Dora, whose patient he had been: “ She’s a noble woman, but she’d have been that without her Christianity.” That is just the simple fact of the matter. Such heads and hearts as these are the property of no creed; they are the choice products of that maligned human nature which theologians tell us is cursed and lost unless it believes this or that article of faith. If the saintliness of these holy women depended upon their creed, why do not the thousands and millions who hold the same creed exhibit a like saintliness ? “ God did not give them the grace ” is the theolo­ gical answer ; and some are still satisfied with it. But the answer is evidently becoming unreal and meaningless. The doctrine of heredity and variation has deprived it of all weight. Strong minds and fervent hearts, like strong bodies, depend upon organisation; on the con­ stitution and quality of the brain. But brains “ are begotten, not made,” and grace never made a weak brain strong. The contemplation of these remarkable women suggests one or two more interest­ ing points of view. i. An experience of some eighteen centuries may be considered conclusive as to the limited hold which Christianity is capable of taking on mankind at large. From the days of St. Paul to the present time, the apathy and worldliness of the great mass of men and women calling themselves Christians has been the constant lamentation of all sincere preachers. Indeed, the parable of the Sower clearly announces that the fact was to be expected. The seed falls in four different places, and only in one does it bear fruit—where it fell on good ground. The Wicked one, the want of root, the cares of this world, and de­ ceitfulness of riches prevent its growth in the other places, which are evidently supposed to cover by far the larger area; and the parable of the Marriage of the King’s Son, with its conclusion, “ Many are called but few are chosen,” leaves no doubt on the matter. The obvious deduction is, that Christianity is only adapted to a very limited number of minds; that, for one reason or another, the many, called as they may be, will not “ hear the word and understand it.” And this is exactly what has happened with­ out interruption for nearly two thousand years; Christendom has never been evangelised, nor near being evangelised. Even the smallest and most select com­ munities of religious persons have their backsliders and formalists, who are, to use Mr. Spurgeon’s words, as religious as the seats they sit on. The high Calvin­ ists boldly face the difficulty, and say : “ No doubt the great mass of mankind are predestined from all eternity to damnation; it is only the elect who are really Christians, and go to heaven.” Calvinism is out of fashion now, and re­ proached with suggesting very unpleasant notions as to the moral character of the Deity ; but it is consistent and scriptural; I do not say sensible or orthodox. So far from Christianity being the universal religion it is affirmed to be, it is not even adapted to the majority of its own believers. You must have a very fine and peculiar organisation to be a true �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE Christian; a special genius, which gene­ rally declares itself in early life, as special genius is apt to do. A Sister Agnes or Mother Margaret takes to vital religion with the spontaneous affinity that Mozart took to music, Newton to mathematics, and Keats to poetry. Religious genius, in its highest form, is as rare, perhaps more rare, than genius in any other form ; and exalted piety is as unattainable to the common herd as exalted poetry. Bishop Ullathorne, who must have had large opportunities of seeing nuns and others who aimed with special earnestness at a religious life, yet declares of Margaret that she was distinguished from every other holy soul that he had been acquainted with, by three extraordinary gifts, which he mentions : her peculiar love of God ; the pain it cost her to turn from Him to self-introspection ; and her angelic purity. “Rare as suns,” he says, “are those souls which seem to act on other souls like a sacramental power, shedding the rays of their own inward sense of God and vital warmth of spirit into the souls that come within the sphere of their action.”1 And similar testi­ mony as to the rarity of the endow­ ments of Sisters Dora and Agnes are forthcoming from those who have had wide experience of religious persons. Yet, good as these pious women were, I suppose no priest or theologian would say that they had attained the furthest limit of Christian perfection. They all thought in their humility that they had fallen far short of it. What hope, then, is there for souls less richly endowed ? And let us observe how this pursuit of a spirituality utterly beyond attainment by ordinary mortals, beautiful as it is when attained, operates injuriously on the morality of average men and women. The standard proposed is so exalted that, instead of attracting the ordinary person to aim at reaching it, it discourages and repels him. He is inwardly conscious that he cannot possibly reach it, even if he tries ever so much. His preacher * Preface to Life of Mother Margaret. 89 will probably tell him that, if he trusts in his own strength, he can do nothing; but that, if he will only put all his trust in God and Christ, the end will be attained. But that is just what he is unable to do. He is exhorted to exert a spirituality of mind which, by the hypothesis, he has not got. It is like telling a man that, if he will only fly, he will reach great altitudes. He has not the wings. Even the saints have generally had long periods of pro­ bation and wrestlings with God before they could attain to that detachment, spirituality, and perfect faith which enabled them to perform the act of com­ plete self-renunciation required. Yet it is recommended to the common multitude, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. And what is the result? Setting apart the openly profane and wicked, who do not give a thought to the sub­ ject ; and, without denying it, simply ignore Christianity ; the bulk of worldly, unconverted believers pass their time in a middle state between sin and repent­ ance ; believers, but not doers, of the Word; wishing they could embrace their religion with entire earnestness, but too well aware that, constituted as they are, they are unable to do so. Of course, reference is made only to the true-hearted, honest folk who transgress from weakness, and not to the spiritually dead Pharisee who has no doubt about his righteousness. Such are, on all hands, admitted to be worse than the publicans and harlots. But the mass of common-place people who go to church or chapel, who are neither very good nor very bad, neither exceptionally clever nor stupid, the enormous middle-class of mediocrities, fairly just, conscientious, and kind-hearted, can it be denied that they are constantly deterred from em­ bracing a serious view of life’s duties, just because a standard of such exalted perfection is proposed to them that they know it is no use attempting to reach it ? They perhaps try, and fail, and they are more disheartened than before. They �9° THE SERVICE OE MAN then live with a mildly evil conscience, knowing that they ought to do better. But they are at once told that that is not enough; that they must do their best; that they must be perfect, as their Father which is in heaven is perfect. Then they do less than they could, out of sheer, weary dejection. In what other art or science do teachers begin by placing the most arduous problems before their pupils ? Young mathematicians are not set to work on the Differential Calculus in their first lessons; young artists are not expected to draw like Andrea, and colour like Titian. But the young catechumen is told that the first thing he must do “ is to renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh.” For the first precept of the first lesson, this must be admitted to be rather hard. How many saints, after a long life’s progress in holiness, have been equal to it ? To renounce the devil and all his works cannot be easy, if all that we are told of Satan’s power be true. But the “ good child ” is told that he must do this at once. By a subsequent after-thought on the part of the compiler, the learner is warned that he cannot do this and a great many other things of himself} he needs God’s special grace, “which he must learn to call for by diligent prayer.” Probably, to nine children out of ten “ diligent prayer,” commanded in this way, appears even more obscure and meaningless than renouncing the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. How cruel and heedless to place the last stage of spiritual evolution at the threshold of the neophyte’s progress. The whole Catechism and the larger part of sermons and Christian teaching are pervaded by the double error of supposing that the highest religious emotions are attainable by all, and that they may be inculcated at the earliest period of life. “ My duty towards God is to believe in him, to fear him, and to love him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and 'with all my strengths Perhaps the most prompt and certain way of checking an emotion in others is to tell them that it is their duty to feel it. Tell any one he ought to feel grateful, and you will probably make him ten times more ungrateful than he was before. We may be sure that no one ever loved God for being told that it was his duty to love him. Wise and good mothers, by gentle and indirect precept and very direct example, have led their little ones to piety; but then they used the subtle language of the heart. The unreality and inefficacy of sermons chiefly depend on the transcendent disproportion be­ tween the doctrine preached and the capacity to receive it by the audience addressed. A mixed congregation, con­ sisting of men whose thoughts are absorbed in business and women occu­ pied with dress and frivolities, are spoken to in language which would not be inadequate to the spiritual needs of angels. The result is a discrepancy between faith and practice which the profane are not slow to tax with hypo­ crisy. Neither religion nor morals gain by such exaggerations ; only the scoffers at all goodness, who delight in pointing out that so-called religious people are no better than their neighbours. To get the best you can out of men you must not ask more than they can give. But if you ask for that in the proper way, nearly all but the thoroughly bad will respond. By asking for the impossible, you get little or nothing, or worse than nothing; a conviction that religion is grimace, and a disbelief in the possibility of virtue. And now let us contemplate these three saints from another side : that of the value of their work, its usefulness in this world, and its power of diminishing human suffering. Before I go further I shall be met with a refusal to allow the question to be stated in this way. It will be said that these ladies considered far more the souls than the bodies of their patients, pupils, nurses, or nuns, as the case may be; that, although they strove earnestly �WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE to heal the sick, none more so, yet their real and main object was to win souls to Christ. I am not inclined to deny so obvious a fact; but it is one with which I cannot deal, because, as regards the result of their labours in that direction, I can form no opinion. It is wholly beyond my power to verify any statement on that head. Of the numbers who died in their presence, soothed and com­ forted beyond doubt, by their assured faith, their fervent prayers, and “tranquil regardent faces,” I cannot tell whether any or none ever passed “to where beyond these voices there is peace.” The point must be left undecided, to say the least, for want of evidence of an objective kind, as distinguished from evidence of a subjective kind, reposing entirely on faith. Believers must be satisfied with their own belief until they can advance arguments far more cogent than any which they have hitherto produced in support of it. Agnostics cannot be expected to argue on principles which they reject. But this does not wholly remove a common ground on which discussion can take place. The temporal work of these good women is offered to us as a proof of what the divine spirit can do when it finds fitting channels. Now, I will vie with any one in celebrating the unselfish devotion, the self-sacrifice, the warm love and sym­ pathy, which they all showed in assuaging human suffering, bodily or mental. I cannot read their lives without tears, and the admiration I feel for them may be truly called passionate. I regard them as inexpressibly lovely and attractive human souls, who, led on by their own warm women’s hearts, nearly, if not entirely, conquered self, and became like the beautiful alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very costly and precious, which, when poured out, filled the house with the odour of the ointment. But this profession does not preclude me from pointing out that, if the question is of diminishing human suffering, these pious workers did not take up the problem with any full sense of its magnitude; 9i did not begin high enough up in their efforts to stop the stream of evil and pain. While the value of good nursing can hardly be exaggerated, it can never be more than an adjunct of practical medicine. It is in biological and patho­ logical research, with the object of discovering and destroying the germs and origin of disease, that science now justly rests its main hope of serving humanity. And is there not already ample reason for looking on this hope as well-founded? The anecdote, quoted a few pages back, of Sister Dora grappling with the delirious patient in his loathsome condition from confluent small-pox, presents a graphic and even sensational picture of self-devotion for the welfare of a fellow-creature. The deed was heroic and admirable, whether the sufferer’s life was ultimately saved or not. But now, regard the method of science in encountering disease, and this particular malady of small-pox. A man of genius, with his eyes open, observes that milkmaids inoculated with cow-pox are not susceptible to the graver con­ tagion, and Jenner, after careful and elaborate experiments, announces the discovery of vaccination. There is nothing to appeal to the dramatic sym­ pathies in this, nothing to stir emotion in the ordinary spectator. On the con­ trary, at the time it was considered to afford material for ridicule as a sample of scientific absurdity. But which method has been most profitable to humanity ? Have all the self-sacrifices of all the Doras and Sisters of Mercy in the world spared mankind a tithe of the suffering which has been pre­ vented by vaccination? The epidemic of small - pox at Walsall, in which Sister Dora played so noble a part, appears formidable and shocking to us, with our modern ideas of the subject. But, in the last century, before Jenner, it would, in the dimensions it had, have been considered beneath notice. Half the population might have been swept away without attracting par­ ticular attention. That was the way �92 THE SERVICE OF MAN likened the temper excited in some with small-pox, and people were resigned. portions of the clerical world by the It was the finger or the wrath of God, recent growth of physical science to the chastening men for their sins. Now, as one might expect in these anger and alarm with which the savage biographies, in no one instance is scien­ views the progress of an eclipse; and tific inquiry ever mentioned as a duty of that the comparison was just these the slightest importance or value. It sentiments of Mother Margaret suffi­ would be simple indeed to look for any­ ciently show. It is a favourite theme thing of the kind in such a quarter. with theologians to maintain that the The point of view is wholly different. love of God leads to the loftiest and God present everywhere, doing or per­ purest love of man, and 1 John iv. 20 mitting all that happens, is the invariable is quoted with effect. But a long experi­ presumption. Sister Dora on one occa­ ence has shown that a verse of the sion offered to pay a visit to a friend. Psalms is often a truer statement of the “But,” she added, “of course, if the actual fact. “ Shall I not hate them, O Master comes and calls for me, and Lord, that hate thee ?” Can we doubt sends us in more cases, I cannot come.” that Mother Margaret, who, for all her The “ Master,” of course, is God; and warm-heartedness, could rejoice in so the cases were cases of small-pox, which dreadful a thing as shipwrecks, just he was supposed to send on the one because, in her narrow bigotry, she hand, and to call Dora to nurse on the thought they were a rebuke to men of other. This is the prevailing tone. But science, could also have assisted at an in neither of the Protestant lives is there Auto da Fe without compunction, if told any direct railing at science. In the it was required by the interests of her Catholic life it is very different. There creed ? we meet the flash of anger and hatred The particular case we have been for science, characteristic of the theolo­ considering is significant enough in itself, gian who fears that his God is in danger. as typical of the different methods of Considering her entire want of scientific theology and science, in their contention or philosophical culture, Mother Mar­ against human suffering. But it sug­ garet showed great penetration in her gests much wider issues: the whole remark on this subject. When she first question of the great campaign against caught sight of the Britannia Bridge she vice, evil, and misery. The principle exclaimed : “ Oh, how wonderful ! But of Christian charity is to palliate and if men do such things as these, they assuage physical and social evils in will begin to think they have no their last and extreme form. If you need of God.” And her biographers meet a beggar, give him alms; if you tell us she felt a certain satisfaction have no money, divide your cloak when some of the wonderful modern with him, as did St. Martin. Feed the discoveries came to nought. She was hungry, clothe the naked. In a word, glad to hear that the laying of the run with prompt love and sympathy to first Atlantic cable had failed; and, succour every case of mortal distress what is still worse, and is a stain on her that comes within your reach. Do this memory, she was even pleased that, “ in in remembrance of Christ, and be spite of storm-signals and meteorological blessed. He would be a cold and theories, the wrecks on the English coast shallow student of history who ventured increased, instead of diminishing in to speak of this spontaneous movement number.”1 “ I like these learned gentle­ of the heart with disrespect. The Chris­ men to know,” she would say, “ that tian care for the sick and infirm was God is master.” Professor Huxley once unknown to the pagan world. It was the best and only thing to do under the circumstances. Science was not; and 1 Life, p. 231. �WHA T CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE relief, such relief as could be given by poor, uninstructed fellow-men, was all that could be had. But science has slowly and gradually discovered and proved that social and physical evil and pain may not only be soothed, but anticipated and prevented. Not that it neglects palliatives of suffering; on the contrary, it applies them with an efficacy and power utterly beyond the conception of former ages. But it does more; it nips evil in the bud, or rather in the seed, and does not wait for its full efflorescence before it attacks it. Physical, social, and moral evil, disease and sin, it regards as so many pathological con­ ditions, which we may reasonably hope to correct, modify, and ultimately to suppress. As regards physical disease, this position would hardly be questioned even by the most orthodox. Several of the most formidable afflictions to which human and animal bodies are subject have already been got under control. Small-pox and typhoid fever are, we may say, understood and practically mastered; that is, they are not allowed to spread and devastate as they formerly did. A number of other maladies with which it once seemed hopeless to contend are even now passing into the class of the controllable disorders, as consumption, rabies, and cholera. Similarly with regard to pauperism and other social disorders. The prompt and easy narcotic of charity is not to be universally proscribed as uniformly evil, but it is ascertained to be of dangerous application, and liable to aggravate the evil it pretends to cure. Pauperism can only be combated with success by that knowledge of social and economic laws which corresponds to the knowledge of biological laws in the neighbouring science. It may be proper 93 and wise, in a given case, to divide your coat with a beggar; the only thing that a humane man would or could do. But it is vastly more important to ascertain the social and economic causes of the beggar’s existence; and, if he be a common phenomenon, to correct those breaches of the laws of social health which make his emergence possible. Again, with regard to ethics. Moral evil, or sin, can only be successfully corrected by such an investigation and knowledge of man’s mental, emotional, and physical constitution, that that part of conduct which is concerned with morals may be directed in a way that conduces to the highest individual and social happiness and well-being. In a word, the Christian principle is to act from spontaneous charity and bene­ volence with such means as are imme­ diately to hand: to regard evil, pain, and disease as trials sent by God for his own wise ends; chastisements, meant for our rebuke or guidance, to make us turn to him, and leave off caring for a temporal, wicked, and miserable world. The principle of science is directly contrary. It has already pre­ vented numberless evils in a way which would have appeared to our forefathers quite miraculous. Admitting that there will, perhaps, be always a residue of unconquerable evils which science cannot hope to remove, it is maintained that the resignation produced by a clear view of the impossible and inevitable is more complete than that which never wholly renounces the hope of divine aid. Mother Margaret was quite right in her fears; “but if men do such things as these, they will begin to think that they can do without God.” That thought is rapidly spreading over the civilised world. �94 THE SERVICE OF MAN Chapter VIII. THE SERVICE OF MAN The results of the previous inquiry would seem to be as follows :— 1. That a widespread tendency exists in this, and still more in other countries, to give up a belief in Christianity. And that the scepticism of the present day is very far more serious and scientific than was the deism of the last century. 2. That the supposed consolations of Christianity have been much exaggerated. And that it may be questioned whether that religion does not often produce as much anxiety and mental distress as it does of joy, gladness, and content. 3. That by the great doctrine of forgive­ ness of sins consequent on repentance, even in the last moment of life, Chris­ tianity often favours spirituality and salva­ tion at the expense of morals. 4. That the morality of the Ages of Faith was very low ; and that the further we go back into times when belief was strongest, the worse it is found to be. 5. That Christianity has a very limited influence on the world at large ; but a most powerful effect on certain hightoned natures, who, by becoming true saints, produce an immense impression on public opinion, and give that religion much of the honour which it enjoys. 6. That, although the self-devotion of saints is not only beyond question, but supremely beautiful and attractive, yet, as a means of relieving human suffering and serving man in the widest sense, it is not to be compared for efficiency with science. It is sufficiently obvious that, unless the tendencies which we have been con­ sidering meet with a strange and unex­ pected arrest, the result, in a not distant future, must be a general disappearance of Christianity from among the more advanced populations of the globe. In making this statement, one naturally I recalls the grave irony of the Advertise­ ment prefixed to the first edition of Butler’s Analogy, which is often cited as affording a good example of the way in which the hopes of unbelievers may be deceived. “ It is come, I know not how,” says Butler, “to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Chris­ tianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, at length, now discovered to be fictitious. And accord­ ingly they treat it, as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.” The “people of discernment,” it is pointed out, were very much mistaken in their assumption that Christianity was discovered to be fictitious. The Analogy was written nearly a hundred and fifty years ago; and, for a fictitious system, Christianity still shows con­ siderable vitality. The number of new churches and chapels built, the zeal and activity of the clergy and missionaries, the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, and similar facts, are adduced, not without a certain tone of triumph, as sufficient evidence of how groundless and shallow the hopes of the “ sceptic ” have proved to be in this particular case. Both the original text of Butler and the modern commentaries upon it rather show how remote is the scientific and historical point of view from the religious, and what a far-off stage of thought Butler’s expressions represent. The word “ fictitious ” alone, as applied to an ancient and widespread religion, jars upon the ear. As if great phases of human thought and feeling could be invented, like a stage play, or concocted �THE SERVICE OF MAN by designing priests for the sake of gain.' That this really was the current deistical opinion is certain, and it was crudely expressed in the famous silly verses :— “ Natural Religion was easy, first, and plain; Tales made it mystery, offerings made it gain ; Sacrifices and shows were at length prepared, The priests ate roast meat, and the people stared.” A wider knowledge of human nature, past and present, has made such trivial conceptions impossible. No form of the religious sentiment is now regarded as fictitious; but, on the contrary, as the serious and solid result of the stage of evolution in which it appears. Similarly with regard to making Christianity a subject of mirth and ridicule. No one with a reputation to lose would think of speaking with levity of the Christian or any religion. Nothing would be con­ sidered better proof of incompetence to handle such subjects than such a tone. The world is older and sadder, and on the whole wiser, than it was in Butler’s day. The alleged interruption of the pleasures of the world by Christianity is open to question as a matter of fact. Pleasures in abundance, and of a sufficiently coarse kind, were indulged in without difficulty in the Ages of Faith. The “ eat, drink, and be merry ” temper is generally discountenanced in theory; and, even in practice, is less rife than it was among our forefathers. In fact, the result of historical specula­ tion has been, with regard to Christianity, the same as the result of biological speculation has been with regard to man. Both have been taken from the isolation and independence in which they were supposed to exist, with reference to other members of the same order; and have been included in the larger classifi­ cation which places man at the head of vertebrate animals and Christianity at the head of supernatural religions. The biological view has prevailed, one may say, with surprising rapidity, considering the amount of prejudice which had to be overcome. The historical view has 95 naturally triumphed less completely, in­ asmuch as scientific history is a much younger science than biology. But the end will be the same. Christianity is already classed, by a large and growing number of the most competent historical inquirers, simply as the last and finest specimen of a group of beliefs, which, in one form or another, are co-extensive with humanity and history. If this view should prove to be slower in gaining acceptance than the biological view of the descent of man, the reason will, probably, be not wholly referable to the position of history in the order of the sciences. Distasteful as it was to human vanity to prove that man had descended from an anthropoid ape, which again had descended from a bird or a reptile, the idea still is one which can be put aside, which ordinary folk need not think of in daily life, and which involves no imme­ diate practical consequences to them­ selves. The final admission, that Chris­ tianity is not fictitious, indeed, in Butler’s phrase, but simply a form of thought unsuited to a scientific age, and therefore no longer tenable by an educated population, is attended by far greater difficulties. Very obvious practical consequences are involved in such a conclusion, which cannot readily be ignored. If the belief in God, Christ, and the other articles of the Christian faith must rationally be relin­ quished, people ask : What are you going to put in their place ? What rule of life do you propose to substitute for the one removed ? What is the successor to Christianity as a religion? Or will it have no successor ? And some even go so far as to inquire what is to become of those spiritual and religious instincts which have hitherto found their exercise and satisfaction in a religion now pro­ nounced to be incompatible with the new knowledge. Natural instincts are not to be suppressed by the theories of savants, however scientific; and it is argued that the religious sentiment is as much a per­ manent factor of human nature as the logical intellect, and must, necessarily, �9& THE SERVICE OF MAN survive its endlessly varied and often un­ stable conclusions. The religious sentiment, or that group of emotions so-called, is one thing, and the Christian or any particular religion is another. The religious sentiment has, during the course of ages, assumed many divergent forms, and at this day is repre­ sented in the most dissimilar and diver­ sified beliefs and ceremonies. The original elements of human nature are all capable of morphological develop­ ment and change in their manifestations, although they remain fundamentally the same. Nothing could well be a more permanent constituent of human nature than the instinct which leads to marriage; but few things have varied more than the institution of marriage. From marriage by capture, through polygamy, polyandry, down to the monogamy of modern States, which still show great differences of detail in their laws on the subject, the legal relations of the sexes have varied with the knowledge, culture, and civilisa­ tion of the times. It is the same with regard to government and civil institu­ tions, with regard to war and its usages, with regard to the notions of right and wrong. What reason can be given to lead us to suppose that the religious sen­ timent alone should remain fixed and crystallised in one form, and that a recent one, which supervened in historical times, and was preceded by a great variety of previous forms ? Obviously none. When, therefore, we are asked what religion we propose to substitute in place of the old one, now threatened with ex­ tinction, the answer is that no such pre­ tension is entertained for a moment. Religions are organic growths, and are no more capable of fabrication than animals or plants. The notion that indi­ vidual men can found religions—that is, invent them out of their own heads, and set them going, is on a par with the notion that men can found States and create policies which last for ages. Both notions were prevalent, and not irrational once, when neither man nor, society was conceived as subject to natural laws. So it was really believed that Lycurgus founded the Spartan State, and Romulus the Roman; that Moses founded Juda­ ism, and Mohammed, Islam. No mis­ conception could be greater, and none is more certain to disappear. That longprepared changes are often suddenly accomplished, under the inspiring leader­ ship of a great man, is beyond question; and it is quite natural that the great man’s name should be associated with the change in which he took a prominent part. But he did not make the change, in the sense of founding or beginning something new, which would not have existed without him. His function, and it was great indeed, was to have intellect enough to see the need of change, and courage and will enough to help it for­ ward, to direct forces which were already at hand. All great changes in Church or State exemplify this truth, in propor­ tion as we are able to observe them with accuracy of detail. Nothing is more certain than that, in one sense, Julius Caesar overthrew the Republic, and founded the Empire of Rome. But how long had such a revolution been pre­ paring ? From the days of the Scipios, or of Sulla and Marius. Or might it not be dated from the earliest con­ stitution of Rome, which rendered a municipal form of government inade­ quate, and finally impossible, for a wide Empire? All great social revolutions result from long precedent, although, perhaps, occult growth, as parturition, in the body physical, pre-supposes em­ bryonic growth. Similarly with regard to the Reformation. Luther, in vulgar Catholic or Protestant opinion, is credited with the whole glory, or infamy, of the revolt from Rome. But from the days of Wicliffe and Huss the entire Church had been seething with projects of reform; and Luther can only claim the honour of having, in the fulness of time, given the critical impulse which liberated forces accumulated during hun­ dreds of previous years. There can be no question, therefore, �THE SERVICE OF MAN of making and offering a New Religion to the world at the present juncture. Our first task must be to try and dis­ cover what is the spontaneous tendency of thought and sentiment on this matter. What is the direction which evolution may be expected to take ? If that can be ascertained, a great point will be gained. Three courses are always open to men called upon to deal with great social and moral tendencies. They may be blindly resisted ; they may be blindly stimulated and hastened; they may, by careful study and observation of their a nature, be largely controlled and directed; J that is to say, they may be dealt with in a spirit of reaction, or in a spirit of revo' lution, or in a spirit of orderly and con­ scious progress. Reaction, when con­ ducted on a large scale with unflinching vigour, by no means always fails. The Moslem Obscurantists in Spain suc­ ceeded in crushing Arab philosophy.1 The Catholic Church has several times ex­ tirpated opinions, by the efficient method of killing those who held them. In Spain, Bohemia, Italy, and Belgium, Protestantism was stamped out, like the rinderpest, by prompt and persevering slaughter. It is a method difficult of prolonged application; and it is gene­ rally avenged. The state of religion in Catholic countries, and the animosity felt towards it by large numbers of the proletariat, are not encouraging examples. The Protestants have not been behind r the Catholics in their willingness to prosecute, but they have seldom had equal power. In Ireland, however, they nearly reached the highest level of per­ formance in that line. With what disaster to all of us is now only too apparent. How evil, on the other hand, the revo­ lutionary spirit can be has been well shown by France in the eighteenth cen­ tury—first in speculation, and afterwards in politics. The precipitate conclusions of the philosophes, although proceeding on principles fundamentally sound, as ’ See Renan, Averroes. 97 subsequent results have p’roved, were yet marked by a heat and haste which led to the romantic reaction, and the Idealist and Transcendental Philosophies which nearly suspended rational speculation for half a century. It is unnecessary to dwell on the indelible harm done to orderly progress by the violence of the Revolution, which to this day supplies reactionaries with some of their best weapons against a large and generous liberalism. Perhaps the sober, prudent, middle course we have mentioned, which, while frankly accepting and using the new lights obtained, does not exaggerate their illuminating power, is destined in this age to avoid the dangers associated with either of the two extremes. The essence of practical religion at all times has been Sacrifice. However the origin of religion is to be explained—and anthropologists in later times seem to have elucidated the subject with much success by ancestor worship, the ghost, and other theories—propitiatory sacrifice has been the unfailing mark and memo­ rial of religious belief. It is unnecessary to produce evidence of a statement so redundantly supported. "What chiefly deserves notice in this connection is the progressive change in the character of the sacrifice, corresponding with mental evo­ lution. In earlier' times human sacri­ fices were, probably, everywhere regarded as the most pleasing and powerful with the deities. Every form of possession valued by primitive people was readily lavished on the altar of the gods, either to avert their wuath or to secure their favour; cattle, first-fruits especially, as at once the most costly to the worshipper and the most acceptable to the Divinity. In time this gross form of propitiation was transcended, and even the later Jewish prophets speak of it with disdain. As the conceptions of the moral cha­ racter of the gods grew loftier, the notion of the sacrifices calculated to please them rose in proportion. As men attained to worthier ideas of moral excellence, they recognised that sacrifice of their own baser instincts was likely to be the most H �98 THE SERVICE OF MAN pleasing offering to a moral deity. “ A wise man,” says a passage in the Insti­ tutes of Menu, “should constantly dis­ charge all the moral duties, though he perform not constantly the ceremonies of religion, since he falls low if while he performs ceremonial acts only, he dis­ charges not his moral duties.”* And the same law prescribes “content, returning good for evil, resistance to sensual appe­ tites, abstinence from illicit gain, purifi­ cation, coercion of the organs....... veracity, and freedom from wrath.”23 Yet the cruelty and obscenity of the early Hindu religion are beyond doubt. The frank indecencies and immoralities of primitive creeds are in time explained away by mystical allegories of the most spiritual purity. “ The lascivious form of a naked Venus,” says Gibbon, refer­ ring to the fancies of the Neo-Platonists, “ was tortured into the discovery of some moral precept or some physical truth, and the castration of Atys explained the revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of the human soul from vice and error.”3 The primitive meaning of the phallus in India, according to Mr. Wilson, is entirely forgotten. “ The form under which the Lingam is wor­ shipped, that of a column, suggests no impure ideas, and few of the uneducated Hindus attach any other idea to it than it is Siva; they are not aware of its typical character.”4 The next point is that primitive reli­ gion had little or no connection with human welfare, apart from the action of supernatural beings. Its chief or only object was to guard the worshipper from injuries which came from the spirit­ world, or to procure him benefits from the same origin. From a natural, mun­ dane point of view, primitive religion was oftener evil than good. It sacrificed human life and property on the imaginary propitiation of fictitious deities. It is highly probable, indeed, that even the 1 2 3 4 Mill's History of India, Book II., cap. 6. Ibid., Book II., cap. 6. Decline and Fall, c. xxiii. Note to Mill’s India, loc. cit. most horrid primitive cults were indi­ rectly beneficial, as means of discipline, and of adapting to social conditions the semi-brutal instincts of prehistoric man. In that respect primitive religion re­ sembled war, which, destructive as it was in one sense, is still recognised as one of the most educational phases which humanity has passed through. But, just as the antagonism between sacrifice and morality was gradually overcome, so the hostility of primitive religion to human welfare was in time replaced by an approximation to concord between them. The angle of divergence became pro­ gressively less. Worship of the gods tended more and more to coincide with the welfare of man. The humanisation of the various polytheistic religions of the world has been very unequal, both in degree and rapidity, depending, as it necessarily must, on the unequal progress in knowledge and civilisation. The Hindus in three thousand years have made less progress in purging their primitive beliefs of their cruelty and grossness than the Romans did in five hundred years. But the general rule holds good, that a progressive people, even without foreign help from more advanced populations, tends to outlive the primitively barbarous and noxious elements of its creed, and to retain those which harmonise with general utility.1 The Christian religion has been no exception to this rule; in fact, it would not be easy to mention a religion which has profited more by the general growth of knowledge and civilisation than the Christian. It has been claimed, not without a show of reason, that it is a peculiar and exceptional merit of Chris­ tianity that it has been able to adapt itself to most unequal and divergent stages of culture, and that it has met the wants of barbarous and civilised races with equal success. Though the time is obviously approaching, if it 1 Polybius’s testimony to the value of the Roman religion, as enforcing honesty, is too well known to need quoting (lib. vi., cap. 56). �THE SERVICE OF MAN has not been already reached, when its alleged adequacy to the needs of civilised society becomes more and more questionable, it may be frankly ad­ mitted that Christianity has surpassed all other religions in its power of keeping up with human evolution. The fact is, no doubt, owing to the large element of Greek philosophy grafted on Christianity by the Greek and Latin fathers, and even by St. Paul. The religion would probably not have survived into modern times unless it had possessed this elas­ ticity and capacity of modification, which have allowed it to exist side by side with the most divergent beliefs on other subjects. A Catholic Christian of the fifth and one of the nineteenth century would, if they could meet in the flesh, agree in reference to the Creeds of the Church, but they would be able to agree in little besides. If we could have a conversation with the great St. Augustine, we should soon fail to find common ground for argument, whether as to matters of fact, principles of reasoning, or even as to the interpreta­ tion of Scripture; and it may even be doubted if the present able and accom­ plished Pope, who has so deep a venera­ tion for St. Thomas Aquinas, would not find a prolonged discussion on things in general difficult to maintain with the Angel of the Schools. Yet St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and Leo XIII., must be admitted to be thoroughly orthodox and authentic Christians. But this flexibility and adaptability of Christianity on the intellectual side are not the qualities with which we are chiefly concerned at this moment. The point I would bring out' is the incomparably greater em­ phasis laid by modern Christians on all that concerns human well-being than was usually done by their predecessors. In the old days the Faith, holy living, and especially holy dying, were the great themes of Christian preachers. The true Faith was literally all-important, as, without it, you were hopelessly lost, whatever else you might do or be. Hence, the Faith was to be fought for 99 and suffered for at any cost. Wars, massacres, burnings, tortures, were trivial considerations compared with the one thing needful, which alone could lead to heaven. And we know that these plagues were scattered through many centuries without stint or remorse. After the true Faith was gained, the next chief thing was to make a good use of it, and. by a holy life and a repentant death to. save your soul. Earthly miseries, famines,, pestilences, ignorance, chronic poverty, were lamentable, no doubt; but the famines and the pestilences were espe­ cially so, as manifestations of God’s wrath, who was thus chastising a wicked world. Their proper and only antidote was prayer, and repentance, and humilia­ tion before God, who might thereby be induced to stay his hand. Such afflic­ tions were incidental to the lot of man, the appropriate retribution for sin, to be borne with resignation. As for combating them by human means and knowledge,, with a view to suppressing them, if such an idea could have emerged, it would have been unquestionably pronounced impious and shocking. The only recog­ nised form of relief was charity : the rich must give of their abundance to the poor, and they would be repaid in heaven. The Church of Rome gave practical effect to this view by the admi­ rable and useful institution of, first, the Freres de la Charite, founded by the Portuguese Johann Ciudad, 1497, and afterwards of the Filles de la Misericorde, the work of the saintly Vincent of Paul, 1634. Every form of praise and honour is due to those good men and women who devoted themselves without stint to the relief of human misery, regardless of the more profitable pursuits of Church politics and theological controversy. But the very foundation of these institutions showed that they supplied a great want which had not been furnished by the Church before ; and they were, after all, only a small and subordinate section of the vast hierarchy which had shared the dominion of the world with the temporal power. St. Vincent of Paul met in the �IOO THE SERVICE OF MAN ranks of the secular clergy with some of his most stubborn opponents.1 A Now, it is hardly too much to say that in recent times the whole attitude of the clergy in all countries has been changed with regard to social questions. Nearly every form of relief now, in greater or lesser degree, passes through their hands. The improvement of the condition of the poor seems very often to be the chief occupation of many a hard-worked parish priest. To rescue •children from vice and temptation, to inform their minds with virtuous prin­ ciples, to clothe and feed their bodies, •to ameliorate the dwellings of their parents, and admit a ray of light and brightness into the squalor of their daily lives—these and similar objects occupy the time and minds of Christian ministers to a degree which was never even remotely approached in the past. In other words, Christian doctrine, or, at least, Christian practice, has been gradually brought into harmony with human and terrestrial wants, so as almost to run parallel with them. The world has much changed. The cessation of religious controversy is a surprising phenomenon. In place of the storm .and fury with which polemics formerly filled the air, we have now a great calm. The small sputter of theological disputes still occasionally heard is as the explo­ sion of squibs and crackers compared to that of the heavy ordnance in the mighty controversies of old. Thus we find two permanent factors running through the religions of the past in all their changes of outward presenta­ tion : sacrifices on the part of the wor­ shipper ; and a gradual approximation of the service of the gods to the service of man. Neither of these factors is the exclusive property of any one religion; and both of them in some degree, perhaps, may belong to all. They are quite capable of detachment and isola­ tion from the surroundings with which they are usually associated in theological 1 See Feillet, La Misire an Temps de la Fronde. creeds. Sacrifice admits of almost in­ finite degrees both in quality and quan­ tity, from an offering of a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons up to a hundred oxen; from the most partial control of the coarsest passions up to saintly abnegation of every impure or selfish desire. And the spirit of sacrifice, the postponing of self to others, the giving up what the natural man loves and values, whether possessions or cherished lusts, is so little restricted to the worshippers of a God or gods that it may be said in its highest form to be unattainable by them. The worshipper of a god never quite transcends the hope of a recompense for his devotion—not from men, but from “ his Father which seeth in secret,” and who shall reward him openly. And this feeling springs inevitably from the very conception of a deity, especially if he be God Almighty. A creature can be on no terms of recipro­ city with his Creator; he can only be a recipient from God, never a Tenderer back of good. The very thought of performing an act of kindness or sym­ pathy to God is absurd. The infinite disparity between the. two beings, man and his Maker, has as a consequence that “ every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” Only to his fellows can man be completely altruistic, “hoping for nothing again.” That numbers of men and women among the higher races are capable of acts of unalloyed altruism, in which there is not a vestige of after­ thought tending to self-advantage, will only be denied by the naturally cynical, or by those educated in an evil religious or philosophic system. The mother who tends her sick child and scorns any counsels to spare her health and strength ; the rough miner who bids his mate seize the one chance of escape up the shaft, as he has a wife and children, whereas the speaker is a bachelor; the surgeon who sucks diphtheric poison from a dying child’s throat and dies himself in consequence—are examples of the love and sacrifice even now to be found in the nobler hearts. And it is �THE SERVICE OF MAN denying evolution in fact and theory to question the certainty that they will become less exceptional than they now are. But in this capacity of sacrifice regardless of self we have the purest essence of the best religions—a human quality which exists, which has been evolved in the long travail of the world, but which may be cultivated with pros­ pects of vastly greater increase now that its supreme beauty and price are per­ ceived and valued. When the mental and moral qualities of man are regarded as subject, in common with other forms of life, to the law of heredity and variation, their cultivation and improvement will be conducted on the scientific basis which has already produced such sur­ prising results in other parts of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The plasticity of human nature is even yet but little appreciated, though what the Spartans, the Stoics, and the Jesuits succeeded in doing with their imperfect empirical methods is suggestive enough. But these, or the two latter at least, only contemplated the education of the individual. What is wanted is the con­ scious cultivation, enlightened by science, of society as a whole. As regards the end to which religions have in an unconscious way more or less tended—the general well-being—there will probably be little difficulty in admit­ ting that it is an object which civilised man has proved himself capable of attaining in a considerable measure already. The superiority of the modern nations, not only to savages, but even to their own not very remote ancestors, is beyond dispute; and this not only in reference to physical well-being, but to all the higher sentiments and endow­ ments of man. Imperfect as our social state still is, heartrending as the condi­ tion of the poor in town and country must be pronounced to be, it is, never­ theless, vastly in advance of previous con­ ditions, and our own sensitiveness and shame on the subject, though we are not yet sensitive and ashamed enough, are in themselves evidence of improvement. ioi Arduous as the social problem is acknow­ ledged to be, and sore as the suffering is likely to be before it is finally solved, few can deny that it is capable of solu­ tion, and that by human means. The abolition of laws which favour the rich and strong, and sacrifice the poor and weak, has, in a small way, begun, and we may depend that in a democracy it will not easily be arrested. A better distri­ bution and a moralisation of wealth are approaching with a rapidity which is not exaggerated by the panic fears of the amazed Few, who hear with astonish­ ment and horror that the world is-no longer made for idlers only. The period of social revolution into which we are about to enter will probably be marked by many mistakes, and not a few crimes. Man’s capacity for blunder is very great. He smarts for his blunders, and in time corrects them. But the point to be noted is that the social revolution will be ac­ complished on secular principles, that this province of practical life is once forall severed from any theological inter­ ference. The proletariat of Europe is resolved to have its fair share of the banquet of life, quite regardless of the good or bad things in store for it in the next world.1 It comes, therefore, to this, that the spirit of sacrifice evolved in the theologicaL 1 See the Times (which seldom outruns public­ opinion), November 18th, 1884. In the third leading article it is said, speaking of the East London Mission:—“The great enemy which has to be met in dealing with this class [the poor] is not active hostility, but total and almost impenetrable indifference. Hostility to the clergy, as such, cannot be said to be widespread in London...... The London artisan looks on the clergyman as at worst a man who is engaged in a work with which he individually has little or no concern; he does not interfere with the parson, and he hopes that the parson will not interfere with him.......Taken in the mass, the lower classes in London are too much occupied in the struggle for existence, and in the attempt to make their lives endurable, to give many thoughts to the other world.” The writer con­ trasts the very different temper of the Parisian ouvrier, who “regards the priest as a monster”; but he admits that there is an element of active hostility to the clergy in our midst. �102 THE SERVICE OF MAN stage is now severed from and inde­ pendent of its parent. Its office is no longer the same. Sacrifice to invisible godo, with prayer sent up to the immor­ tals, imploring pardon, or peace, or some earthly good, have afforded hope and consolation to the sons of men in the long, dark centuries when knowledge was not, when visible man and nature were so hostile that faith and trust in the unseen seemed the only refuge, that only “beyond the veil” was a sure friend to be found. A bitter experience has at last taught us that the immortals are deaf, that no prayers, however passionate, are heard, save by the care-laden hearts which utter them. Thus, the worship of deities has passed into the “ Service of Man.” Instead of Theolatry, we have Anthropolatry. The divine service has become human ser­ vice. The accumulated experience of mankind is beginning to bear fruit. Two things have been ascertained with suffi­ cient exactness to serve as guides, both in practice and theory. First, the kind of conduct needed by a social condition such as ours—that is to say, the outlines ■of a progressive morality suited to the present age, are fairly settled. Secondly, the kind of social condition desired, and ■already partially in view, which shall supersede the present inferior one, is also in its main features apprehended. The two factors work together to one result, “complete life carried on under social conditions.”1 The Service of Man consists in furthering both. The higher moralisation of the individuals composing the social group will raise the quality of the social group itself, and the improved group will react upon individuals and enable them to lead higher lives. In a word, we are now in a position to pursue human well-being as a conscious aim, with good prospect of success. We know fairly well the road along which we intend to travel, and we know the kind of human co-operation needed to enable 1 Herbert Spencer’s Data of Ethics, p. 130. us to do so; the type of character and disposition needed to render social help. And we know, further, that society possesses now, in a degree it never possessed before, the means of exact­ ing conformity to this type. Public opinion, as it used to be called, but for which a better expression would be the “collective conscience,” is already able to impose a standard of public and private morals, and to punish, with penalties keenly felt, a manifest infe­ riority to it. Even in the political world singleness of purpose, a true public and social spirit, are valued more than great talent and eloquence without them. A life of selfish ease and indulgence is pardoned to great wealth and position with less readiness than formerly; and, with the growth of democracy, such a temper must necessarily spread, both in extent and intensity. The remainder of our subject will, therefore, be considered under the two aspects just indicated : (1) the improve­ ment of the individual, and (2) the im­ provement of society. We can serve men firstly, and perhaps chiefly, by im­ proving ourselves, and this in all respects, physically, mentally, morally. Without a high standard of health, duties become difficult or impossible to perform, and our whole efficiency is lessened. In these days of increased knowledge, when so much of youth, and even of manhood, is taken up with preparatory study and training, the longevity of its worthier members is a distinct gain to society. A vigorous old age is able to accomplish out of all proportion more than several careers, however brilliant, cut short in youth. Few, or none, are now likely to question the value of mental improve­ ment. It remains true, all the same, that our notions of education are lamentably inadequate, and that the higher forms of it are not even conceived as possible or desirable in our so-called universities. As regards moral training, finally, , no one will dispute its paramount necessity; but the subject is obscured and the result vitiated by the emphasis laid by �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE the religious public, not on morals, but on repentance ; not on the vigorous and constant performance of social duty throughout life, but on making our peace with God, some time, it signifies not how short a time, before life closes. What humanity needs is not people who lead unsocial and wicked lives, and are very sorry when about to die—when, by the nature of the case, they can do no more harm nor good ; but people who, at an early period, begin to render valu­ able service to the good cause, and con­ tinue rendering more valuable service as they advance in years. We cannot take regrets and repentance in lieu of work; performance only avails. To prevent I 103 misconception, even for a moment, it may be added that, by performance, advance in spiritual life is by no means excluded; and that the contemplative life is not placed below the active life, but contrariwise, as will be seen further on. The improvement of society, again, is an object to which nearly all persons will declare themselves favourable. But many prejudices and passions, largely incompatible with any serious improve­ ment, will need to be overcome before our advance in that direction can become as rapid and assured as is desirable. There will be no want of work for those who wish to engage in the Service of Man. Chapter IX. ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE For this service to be efficient, it is obvious that men must be adequately trained for it. From time immemorial, education for some object or other has been practised by mankind. The young savage is taught to hunt, fish, and shoot with persevering assiduity. Every kind of war implies discipline and drill, how­ ever rude. Political life, wherever it exists, inevitably leads to an education fitting men for the treatment of public affairs. Besides these partial ends, religion, in all societies above the lowest, is charged with the general and para­ mount end of training men in the worship and service of the invisible but all-powerful Being or Beings, who are supposed to dispose of human happiness in this world and the next. This has ever rightly been regarded as the most important of all training, because it concerns every one, and incomparably more momentous interests are involved in its efficient carrying out. The culti­ vation of human nature, in some degree or direction, is as old as humanity. But the partiality and imperfection of this cultivation are equally old. The daily acquisition of food occupies the whole life of the savage, almost as com­ pletely as it does the lives of the birds and animals which he snares and kills. With the growth of knowledge and wealth, wider objects engage man’s atten­ tion, and exact a corresponding culture to secure their attainment. But these ends, though wider than those of savage life, are still very narrow, consisting in success in petty warfare with neighbour­ ing States, or in party struggles within the primitive city. Even the worship of the gods is stiffly exclusive and partial, and confined to local or tribal divinities, who are “jealous” in the extreme of any rivals in popular reverence. This imperfection of culture has con­ tinued to modern times, though, with every stride in civilisation, it has been �104 THE SERVICE OF MAN lessened, and replaced by something better and larger. Yet, it is still obvi­ ously local, partial, and imperfect. No­ where yet does the aim exist to produce the best human being possible ; to train all the faculties of the body, the mind, and the heart, with the sole object of making the most of them. Men are still trained for special trades and pro­ fessions, for special countries, and, above all, for special religions. And, in the present low development of the human mind and civilisation, it cannot be other­ wise, or at least, much otherwise. But there can be no doubt that one of the most assured and practical means of improving society is to improve the individual men and women who com­ pose it. This is strongly but vaguely expressed in the cry for education; though one is often tempted to think that none needs education more than the popular clamourer for it. Still, a great advance has been made in the mere recognition that the cultivation of individuals, however imperfect, is a matter of primary importance to the general welfare. Deeper views on the subject will come in time. For the purpose of this essay, we need not regard the subject from this wide and public point of view. We may limit ourselves to the consideration—ample enough—of the change in the theory of human cultivation, likely to follow the substitution of the service of man for the service of God ; and we will do so under the three heads—(i) the body, (2) the mind, and (3) the heart of man. 1. On the first we need not dwell long. Medical science has nearly solved the problem of health. The amount of exercise and nourishment, the kinds and qualities of foods and drinks, the limits of work and relaxation, the salubrity of sites and dwellings and clothing—these and similar topics connected with the health of the body physical are so fairly well understood that anyone with a moderately strong constitution, amenable to good advice, may keep in satisfactory health. Many of the worst diseases have been almost disarmed, though a few, like cancer, are said to be on the increase ; and there is a great set-off in the fact that the very success of medical skill and science has produced serious harm by saving numbers of weak and bad con­ stitutions, which would formerly have perished, but which now survive to pro­ pagate an unhealthy stock—an evil which will probably be diminished or removed by stricter views of marriage and the pro­ creation of children. The paramount importance of health for the adequate discharge of public and private duties can escape no one. It is probable that in a reformed public opinion of the future a breakdown in health, when obviously caused by excess or impru­ dence, or culpable ignorance, will be regarded as a species of bankruptcy and severely judged. A servant of Humanity has’ no right to be unable to perform his duties to her. 2. Neither need we dwell long on the cultivation of the mind, interesting as is the subject, and much as there would be to say about it in another connection. The utility of knowledge is now obvious to everybody, and nearly all departments are fairly well-cultivated, some of them with splendid results. Science now is quite able to take care of itself, and we have no reason to fear that it will not be equal to the task. The great danger is specialism, which cultivates one small segment of the vast circle of knowledge, and remains contentedly ignorant of the rest. Specialism cannot be spared, if only for the reason that he who is not a specialist in some one thing is likely to be a sciolist in all things. But, next to the sciolist, the pure specialist is, perhaps, the least efficient servant of man. 3. I now come to the third, and in­ comparably the most important, of all the forms of human cultivation—the cultivation of the heart and feelings. I have already, in a previous chapter, attempted to show that, as a support of morality, Christian doctrine and practice were inherently defective; inasmuch as that the true end of Christianity was not �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE morality in this world, but salvation in the next. My object must now be to show that a cultivation of human nature on positive and human principles will have a different result; first, because of the different end; secondly, because of the different means and theories adopted with a view to that end. The cultivation of nature, vegetable or animal, since it has become scientific, has proceeded on the assumption of a universal law of causation, on which were based experiment and proof. The agriculturist and the grazier, aided by the chemist, have discovered the most propitious conditions, foods, soils, stocks, etc., for their special objects in view, and after great time and pains they have fairly mastered the problem. The only part of it which they have not mastered is the meteorological part; but in other respects their success has been eminently satisfactory. Even pestilences in the animal and vegetable world are stopped, and prevented from spreading, if not from appearing; as the extirpation of the rinder-pest, the silkworm disease, and perhaps, most remarkable of all, the destruction of locusts in Cyprus, suffi­ ciently show. It was different even in the Augustan age of Rome— “...... alitur vitium, vivitque tegendo, Dum medicas adhibere mantis ad volnera pastor Abnegat, aut meliora deos sedet omina.poscensT1 Epidemic diseases were regarded by Jew and Gentile as special proofs of the anger of the Deity; whom men sought by prayer and sacrifice to propitiate that the plague might be stayed. . “Help us, O Lares ! help us, Lares, help us! And thou, O Marmar, suffer not Fell plague and ruin’s rot Our folk to devastate.”2 In these cases we now look for help to the sanitary inspector or the veterinary surgeon. Now, the scientific cultivation of human nature needs the adoption of the same method and principles as have 1 Verg., Georg., iii. 454. 2 Song of the Arvai Brothers. i°5 been so fruitful of good results in other departments. We must cease to believe in miracle and divine aid ; and, proceed­ ing on the firm ground of cause and effect, not expect to reap except where and when we have ploughed and sown. The theological doctrine of grace, and the metaphysical doctrine of the freedom of the will, are alike fatal to a steady cultivation of human nature from a moral point of view. Both presuppose an unknown factor, whose presence or absence cannot be foreseen, and whose action cannot be measured. “It is here, it is there, it is gone,” and no one can tell why. It at once upsets prevision of the future, and cancels all record of and inference from the past. An authorised expounder1 of Catholic doctrine remarks : “Nothing, absolutely nothing, neither little nor much, can be done without the grace of God. We cannot do a good action, nor produce any good fruit conducive to salvation, without the grace of God.” “ St. Augustine,” remarks Canon Liddon, “ says there is no reason, apart from the grace of God, why the highest saint should not be the worst criminal.”2 In an instant, therefore, a criminal may be­ come a saint, or a saint may become a criminal, according to the good pleasure of God, “ who hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.” If we assume, as we surely may, that the saintly character is marked by rare and precious qualities, we are made to see, on this theory, by what a frail and uncertain tenure they exist. It is hardly necessary to point out that this doctrine must induce an indifference, almost a recklessness, as to the culti­ vation of human nature, so far as the heart and feelings are concerned. We cannot be sure for twenty-four hours together whether we shall belong to the diabolically wicked or the angelically good. The analogy between the theological 1 Power, Catechism, vol. ii., p. 33. 2 “ Oxford Sermons,” VI. �io6 THE SERVICE OF MAN doctrine of grace and the metaphysical tenet of free-will is obvious. They both appeared prominently together in the controversy between Pelagius and St. Augustine. Free-will is a sort of secular correlative of theological grace. It delivers over man, not the arbitrary inspiration of divine grace given or with­ held, but to the arbitrary autocracy of his own power of volition; which can do with him what he pleases, if it pleases. “ According to the doctrine of free-will, there is an ultimate power of choice in the human will, which, how­ ever strongly it may be drawn, or tempted, or attracted to decide one way or another by external appeals or motives, is not ruled and decided by such motives, but by the will itself only.”12 Again : “ While there is life there is hope and there is fear. The most inveterate habits of vice still leave a power of self­ recovery in the man if he will but exert it; the most confirmed habits of virtue still leave the liability to a fall.”3 The close analogy, almost amounting to identity, between the doctrines of free­ will and grace, is here very clearly shown. By encouraging the idea that the most inveterate habits of vice can be reformed by an act of will, the para­ mount importance of habit is masked or even implicitly denied ; that is to say, that one of the most important and widely dominant laws of biology is denied, or the moral nature of man is withdrawn from its dominion. If the most confirmed habits of virtue are no guarantee against a “ fall ” (that means, can be destroyed by an exertion of the wicked will), it is obvious that patient and protracted efforts towards self-disci­ pline and the higher life is so much labour lost. The subjugation of self and evil desires carried on for years may end in a “ fall,” and gratification of our most depraved instincts. And, contrariwise, “inveterate habits of vice ” 1 Mozley, Augustinian Doctrine of Predesti­ nation, p. 217. 2 Ibid , p. 247. are not the serious danger one might suppose, as the power of self-recovery is always present and capable of throwing them off, if the man will but exert it. While there is life there is hope and fear; and up to the last the criminal may become a saint, and the saint a criminal, as St. Augustine said. It is evident that the doctrine of the freedom of the will supposes the phe­ nomena of the mind to be exempt from the laws and conditions which regulate the rest of nature; and the more courageous metaphysicians do not hesi­ tate to make this assumption. “ Can the knowledge of Nature,” asks the late Professor Green, “ be itself a part of Nature, in that sense of Nature in which it is said to be an object of knowledge P”1 It is not easy to see why the subject which cognises the object should be less Nature than the object cognised. The image of an object in the mirror which reflects is as much Nature as the object reflected. Hojyever, it is not necessary for the purpose in hand to make a flight into the fine aether of Kantian meta­ physics. If we consult fact instead of fiction, we shall conclude that moral qualities are, to say the least, as per­ manent and durable as any biological phenomena. The digestive functions, the circulation of the blood, and the secretions of the body are not more periodic and permanent than the passions of the mind. Indeed, the latter are the more lasting and persistent of the two groups. The liver of a miser is more likely to break down in the course of his life than his passion for gold. The muscular heart of the benevolent man may, and often does, fail before the spiritual heart which makes him un­ wearied in doing deeds of mercy. The common sense of mankind has always, when not perverted by the necessities of a theory, recognised the permanence of moral qualities, not only in the indi­ vidual, but in the race— “ Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis ; 1 Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 11. �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum Virtus, neque inbellem feroces Progenerant aquilm columbam.”1 107 not attend the sacraments, religious ser­ vices which, at other times, he would not have neglected for the world. Report, however, said that he and his associates passed their time in alternate scenes of the exercises of religion and debauchery; spending their day in meetings for prayer and pious conversation, and their nights in lewdness and revelling. Some men are of opinion that they could not be equally sincere in both. I am apt to think that they were....... There is no doubt of the profligacy; and I have frequently seen them drowned in tears during the whole of a sacramental Sunday; when, so far as my observation could reach, they could have no rational object to act a part. The Marquis of Lothian of that day, whom I have seen attending the sacrament at Prestonpans with Lord Grange, and whom no man suspected of plots or hypocrisy, was much addicted to debauchery. The natural casuistry of the passions grants dispensations with more facility than the Church of Rome.”1 There are strong rumours that such contradictions between faith and practice were not unknown in Scotland in a more recent past. Now let us take the milder, but not less instructive, case of Dr. Johnson. Few men have had more devout faith in God’s grace, and more firm belief in free-will, than Samuel Johnson. He was, in intention at least, highly conscien­ tious. In practice, as he was the first to admit, he often fell short of his standard of duty. We can hardly imagine more fervent prayers and determined resolves than he made with a view to breaking off bad habits and turning over a new leaf. Yet the success was very small, as we learn from the frequent repentances and renewed resolves published by Boswell, That the two doctrines just referred to, of grace and of free-will, have fre­ quently operated to the injury of morality is proved by examples too numerous to quote. Louis XV., one of the most profligate men in history, was punctilious in his religious exercises ; and, as Carlyle says, used to catechise the inmates of his harem in the Parc aux Cerfs, “that they might retain their orthodoxy.” But the doctrine of grace, which he had no doubt thoroughly grasped, allowed him to feel that he could at any time repent, and that when he did he would be freed from his sins. In one of the finest historical pictures ever drawn, even by Carlyle, we are admitted to the side of the “ sinner’s death-bed,” to see his anxiety for the sacraments, and how he made the amende honorable to God. If it be objected that this is only a sample of Popish superstition, we will take from a sect the most opposed to Catholicism, that of the Scotch Presby­ terians, the case of the famous James Erskine of Grange. Dr. Alexander Carlyle, in his amusing autobiography, speaks as follows of this Protestant worthy. Referring to his father’s inti­ macy with Lord Grange (Dr. Carlyle’s father, like himself, was a minister of the Church of Scotland), and to their frequent meetings for prayer, he says : “After these meetings for private prayer, however, in which they passed several hours before supper, praying alternately, they did not part without wine. Not­ withstanding this intimacy, there were periods of half a year at a time when there was no intercourse between them at all. My father’s conjecture was that at those times Lord Grange was engaged in a course of debauchery at Edinburgh, and interrupted his religious exercises. For in those intervals he not only neglected my father’s company, but absented himself from church, and did “ I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time, almost, that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing........ O God, grant me to 1 Hor. iv. 4. 29. 1 Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle, p. 13. �THE SERVICE OF MAN io8 resolve aright, and to keep my resolu­ tions, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”1 The chief faults with which Johnson reproached himself were waste of time, procrastination, and a torpid laziness which made early rising almost an im­ possibility to him. Against these faults he perpetually made resolutions, and prayed fervently for divine help to keep them. He resolved and prayed in vain ; as we know, not only from his own confession, but from abundant other testimony. Boswell is delighted with Johnson’s tenderness of conscience and “ fervent desire of improvement.” It did not occur to Boswell that he had given, in other parts of his work, ample reasons which accounted for Johnson’s failure on this head. Johnson’s habits were wholly incompatible with health of mind or body, and they were peculiarly adverse to the alertness of spirit of which he was always lamenting his deficiency. How could a man get up early who always sat up at night as long as he could find any one to keep him company ? How could a man retain a prompt and clear energy of mind, ready for all demands, who never scrupled to gorge himself to reple­ tion whenever he had an opportunity? “ I never knew,”said Boswell, “any man who relished good eating more than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seem riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite—-which was so fierce, and indulged with such intense­ ness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible.”2 How much of Johnson’s physical suffering and moral deficiencies were owing to his habitual gross feeding could perhaps only be determined by a physician who had carefully examined the patient; but that his obesity and shortness of breath, his low spirits and choleric temper, were largely attributable to his self-indulgence there can hardly be a doubt. If Johnson had been a determinist, and cultivated his nature on rational principles, he would have known that while he retained his usual habits he could not overcome his sloth. A light but nutritious diet, sufficient exercise in the fresh air to induce a pleasant fatigue, frequent cold baths, moderation in all liquors, especially tea, and early hours of going to bed, would probably, in a few months, have enabled him to throw off his lethargy. The doctrine of determinism is now so generally accepted that it will not be needful to dwell upon it at any length here. The cumulative argument in its favour, says Mr. Sidgwick, is so strong as almost to amount to complete proof. But its immense importance for the right cultivation of human nature seems still to be overlooked, even by its most illustrious advocates. Even Mr. Sidg­ wick is of opinion that the decision of the “ metaphysical question at issue in this free-will controversy ”z does not involve any point of general practical importance. I am unable to accept this view. It appears to me to be one of those cases in which right theory is all-important, as guiding to right practice. If we admit that “ From the universal law that, other things equal, the cohesion of psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which they have followed one another in experience ; it is an inevitable corollary, that all actions whatever must be determined by those psychical connections which experience has generated, either in the life of the individual or in that general antecedent life of which the accumulated results are organised in his constitution,”2 we must further admit that any theory which tends to discredit or underrate “ habit,” 1 Boswell, anno 1764. 2 Boswell, anno 1763. 1 Methods of Ethics, cap. v. 2 Herbert Spencer, Psychology, vol. i., p. 500. �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE tends to make human action uncertain and vacillating, tends therefore to weaken the automatic performance of good actions, which is what the well­ being of society demands. The free­ will theory openly challenges “ habit ” and encourages the belief that the most inveterate habit may be broken by an act of volition. The attention is therefore directed to the wrong side of the prob­ lem. Instead of vigilantly watching against the slow, insidious growth of evil habits, the failure to carry out good resolutions, the frequent indulgence of vicious tastes ; the mind is lulled into a false security by the belief in free-will, imagining himself independent and sovereign, when and while it is being reduced into servitude. The “cohesion of psychical states ” is so established by their frequent succession that it becomes organic. If not absolutely inseparable, their cohesion is so strong that only a violent contrary passion or motive is equal to breaking it. The most hard­ ened lie-a-bed, whom neither duty nor interest can rouse from his slumbers, would promptly sally forth if informed that the house was on fire. It is this fact—viz., that even an inveterate habit may be broken by a gust of passion, or a permanent mood of profound emotion, which has given a semblance of ration­ ality to the doctrine of free-will. No determinist ignores or underrates it. A passion of pure love has often saved a man from a swarm of minor vices. All the famous and sudden religious con­ versions from evil-living to righteousness may be traced to the same principle. Ardent love, gratitude, and veneration for Christ, when kindled, are able to snap the chains of habit, and sometimes to prevent their being welded together again. But it is rash, not to say reckless, to trust to a random cyclone of the nobler passions to save us from our sins. It is of the nature of cyclones to be violent, but of short duration. They may never come; they are apt to be transitory. And then the old cohesion of psychical states reappears, the vicious 109 habit returns, probably more virulent and domineering for its temporary exile, and the last state of that man is worse than the first. It is obvious, as already remarked, that the free-will doctrine turns the atten­ tion away from the essential and real side of moral cultivation, and directs it to an unreal side. It resembles Sir Kenelm Digby’s famous sympathetic powder for the cure of wounds. Digby professed that he would be very sorry not to do his uttermost to make it clear how the powder “(which they commonly call the powder of sympathy) doth, naturally and without any magick, cure wounds without touching them, yea, without seeing of the patient and he set forth how the cure “ is performed by applying the remedy to the blade of a sword which has wounded a body; so the sword be not too much heated by the fire; for that will make all the spirits of the blood to evaporate ; and conse­ quently the sword will contribute but little to the cure. Now, the reason why the sword may be dressed in order to the cure is, because the subtile spirits of the blood penetrate the substance of the blade, as far as it went into the body of the wounded party; and there keep their residence, unless the fire, as I said before, chase them away.” Now, the sympathetic powder is hardly more irrational in surgery than the free-will doctrine is in morals. In both cases the attention is directed to the wrong object, and diverted from the right one. While Digby was applying his remedy to the blade of a sword which had caused a wound, he was giving but little care and attention to the wound itself. Indeed, he says that neither the wound nor even the patient need ever be seen. There would have been little hope of the triumphs of modern surgery if this method of treating wounds had pre­ vailed. The real phenomena needing elucidation would not have been studied, and a fiction would have engrossed the attention of the faculty. The believers in free-will have studied ethics and the �I IO THE SERVICE OF MAN cultivation of human nature, as Digby to persons who have no power to distin­ studied surgery and the cure of wounds. guish one note from another, nor teach Their doctrine is the correlative of the painting to the colour blind, nor mathe­ sympathetic powder applied to the blade matics to those arrested by the Ass’s of the sword. The real facts which it Bridge. In other words, cultivation is behoved them to investigate they have only rationally applied where there is original quality capable of receiving it. neglected. Certainly, the moral nature of man Experience shows that moral or im­ moral action depends upon the previous does not vary less widely than the other training and character of the mind? as parts of his nature. There are men much as healthy or morbid secretions whose quality is to manifest, from their depend upon the previous habits and earliest years, a bias to vicious and malig­ constitution of the body. A man with nant crime; who have no good instincts a criminal nature and education, under on which a moral teacher can work; who given circumstances of temptation, can pursue their own selfish gratification at no more help committing crime than he any cost to others. There are also men could help having a headache under whose bias is in the contrary direction; certain conditions of brain and stomach. who, without teaching, or in spite of evil Both the crime and the headache result. teaching, show a generous, upright, un­ from a series of antecedent causes cul­ selfish spirit in all their dealings. And minating in these effects. An unhealthy these differences are congenital: such mode of living and, perhaps, a bad con­ persons differ as much as a cachectic stitution lead inevitably to the one; an constitution differs from a healthy one. evil training and, perhaps, a vicious Without saying that in the one case, character combined lead to the other. therapeutics, and in the other case, In neither case can the Will operate moral training, would be quite without directly to suppress either crime or head­ effect, we may be sure that neither thera­ ache at the moment. The physical peutics nor moral training will ever turn ailment may be removed or mitigated by the bad into the good, the evil constitu­ drugs or reformed habits of living, and tion or character into the vigorous and the moral evil also may be diminished or moral. Before drawing our practical deduc­ removed by a complete change in the ethical surroundings of the patient. But tions from these facts, let us consider neither result is certain; and depends some of these implications. Nature knows nothing of merit or on numerous circumstances—the age of the individual, the inveteracy of the desert, but only of qualities : “Alike to her the better, the worse, disease, the constitution or character in The glowing angel, the outcast corse.” either case. All. cultivation presupposes, in the But for the well-being of man and society vegetable, animal, or human subject, certain qualities in things, animals, and original qualities which justify even an men are precious in the extreme, as cer­ attempt to improve them. There are tain other qualities are pernicious. We soils which no farmer in his senses cultivate the one and discard, or even, would think of ploughing, manuring, and if possible, suppress, the other. No sowing. There are kinds of vegetables qualities are so valuable to men in society and stocks of cattle which are recognised as the moral qualities in each other’s as unfit for profitable culture. They are hearts. On nothing does happiness so left alone, either to die out or to survive much depend, both immediately and in a state of nature. In the same way remotely, as upon the good or bad in­ with human. qualities ; some original stincts of the fellow-men by whom we quality is needed to begin upon. We do are surrounded. Within certain and not give an elaborate musical education not very narrow limits these instincts �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE admit of cultivation; but unless origi­ nally present in some degree they cannot be cultivated. Their presence or absence in the individual is no merit or fault of his. Nothing is more certain than that no one makes his own character. That is done for him by his parents and an­ cestors. The hero was born with his noble and fearless heart; the saint came into the world with his spontaneous apti­ tude for good works and lofty feeling; and the moral monster, the cowardly, selfish, unscrupulous criminal, was born with his evil passions inherited from pro­ genitors, near or remote. No merit or demerit attaches to the saint or the sinner in the metaphysical and mystic sense of the word. Their good or evil qualities were none of their making. A man in­ herits his brain as much as he inherits his estate. The strong nature, the vivid imagination, the tender conscience, the firm will, all come by inheritance, as much as money in the funds, or a noble demesne of broad acres. The theo­ logical doctrine that there is no such thing as merit in the sight of God, that all we have has been received as a free gift, admits of a plainly scientific ex­ pression, as a matter of fact.1 It will perhaps be said that this view does away with moral responsibility; that those who hold it cannot con­ sistently blame any crime or resent any injury; that we should not on this hypothesis reproach a garrotter who half murders us ; he is a machine, not a man 1 On this point St. Thomas uses almost Posi­ tivist expressions :— “ Et ideo meritum hominis apud Deum esse non potest nisi secundum prmsuppositionem divines ordinationis ; ita scilicet ut id homo consequatur a Deo per suam opcrationem, quasi mercedem, ad quod Deus ei virtutem operandi deputavit, sicut etiam res naturales hoc conseqietintur per proprios motus et operationes, ad quod a Deo sunt ordinal ee ; differenter tamen, quia creatura rationalis seipsum movet ad agendum per liberum arbitrium, unde sua actio habet rationem meriti; quod non est in aliis creaturis.”—Summa Theologica, Prima Secundre, Quaestio cxiv. art. prim. But for the arbitrary exception in favour of free-will, this view would coincide with mine. hi with free-will, capable of doing and for­ bearing according to the moral law. It is no more rational to blame him than it would be to blame a runaway locomotive which knocks you down, and mangles or kills you. To which the answer is, that the sooner the idea of moral responsibility is got rid of, the better it will be for society and moral education. The sooner it is perceived that bad men will be bad, do what we will—though, of course, they may be made less bad—the sooner shall we come to the conclusion that the -welfare of society demands the suppression or elimination of bad men, and the careful cultivation of the good only. This is what we do in every other department. We do not cultivate curs and screws and low breeds of cattle. On the contrary, we keep them down as much as we can. What do we gain by this fine language as to moral responsibility ? The right to blame, and so forth. Bad men are not touched by it. The bad man has no conscience; he acts after his malignant nature. The fear of sharp punishment may deter him from evil-doing, and quell his selfish appetites; but he will not be converted to virtue by our telling him he has moral responsibility, that he is a free agent to choose good or evil, and that he ought to choose the good. His mind is made up to choose the bad. But society, knowing its own interests, has a right to exclude him from its fellowship; not only to prevent and punish his evil actions, but to suppress him in some effectual way, and, above all, prevent his leaving a posterity as wicked as himself.1 Society requires good in1 So Aristotle {Ethics, lib. x. c. 9) says that some think that legislators ought “ direldovo-t. oe ral dcfjveffrtpois odcri KoXdcreis re Kai n/auplas e7riTL0^ai, tovs 8’ dviarovs 6'Xws e^vpi^ccv.” Mr. Herbert Spencer, arguing against the modern tendency to promote the “survival of the unfittest,” remarks : “ It rarely happens that the amount of evil caused by fostering the vicious and good-for-nothing can be estimated. But in America, at a meeting of the States Charities Aid Association, held on Dec. 18th, 1874, a startling instance was given in detail by Dr. Harris, It �112 THE SERVICE OF MAN stincts and good actions. It does not want even alternate sins and repentance; it wants performance. The soldier who deserts in presence of the enemy is deservedly shot. In civil life there are forms of criminality which are worse than desertions ; they are open hostilities to the best interests of humanity. Nothing is gained by disguising the fact that there is no remedy for a bad heart, and no substitute for a good one. Only on good, unselfish instincts can a trustworthy morality repose. “ There are many cases,” says Mr. Bain, “ where a man’s social obedience, the fulfilment of his bargains, his justice, veracity, respect to other men’s rights, costs him a sacri­ fice with no return, while the omission leads to penalty. Simple prudence would at such a moment suggest the criminal course.”1 And Mr. Herbert Spencer says : “The true moral deterrent from murder is not constituted by a representation of hanging as a conse­ quence, or by a representation of tortures in Hell as a consequence, or by a repre­ sentation of the horror and hatred excited in fellow-men; but by a representation of the necessary natural results—the inflic­ tion of death-agony on the victim, the destruction of all his possibilities of happiness, the entailed sufferings to his belongings. Neither the thought of im­ prisonment, nor of divine anger, nor of social disgrace, is that which constitutes the moral check on theft; but the thought of injury to the person robbed, joined with a vague consciousness of the was furnished by a county on the Upper Hudson, remarkable for the ratio of crime and poverty to population. Generations ago there had existed a certain ‘ gutter-child,’ as she would here be called, known as ‘ Margaret,’ who proved to be the prolific mother of a prolific race. Besides great numbers of idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, lunatics, paupers, and prostitutes, ‘ the county records show two hundred of her descendants who have been criminals.’ Was it kindness or cruelty which, generation after generation, enabled them to multiply and become an increas­ ing curse to the society around them ?” [Man versus the State, p. 69). 1 The Emotions and the Will, chap, x., p. 530; i§59- general evils caused by disregard of pro­ prietary rights. Those who reprobate the adulterer on moral grounds have their minds filled, not with ideas of an action for damages, or of future punish­ ment following the breach of a com­ mandment, or of loss of reputation ; but they are occupied with ideas of unhappi­ ness entailed on the aggrieved wife or husband, the damaged lives of children, and the diffused mischiefs which go along with disregard of the marriage tie. Conversely, the man who is moved by a moral feeling to help another in difficulty does not picture to himself any reward here or hereafter, but pictures only the betterconditionheis trying to bringabout. One who is morally prompted to fight against a social evil has neither material benefit nor popular applause before his mind, but only the mischiefs he seeks to remove, and the increased well-being which will follow their removal.”1 Nothing can be more clearly put. The feeling, sympathetic, generous heart, which recognises the rights and claims of others, which is pained by their suffering and rejoices in their joy, is declared to be the only trustworthy source of that social morality on which general well­ being depends. In this respect moral conduct, regarded as an art, as it is indeed incomparably the finest of the fine arts, does not differ from its inferior congeners. No one expects fine pictures or statues from persons devoid of all Aesthetic taste, nor oratorios and operas from those deficient in musical ear. If the interest of society requires a due pro­ portion of altruistic sentiment in each of its members, we can only expect them in those individuals who are correspond­ ingly organised. While all the emotions can be cultivated, none can be implanted or directly infused. In this, as in other cases, we can only cultivate the good sorts, the good stock, and eliminate and discourage, as far as possible, the bad. This view will very probably be regarded by some as giving up the cause 1 Data of Ethies, pp. 120, 121. �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE of morality altogether. If we cannot preach the categorical imperative of right action to every creature, and assume and expect that every one is capable of per­ forming it, if he chooses to exert his free-will, our preaching is supposed to be vain ; an insincere make-believe, itself immoral. This is very probable ; and the foolishness of preaching, as often practised, is perhaps only too evident. But it may be remarked that the cause of music is not given up because a master counsels a pupil without an ear for music to cease attempting to sing. We may preach morality as we choose, but we shall only be successful with the apt scholars, those who have a founda­ tion of good instincts on which to work. It is, no doubt, much simpler to assume that all are equally competent; and that, if they do not receive our teaching, it is not because they cannot, but because they will not. Then we arrogate a right to upbraid them, to punish them for their wicked will. They can, if they choose, be quite virtuous and moral. It is an obvious view, recommended by a blunt straightforwardness gratifying to many minds which are disposed to resent and even deny the complexity of nature. The determinist is not less but more resolute in teaching morality than his free-will opponent. But he demands pupils who can learn. What shall be done with those who cannot learn belongs to another branch of inquiry, and con­ cerns politics rather than morals. But much is gained by discarding the hope of impossibilities, of ceasing to expect grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. The extirpation of thorns and thistles, in the literal or metaphorical sense, has its diffi­ culties ; which we have no ground, how­ ever, to regard as insuperable. The object to be obtained is good men with good instincts ; not the establishment of a metaphysical theory that all men may be good if they would only choose. So little do we need free-will and deliberate choice between good and evil that we want a prompt, unreflecting bias towards good. The option between virtue and 113 vice cannot be left an open question. As we see good dogs chasser de race, so we need citizens whose leanings are to virtue’s side. And we are likely to get them in proportion as we recognise that good men, like poets, are born, not made, and only in a minor degree the product of training ; albeit that training, in its own sphere, is of paramount importance. But training is not often entirely over­ looked in practice, even by the partisans of the doctrine of free-will—a fact more creditable to their common sense than their logic. The centre of the problem lies in the question, how can a deter­ minist cultivate virtue or good impulses, seeing that by his principles he cannot choose his desires ? How can he culti­ vate a sense of duty, if duty depends on altruistic sentiments, of which he is perhaps devoid ? It would be regarded as a truism rather than a paradox to say that a man cannot cultivate athletics without muscles. Some amount of muscle must be present on which to begin a course of muscular development. In the same way, some amount of congenital altruism—the tap­ root of social morality—must be present, or the cultivation of good impulses, moral sentiments, or the sense of duty, cannot be even attempted. We should be in­ formed what manner of man the deter­ minist is who is asked how he can culti­ vate virtue on his principles. If he is a base-hearted man, but sufficiently versed in psychology to grasp the full import of the question, he would answer that it was obviously impossible. He would ac­ knowledge a conscious absence of good impulses, and that his only principle of action was the gratification of self. If the determinist, on the other hand, were a man of generous nature, full of meek­ ness, courage, and love, he would reply that cultivation, or the satisfaction of those impulses, was the greatest joy he knew; that though often, through slack­ ness of will, infirmity, and selfishness, he failed in his duty (of which he was only too conscious), yet he never felt inward 1 �114 THE SERVICE OF MAN peace, except when cultivating the garden of his soul, following the passionate ideal of his heart in all benign works for others, in all purifying discipline of the spirit within him. Both these men would answer truly; and the successful cultiva­ tion of human nature demands that we should bear in mind the answers of both. The abstract science of morals needs completing and correcting for the culti­ vation of human nature by empirical observation of the peculiarities of indivi­ dual men. “Duty” and “debt” are the same word differently written, and both mean that which is “owed.” I “ought” is the preterite of I “ owe.” The French “ devoir ” is applied to pecuniary debt and moral duty. In Greek o^etXco and show the same association of ideas. Now, what do we mean by a sense of duty, except a recognition of the claims of others, of neighbour, family, society, or God ? In no respect do men differ more than in this sense of duty, because in no respect are men more unlike than in their endowment of egoistic and altruistic impulses. In some persons all sense of the claims of others seems left out from the first. They never seem to regard themselves as owing anything to anybody; but, contrariwise, they consider others always as owing them a great deal. Even borrowed money they repay with pain and regret, and often require the threat or the action of the law to bring them to repayment. This type of character is humorously exemplified in the alleged remark of a spendthrift, who said of a friend less hardened than himself: “ He wasted his money in paying his debts the use of money being only excusable, it would appear, when no credit was to be obtained. On the other hand, we have natures who not only are prompt in acknowledging claims upon them, who would fast and starve rather than with­ hold payment when due, but who perceive debts and duties which neither society nor individuals exact from them; who willingly offend the world, and, with open eyes, face its anger and resentment, so they may render it a service which no other is ready to offer. The saints, martyrs, and heroes have been of this type. Resistance to passion or strong temptation can only be rationally ex­ pected from a mind which combines a habit of postponing self-gratification to the interests and welfare of others, with an ample endowment of generous and benevolent impulses. The wave of egoistic passion is met by a counter-wave of altruistic emotion, and according to the character and training one or the other prevails. The characteristic feeling of remorse for breach of duty, or gross­ gratification of selfish desire, is evidence of this. Genuine remorse, contrition as distinguished from attrition, always arises from a pain of the altruistic feelings, at having returned evil for good) for having injured a loving heart which deserved different treatment at our hands. Remorse is the note of tender and passionate, but ill-governed, natures. There is no anguish like it; but it is an anguish of which the cold and the selfish are incapable. So little does it fear or wish to evade punish­ ment that it seeks it and implores it. The grief over our own hard-heartedness is too acute to be assuaged except by sacrifice and penance ; and only in bitter expiation is a slight relief derived for transgression. In religious minds the reason often gives way when they have been made conscious that they have sinned against and been ungrateful to Christ their Lord, who for them hung upon the tree, was pierced with wounds, reviled, buffeted, and spat upon. Like St. Peter, when they think thereon they weep. In the naturally generous and tender-hearted it soon appears and developes with the added years. Educa­ tion can do much to aid or check its growth. The selfishness of children can be cultivated to any extent. A habit of regard for others may likewise be nurtured. The proverbial selfishness of princes largely depends on this fact. Recognition of the “ claims ” of others, arising from a sympathetic nature, is the �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE root of duty, but by no means the fullgrown tree. The size to which the tree will grow depends upon the mental power, upon the grasp of ideas, which reveals an almost infinite variety of “ claimants.” A kind heart coupled with • a narrow mind cannot conceive the higher forms of duty to the State, to humanity, to unpopular causes. Culture and mental force combined regulate the quality of the duty paid. The difference between abject superstition and lofty piety depends on the intellect, not on the heart of the worshipper. In all societies, even the most savage, some duties are inculcated on the young by parents and elders; and certain acts are forbidden or punished, others are applauded and rewarded. The public opinion of society carries on the process. The teaching in childhood, youth, and manhood is assimilated according to the quality of the learner. The meek, the modest, the kindly, receive in loving trust the word of their elders. They are told they ought to do Z/zA, that they ought not to do that, and they accept the obligation without hesitation or scruple. The mala frohibita become to them mala in se, and an infraction of the rule laid down appears to them monstrous and profane. In Christian countries duty to God is naturally much insisted on; and if it does not appear to be always attended with the desired success, the reason is not only in the hardness of men’s hearts, but also in the intel­ lectual difficulties involved in theism. But whether the paramount duty be paid to God, to the State, to humanity, to great ideas, or any thing or being beyond self, the germ of it always lies in the unselfish readiness to pay a debt, supposed to be owing to another or others. And it often happens that the supposition is wholly false; that the debt is not owed; that it is imaginary, not real. But the sense of obligation is not concerned with the matter of a given duty, but only with the form. Conscience alone is a deceitful guide; like justice, it is blind ; it will do evil as i IS readily as good. Its one pre-occupation is to go out of self and pay its debt, duty, reverence, to object, thing, or being whom it wishes to serve. And this is so true that the sense of duty in its intense forms is not content with simple disregard of self; it insists on hostility to self, on self-mutilation, mortification;., as in the severer forms of asceticism. Passion is by no means the worst: enemy to duty; as a strong sense of duty is itself a passion. The passionate ■ natures can often become the most bound by it: witness St. Augustine. The cold heart is the undutiful heart, the heart of stone, which loves neither God nor man. New duties. The man who recognises new duties above those he has been taught to observe; who sees, beyond the circle of conventional obligation, the. dim forms of new claimants on his heart and service, is a moral inventor, am enlarger of human life. Those who sawthe claims of the slave were such ; thosewho see the claims of animals are the same. How many more such have still to be seen I Reward of virtue. The highest con­ science has ever felt that the expectation of reward for virtue was unjustified, and almost incompatible with the idea of virtue: “Not unto us, not unto us.” “ We are unprofitable servants ; we havedone that which was our duty to do.” These and similar utterances are the natural and wholesome expressions of the devout heart. And the instinct isright which inspires them. The moment we consider duty as a debt which we owe, we feel it does not admit of reward. Is a man to be paid for paying his debts ? How does this view of duty account for resistance to strong temptation ? The moment we recognise that we can be in the position of owing something to some one person, cause, or idea, it matters not what form the payment may take ; from coin of the realm up to giving away one’s life, it is all one; meeting an obligation which we have recognised we are under. How we came by the sense of this or that particular obligation �116 THE SERVICE OF MAN is immaterial. It may come through many channels; religion, public opinion, esprit de corps, or what not. Its fulness and intensity depend far more on the constitution of our minds than on any external influence and teaching. If we are wholly selfish, no teaching will per­ suade us; if we are generous, loving, and heroic, we move towards self-sacrifice by a natural gravitation. And the point to be especially noticed by those who make virtue to consist in the choice of the better part, after a conflict of motives, is that the greater the virtue the less there is of conscious self-sacrifice. The egoist who will not sacrifice the meanest of his own pleasures or passions for the greatest need of others, and the hero who gives his life for the “sheep,” are the opposite poles of humanity. And so little true is it that virtue only exists after it has gained a victory over base temptation, that the very presence or possibility of temptation stains its purity. In ordinary, civilised life this is so. 'What should we think of a friend or acquaintance who we knew passed his time in hard struggles to conquer the sins forbidden in the sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments? Yet, according to the doctrine of some moralists, the man who dines with us, and has not had a temptation to steal our spoons, and overcome it, is not virtuous; if he has not lusted after the women of our house­ hold and subdued his impurity, he is not chaste; if he has not been touched by an impulse to murder us, finally put down, he is not a moral person. Now, as regards resisting temptation, it is obvious that, in proportion as we are tempted to the commission of selfish sin, our character, and, in a minor degree, our education, are at fault. We have started with an overplus of egoistic senti­ ment, or we have had, by ill-education, the egoistic sentiment unduly cultivated. We shall behave under temptations according to our character. The doc­ trines we hold will have little weight in the final result, though they will have some. If we experience strong prompt­ ings to murder, rape, or theft, the chances are, whether we believe in Hell or Utilitarianism, we shall gratify our passions. If the altruistic element in us is fairly represented, we shall hesitate, or alternately fall into sin and repentance. If self has been “annulled,” we shall pass by the temptations with more or less complete unconsciousness.1 Moralists have been at great pains to show that through virtue lay the only road to final and complete happiness; that, on the other hand, crime and sin inevitably led to pain and misery. It was feared that, if any doubt were allowed to rest on the fact that virtue was its own reward, sensible people would refuse so obviously bad a bargain. As Mr. Leslie Stephen eloquently says : “ Here we come to one of the multiform and profound problems which has tor­ tured men in all ages. Virtue—no one denies it—does good to somebody, but how often to the agent? A belief in justice, as regulating the universe, has been held to imply (I do not ask whether rightly held) that happiness should somehow go along with virtue. To give up the belief in such a supreme regula­ tion seemed, again, to be an admission that virtue was folly. Yet how can this doctrine be reconciled to the plainest facts of experience ? The lightning strikes the good and the bad; the hero dies in the ruin of his cause; the highest self-denial is repaid by the blackest ingratitude; the keenest sympathy with our fellows implies the greatest liability to suffering; the cold, the sensual, and the systematically selfish often seem to have the pleasantest lots in life. Great men in despair have pronounced virtue to be but a name; philosophers have. evaded the difficulty by a verbal denial of the plainest truths ; theologians have tried to console their disciples by con­ structing ideal worlds, which have served 1 So again St. Thomas: “ Magis est non posse peccare quam non peccare. Theologies, Prima Secundre, Qurestio cxiv. art. prim. �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE 117 for little more than a recognition of the unsatisfactory state of the actual world. The problem so often attacked will per­ haps be solved when we know the origin of evil. Meanwhile we have only to consider in what way it is related to ethical theories.”1 This suggestive passage shows very plainly how imperfectly the older specu­ lators grasped the problem with which they had to deal. If virtue depend on a number of good instincts or qualities in the agent’s mind or heart—benevolence, sympathy, courage, and resolution—it would seem obvious that no one could be benefited by these precious endow­ ments more than the fortunate owner of them himself. Who derives so much enjoyment from a fine ear for music as the musician who has one ? Who profits by an exquisite sense of colour so much as the artist whom land, sea, and cloud keep in an ecstasy of delight? Much more, would one say, must the generous and passionate emotions of the heart supply an inward fountain of happiness to the richly endowed natures which possess them. To ask if virtue answers, or “ pays,” is like asking if fine health and bodily strength pay. Probably no one would be without them if he could help it. And yet there can be no doubt that great strength and fine health often lead their possessor into pain, and even death, by tempting him to overtax his powers. It may be said of all the higher qualities and gifts, that under certain conditions they are capable of causing as much pain as pleasure to their owners ; but these owners do not wish, therefore, to be rid of them. The musician who is tortured by an organ out of tune would never think of purchasing peace by the loss or destruction of his musical ear. It is the same with regard to Friendship and Love. Their betrayal probably produces anguish as keen as any known to the human heart. But no one capable of either would ever regret his capacity for love and friendship. Those who doubt their value, or, with Napoleon, hold that they are “ foolish infatuations,” are out of court, as they have no personal knowledge of qualities they despise. We need not to be told what manner of man he was who declared that the secret of happiness consisted in a good digestion and a bad heart. And the querist, “Why should I do anything for posterity, seeing that posterity never did anything for me ?” receives even now this answer from society, and will receive it with greater emphasis in the future: “ From you, sir, we expect nothing; but you may expect that your shameless con­ fession of selfishness will not go un­ punished.” The “unsatisfactory state of the actual world,” as Mr. Stephen says, was no doubt a great hindrance in former times to a recognition of the coercive power for good which society can bring to bear on the selfish and the wicked. But the Christian scheme of rewards and punishments also contributed to the con­ viction that only by fear of retribution could men be deterred from evil, and by the hope of recompense be bribed to/7 doing good. A man who did not believe in hell, it was thought, even by good men, had no inducement to practise any virtue or refrain from any vice. Dr. Johnson said he would not believe that Hume’s apparent equanimity when dying, was sincere, because, on his (Hume’s) principles, he had no motive to speak the truth. Dr. Young, in his Night Thoughts, gave utterance probably to the common sentiment, crude and revolting as it sounds :— 1 Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 398. 1 Seventh Night, 1169-1182. “ ‘ Has Virtue charms ?’ I grant her heavenlyfair ; But if unportioned, all will Interest wed. ***** A Deity believed will nought avail; Rewards and punishments make God adored •, And hopes and fears give Conscience all her power. ***** Who tells me he denies his soul immortal, Whate’er his boast, has told me he’s a knave. His duty ’ tis to love himself alone ; Nor care though mankind perish, if he smiles.”1 �Ii8 THE SERVICE OF MAN only consider the agent, without reference The line between “portioned virtue” and “ interest ” does not appear here to to the reaction of society upon him, it is be very clearly drawn, and virtue, it is obvious that no one course of conduct intimated, can only be chosen for a valu­ can be assumed a priori as certain or able consideration. But we must admit likely in itself to produce happiness. all the same that in this respect the theo­ Virtue may, and probably will, bring logians had the best of the argument, happiness to the virtuous man ; but to till the conception of society as an the criminal and the selfish, virtue will organism had arisen in speculation, with be probably the most distasteful or even the momentous consequences which that painful thing in their experience, while involves. The health of an organism vice will give them unmitigated pleasure. depends on the health and efficiency of This view, as Mr. Stephen says, “is calcu­ its parts; and the conduct and morals of lated to shock many respectable people”; the individual are now seen to be no but that is not a sufficient reason for longer the private concern of himself rejecting it if it be otherwise supported. Now, what is a general feature common only, but very much also of the society of which he is a member. His vice to all forms of happiness, whether injures and his virtue benefits the body vicious or virtuous ? Who are the people , politic, as far as either influence extends. who visibly enjoy themselves; who are And this is now so well seen that per­ never or rarely at a loss as to what they haps the danger is, as Mr. Mill feared, shall do with their time ? Is it not those that society and public opinion are tend­ persons who have one or more tastes, ing to be too coercive and despotic, to . inclinations, or passions, so strongly the injury of that liberty and individuality marked that they are always ready or - -which are needed for full and vigorous ever thirsting for their gratification, which well-being. We may certainly venture to never comes amiss ? Even the most say this much, that society is now able sensual and repellent vices may so fill a to make knaves, whether they believe mind with intense relish and pleasure their souls to be immortal or not, feel that the sensualist is conscious of nothing that crime is connected with misery but one long draught of voluptuous enjoy­ rather than happiness, and that virtue, ment. Satiety may no doubt be rapidly perhaps not of the highest, but yet of a produced, and health ruined by excess; fairly high standard, tends directly to the and then the sensualist has a bad time of it; but that is because he has been agent’s own comfort and peace of mind. Now, as touching the problem which deprived of his pleasures, and he has Mr. Stephen says has tortured mankind nothing to fall back on when his vices for ages, the connection between virtue have left him. But that fact does not and happiness, its solution would seem invalidate the statement just made, that to require a little more precising of what a passionate pursuit of some one thing, is meant by happiness than is customary whatever its character, is the primary in ethical discussions. Obviously, happi­ condition of that glow of pleasurable ness varies as much as men vary; and feeling which we call happiness. The what constitutes the happiness of one gambler sitting down to the card-table, man makes the misery of another. The the gourmand to his dinner, the book­ healthy and the strong have different collector buying choice and rare editions, sources of happiness from the sickly and the artist creating types of beauty, the the weak. The same man at different man of science working out momentous periods of life has very different forms problems, the philanthropist seeking and of happiness. In other words, happiness relieving the wretched, though all enjoying is a subjective phenomenon, depending very different kinds of happiness, have upon the conditions and character of this factor in common—that they are the individual. This being so, if we pursuing with keen appetite the object �ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE they desire. They are free from the aching languor of ennui; they escape the hopeless and helpless nausea of the blase mind, which is impotent even to desire. Strong desires or passions, capable of frequent and lasting gratifica­ tion, are the only materials of happiness. We have next to notice that the grati­ fication of all the passions is more or less attended with pain. Indeed, it would seem that all intense pleasures need to be tipped with a sharp point of pain to give them their full zest. The fatigue and danger of most manly sports constitute a large portion of their attrac­ tiveness. As, gamblers mostly end by losing all their money, their vice must give them more pain than pleasure ; but the fact does not deter them from gratifying it. The pains of the drunkard, of the opium eater, the gourmand, are notorious, but are not often alone suffi­ cient to deter from indulgence in their respective vices. And to this law the higher and nobler passions offer no exception. The ambitious man, say a Napoleon, is always exposed to bitter disappointment and mishaps. The agony of a few nights at Fontainebleau, just before his abdication, had so changed Napoleon’s countenance that his inti­ mates were shocked by it. Yet the experience was thrown away upon him, and he was ready to recommence the game of ambition, as soon as opportunity offered, by his escape from Elba. Even the peaceful pursuits of literature and science have their acute crises of vexation and frustrated hope. Hume, the most even-tempered of men, was so mortified by the failure of the first volume of his history that he would have gone abroad, changed his name, and renounced author­ ship, had not war broken out between England and France. And, to complete the survey, it must be added, that not even the passionate pursuit of holiness itself is without occasional sharp pain ; in proof of which it is sufficient to cite the “Acta Sanctorum,”passim. A passion for virtue, therefore, is not found to be at any disadvantage, as 119 compared with other passions, in the occasional pain which its gratification involves. If “il faut souffrir pour etre belle,” it is also true, “ il faut souffrir pour etre bon ”; and it is difficult to see what is gained by attempting to disguise the fact. Moralists have been so set upon edification that they have been over-anxious to persuade men of the desirability of virtue, by expatiating on the sweetness of its pleasures; that virtuous people had an ample quid pro quo for their virtue. And so they have at times, and in one sense always; but they also have dark and bitter moments in which they are ready to faint; doubts within and dangers without, yea, even death itself in isolated desolation, when “ all ” forsake them and flee ; w’hen the hero has nothing to turn to but his own heroic heart. Individuals, if left to themselves, will follow “their own pecu­ liar bent” in their choice of pleasures, whether they be virtuous or vicious, sel­ fish or self-denying, voluptuous or ascetic. But there can be no doubt which class society, in its own interests, will prefer that its members should choose—viz., the virtuous, the self-denying, and ascetic. Indeed, the most depraved and selfish of men, whatever his own practice, will wish his neighbours to be virtuous. Though he may be unjust and cruel to others, he will resent injustice and cruelty to him­ self; though a libertine himself, he will probably insist on chastity in his wife, wfith much emphasis. Thus even the bad are interested on the side of virtue, as far as the conduct of others is con­ cerned. It only needs a little more improvement in society for this to be generally recognised, as it is already par­ tially recognised, for the disfavour of public opinion to be sharply shown to selfish pursuits and passions, and a steady, persistent encouragement of the unselfish and social enjoyments of civic life and duty. A love of good may be cultivated to almost any extent where the original foundation of an altruistic nature exists. A passionate ideal of excellence can so fill the mind that no �120 THE SERVICE OF MAN pleasure is felt in anything but in efforts to realise it. “ The susceptibility to ideal inflammation is a peculiarity of our nature, varying with constitutions, and affected by various circumstances.”1 All the desires and passions in characters of 1 Bain, The Emotions and the Will, p. 49^- normal vigour can, in the proper con­ ditions, be thus inflamed,, as they can also be starved by systematic discourage­ ment. An ideal society would be one in which an ideal education habitually stimulated and inflamed the good pas­ sions, while it starved and discouraged the bad. No. io of the R. P. A. Cheap Reprints will be LECTURES AND ESSAYS {selected), by Professor Tyndall, with Biographical Sketch of the Author. � 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The service of man : an essay towards the religion of the future Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: xxvii, 234 p. ; 20 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Annotations in pencil. Inscription in pencil on t.p. following title: as demonstrated by C.J. [i.e. Campbell Jenkins?] to E.S. 1907. First published 1887. Inscription in pencil on leaf following front flyleaf: Campbell Jenkins, United University Club, Suffolk St., Pall Mall, London. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Morison, James Cotter, 1832-1888 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1892 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd. Subject The topic of the resource Religion Social problems Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The service of man : an essay towards the religion of the future), 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> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N495 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English NSS Positivism Rationalism Religion Social Problems https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/4929b9c5520cb7fe31b86ccd9c1747b9.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=BVe77kRE3P-EGuM4-YFsqutEWGOQq1mg3ta7jdUF3AKVRoIRjAIlQbRQuPH8gb0LJZuBU4GEtUnp4eSd-aE9FPyqwBJZE9iUpXkNpLLvF0XmTXjF0dT-L0pP2d5YcfBQ9SRL379rXMMp02%7E2aCPjo2iAToBGAVebPRQVBcrkW2It6t1ZAk2XsVIvtAVsRvi188gLstxLKPPciNy2ayWNf6vYDMIiWJNy0hPL9rA7vGJ25I9l%7EHzXhxUcg5Fgyq4HI7G6thNYo2al-InNZDKsG74d6gR8%7E5uYCDhaGr5Ug%7EjAFtS1gcgUCOZxkcrlkYMxg1vZmjWk5uUlKbYooPpJvw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 25e6667ff182612c52f75f6168cb2877 PDF Text Text 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. � 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Religion. To the editor of the "Hackney and Kingsland Gazette." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conner, W.E. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1865] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Subject The topic of the resource Theology Religion Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (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> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5257 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Description An account of the resource 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 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9a1225f4facca4d00538e927cd46596b.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=ktWxHAwlX-JKlv0IC62KDmNP7dmB4VCdx3D-Z97ZhHpV5RcglMgkmeTH%7EjP5sgQ1ffh1EbwMvBUyhn1ifi8gbOCYz9vHx%7ES0VWh1J8rNrUoTiOqfYcbqO8T3WsiOAf5ezuSCP5yXY%7E3wLrJDKBwN7QSP5I%7EkR7whORkg3fLx6poswSHGCce0eCQ3WZwKQilInooLJ8DH9g-i0MDjoYnDpjiTSjwQPh4vsbiDBx23rTLrMdT809QaZPqP1fndzAhebNIqQF7FSnSWVB0pO9eVnSiodpog9FjYtTkDQVKDd0OOAAotRkK9uC8H6XP3WB7HpK8cwNJu1q1o3vp70gsmIQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ab17a06045aa223e32710066db8f961e PDF Text Text fl ^ertrn DELIVERED BEFORE THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY, ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE, ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 6th APRIL, 1879, By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D., Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University Colleye, London. [Reprinted from the “ Fortnightly Review,” by kind permission of the Editor.] Honbon: PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY. 1879.' PRICE THEEPENCE. �SYLLABUS. The doctrines of Materialism and Spiritualism. Why Materialism is looked upon as inferior and degrading. Every function of mind dependent upon organization. Milton an avowed Materialist. Materialism not inconsistent with the belief of a future life, but incon­ sistent with the doctrine of a contempt of the body. The human body the last and greatest product of organic development. Differences of size and development between the brain of the lowest savage and that of an ordinary European. Corresponding differences of intellectual and moral capacities. The reign of law in human evolution. The reign of law in human degeneracy. Morality the essential condition of complex social development. Intellectual and moral lessons of Materialism. �LESSONS OF MATERIALISM. is well known that from an early period of speculative thought two doctrines have been held with regard to the sort of connection which exists between a man’s mind and his body. On the one hand, there are those who maintain that mind is an outcome and function of matter in a certain state of organization, coming with it, growing with it, decaying with it, inseparable from it: they are the so-called materialists. On the other hand, there are those who hold that mind is an independent spiritual essence which has entered into the body as its dwelling-place for a time, which makes use of it as its mortal instrument, and which will take on its independent life when the body, worn out by the operation of natural decay, returns to the earth of which it is made: they are the spiritualists. Without entering into a discussion as to which is the true doctrfrie, it will be sufficient in this lecture to accept, and proceed from the basis of, the generally admitted fact that all the manifestations of mind which we have to do with in this wprld are connected with organization, dependent upon it, whether as cause or instrument; that they are never met with apart from it any more than electricity or any other natural force is met with apart from matter ; that higher organization must go along with higher mental function. What is the state of things in another world—whether the disembodied or celestially embodied spirits of the countless myriads of the human race that have come and gone through countless ages are now living higher lives—I do not venture to inquire. One hope and one certitude in the matter every one may be allowed to have and to express—the hope that if they are living now, it is a higher life than they lived upon earth ; the certitude that if they are living the higher life, most of them must have had a vast deal to unlearn. Many persons who readily admit in general terms the depend­ ence of mental function on cerebral structure are inclined, when brought to the particular test, to make an exception in favour of the moral feeling or conscience. They are content to rest in the uncertain position which satisfied Dr. Abercrombie, the dis­ tinguished author of the well-known Inquiry concerning the In­ tellectual Powers, who, having pointed out plainly the dependence of mental function on organization, and, as a matter of fact which t I �4 Lessons of Materialism. cannot be denied, that there are individuals in whom every correct feeling in regard to moral relations is obliterated, while the judgment is unimpaired in all other relations, stops there, without attempting to prosecute inquiry into the cause of‘ the remarkable fact which he justly emphasises. “ That this power,” he says, “ should so completely lose its sway, while reason remains un­ impaired, is a point in the moral constitution of man which it does not belong to the physician to investigate. The fact is unquestion­ able ; the solution is to be sought in the records of eternal truth.” And with this lame and somewhat melancholy conclusion he leaves his readers impotent before a problem, which is not only of deep scientific interest, but of momentous practical importance. The observation which makes plain the fact does not, however, leave us entirely without information concerning the cause of it, when we pursue it faithfully, since it reveals as distinct a depen­ dence of moral faculty upon organization as of any other faculty. Many instructive examples of the pervading mental effects of physical injury of the brain might be quoted, but two or three, recently recorded, will suffice. An American medical man was called one day to see a youth, aged eighteen, who had been struck down insensible by the kick of a horse. There was a depressed fracture of the skull a little above the left temple. The skull was trephined, and the loose fragments of bone that pressed upon the brain were removed, whereupon the patient came to his senses. The doctor thought it a good opportunity to make an experiment, as there was a hole in the skull through which he could easily make pressure upon the brain. He asked the boy a question, and before there was time to answer it he pressed firmly with his finger upon the exposed brain. As long as the pressure was kept up the boy was mute, but the instant it was removed he made a reply, never suspecting that he had not answered at once. The experi­ ment was repeated several times with precisely the same result, the boy’s thoughts being stopped and started again on each occasion as easily and certainly as the engineer stops and starts his locomotive. On another occasion the same doctor was called to see a groom who had been kicked on the head by a mare called Dolly, and whom he found quite insensible. There was a fracture of the skull, with depression of bone at the upper part of the forehead. As soon as the portion of bone which was pressing upon the brain was removed the patient called out with great energy, “Whoa, Dolly 1 ” and then stared about him in blank amazement, asking, I I �Lessons of Materialism. 5 “Where am I?” Three hours had “Where is the mare?” hw-8<-£fi passed since the accident, during which the words which he was just going to utter when it happened had remained locked up, as they might have been locked up in the phonograph, to be let go it mi' eiw the moment the obstructing pressure was removed. The patient pa'bin did not remember, when he came to himself, that the mare had kicked him ; the last thing before he was insensible which he did ijjeirr^i remember was, that she wheeled her heels round and laid back her :v OTBe ears viciously. Cases of this kind show how entirely dependent every function of mind is upon a sound state of the mechanism of the brain. r/tewl Just as we can, by pressing firmly upon the sensory nerve of the [ .nna arm, prevent an impression made upon the finger being carried to the brain and felt there, so by pressing upon the brain we can as rrirhe’i certainly stop a thought or a volition. In both cases a good tyri&w recovery presently followed the removal of the pressure upon the rwfi<d brain; but it would be of no little medical interest to have the after-histories of the persons, since it happens sometimes after a >W0W<W serious injury to the head that, despite an immediate recovery, h -v/ofc slow degenerative changes are set up in the brain months or years jrwJtf: afterwards, which go on to cause a gradual weakening, and perhaps LJtiIOV«| eventual destruction, of mind. Now the instructive matter in this case is that the moral character is usually impaired first, and some­ ■-asinrJ times is completely perverted, without a corresponding deterior­ jtuoiM ation of the understanding; the person is a thoroughly changed affl-Sflf) character for the worse. The injury has produced disorder in the jKom most delicate part of the mental organization, that which is iiusti-a® separated from actual contact with the skull only by the thin ifewni investing membranes of the brain: and, once damaged, it is miuied seldom that it is ever restored completely to its former state of folium soundness. However, happy recoveries are now and then made : .jGihoai from mental derangement caused by physical injury of the brain. eiacb Some years ago a miner was sent to the Ayrshire District Asylum F. ,ofi/w who, four years before, had been struck to the ground insensible i 'li' vd by a mass of falling coal, which fractured his skull. He lay miqqcw unconscious for four days after the accident, then came gradually niiiloi to himself, and was able in four weeks to resume his work in the F“ .fiq pit. But his wife noticed a steadily increasing change for the fo&TOW worse in his character and habits ; whereas he had formerly been idresiid cheerful, sociable, and good-natured, always kind and affectionate •serf oJ to her and his children, he now became irritable, moody, surly, mq&jja suspicious, shunning the company of his fellow-workmen, and �6 Lessons of Materialism. impatient with her and the children. This bad state increased; he was often excited, used threats of violence to his wife and others, finally became quite maniacal, attempted to kill them, had a succession of epileptic fits, and was sent to the asylum as a dangerous lunatic. There he showed himself extremely suspicious and surly, entertained a fixed delusion that he was the victim of a conspiracy on the part of his wife and others, and displayed bitter and resentful feelings. At the place where the skull had been fractured there was a well-marked depression of bone, and the depressed portion was eventually removed by the trephine. From that time an improvement took place in his disposition, his old self coming gradually back; he became cheerful again, active and obliging, regained and displayed all his former affection for his wife and children, and was at last discharged recovered. No plainer example could be wished to show the direct connection of cause and effect—the great deterioration of moral character produced by the physical injury of the supreme nerve-centres of the brain: when the cause was taken away the effect went also. Going a step further, let me point out that disease will some­ times do as plain and positive damage to moral character as any which direct injury of the brain will do. A fever has sometimes deranged it as deeply as a blow on the head; a child’s conscience has been clean effaced by a succession of epileptic convulsions, just as the memory is sometimes effaced; and those who see much of epilepsy know well the extreme but passing moral transformations, which occur in connection with its seizures. The person may be as unlike himself as possible when he is threatened with a fit; although naturally cheerful, good-tempered, sociable and obliging, he becomes irritable, surly, and morose, very suspicious, takes offence at the most innocent remark or act, and is apt to resent imaginary offences with great violence. The change might be compared well with that which happens when a clear and cloudless sky is overcast suddenly with dark and threatening thunder-clouds; and just as the darkly clouded sky is cleared by the thunderstorm which it portends, so the gloomy moral perturbation is discharged and the mental atmosphere cleared by an epileptic fit or a succes­ sion of such fits. In a few remarkable cases, however, the patient does not come to himself immediately after the fit, but is left by it in a peculiar state of quasi-somnambulism, during which he acts like an automaton, doing strange, absurd, and sometimes even criminal things, without knowing apparently at the time what he is doing, and certainly without remembering in the least what he �Lessons of Materialism. ^f’rxA ■ .WlCffl eiIT? *’*r< .hcnyto ^drwf >TTT ®f Yrrfep ftjfe Of! W at | FWtyftslI ‘v-vl’idl u -'skia | «msql liXHBffl I awesrii IMdNaft| Muatjuti uaute s00->Jl£® 4^4w XjdufeM OUM/l'i i£J,h,X;>..t? 'oi_n<{ ydy/UH.I O' Xw*| 7 hag done when he comes to himself. Of excellent moral characterhabitually, he may turn thief in one of these states, or perpetrate some other criminal offence by which he gets himself into trouble with the police. There are other diseases which, in like manner, play havoc with moral feeling. Almost every sort of mental derangement begins with a moral alienation, slight, perhaps, at the outset, but soon so great that a prudent, temperate, chaste, and truthful person shall be changed to exactly the opposite of what he was. This alienation of character continues throughout the course of the disease, and is frequently found to last for a while after all disorder of intelli­ gence has gone. Indeed, the experienced physician never feels confident that the recovery is stable and sure, until the person is restored to his natural sentiments and affections. Thus it appears that when mind undergoes decadence, the moral feeling is the first to suffer ; the highest acquisition of mental evolution, it is the first to witness to mental degeneracy. One form of mental disease, known as general paralysis, is usually accompanied with a singu­ larly complete paralysis of the moral sense from the outset; and a not uncommon feature of it, very striking in some cases, is a persistent tendency to steal, the person stealing in a weak-minded manner what he has no particular need of, and makes no use of when he has stolen it. The victim of this fatal disease is frequently sent to prison and treated as a common criminal in the first instance, notwithstanding that a medical man who knows his business might be able to say with entire certitude that the supposed criminal was suffering from organic disease of the brain, which had destroyed moral sense at the outset, which would go on to destroy all the other faculties of his mind in succession, and which in the end would destroy life itself. There is no question in such case of moral guilt; it is not sin but disease that we are con­ fronted with: and after the victim’s death we find the plainest evidence of disease of brain which has gone along with the decay of mind. Had the holiest saint in the calendar been afflicted as he was, he could not have helped doing as he did. I need not dwell any longer upon the morality-sapping effects of particular diseases, but shall simply call to mind the profound deterioration of moral sense and will which is produced by the long-continued and excessive use of alcohol and opium. There is nowhere a more miserable specimen of degradation of moral feeling and of impotence of will, than the debauchee who has made himself the abject slave of either of these pernicious excesses. �8 Lessons of Materialism. Insensible to the interests of his family, to his personal responsi­ bilities, to the obligations of duty, he is utterly untruthful and untrustworthy, and in the worst end there is not a meanness of pretence or of conduct that he will not descend to, not a lie he will not tell, in order to gain the means to gratify his overruling craving. It is not merely that passion is strengthened and will weakened by indulgence as a moral effect, but the alcohol or opium which is absorbed into his blood is carried by it to the brain and acts injuriously upon its tissues : the chemist will, indeed, extract alcohol from the besotted brain of the worst drunkard, as he will detect morphia in the secretions of a person who is taking large doses of opium. Seldom, therefore, is it of the least use to preach reformation to these people, until they have been restrained forcibly from their besetting indulgence for a long enough period to allow the brain to get rid of the poison, and its tissues to regain a healthier tone. Too often it is of little use then ; the tissues have been damaged beyond the possibility of complete restoration. Moreover, observation has shown that the drink-craving is oftentihies hereditary, so that a taste for the poison is ingrained in the tissues, and is quickly kindled by gratification into uncontrollable desire. Thus far it appears, then, that moral feeling may be impaired or destroyed by direct injury of the brain, by the disorganizing action of disease, and by the chemical action of certain substances which, when taken in excess, are poisons to the nervous system. When we look sincerely at the facts, we cannot help perceiving that it is just as closely dependent upon organization as is the meanest function of mind; that there is not an argument to prove the so-called materialism of one part of mind which does not apply with equal force to the whole mind. Seeing that we know no more essentially what matter is than what mind is, being unable in either case to go beyond the phenomena of which we have experience, it is of interest to ask why the spiritualist considers his theory to be of so much higher and intellectual and moral order than materialism, and looks down with undisguised pity and contempt on the latter as inferior, degrading, and even dangerous ; why the materialist should be deemed guilty, not of intellectual error only, but of something like moral guilt. His philosophy has been lately denounced as a “ philosophy of dirt.” An eminent prelate of the English Church, in an outburst of moral indignation, once described him as possibly “ the most odious and ridiculous being in all the multiform creation; ” and a recent writer �. Lessons of Materialism. 9 in a French philosophical journal uses still stronger language of abhorrance—“ I abhor them,” he says, “ with all the force of my soul. ... I detest and abominate them from the bottom of my heart, and I feel an invincible repugnance and horror when they dare to reduce psychology and ethics to their bestial phy­ siology—that is, in short, to make of man a brute, of the brute a plant, of the plant a machine. . . . This school is a living and crying negation of humanity.” The question is, what there is in materialism to warrant the sincere feeling and earnest expression of so great a horror of it. Is the abhorrence well founded, or is it, perhaps, that the doctrine is hated, as the individual oftentimes is, because misunderstood ? This must certainly be allowed to be a fair inquiry by those who reflect that no less eminent a person and good a Christian than Milton was a decided materialist. Several scattered passages in Paradise Lost plainly betray his opinions ; but it is not necessary to lay any stress upon them, because in his Treatise on Christian Doctrine he sets them forth in the most plain and uncompromising way, and supports them "with an elaborate detail of argument. He is particularly earnest to prove that the common doctrine that the spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere said in Scripture, and is at variance both with nature and reason ; and he declares that “ man is a living being, intrinsically and properly one and individual, not compound and separable, not, according to the common opinion, made up and framed of two distinct parts, as of soul and body.” Another illustrious instance of a good Christian who, for a great part of his life, avowed his belief that “ the nature of man is simple and uniform, and that the thinking power and faculties are the result of a certain organization of matter,” was the eloquent preacher and writer, Robert Hall. It is true that he abandoned this opinion at a later period of his life; indeed, his biographer tells us with much satisfaction that “ he buried materialism in his father’s grave ; ” and a theological professor in American college has in a recent article exultantly claimed this fact as triumphant proof that the materialist’s “ gloomy and unnatural creed ” cannot stand before such a sad feeling as grief at a father’s death. One may be excused, perhaps, for not seeing quite so clearly as these gentlemen the soundness of the logic of the connection. On the whole, logic is usually sounder and stronger when it is not under the pressure of great feeling. The truth is that a great many people have the deeply-rooted �10 Lessons of Materialism. feeling that materialism is destructive of the hope of immortality, and dread and detest it for that reason. When they watch the body decay and die, considering furthermore that after its death it is surely resolved into the simple elements from which all matter is formed, and know that these released elements go in turn to build up other bodies, so that the material is used over and over again, being compounded and decompounded incessantly in the long stream of life, they cannot realise the possibility of a resurrection of the individual body. They cannot conceive how matter which has thus been used over and over again can remake so many distinct bodies, and they think that to uphold a bodily resurrection is to give up practically the doctrine of a future life. It is a natural, but not a necessary conclusion, as the examples of Milton and Robert Hall prove, since they, though materialists, were devout believers in a resurrection of the dead. Moreover, there are many vehement antagonists of materialism who readily admit that it is not inconsistent with the belief in a life after death. Indeed, they could not well do otherwise, when they recollect what the Apostle Paul said in his very energetic way, addressing the objector to a bodily resurrection as “ Thou fool,” and what happened to the rich man who died and was buried; for it is told of him that “ in hell he lifted up his eyes, and cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” Now if he had eyes to lift up and a tongue to be cooled, it is plain that he had a body of some kind in hell; and if Lazarus, who was in another place, had a finger to dip in water, he also must have had a body of some kind there. Leaving this matter, however, without attempting to explain the mystery of the body celestial, I go on to mention a second reason why materialism is considered to be bad doctrine. It is this : that with the rise and growth of Christianity there came in the fashion of looking down on the body with contempt as the vile and despicable part of man, the seat of those fleshly lusts which warred against the higher aspirations of the soul. It was held to be the favourite province of the devil, who, having intrenched himself there, lay in wait to entice or to betray to sin ; the wiles of Satan and the lusts of the flesh were spoken of in the same breath, as in the service of the English Church prayer is made for “ whatsoever has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by his own carnal will and frailness ; ” and all men are taught to look forward to the time when “ he shall change this vile body and make �Lessons of Materialism. 11 it like unto his glorious body.” It was the extreme but logical outcome of this manner of despising the body to subject it to all the penances, and to treat it with all the rigour, of the most rigid asceticism—to neglect it, to starve it, to scourge it, to mortify it in every possible way. One holy ascetic would never wash himself, or cut his toe-nails, or wipe his nose; another suffered maggots to burrow unchecked into the neglected ulcers of his emaciated body; others, like St. Francis, stripped themselves naked and appeared in public without clothes. St. Macarius threw away his clothes and remained naked for six months in a marsh, exposed to the bite of every insect; St. Simeon Stylites spent thirty years on the top of a column which had been gradually raised to a height of sixty feet, passing a great part of his time in bending his meagre body successively with his head towards his feet, and so industriously that a curious spectator, after counting one thousand two hundred and forty-four repetitions, desisted counting from weariness. And for these things—these insanities of conduct may we not call them—they were accounted most holy, and received the honours of saintship.' Contrast this unworthy view of the body with that which the ancient Greeks took of it. They found no other object in nature which satisfied so well their sensejof proportion and manly strength, of attractive grace and beauty; and their reproductions of it in marble we preserve now as priceless treasures of art, albeit we still babble the despicable doctrine of contempt of it. The more strange, since it is a matter of sober scientific truth that the human body is the highest and most wonderful work in nature, the last and best achievement of her creative skill; it is a most complex and admirably constructed organism, “ fearfully and wonderfully made,” which contains, as it were in a microcosm, all the ingenuity and harmony and beauty of the macrocosm. And it is this supreme product of evolution that fanatics have gained the honour of saintship by disfiguring and torturing! These, then, are two great reasons of the repugnance which is felt to materialism, namely, the notion that it is destructive of the hope of a resurrection, and the contempt of the body which has been inculcated as a religious duty. And yet on these very points materialism seems fitted to teach the spiritualist lessons of humility and reverence, for it teaches him, in the first place, not to despise and call unclean the last and best work of his Creator’s hand; and,. secondly, not impiously to circumscribe supernatural power by the narrow limits of his understanding, but to bethink himself that it �12 Lessons of Materialism. were just as easy in the beginning, or now, or at any time, for the omnipotent Creator of matter and its properties to make it think as to make mind think. Passing from these incidental lessons of humility and reverence, I go now to show that materialism has it moral lessons, and that these, rightly apprehended, are not at all of a low intellectual and moral order, but, on the contrary, in some respects more elevating than the moral lessons of spiritualism. I shall content myself with two or three of these lessons, not because there are not more of them, but because they will be enough to occupy the time at my disposal. It is a pretty well accepted scientific doctrine that our fardistant prehistoric ancestors were a very much lower order of beings than we are, even if they did not inherit directly from the monkey; that they were very much like, in conformation, habits, intelligence, and moral feeling, the lowest existing savages ; and that we have risen to our present level of being by a slow process of evolution which has been going on gradually through untold generations. Whether or not “ through the ages one increasing purpose runs,” as the poet has it, it is certainly true that “ the .thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” Now when we examine the brain of the lowest savage, whom we need not be too proud to look upon as our ancestor in the flesh—say a native Australian or a Bushman—we find it to be considerably smaller than an ordinary European brain ; its convolutions, which are the highest nerve-centres of mind, are decidedly fewer in number, more simple in character, and more symmetrical in arrangement. These are marks of inferiority, for in those things in which it differs from the ordinary European brain it gets nearer in structure to the still much inferior brain of the monkey; it represents, we may say, a stage of development in the long dis­ tance which has been traversed between the two. A comparison of the relative brain-weights will give a rude notion of the differences : the brain-weight of an average European male is 49 oz.; that of a Bushman is, I believe, about 33 oz.; and that of a Negro, who comes between them in brain-size, as in intelligence, is 44 oz. The small brain-weight of the Bushman is indeed equaled among civilised nations by that of a small-headed or socalled microcephalic idiot. There can be no doubt, then, of a great difference of development between the highest and the lowest existing human brain. There can be no doubt, furthermore, that the gross differences �Lessons of Materialism. 13 which there are between the size and development of the brain of a low savage and of an average European, go along with as great differences of intellectual and moral capacities—that lower mental function answers to lower cerebral structure. It is a well-known fact that many savages cannot count beyond five, and that they have no words in their vocabulary for the higher qualities of human nature, such as virtue, justice, humanity, and their opposites, vice, injustice, and cruelty, or for the more abstract ideas. The native Australian, for example, who is in this case, having no words for justice, love, mercy, and the like, would not in the least know what remorse meant; if any one showed it in his presence, he would think probably that he had got a bad bellyache. He has no words to express the higher sentiments and thoughts because he has never felt and thought them, and has never had, therefore, the need to express them ; he has not in his inferior brain the nervous substrata which should minister to such sentiments and thoughts, and cannot have them in his present state of social evolution, any more than he could make a particular movement of his body if the proper muscles were wanting. Nor could any amount of training in the world, we may be sure, ever make him equal in this respect to the average European, any more than it could add substance to the brain of a small-headed idiot and raise it to the ordinary level. Were any one, indeed, to make the experiment of taking the young child of an Australian savage and of bringing it up side by side with an average European child, taking great pains to give them exactly the same education in every respect, he would certainly have widely different results in the end: in the one case he would have to do with a well-organized instrument, ready to give out good intellectual notes and a fine harmony of moral feeling when properly handled; in the other case, an imperfectly organized instrument, from which it would be out of the power of the most patient and skilful touch to elicit more than a few feeble intellectual notes and a very rude and primitive sort of moral feeling. A little better feeling, certainly, than that of its fathers, but still most primitive ; for many savages regard as virtues most of the big vices and crimes, such as theft, rape, murder, at any rate when they are practised at the expense of neighbouring tribes. Their moral feeling, such as it is, is extremely circumscribed, being limited in application to the tribe. In Europe we have happily got further than that, since we are not, as savages are and our forefathers probably were, divided into a multitude of tribes eager to injure and even extirpate one another from motives �14 Lessons of Materialism. of tribal patriotism; but mankind seems to be far off the goal of its high calling so long as, divided into jealous and hostile nations, it suffers national divisions to limit the application of moral feeling, counts it a high virtue to violate it under the profaned name of patriotism, and uses the words “ humanitarianism ” and cosmo­ politanism ” as crushing names of reproach. There is plainly room yet for a wider expansion of moral feeling. Now what do the discoveries of science warrant us to conclude respecting the larger and more complex brain of the civilised man and its higher capacities of thought and feeling ? They teach us this : that it has reached its higher level not by any sudden and big creative act, nor by a succession of small creative acts, but by the slow and gradual operation of processes of natural evolution going on through countless ages. Each new insight into natural phenomena on the part of man, each act of wiser doing founded on truer insight, each bettered feeling which has been developed from wiser conduct, has tended to determine by degrees a corre­ sponding structual change of the brain, which has been transmitted as an innate endowment to succeeding generations, just as the acquired habit of a parent animal becomes sometimes the instinct of its offspring; and the accumulated results of these slow and minute gains, transmitted by hereditary action, have culminated in the higher cerebral organization, in which they are now, as it were, capitalised. Thus the added structure embodies in itself the superior intellectual and moral capacities of abstract reasoning and moral feeling which have been the slow acquisitions of the ages, and it gives them out again in its functions when it discharges its functions rightly. If we were to have a person born in this country with a brain of no higher development than that of the low savage—destitute, that is, of the higher nervous substrata of thought and feeling—if, in fact, our far remote prehistoric ancestor were to come to life among us now—we should have more or less of an imbecile, who could not compete on equal terms with other persons, but must perish, unless charitably cared for, just as the native Australian perishes when he comes into contact and competition with the white man. The only way in which the native Australian could be raised to the level of civilised feeling and thought would be by cultivation continued through many generations—by a process of evolution similar to that which lies back between our savage ancestors and us. That is one aspect of the operation of natural law in human events—the operation of the law of heredity in development, in �Lessons oj Materialism. 15 carrying mankind forward, that is, to a higher level of being. It teaches us plainly enough that the highest qualities of mind bear witness to the reign of law in nature as certainly as do the lowest properties of matter, and that if we are to go on progressing in time to come it must be by observation of, and obedience to, the laws of development. But there is another vastly important aspect of the law of heredity which it concerns us to bear sincerely in mind—its operation in working out human degeneracy, in carrying mankind downwards, that is, to a lower level of being. It is certain that man may degenerate as well as develop; that he has been doing so both as nation and individual ever since we have records of his doings on earth. There is a broad and easy way of dissolution, national, social, or individual, which is the opposite of the steep and narrow way of evolution. Now what it behoves us to realise distinctly is that there is not anything more miraculous about the degeneracy and extinction of a nation or of a family than there is about its rise and development; that both are the work of natural law. A nation does not sink into decadence, I presume, so long as it keeps fresh those virtues of character through which it became great among nations ; it is when it suffers them to be eaten away by luxury, corruption, and other enervating vices, that it undergoes that degeneration of character which prepares and makes easy its over-throw. In like manner a family, reckless of the laws of physical and moral hygiene, may go through a process of degeneracy until it becomes extinct. It was no mere dream of prophetic frenzy that when the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge, nor was it a meaningless menace that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations; it was an actual insight into the natural law by which degeneracy increases through generations—by which one generation reaps the wrong which its fathers have sown, as its children in turn will reap the wrong which it has sown. What we call insanity or mental derangement is truly, in most cases, a form of human degeneracy, a phase in the working out of it; and if we were to suffer this degeneracy to take it course unchecked through generations, the natural termination would be sterile idiocy and extinction of the family. A curious despot would find it impossible, were he to make the experiment, to breed and propagate a race of insane people; nature, unwilling to continue a morbid variety of the human kind, would bring his experiment to an end by the production of sterile idiocy. If man will but make himself the �16 Lessons of Materialism. subject of serious scientific study, he shall find that this working out of degeneracy through generations affords him a rational explanation of most of those evil impulses of the heart which he has been content to attribute to the wiles and instigations of the devil; that the evil spirit which has taken possession of the wicked man is often the legacy of parental or ancestral error, misfortune, or wrong-doing. It will be made plain to him that insanity, idiocy, and every other form of human degeneracy is not casualty, but defect which comes by cause ; that it is just as much the definite consequent of definite antecedents as any other event in nature; and that these antecedents many times are within human controul, being the palpable outcome of ignorance or of neglect of the laws of moral and physical hygiene. Let me illustrate by an example the nature and bearing of this scientific study. I will take for this purpose a case which every physician who has had much experience must have been asked some time or other to consider and advise about: a quite young child, which is causing its parents alarm and distress by the precocious display of vicious desires and tendencies of all sorts, that are quite out of keeping with its tender years, and by the utter failure of either precept, or example, or punishment to imbue it with good feeling and with the desire to do right. It may not be notably deficient in intelligence; on the contrary, it may be capable of learning quickly when it likes, and extremely cunning in lying, in stealing, in gratifying other perverse inclinations; and it cannot be said not to know right from wrong, since it invariably eschews the right and chooses the wrong, showing an amazing acuteness in escaping detection and the punishment which follows detection. It is, in truth, congenitally conscienceless, by nature destitute of moral sense and actively imbued with an immoral sense. Now this unfortunate creature is of so tender an age that the theory of Satanic agency is not thought to offer an adequate explanation of its evil impulses ; in the end everybody who has to do with it feels that it is not responsible for its vicious conduct, perceives that punishment does not and cannot in the least reform it, and is persuaded that there is some native defect of mind which renders it a proper case for medical advice. Where, then, is the fault that a human being is born into the world who will go wrong, nay, who must go wrong, in virtue of a bad organization ? The fault lies somewhere in its hereditary antecedents. We can seldom find the exact cause and trace definitely the mode of its operation—the study is much too complex and difficult for such exactness at �Lessons of Materialism. 17 present—but we shall not fail to discover the broad fact of the frequency of insanity or other mental degeneracy in the direct line of the child’s inheritance. The experienced physician seldom feels any doubt of that when he meets with a case of the kind. It is indeed most certain that men are not bred well or ill by accident any more than the animals are; but while most persons are ready to acknowledge this fact in a general way, very few pursue the admission to its exact and 'rigorous consequences, and fewer still suffer it to influence their conduct. It may be set down, then, as a fact of observation that mental degeneracy in one generation is sometimes the evident cause of an innate deficiency or absence of moral sense in the next generation. The child bears the burden of its ancestral infirmities or wrong­ doings. Here then and in this relation may be noted the in­ structive fact, that just as moral feeling was the first function to be affected at the beginning of mental derangement in the individual, so now the defect or absence of it is seen to mark the way of degeneracy through generations. It was the latest acquisition of mental evolution; it is the first to go in mental dissolution. A second fact of observation may be set down as worthy of con­ sideration, if not of immediate acceptation, namely, that an absence of moral feeling in one generation, as shown by a mean, selfish, and persistent disregard of moral action in the conduct of life, may be the cause of mental derangement in the next generation. In fact, a person may succeed in manufacturing insanity in his progeny by a persistent disuse of moral feeling, and a persistent exercise, throughout his life, of those selfish, mean, and anti-social tendencies which are a negation of the highest moral relations of mankind. He does not ever exercise the nervous substrata which minister to moral functions, wherefore they undergo atrophy in him, and he runs the risk of transmitting them to his progeny in so imperfect a state, that they are incapable of full development of function in them ; just as the instinct of the animal which is not exercised for many generations on account of changed conditions of life, becomes less distinct by degrees and in the end, perhaps, extinct. People are apt to talk as if they believed that insanity might be got rid of were only sufficient care taken to prevent its direct propagation by the marriages of those who had suffered it or were like to do so. A vain imagination assuredly I Were all the insanity in the world at the present time clean sweptaway to-morrow, men would breed it afresh before to-morrow’s to-morrow by their �18 Lessons of Materialism, errors, their excesses, their wrong-doings of all sorts. Rightly, then, may the scientific inquirer echo the words of the preacher, that however prosperous a man may have seemed in his life, judge him not blessed before his death: for he shall be known in his children: they shall not have the confidence of their good descent. In sober truth, the lessons of morality which were proclaimed by the prophets of old, as indispensable to the stability and well-being of families and nations, were not mere visions of vague fancy; founded upon actual observation and intuition of the laws of nature working in human events, they were insights into the eternal truths of human evolution. Whether, then, man goes upwards or downwards, undergoes development or degeneration, we have equally to do with matters of stern law. Provision has been made for both ways ; it has been left to him to find out and determine which way he shall take. And it is plain that he must find the right path of evolution, and avoid the wrong path of degeneracy, by observation and experience, pursuing the same method of positive inquiry which has served him so well in the different sciences. Being pre-eminently and essentially a social being, each one the member of one body—the unit, that is, in a social organism—the laws which he has to observe and obey are not the physical laws of nature only, but also those higher laws which govern the relations of individuals in the social state. If he make his observations sincerely and adequately in this way, he cannot fail to perceive that the laws of morality were not really miraculous revelations from heaven any more than was the discovery of the law of gravitation, but that they were the essential conditions of social evolution, and were learned practically by the stern lessons of experience. He has learnt his duty to his neighbour as he has learnt his duty to nature; it is implicit in the constitution of a complex society of men dwelling together in peace and unity, and has been revealed explicitly by the intuition of a few extraordinary men of sublime moral genius. As it is not a true, it cannot be a useful, notion to foster, that morality was the special gift to man, or is the special property, of any theological system, and that its vitality is in the least bound up with the life of any such creed. Whether men believed in Heaven and Hell or not, in Jupiter or in Jehovah, in Buddha or in Jesus, they could not fail to find out that some obedience to moral law is essential to social evolution. The golden rule of morals itself—“ Do unto others as ye would have others do unto you”— was perceived and proclaimed long before it received its highest �Lessons of Materialism. 19 Christian expression.* We ought to be just and to confess the truth: there were good Christians in the world before Christ. It is not, indeed, religious creed which has invented and been the basis of morality, but morality which has been the bulwark of religions. And as a matter of fact it is too true that morality has suffered many times not a little from its connection with theological creeds ; I that its truths have been laid hands on and used to support demoralising super sitions which were no part of it; that doctrines essentially immoral have been even taught in the name of religion; and that religious systems in their struggles to establish their supremacy have oftentimes shown small respect to the claims of morality. Had religion been true to its nature and function, had it been as wide as morality and humanity, it should have been the bond of unity to hold mankind together in one brother­ hood, linking them in good feeling, good-will, and good work towards one another; but it has in reality been that which has most divided men, and the cause of more hatreds, more disorders, more persecutions, more bloodshed, more cruelties than most other causes put together. In order to maintain peace and order, there­ fore, the State in modern times has been compelled to hold itself practically aloof from religion, and to leave to each hostile sect liberty to do as it likes so long as it meddles not by its tenets and ceremonials with the interests of civil government. That is the present outcome of a religion of peace on earth and goodwill among men 1 On the whole it may be thought to be fortunate for the interests of morality that it is not bound up essentially with any form of religious creed, but that it survives when creeds die, having its more secure foundations in the hard-won experience of mankind. The inquiry which, taking a sincere survey of the facts, finds the basis and sanction of morality in experience, by no means * There appears to be no doubt that Confucius, among others, has the clearest apprehension of it and expressly taught it; and the Buddhist religion of perfectron is certainly founded upon self-conquest and self­ sacrifice. They are its very corner-stone: the purification of the mind from unholy desires and passions, and a devotion to the good of others, which rises to an enthusiasm for humanity, in order to escape from the miseries of this life and to attain to a perfect moral repose. “ Let all the sins that have been committed fall upon me, in order that the world may be delivered,” Buddha says. And of the son or disciple of Buddha it is said, “ When reviled he revileth not again; when smitten he bears the blow without resentment; when treated with anger and passion he returns love and good-will; when threatened with death he bears no malice.” �20 Lessons of Materialism. arrives in the end at easy lessons of self-indulgence for the individual and the race, but, on the contrary, at the hardest lessons of self-renunciation. Disclosing to man the stern and uniform reign of law in nature, even in the evolution and degeneracy of his own nature, it takes from him the comfortable but demoralising doctrine that he or others can escape the penalty of his ignorance, error, or wrong-doings either by penitence or prayer, and holds him to the strictest account for them. Dis­ carding the notion that the observed uniformity of nature is but a uniformity of sequence at will which may be interrupted whenever its interruption is earnestly enough asked for—a notion which, were it more than lip-doctrine, must necessarily deprive him of his most urgent motive to study patiently the laws of nature in order to conform to them—it enforces a stern feeling of responsibility to search out painfully the right path of obedience and to follow it, inexorably laying upon man the responsibility of the future of his race. If it be most certain, as it is, that all disobedience of natural law, whether physical or moral, is avenged inexorably in its conse­ quences on earth, either upon the individual himself, or more often, perhaps, upon others—that the violated law cannot be bribed to stay its arm by burnt-offerings nor placated by prayers—it is a harmful doctrine, as tending directly to undermine understanding and to weaken will, to teach that either prayer or sacrifice will obviate the consequences of want of foresight or want of self­ discipline, or that reliance on supernatural aid will make amends for lack of intelligent will. We still pray half-heartedly in our churches, as our forefathers prayed with their whole hearts, when we are afflicted with a plague or pestilence, that God will “ accept of an atonement and command the destroying angel to cease from punishing; ” and when we are suffering from too much rain we ask him to send fine weather “ although we for our iniquities have worthily deserved a plague of rain and water.” Is there a person of sincere understanding who, uttering that prayer, now believes it in his heart to be the successful way to stay a fever, plague, or pestilence ? He knows well that, if it is to be answered, he must clean away dirt, purify drains, disinfect houses, and put in force those other sanitary measures which experience has proved to be efficacious, and that the aid vouchsafed to the prayer will only be given when, these being by themselves successful, the prayer is superfluous. Had men gone on believing, as they once believed, that prayer would stay disease, they would never have learned and adopted sanitary measures, any more than the savage of Africa, �Lessons of Materialism. 21 ■who prays to his fetish to cure disease, does now. To get rid of the notion of supernatural interposition was the essential condition of true knowledge and self-help in that matter. . Looking at the matter in the light of scientific knowledge, it is •hard to see how any one can think otherwise. However, one may •easily overrate the depth to which such knowledge goes in the general mind: at best it is but a thin surface-dressing. Only a few days ago, on opening a book at random, I hit on the following extract from a sermon on the Miracles of Prayer, by a well-known clergyman :— “ But we have prayed, and not been heard, at least in the present visita­ tion. Have we deserved to be heard? In former visitations it was observed commonly how the cholera lessened from the day of public humiliation. When we dreaded famine from a long-continued drought, on the morning of our prayers the heaven over our head was of brass; the clear burning sky showed no. token of change. Men looked with awe on its unmitigated clearness. In the evening was a cloud like a man’s hand; the relief was come.” This is from a sermon preached by no mean citizen of no mean city; it was preached at Oxford, in 1866, and the preacher was Dr. Pusey, who goes on to say that it describes what he himself saw on the Sunday morning in Oxford, on returning from the early communion at St. Mary’s, at eight. The change occurred in the evening. A good instance, one would be apt to say, of a very common fallacy of observation and reasoning—the fallacy that an event which happens after another necessarily happens in conse­ quence of it! But what I would point out is, that if Dr. Pusey’s interpretation of the matter be true, all our scientific knowledge of the order of nature has no stable foundation; it is no better than a baseless fabric, which has come like wind and like wind may go. And most certain it is that if such views were universal, the result would be to carry us back straight to the ignorance and barbarism which prevailed in Europe before the Reformation and the dawn of modern science. Consider how much it means, that a man of Dr. Pusey’s culture and eminence should so little apprehend the fundamental principles of modern science, should be so blind to the conception of the reign of law in nature ; consider again how the great majority of the people are in his case, and that the torch of modern science is after all really carried by some hundred men or so in Europe and America, and would be pretty nigh extin­ guished by their simultaneous deaths ; and consider, lastly, that we have everywhere in our midst a most complete and powerful organisation which, holding that all truth has been given into �22 Lessons of Materialism. the keeping of the church from the beginning, and cannot be either added to or taken from, is truly a gigantic and unsleeping conspiracy against the human intellect;—consider these things fairly, I say, and then ask yourselves soberly whether modern pro­ gress is so stable and assured a thing as we are apt to take it for granted it is. For my part, I would not give much for it if the Homan Catholic Church had its way for fifty or a hundred years. In all ages of the world, I make no doubt, there have been a few persons with too much insight to accept the fables which have satisfied the vulgar, but who dared not utter their thoughts, or, uttering them, were quickly extinguished; the torch of knowledge has been again and again lit and again and again put out; and truth never will be made secure until it has been driven down into the hearts of the masses of the people by a right method of education from generation to generation. Many persons who could not confidently express their belief in the power of prayer to stop a plague or a deluge of rain, or who actually disbelieve it, still have a sincere hold of the belief of its miraculous power in the moral or spiritual world. Nevertheless, if the matter be made one simply of scientific observation, it must be confessed that all the evidence goes to prove that the events of the moral world are matters of law and order equally with those of the physical world, and that supernatural interpositions have no more place in the one than in the other; that he who prays for the creation of a clean heart and the renewal of a right spirit within him, if he gets at last what he prays for, gets it by the operation of the ordinary laws of moral growth and development, in consequence of painstaking watchfulness over himself and the continual exercise of good resolves. Only when he gets it in that way will he get the benefit of supernatural aid; and if it rests in the belief of supernatural aid, without taking pains to get it entirely in that way, he will do himself moral harm; for if he cannot rely upon special interpositions in the moral any more than in the physical world, if he has to do entirely with those secondary laws of nature through which alone the supernatural is made natural, the invisible visible, it needs no demonstration that the opposite belief cannot strengthen, but must weaken, the under­ standing and will. It is plain that true moral hygiene is as impossible to the person who reEes upon his fetish to change his heart in answer to prayer, as sanitary science is impossible to the savage who relies upon his fetish to stay a pestilence in answer to prayer. �Lessons of Materialism. Jf’’ KQ’ro- uajAfd oh ifdte" id gib'. tv* Ha. 'bHfz. ■bite. l5bn&: hoar fMiBih; F<»fct I Rtfcfi I tnemi I 'ited I stite I 'irra j tiiaui I uwirf I I tt-yfi I tibiae | tlvi ' io I ~S.oh on-ar ..*uxid I Ji- (in isoon 1 ?4"-oi I iiLuvit I iiwtii njJoj feudal) W'xiil 23 So far from materialism being a menace to morality, when it is properly understood, it not only sets before man a higher intellec­ tual aim than he is ever likely to reach by spiritual paths, but it even raises a more self-sacrificing moral standard. For when all has been said, it is not the most elevated or the most healthy business for a person to be occupied continually with anxieties and apprehensions and cares about the salvation of his own soul, and to be earnest to do well in this life in order that he may escape eternal suffering and gain eternal happiness in a life to come. The disbeliever might find room to argue that here was an instance showing how theology has taken possession of the moral instinct and vitiated it. Having set before man a selfish instead of an altruistic end as the prime motive of well-doing—his own good rather than the good of others—it is in no little danger of taking away his strongest motive to do uprightly, if so be the dead rise not. Indeed, it makes the question of the apostle a most natural one : “ If, after the manner of man, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not ? ” Materialism cannot hesitate in the least to declare that it is best for a man’s self and best for his kind to have fought with the beasts of unrighteousness, at Ephesus or elsewhere, even if the dead rise not. Perceiving and teaching that he is essentially a social being, that all the mental faculties by which he so much excels the animals below him, and even the language in which he expresses his mental func­ tions, have been progressive developments of his social relations, it enforces the plain and inevitable conclusion that it is the true scientific function, and at the same time the highest development, of the individual, to promote the well-being of the social organiza­ tion—that is, to make his life subserve the good of his kind. It is no new morality, indeed, which it teaches ; it simply brings men back to that which has been the central lesson and the real stay of the great religions of the world, and which is implicit in the constitution of society; but it does this by a way which promises to bring the understanding into entire harmony with moral feeling, and so to promote by a close and consistent interaction their accordant growth and development; and it strips morality of the livery of superstition in which theological creeds have dressed and disfigured it, presenting it to the adoration of mankind in its natural purity and strength. �“ The Pathology of Mind.” By H. M AUDSLEY, M.D. Being the Third Edition of the Second Part of the “Physiology and Pathology of Mind,” recast, much enlarged and re-written. In 8vo, price 18s. liy the same Author. “ The Physiology of Mind.” Being the First Part of a Third Edition revised, enlarged, and re-written, of “ The Physiology and Pathology of Mind.” Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d. “Body and MindAn Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influ­ ence, specially with reference to Mental Disorders. Second Edition, enlarged and revised, with Psychological Essays added. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d. Macmillan & Co., London. SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY. To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical,^intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind. President.—W. B. Carpenter, C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &c. Vice-Pre sidents. Professor Alexander Bain. Sir Arthur Hobhouse, K.C.S.I. James Booth, Esq., C.B. Thomas Henry Huxley, Esq., LL.D., Charles Darwin, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. F.R.S., F.L.S. Edward Frankland, Esq., D.C.L., Herbert Spencer, Esq. Ph. D., F.R.S. W. Spottiswoode, Esq., LL.D., P.R.S. James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S. THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES ARE DELIVERED AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLAGE,. On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely. (Annually—from November to May). Twenty-four Lectures (in three series), commencing Sunday, the 2nd of November, 1879, will be given. Members’ -£1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, transferable (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reserved-seat tickets, available for any lecture. For tickets, and for the Lectures published by the Society, of which lists can be obtained on application, apply (by letter enclosing cheques, post­ office orders or postage stamps) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W. The Lectures can also be obtained of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158, Oxford Street, W. Payment at the door:—One Penny; — Sixpence;—and (Reserved Seats) One Shilling. Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W. � 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The first love again : a discourse delivered in the Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 28,1875, on the occasion of the re-union of the two Societies, which had divided fifteen years previously, chiefly on the issue of supernaturalism Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource CONWAY, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [s.l.] Collation: 21 p. ; 15 cm. Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Reprinted from the Cincinnati Daily Commercial (revised by the author). With a preface about the doctrinal differences between the first Congregational Church and the Church of the Redeemer in Cincinnati. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1875] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3342 Subject The topic of the resource Unitarianism Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The first love again : a discourse delivered in the Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 28,1875, on the occasion of the re-union of the two Societies, which had divided fifteen years previously, chiefly on the issue of supernaturalism), 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> Doctrines Dogma Liberalism (Religion) Morris Tracts Rationalism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c79ef029d4d886277e4bca1ffc3eee2f.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=sAtyIJq7XHGkDQvnA9HYAbE8lw1DDBESXA2u9z1jGLEQxaBOo0ij5LWgN37Pl1NJUyiZgIkEX6rfedzf3GNG9bALE2qRo1XPFZUk21QVor2aphYWwynlET10Zsaxw8s5H80pQ04D3xE-C5X%7Ew3E0gz1FQF0l5MjbUEciAepSRXc2Lm0P1rctLwB%7E60lKIXy61pN-5xsugjwzsDrY7v%7EzE6QmCVfTr35KrTvbYFUpYJGmPZbDw7dGIBq2N6z3hVmeVMsqBhvA%7Eg44uJCR6OOMs2Nu-NBVPRthBLmRb1GQcLCRk19MwHfGoGzcFhTc0GHwfULNKKNNEbjQQYBY%7E1Y6vQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b7e86938ab58770f86fa71f55469021e PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECU' " "''CIETY ROME OR REASON? A REPLY TO Cardinal Manning BY COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL. REPRINTED EROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, ■ October and November, 1888. ^onirou: PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C. 1888. �J ONDON : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE, AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C., �ROME, OR REASON? CARDINAL MANNING. PART I. Superstition Nias ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision.” A REPLY TO Cardinal Manning has stated the claims of the Roman Catholic Church with great clearness, and apparently without reserve. The age, position and learning of this man give a certain weight to his words, apart from their worth. He represents the oldest of the Christian churches The questions involved are among the most important that can engage the human mind. No one having the slightest regard for that superb thing known as intel­ lectual honesty, will avoid the issues tendered, or seek in any way to gain a victory over truth. . Without candor, discussion, in the highest sense, is impossible. All have the same interest, whether they know it or not in the establishment of facts. All have the same to gain, the same to lose. He loads the dice against himself who scores a point against the right. Absolute honesty is to the intellectual perception what hght is to the eyes. Prejudice and passion cloud the mind. In each disputant should be blended the advocate and judge. In this spirit, having in view only the ascertainment or the truth, let us examine the arguments, or rather the statements and conclusions, of Cardinal Manning. The proposition is that “ The Church itself, by its mar­ vellous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness m all good things, its catholic unity and lnVinC\^e lability, is a vast and perpetual motive of legationaU irrefragable witness of its own divine �4 ROME OR REASON. The reasons given as supporting this proposition are : That the Catholic Church interpenetrates all the nations of the civilised world; that it is extra-national and inde­ pendent in a supernational unitv ; that it is the same in every place ; that jt speaks all the languages in the civi­ lised world; that it is obedient to one head; that as many as seven hundred bishops have knelt before the pope ; that pilgrims from all nations have brought gifts to Rome, and that all these things set forth in the most self-evident way the unity and universality of the Roman Church. It is also asserted that “ men see the Head of the Church year by year speaking to the nations of the world, treating with empires, republics and governments ; ” that “ there is no other man on earth that can so bear him­ self,” and that “ neither from Canterbury nor from Con­ stantinople can such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen.” It is also claimed that the Catholic Church has enlight­ ened and purified the world ; that it has given us the peace and purity of domestic life ; that it has destroyed idolatry and demonology ; that it gave us a body of law from a higher source than man ; that it has produced the civilisation of Christendom ; that the popes were the greatest of statesmen and rulers ; that celibacy is better than marriage, and that the revolutions and reformations of the last three hundred years have been destructive and calamitous. We will examine these assertions as well as some others. No one will dispute that the Catholic Church is the best witness of its own existence. The same is true of every thing that exists; of every church, great and small, of every man, and of every insect. But it is contended that the marvellous growth or propagation of the Church is evidence of its divine origin. Can it be said that success is supernatural ? All success in this world is relative. Majorities are not necessarily right. If anything is known—if anything can be known—we are sure that very large bodies of men have frequently been wrong. We believe in what is called the progress of mankind. Progress, for the most part, consists in finding new truths and getting rid of old errors—that is to say, getting nearer and nearer in har­ �ROME OR REASON. 5 mony with the facts of nature, seeing with greater clear­ ness the conditions of well-being. There is no nation in which a majority leads the way. In the progress of mankind, the few have been the nearest right. There have been centuries in which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while the rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. Some, great man leads the way—he becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day. Afterwards, many millions accept his views. But there are still heights above and beyond ; there are other pioneers, and the old day, in comparison with the new, becomes a night. So, we can­ not say that success demonstrates either divine origin or supernatural aid. ~ We know, if we know anything, that wisdom has often been trampled beneath the feet of the multitude. We know that the torch of science has been blown out by the breath of the hydra-headed. We know that the whole intellectual heaven has been darkened again. The truth or falsity of a proposition cannot be determined by ascertaining the number of those who assert, or of those who deny. If the marvellous propagation of the Catholic Church proves its divine origin, What shall we say of the mar­ vellous propagation of Mohammedanism ? Nothing can be clearer than that Christianity arose out of the ruins of the Roman Empire—that is to say, the rums of Paganism. And it is equally clear that Mohammedanism arose out of the wreck and ruin of Catholicism. - After Mohammed came upon the stage, “ Christianity was forever expelled from its most glorious seat—from Palestine, the scene of its most sacred recollections ; from Asia Minor, that of its first churches; from Egypt whence issued the great doctrine of Trinitarian Ortho­ doxy, and from Carthage, who imposed her belief on Europe.” Before that time “the ecclesiastical chiefs of Rome,, of Constantinople, and of Alexandria were en­ gaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, carrying out their purposes by weapons and in ways revolting to the Conscience of .man. Bishops were concerned in assassina10ns, poisonings, adulteries, blindings, riots, treasons, civil war. Patriarchs and primates were excommuni­ �6 ROME OR REASON. eating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries for earthly power ; bribing eunuchs with gold and courtesans and royal females with concessions of epis­ copal love. Among legions of monks who carried terror into the imperial armies and riot into the great cities arose hideous clamors for theological dogmas, but never a voice for intellectual liberty or the outraged rights of man. “ Under these circumstances, amid these atrocities and crimes, Mohammed arose, and raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of the meteoric stone, and from the basest idol worship, and irrevocably wrenched from Christianity more than half—and that by far the best half—of her possessions, since it included, the Holy Land, the birth-place of the Christian faith, and Africa, which had imparted to it its Latin form ; and now, after a lapse of more than a thousand years, that continent, and a very large part of Asia, remain permanently attached to the Arabian doctrine.” It may be interesting in this connection to say that the Mohammedan now proves the divine mission of his Apostle by appealing to the marvellous propagation of the faith. If the argument is good in the mouth of a Catholic, is it not good in the mouth of a Moslem ? Let us see if it is not better. According to Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Church triumphed only over the institutions of men, triumphed only over religions that had been established by men, by wicked and ignorant men. But Mohammed triumphed not only over the religions of men, but over the religion of God. This ignorant driver of camels, this poor, unknown, unlettered boy, unassisted by God, unen­ lightened by supernatural means, drove the armies of the true cross before him as the winter’s storm drives withered leaves. At his name, priests, bishops and cardinals fled with white faces, popes trembled, and the armies of God, fighting for the true faith, were conquered on a thousand fields. If the success of a church proves its divinity, and after that anothei’ church arises and defeats the first, what does that prove ? Let us put this question in a milder form : Suppose the second church lives and flourishes in spite of the first, what does that prove ? �ROME OR REASON. 7 As a matter of fact, however, no church rises with everything against it. Something is favorable to it, or it could not exist. If it succeeds and grows, it is absolutely certain that the conditions are favorable. If it spreads rapidly, it simply shows that the conditions are exceed­ ingly favorable, and that the forces in opposition are weak and easily overcome. Here, in my own country, within a few years, has arisen a new religion. Its foundations were laid in an intelligent community, having had the advantages of what is known as modern civilisation. Yet this new faith—founded on the grossest absurdities, as gross as we find in the Scriptures—in spite of all opposition began to grow, and kept growing. It was subjected to persecution, and the persecution increased its strength. It was driven from State to State by the believers in universal love, until it left what was called civilisation, crossed the wide plains, and took up its abode on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It continued to grow. Its founder, as he declared, had frequent conversations with God, and received directions from that source. Hundreds of miracles were performed, multitudes upon the desert were miraculously fed, the sick were cured—the dead were raised, and the Mormon Church continued to grow, until now, less than half a century after the death of its founder, there are several hundred thousand believers in the new faith. Do you think that men enough could join this church to prove the truth of its creed ? Joseph Smith said that he found certain golden plates that had been buried for many generations, and upon these plates, in some unknown language, had been engraved this new revelation, and I think he insisted that by the use of miraculous mirrors this language was translated. If there should be Mormon bishops in the countries of the world, eighteen hundred years from now, do you think a cardinal of that faith could prove the truth of the golden plates simply by the fact that the faith had spread and that seven hundred bishops had knelt before the head of that church ? It seems to me that a “ supernatural ” religion—that it to say, a religion that is claimed to have been divinely founded and to be authenticated by miracle, is much �8 ROME OR REASON. easier to establish among an ignorant people than any other, and the more ignorant the people, the easier such a religion could be established. The reason for this is plain. All ignorant tribes, all savage men, believe in the miraculous, in the supernatural. The conception of uniformity, of what may be called the eternal consistency of nature, is an idea far above their comprehension. They are forced to think in accordance with their minds, and as a consequence they account for all phenomena by the acts of superior beings—that is to say, by the super­ natural. In other words, that religion having most in common with the savage, having most that was satis­ factory to his mind, or to his lack of mind, would stand the best chance of success. It is probably safe to say that at one time, or during one phase of the development of man, everything was miraculous. After a time, the mind slowly developing, certain phenomena, always happening under like con­ ditions, were called “natural,” and none suspected any special interference. The domain of the miraculous grew less and less—the domain of the natural larger ; that is to say, the common became the natural, but the uncom­ mon was still regarded as the miraculous. The rising and setting of the sun ceased to excite the wonder of mankind—there was no miracle about that ; but an eclipse of the sun was miraculous. Men did not then know that eclipses are periodical, that they happen with the same certainty that the sun rises. It took many observations through many generations to arrive at this conclusion. Ordinary rains became “ natural,” floods remained “ miraculous.” But it can all be summed up in this : The average man regards the common as natural, the uncommon as super­ natural. The educated man—and by that I mean the developed man—is satisfied that all phenomena are natural, and that the supernatural does not and can not exist. As a rule, an individual is egotistic in the proportion that he lacks intelligence. The same is true of nations and races. The barbarian is egotistic enough to suppose that an Infinite Being is constantly doing something, or failing to do something, on his account. But as man rises in the scale of civilisation, as he becomes really �BOMB OR BEASON. 9 great, he comes to the conclusion that nothing in Nature happens on his account—that he is hardly great enough to disturb the motions of the planets. Let us make an application of this : To me, the success of Mormonism is no evidence of its truth, because it has succeeded only with the superstitious. It has been recruited from communities brutalised by other forms of superstition. To me, the success of Mohammed does not tend to show that he was right—for the reason that he triumphed only over the ignorant, over the superstitious. The same is true of the Catholic Church. Its seeds were planted in darkness. It was accepted by the credulous, by men incapable of reasoning upon such questions. It did not, it has not, it cannot triumph over the intellectual world. To count its many millions does not tend to prove the truth of its creed. On the contrary, a creed that delights the credulous gives evidence against itself. Questions of fact or philosophy cannot be settled simply by numbers. There was a time when the Coper­ nican system of astronomy had but few supporters—the multitude being on. the other side. There was a time when the rotation of the earth was not believed by the majority. Let us press this idea further. There was a time when Christianity was not in the majority, anywhere. Let us suppose that the first Christian missionary had met a pre­ late of the Pagan faith, and suppose this prelate had used against the Christian missionary the Cardinal’s argument—how could the missionary have answered if the Cardinal’s argument is good ? But, after all, is the success of the Catholic Church a marvel ? If this Church is of divine origin, if it has been under the especial care, protection, and guidance of an Infinite Being, is not its failure far more wonderful than its success ? For eighteen centuries it has persecuted and preached, and the salvation of the world is still remote. This is the result, and it may be asked whether it is worth while to try to convert the word to Catholicism. Are Catholics better than Protestants ? Are they nearer honest, nearer just, more charitable ? Are Catholic nations better than Protestant ? Do the Catholic nations move in the van of progress? Withintheir jurisdiction �10 ROME OR REASON. are life, liberty and property safer than anywhere else ? Is Spain the first nation of the world ? Let me ask another question : Are Catholics or Pro­ testants better than Freethinkers ? Has the Catholic Church produced a greater man than Humboldt ? Has the Protestant produced a greater than Darwin ? Was not Emerson, so far as purity of life is concerned, the equal to any true believer? Was Pius IX., or any other Vicar of Christ, superior to Abraham Lincoln ? But it is claimed that the Catholic Church is universal, and that its universality demonstrates its divine origin. According to the Bible, the Apostles were ordered to go into all the world to preach the gospel—yet not one of them, nor one of their con verts at any time, nor one of the Vicars of God, for fifteen hundred years afterward, knew of the existence of the Western Hemisphere. During all that time, can it be said that the Catholic Church was universal ? At the close of the fifteenth century, there was one-half of the world in which the Catholic faith had never been preached, and in the other half not one person in ten had ever heard of it, and of those who had heard of it, not one in ten believed it. Certainly the Catholic Church was not then universal. Is it universal now ? What impression has Catholicism made upon the many millions of China, of Japan, of India, of Africa ? Can it truthfully be said that the Catholic Church is now universal ? When any church becomes universal, it will be the only church. There cannot be two universal churches, neither can there be one universal church and any other. The Cardinal next tries to prove that the Catholic Church is divine, “ by its eminent sanctity and its inex­ haustible fruitfulness in all good things.” And here let me admit that there are many millions of good Catholics—that is, of good men and women who are Catholics. It is unnecessary to charge universal dishonesty or hypocrisy, for the reason that this would be only a kind of personalitv. Many thousands of heroes have died in defence of the faith, and millions of Catholics have killed and been killed for the sake of their religion. And here it may be well enough to say that martyrdom does not even tend to prove the truth of a religion. The man who dies in flames, standing by what he believes to �ROME OR REASON. 11 be true, establishes, not the truth of what he believes, but his sincerity. Without calling in question the intentions of the Catholic Church, we can ascertain whether it has been “ inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things,” and whether it has been “ eminent for its sanctity.” In the first place, nothing can be better than goodness. Nothing is more sacred, or can be more sacred, than the well-being of man. All things that tend to increase or preserve the happiness of the human race are good—that is to say, they are sacred. All things that tend to the destruction of man’s well-being, that tend to his unhappi­ ness, are bad, no matter by whom they are taught or done. It is perfectly certain that the Catholic Church has taught, and still teaches, that intellectual liberty is dan­ gerous—that it should not be allowed. It was driven to take this position because it had taken another. It taught, and still teaches, that a certain belief is necessary to salvation. It has always known that investigation and inquiry led, oi’ might lead, to doubt ; that doubt leads, or may lead, to heresy, and that heresy leads to hell. In other words, the Catholic Church has something more important than this world, more important than the well­ being of man here. It regards this life as an opportunity for joining that Church, for accepting that creed, and for the saving of your soul. If the Catholic Church is right in its premises, it is right in its conclusion. If it is necessary to believe the Catholic creed in ordei’ to obtain eternal joy, then, of course nothing else in this world is, comparatively speaking, of the slightest importance. Consequently, the Catholic Church has been, and still is, the enemy of intellectual freedom, of investigation, of inquiry—in other words, the enemy of progress in secular things. The result of this was an effort to compel all men to accept the belief necessary to salvation. This effort naturally divided itself into persuasion and persecution. It will be admitted that the good man is kind, merciful, charitable, forgiving and just. A church must be judged by the same standard. Has the Church been merciful ? Has it been “ fruitful in the good things ” of justice, charity, and forgiveness ? Can a good man, believing a �12 ROME OR REASON. good doctrine, persecute for opinion’s sake ? If the Church imprisons a man for the expression of an honest opinion, is it not certain, either that the doctrine of the Church is wrong, or that the Church is bad ? Both can­ not be good. “ Sanctity ” without goodness is impossible. Thousands of “ saints ” have been the most malicious of the human race. If the history of the world proves anything, it proves that the Catholic Church was for many centuries the most merciless institution that ever existed among men. I cannot believe that the instruments of persecution were made and used by the eminently good ; neither can I believe that honest people were imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the stake by a Church that was “ inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things.” And let me say here that I have no Protestant prejudices against Catholicism, and have no Catholic prejudices against.Protestantism. I regard all religions either with­ out prejudice or with the same prejudice. They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next. All the gods have been made by men. They are all equally powerful and equally useless. I like some of them better than I do others, for the same reason that I admire some characters in fiction more than I do others. I prefer Miranda to Caliban, but have not the slightest idea that either of them existed. So I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, although perfectly satisfied that both are myths. I believe myself to be in a frame of mind to justly and fairly consider the claims of different religions, believing as I do that all are wrong, and admitting as I do that there is some good in all. When one speaks of the “ inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things ” of the Catholic Church, we remember the horrors and atrocities of the Inquisition—the rewards offered by the Roman Church for the capture and murder of honest men. We remember the Dominican Order, the members of which, upheld by the Vicar of Christ, pursued the heretics like sleuth hounds, through many centuries. The Church, “ inexhaustible in fruitfulness in all good things,” not only imprisoned and branded and burned the living, but violated the dead. It robbed graves, to the -end that it might convict corpses of heresy—to the end �ROME OR REASON. 13 that it might take from widows their portions and from orphans their patrimony. We remember the millions in the darkness of dungeons —the millions who perished by the sword—the vast multitudes destroyed in flames—those who were flayed alive—those who were blinded—those whose tongues were cut out—those into whose ears were poured molten lead—those whose eyes were deprived of their lids— those who were tortured and tormented in every way by which pain could be inflicted and human nature over­ come. And we remember, too, the exultant cry of the Church over the bodies of her victims : “Their bodies were burned here, but their souls are now tortured in hell.” We remember that the Church, by treachery, bribery, perjury, and the commission of every possible crime, got possession and control of Christendom, and we know the use that was made of this power—that it was used to brutalise, degrade, stupefy, and “ sanctify ” the children of men. We know also that the Vicars of Christ were persecutors for opinion’s sake—that they sought to destroy the liberty of thought through fear—that they endeavored to make every brain a Bastille in which the mind should be a convict—that they endeavored to make every tongue a prisoner, watched by a familiar of the Inquisition—and that they threatened punishment here, imprisonment here, burnings here, and, in the name of their God, eternal imprisonment and eternal burnings hereafter. We know, too, that the Catholic Church was, during all the years of its power, the enemy of every science. It preferred magic to medicine, relics to remedies, priests to physicians. It thought more of astrologers than of astronomers. It hated geologists—it persecuted the chemist, and imprisoned the naturalist, and opposed every discovery calculated to improve the condition of mankind. It is impossible to foi-get the persecutions of the Cathari, the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Hussites, the Hugue­ nots, and of every sect that had the courage to think just a little for itself. Think of a woman—the mother of a family—taken from her children and burned, on account of her view as to the three natures of Jesus Christ. Think �HOME OR REASON. 14 of the Catholic Church—an institution with a Divine FonX presided over by the agent of God-punisbmg a woman for giving a cup of cold water to a who had been anathematised. Think of this Church, “ fruitful in all good things,” launching its curse at an honest man—not only cursing him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet with a fiendish but having at the same time the impudence to call on God, and the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Marv to join in the curse ; and to curse him no _ y herey’but forever hereafter—calling upon all the saints and’upon all the redeemed to join in a hallelujah of cursesP so that earth and heaven should reverbrate with countless curses launched at a human being simply or having expressed an honest thought. , This Church, so “fruitful in all good things " invented crimes that it might punish, This Church tried men or a “suspicion of heresy’’—imprisoned themfoi ^e vice of being suspected—stripped them of all they bad_ on earth and allowed them to rot in dungeons, because they were guilty of the crime of having been suspected. This W It Vtoo late^to talk about the “invincible stability ” of the Seventh, in the Eighth, or in the Ninth centuries. It was not invincible m Germany in T other’s day. It was not invincible m the Low Countries. It was not invincible in Scotland, or in England It was not invincible in France. It is not invincible in Italy. It is not supreme m any intellectual centre of the world. It does not .triumph m Paris, or Berlin • it is not dominant m London, m England , neither’ is it triumphant in the United States. It has not within its fold the philosophers, the statesmen, and the thinkers who are the leaders of the human race. It is claimed that Catholicism “ interpenetrates all the nations of the civilised world,” and that m some it holds the whole nation in its unity. . in I suppose the Catholic Church is more powerful 1 Spain than in any other nation. The history of this nation demonstrates the result of Catholic supremacy, the result of an acknowledgment by a people that a certain religion is too sacred to be examined. �ROME OR REASOK. 15 Without attempting in an article of this character to point out the many causes that contributed to the adoption of Catholicism by the Spanish people, it is enough to say that Spain, of all nations, has been and is the most thoroughly Catholic, and the most thoroughly inter­ penetrated and dominated by the spirit of the Church of Rome. Spain used the sword of the Church. In the name of religion it endeavored to conquer the infidel world. It drove from its territory the Moors, not because they were bad, not because they were idle and dishonest, but because they were infidels. It expelled the Jews, not because they were ignorant or vicious, but because they were unbelievers. It drove out the Moriscoes, and deliberately made outcasts of the intelligent, the industrious, the honest and the useful, because they were not Catholics. It leaped like a wild beast upon the Low Countries, for the destruction of Protestantism. It covered the seas with its fleets, to destroy the intellectual liberty of man. And not only so—it established the Inquisition within its borders. It imprisoned the honest, it burned the noble, and succeeded after many years of devotion to the true faith, in destroying the industry, the intelligence, the usefulness, the genius, the nobility and the wealth of a nation. It became a wreck, a jest of the conquered, and excited the pity of its former victims. In this period of degradation, the Catholic Church held “ the whole nation in its unity.” At last Spain began to deviate from the path of the Church. It made a treaty with an infidel power. In 1782 it became humble enough, and wise enough, to be friends with Turkey. It made treaties with Tripoli and Algiers and the Barbary States. It had become too poor to ransom the prisoners taken by these powers. It began to appreciate the fact that it could neither conquer nor convert the world by the sword. Spain has progressed in the arts and sciences, in all that tends to enrich and ennoble a nation, in the precise proportion that she has lost faith in the Catholic Church. This may be said of every other nation in Christendom' Torquemada is dead; Castelar is alive. The dungeons of the Inquisition are empty, and a little light has penetrated the clouds and mists—not much, but a little. Spain is �16 ROME OR REASON. not yet clothed and in her right mind. A few years ago the cholera visited Madrid and other cities.. Physicians were mobbed. Processions of saints carried the host through the streets for the purpose of staying the plague. The streets were not cleaned ; the sewers were filled. Filth and faith, old partners, reigned supreme. The Church, “eminent for its sanctity,” stood in the light and cast its shadow on the ignorant and the prostrate. The Church, in its “inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things,” allowed its children to perish through ignorance, and used the diseases it had produced as an instrument­ ality to further enslave its votaries and its victims. No one will deny that many of its priests exhibited heroism of the highest order in visiting the sick and administering what are called the consolations of religion to the dying, and in burying the dead. It i§ necessary neither to deny nor disparage the self-denial and goodness of these men. But their religion did more than all other causes to produce the very evils that called. for the exhibition of self-denial and heroism. One scientist in control of Madrid could have prevented the plague. In such cases, cleanliness is far better than “godliness”; science is superior to superstition ; drainage much better than divinity ; therapeutics more excellent than theology. Goodness is not enough—intelligence is necessary. Faith is not sufficient, creeds are helpless, and prayers fmitloss* It is admitted that the Catholic Church exists in many nations; that it is dominated, at least in a great degree, by the Bishop of Rome—that it is international in that sense, and that in that sense it has what may be. called a supernationai xiw same, “ supernational unity.” The muj-c, however, is true of the Masonic fraternity. It exists in many nations, but it is not a national body. It is in the same sense extra­ national, in the same sense international, and has in t e same sense a supernational unity. So the same may be said of other societies. This, however, does not tend to prove that anything supernational is supernatural. It is also admitted that in. faith, worship, ceremonial, discipline and government, that the Catholic Church is substantially the same wherever it exists. . This estab­ lishes the unity, but not the divinity of the institution. The church that does not allow investigation, that �ROME OR REASON. 17 teaches that all doubts are wicked, attains unity through tyranny—that is, monotony by repression. Wherever man has had something like freedom differences have appeared, heresies have taken root, and the divisions have become permanent. New sects have been born and the Catholic Church has been weakened. The boast of unity is the confession of tyranny. It is insisted that the unity of the Church substantiates its claim to divine origin. This is asserted over and over again, in many ways ; and yet in the Cardinal’s article is found this strange mingling of boast and confession : Was it only by the human power of man that the unity, external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been supreme, was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be broken again ? ” By this it is admitted that the internal and external unity of the Catholic Church has been broken, and that it required more than human power to restore it. Then the boast is made that it will never be broken again. Yet it is asserted that the internal and external unity of the Catholic Church is the great fact that demonstrates its divine origin. Now if this internal and external unity was broken, and remained broken for years, there was an interval during which the Church had no internal or external unity, and during which the evidence of divine origin failed. The unity was broken in spite of the Divine Founder. This is admitted by the use of the word “ again.” The unbroken unity of the Church is asserted, and upon this assertion is based the claim of divine origin ; it is then admitted that the unity was broken. The argument is then shifted, and the claim is made that it required more than human power to restore the internal and external unity of the Church, and that the restora­ tion, not the unity, is proof of the divine origin. Is there any contradiction beyond this ? Let us state the case in another way. Let us suppose that a man has a sword which he claims was made by God, stating that the reason he knows that God made the sword is that it never had been and never could be broken. Now if it was afterwards ascertained that it had been broken, and the owner admitted that it had been, what would be thought of him if he then took the ground B �18 ROME OR REASON. that it had been welded, and that the welding was the evidence that it was of divine origin ? A prophecy is then indulged in, to the effect that the internal and external unity of the Church can never be broken again. It is admitted that it was broken, it is asserted that it was divinely restored, and then’ it is declared that it is never to be broken again. No reason is given for this prophecy ; it must be born of the facts already stated. Put in a form to be easily understood it is this : ’ We know that the unity of the Church can never be broken, because the Church is of divine origin. We know that it was broken; but this does not weaken the argument, because it was restored by God, and it has not been broken since. Therefore, it never can be broken again. It is stated that the Catholic Church is immutable, and that its immutability establishes its claim to divine origin. Was it immutable when its unity, internal and external, was broken ? Was it precisely the same after its unity was broken that it was before ? Was it precisely the same after its unity was divinely restored that it was while broken? Was it universal while it was without unity? Which of the fragments was universal—which was immutable ? The fact that the Catholic Church is obedient to the pope, establishes, not the supernatural origin of the Church, but the mental slavery of its members. It estab­ lishes the fact that it is a successful organisation ; that it is cunningly devised ; that it destroys the mental inde­ pendence, and that whoever absolutely submits to its authority loses the jewel of his soul. The fact that Catholics are to a great extent obedient to the pope, establishes nothing except the thoroughness of the organisation. .. How was the Roman empire formed ? By what means did that Great Power hold in bondage the then known world ? How is it that a despotism is established? How is it that the few enslave the many ? How is it that the nobility live on the labor of the peasants ? The answer is in one word, Organisation. The organised few triumph over the unorganised many. The few hold the �ROME OR REASON, 19 sword and the purse. The unorganised are overcome in detail—terrorised, brutalised, robbed, conquered. We must remember that when Christianity was estab­ lished the world was ignorant, credulous and cruel. The gospel with its idea of forgiveness, with its heaven and hell, was suited to the barbarians among whom it was preached. Let it be understood, once for all, that Christ had but little to do with Christianity. The people became convinced—being ignorant, stupid and credulous —that the Church held the keys of heaven and hell.. The foundation for the most terrible mental tyranny that has existed among men was in this way laid. The Catholic Church enslaved to the extent of its power. It resorted to every possible form of fraud ; it perverted every good instinct of the human heart ; it rewarded every vice ; it resorted to every artifice that ingenuity could devise, to reach the highest round of power. It tortured the accused to make them confess; it tortured wit­ nesses to compel the commission of perjury ; it tortured children for the purpose of making them convict their parents; it compelled men to establish their own innocence; it imprisoned without limit; it had the malicious patience to wait; it left the accused without trial, and left them in dungeons until released by death. There is no crime that the Catholic Church did not commit, no cruelty that it did not practice, no form of treachery that it did not reward, and no virtue that it did not persecute. It was the greatest and most powerful enemy of human rights. It did all that organisation, cunning, piety, self-denial, heroism, treachery, zeal and brute force could do to enslave the children of men. It was the enemy of intelligence, the assassin of liberty, and the destroyer of progress. It loaded the noble with chains and-th© infamous with honors. In one hand it carried the alms dish, in the other a dagger. It argued with the sword, persuaded with poison, and convinced with the faggot. It is impossible to see how the divine origin of a Church can be established by showing that hundreds of bishops have visited the pope. Does the fact that millions of the faithful visit Mecca establish the truth of the Koran ? Is it a scene for congratulation when the bishops of thirty nations kneel before a man ? Is it not humiliating to know that man �20 ROME OR REASON. is willing to kneel at the feet of man ? Could a noble man demand, or joyfully receive, the humiliation of his fellows ? As a rule, arrogance and humility go together. He who in power compels his fellow man to kneel, wili him­ self kneel when weak. The tyrant is a cringer in power; ■a cringer is a tyrant out of power. Great men stand face to face. They meet on equal terms. The cardinal who kneels in the presence of the pope, wants the bishop to kneel in his presence ; and the bishop who kneels ■demands that the priest shall kneel to him ; and the priest who kneels demands that they in lower orders shall kneel ; and all, from pope to the lowest—that is to say, from pope to exorcist, from pope to the one in charge of the bones of saints—all demand that the people, the lay­ men, those upon whom they live, shall kneel to them. The man of free and noble spirit will not kneel. 'Courage has no knees. Fear kneels, or falls upon its •ashen face. The cardinal insists that the pope is the Vicar of Christ, and that all popes have been. What is a Vicar of Jesus Christ ? He is a substitute in office. He stands in the place, or occupies the position in relation to the Church, in relation to the world, that Jesus Christ would occupy were he the pope at Rome. In other words, he takes Christ’s place ; so that, according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ himself is present in the person of the pope. We all know that a good man may employ a bad agent. A good king might leave his realm and put in his place a tyrant and a wretch. The good man, and the good king, ■cannot certainly know what manner of man the agent is —what kind of person the vicar is—consequently the bad may be chosen. But if the king appointed a bad vicar, knowing him to be bad, knowing that he would oppress the people, knowing that he would imprison and burn the noble and generous, what excuse can be imagined for such a king ? Now if the Church is of divine origin, and if each pope is the Vicar of Jesus Christ, he must have been chosen by Jesus Christ ; and when he was chosen, Christ must have known exactly what* his Vicar would do. Can we believe that an infinitely wise and good Being would �ROME OR REASON. 21 choose immoral, dishonest, ignorant, malicious, heartless, fiendish and inhuman vicars ? The Cardinal admits that “ the history of Christianity is the history of the Church, and that the history of the Church is the history of the Pontiffs,” and he then de­ clares that “the greatest statesmen and rulers that the world has ever seen are the Popes of Rome.” Let me call attention to a few passages in Draper’s History of the Intellectual Development of Europe. “ Constantine was one of the Vicars of Christ. After­ wards, Stephen IV. was chosen. The eyes of Constantine were then put out by Stephen, acting in Christ’s place. The tongue of the Bishop Theodoras was amputated by the man who had been substituted for God. This bishop was left in a dungeon to perish of thirst. Pope Leo III. was seized in the street and forced into a church, where the nephews of Pope Adrian attempted to put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. His successor, Stephen V was driven ignominiously from Rome. His successor, Paschal I., was accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace. John VIII., unable to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute. “At this time, the Bishop of Naples was in secret alliance with the Mohammedans, and they divided with this Catholic bishop the plunder they collected from other Catholics. This bishop was excommunicated by the pope ; afterwards he gave him absolution because he be­ trayed the chief Mohammedans, and assassinated others. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope, and some of the treasures of the Church were seized, and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys to admit the Saracens. Pormosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, who had been excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of Pope John, was himself elected pope in 891. Boniface VI. was his successor. He had been deposed from the diaconate and from the priesthood for his immoral and lewd life. Stephen VII. was the next pope, and he had the dead body of Formosus taken from the grave, clothed in papal habiliments, propped up in a chair and tried before a Council. The corpse was found guilty, three fingers were cut off and the body cast into the Tiber. Afterwards Stephen �'22 ROME OR REASON. VII., this Vicar of Christ, was thrown into prison and strangled. “ From 896 to 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V., in less than two months after he became pope, was cast into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains. This Christopher usurped his place, and in a little while was expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who became pope in 905. This pope lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated Theodora, who with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, both prostitutes, exercised an extraordi­ nary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by John X. She gave him the Archbishopric of Ravenna, and made him pope in 915. The daughter of Theodora overthrew this pope. She surprised him in the Lateran Palace. His brother, Peter, was killed; the pope was thrown into prison, where he was afterwards murdered. Afterward, this Marozia, daughter of Theo­ dora, made her own son pope, John XI. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his father, but his mother inclined to attribute him to her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she afterwards married. Another of her sons, Alberic, jealous of his brother, John the Pope, cast him and their mother into prison. Alberic’s son was then elected pope as John XII. “ John was nineteen years old when he became the Vicar of Christ. His reign was characterised by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere. He was tried. It appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration of bishops ; that he had ordained one who was only ten years old ; that he was charged with incest, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel. He put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic; he maimed another —both dying in consequence of their injuries. He was given to drunkeness and to gambling. He*was de­ posed at last, and Leo VII. elected in his stead. Subse­ quently he got the upper hand. He seized his an­ tagonists ; he cut off the hand of one, the nose, the finger, and the tongue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced.” And yet, I admit that the most infamous popes, the �ROME OR REASON. S3 most heartless and fiendish bishops, friars, and priests were models of mercy, charity, and justice when compared with the orthodox God—with the God they worshipped. These popes, these bishops, these priests could persecute only for a few years—they could burn only for a few moments—but their God threatened to imprison and burn forever ; and their God is as much worse than they were, as hell is worse than the Inquisition. “ John XIII. was strangled in prison. Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII., and starved him to death. John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of the castle of St. Angelo. The corpse of Boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets.” It must be remembered that the popes were assassinated by Catholics—murdered by the faithful—that one Vicar of Christ strangled another Vicar of Christ, and that these men were “ the greatest rulers and the greatest statesmen of the earth.” “ Pope John XVI. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his tongue torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail. Benedict IX., a boy of less than twelve years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his suc­ cessors, Victor III., declared that the life of Benedict was so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of banditti. The people, unable to bear longer his adulteries, his homicides and his abominations, rose against him, and in despair of maintaining his position, he put up his papacy to auction, and it was bought by a Presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., in the year of grace 1045. Well may we ask, Were these the Vicegerents of God upon earth—these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pass ?” It may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit that has not been committed by the Vicars of Christ. They have inflicted every possible torture, violated every natural right. Greater monsters the human race has not produced. Among the “ some two hundred and fifty-eight ” Vicars of Christ there were probably some good men. This would have happened even if the intention had been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfec­ �24 ROME OR REASON. tion neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by Christ himself, if they were selected by a Church with a divine origin and under divine guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection of a bad one. If one hypocrite was duly elected pope—one murderer, one strangler, one starver—this demonstrates that all the popes were selected by men, and by men only, that the claim of divine guidance is born of zeal and uttered without knowledge. But who were the Vicars of Christ ? How many have there been ? Cardinal Manning himself does not know. He is not sure. He says : “ Starting from St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some two hundred and fifty­ eight Pontiffs claiming to be recognised by the whole Catholic unity as successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ.” Why did he use the word “some"? Why “ claiming ” ? Does he positively know ? Is it possible that the present Vicar of Christ is not certain as to the number of his predecessors ? Is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact ? PART II. “ If we live thus tamely,— To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,— Farewell nobility.” No one will deny that “the pope speaks to many people in many nations : that he treats with empires and govern­ ments,” and that “ neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople such a voice goes forth.” How does the pope speak ? What does he say ? He speaks against the liberty of man—against the progress of the human race. He speaks to calumniate thinkers, and to warn the faithful against the discoveries of science. He speaks for the destruction of civilisation. Who listens ? Do astronomers, geologists and scientists put the hand to the ear fearing that an accent may be lost ? Does France listen ? Does Italy hear ? Is not the Church weakest at its centre ? Do those who have raised �ROME OR REASON. 25 Italy from the dead, and placed her again among the great nations, pay attention ? Does Great Britain care for this voice—this moan, this groan—of the Middle Ages ? Do the words of Leo XIII. impress the intelligence of the Great Republic ? Can anything be more absurd than for the vicar of Christ to attack a demonstration of science with a passage of Scripture, or a quotation from one of the “ Fathers ” ? Compare the popes with the kings and queens of England. Infinite wisdom had but little to do with the selection of these monarchs, and yet they were far better than any equal number of consecutive popes. This is faint praise, even for kings and queens, but it shows that chance succeeded in getting better rulers for England than “ Infinite Wisdom ” did for the Church of Rome. Compare the popes with the presidents of the Republic elected by the people. If Adams had murdered Washington, and Jefferson had imprisoned Adams, and if Madison had cut out Jefferson’s tongue, and Monroe had assassinated Madison, and John Quincy Adams had poisoned Monroe, and General Jackson had hung Adams and his Cabinet, we might say that presidents had been as virtuous as popes. But if this had happened, the verdict of the world would be that the people are not capable of selecting their presidents. But this voice from Rome is growing feebler day by day ; so feeble that the Cardinal admits that the vicar of God, and the supernatural Church, “ are being tormented by Falck laws, by Mancini laws and by Crispi laws.” In other words, this representative of God, this substitute of Christ, this Church of divine origin, this supernatural institution—pervaded by the Holy Ghost—are being “ tormented ” by three politicians. Is it possible that this patriotic trinity is more powerful than the other ?* It is claimed that if the Catholic Church “ be only a human system, built up by the intellect, will and energy of men, the adversaries must prove it—that the burden is upon them.” As a general thing, institutions are natural. If this Church is supernatural, it is the one exception. The affirmative is with those who claim that it is of divine origin. So far as we know, all governments and all creeds are the work of man. No one believes that Rome �26 ROME OR REASON. was a supernatural production, and yet its beginnings were as small as those of the Catholic Church. Commenc­ ing in weakness, Rome grew, and fought, and conquered, until it was believed that the sky bent above a subjugated world. And yet all was natural. For every effect there was an efficient cause. The Catholic asserts that all other religions have been produced by man—that Brahminism and Buddhism, the religion of Isis and Osiris, the marvellous mythologies of Greece and Rome, were the work of the human mind. From these religions Catholicism has borrowed. Long before Catholicism was born, it was believed that women had borne children whose fathers were gods. The Trinity was promulgated in Egypt centuries before the birth of Moses. Celibacy was taught by the ancient Nazarenes and Essenes, by the priests of Egypt and India, by mendicant monks, and by the piously insane of many countries long before the Apostles lived. The Chinese tell us that “ when there were but one man and one woman upon the earth, the woman refused to sacrifice her virginity even to people the globe ; and the gods, honoring her purity, granted that she should conceive beneath the gaze of her lover’s eyes, and a virgin mother became the parent of humanity. The founders of many religions have insisted that it was the duty of man to renounce the pleasures of sense, and millions before our era took the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and most cheerfully lived upon the labor of others. The sacraments of baptism and confirmation are far (older than the Church of Rome. The Eucharist is pagan. Long before popes began to murder each other, pagans ate cakes—the flesh of Ceres, and drank wine—the blood of Bacchus. Holy water flowed in the Ganges and Nile, priests interceded for the people, and anointed the dying. It will not do to say that every successful religion that has taught unnatural doctrines, unnatural practices, must of necessity have been of divine origin. In most religions there has been a strange mingling of the good and bad, of the merciful and cruel, of the loving and malicious. Buddhism taught the universal brotherhood of man, insisted on the development of the mind, and this religion was propagated not by the sword, but by preaching, by �ROME OR REASON. 27 persuasion and by kindness—yet in many things it wag contrary to the human will, contrary to the human pas­ sions, and contrary to good sense. Buddhism succeeded. Can we, for this reason, say that it is a supernatural religion ? Is the unnatural the supernatural ? It is insisted that, while other churches have changed, the Catholic Church alone has remained the same, and that this fact demonstrates its divine origin. Has the creed of Buddhism changed in three thousand years ? Is intellectual stagnation a demonstration of divine origin ? When anything refuses to grow, are we certain that the seed was planted by God ? If the Catholic Church is the same to-day that it has been for many centuries, this proves that there has been no intel­ lectual development. If men do not differ upon religious subjects, it is because they do not think. Differentiation is the law of growth, of progress. Every Church must gain or lose ; it cannot remain the same ; it must decay or grow. The fact that the Catholic Church has not grown—that it has been petrified from the first— does not establish divine origin ; itsimply establishes the fact that it retards the progress of man. Everything in nature changes—every atom is in motion—every star moves. Nations, institutions and individuals have youth, manhood, old age, death. This is and will be true of the Catholic Church. It was once weak—it grew stronger— it reached its climax of power—it began to decay—it never can rise again. It is confronted by the dawn of Science. In the presence of the nineteenth century it cowers. It is not true that “ All natural causes run to disinte­ gration.” Natural causes run to integration as well as to disinte­ gration. All growth is integration, and all growth is natural. All decay is disintegration, and all decay is natural. Nature builds and nature destroys. When the acorn grows—when the sunlight and rain fall upon it and the oak rises—so far as the oak is concerned “ all natural causes ” do not “ run to disintegration.” But there comes a time when the oak has reached its limit, and then the forces of nature run towards disintegration, and finally the old oak falls. But if the Cardinal is right—if “ all natural causes run to disintegration,” then every success �28 ROME OR REASON. must have been of divine origin, and nothing is natural but destruction. This is Catholic science : “ All natural causes run to disintegration.” What do these causes find to disintegrate ? Nothing that is natural. The fact that the thing is not disintegrated shows that it was and is of supernatural origin. According to the Cardinal, the only business of nature is to disintegrate the supernatural. To prevent this, the supernatural needs the protection of the Infinite. According to this doctrine, if anything lives and grows, it does so in spite of nature. Growth, then, is not in accordance with, but in opposition to nature. Every plant is supernatural—it defeats the dis­ integrating influences of rain and light. The generalisa­ tion of the Cardinal is half the truth. It would be equally true to say : All natural causes run to integration. But the whole truth is that growth and decay are equal. The Cardinal asserts that “ Christendom was created by the world-wide Church as we see it before our eyes at this day. Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own hands ; they did not make it, but they have for three hundred years been unmaking it by refor­ mations and revolutions.” The meaning of this is that Christendom was far better three hundred years ago than now ; that during these three centuries Christendom has been going towards barbarism. It means that the supernatural Church of God has been a failure for three hundred years ; that it has been unable to withstand the attacks of philosophers and statesmen, and that it has been helpless in the midst of “ reformations and revolutions.” What was the condition of the world three hundred years ago, the period, according to the Cardinal, in which the Church reached the height of its influence and since which it has been unable to withstand the rising tide of reformation and the whirlwind of revolution ? In that blessed time, Phillip II. was king of Spain—he with the cramped head and the monstrous jaw. Heretics were hunted like wild and poisonous beasts ; the in? quisition was firmly established, and priests were busy with rack and fire. With a zeal born of the hatred of man and the love of God, the Church with every instrument of torture, touched every nerve in the human body. �ROME OR REASON. 29 In those happy clays the Duke qf Alva was devastating the homes of Holland ; heretics were buried alive—their tongues were torn from their mouths, their lids from their eyes; the Armada was on the sea for the destruction of the heretics of England, and the Moriscoes—a million and a half of industrious people—were being driven by Sword and flame from their homes. The dews had been expelled from Spain. This Catholic country had suc­ ceeded in driving intelligence and industry from its territory ; and this had been done with cruelty, with a ferocity, unequalled in the*annals of crime. Nothing was left but ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, credulity, the Inquisition, the seven sacraments and the seven deadly Sins. And yet a Cardinal of the nineteenth century, living in the land of Shakespeare, regrets the change that has been wrought by the intellectual efforts, by the dis­ coveries, by the inventions and heroism of three hundred years. Three hundred years ago, Charles IX., in France, son of Catherine de Medici, in the year of grace 1572—after nearly sixteen centuries of Catholic Christianity—after hundreds of vicars of ^Christ had sat in St. Peter’s chair— after the’natural passions of man had been “ softened ” by the creed of Rome—came the Massacre of St. Bartholo­ mew, the result of a conspiracy between the Vicar of Christ, Philip II., Charles IX., and his fiendish mother. Let the Cardinal read the account of this massacre once more, and after reading it, imagine that he sees the gashed and mutilated bodies of thousands of men and women, and then let him say that he regrets the revolu­ tions and reformations of three hundred years. About three hundred years ago Clement VIII., Vicar of Christ, acting in God’s place, substitute of the Infinite, persecuted Giordano Bruno even unto death. This great’ this sublime man, was tried for heresy. He had ventured to assert the rotary motion of the earth ; he had hazarded the conjecture that there were in the fields of infinite space worlds larger and more glorious than ours. For these low and groveling thoughts, for this contradiction of the word and vicar of God, this man was imprisoned for many years. But his noble spirit was not broken, and finally in the year 1600, by the orders of the infam­ ous Vicar, he was chained to the stake. Priests believing �30 ROME OR REASON. in the doctrine of universal forgiveness—priests who when smitten upon one cheek turned the other—carried with a kind of ferocious joy faggots to the feet of this incomparable man. These disciples of “Our Lord” were made joyous as the flames, like serpents, climbed around the body of Bruno. In a few moments the brave thinker was dead, and the priests who had burned him fell upon their knees and asked the infinite God to continue the blessed work for ever in hell. There are two things that cannot exist in the same universe—an infinite God and a martyr. Does the Cardinal regret that kings and emperors are not now engaged in the extermination of Protestants ? Does he regret that dungeons of the Inquisition are no longer crowded with the best and bravest? Does he long for the fires of the auto da fe1 ? In coming to a conclusion as to the origin of the Catholic Church—in determining the truth of the claim of infallibility—we are not restricted to the physical achievements of that Church, or to the history of its propagation, or to the rapidity of its growth. This Church has a creed ; and if this Church is of divine origin—if its head is the Vicar of Christ, and, as such, infallible in matters of faith and morals, this creed must be true. Let us start with the supposition that God exists, and that he is infinitely wise, powerful and good— and this is only a supposition. Now, if the creed is foolish, absurd and cruel, it cannot be of divine origin. We find in this creed the following : “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it isnecessary that he hold the Catholic faith.” It is not necessary, before all things, that he be good,, honest, merciful, charitable and just. Creed is more im­ portant than conduct. The most important of all things is, that he hold the Catholic faith. There were thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that faith, because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the virtues were just as important as now, just as important as they ever can be. Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed. Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and rejected it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because of their belief, or notwithstanding their �ROME OR REASON. 31 belief^ have murdered millions of their fellows. We know that men can be, have been, and are just as wicked with it as without it. We know that it is not necessary to believe it to be good, loving, tender, noble and self­ denying. We admit that millions who have believed it have also been self-denying and heroic, and that millions, by such belief, were not prevented from torturing and destroying the helpless. Now if all who believed it were good, and all who rejected it were bad, then there might be some propriety in saying that “ whoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.” But as the experience of mankind is otherwise, the declaration becomes absurd, ignorant and cruel. There is still another clause : u Which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt he shall everlastingly perish.” We now have both sides of this wonderful truth : The believer will be saved, the unbeliever will be lost. We know that faith is not the child or servant of the will. We know that belief is a conclusion based upon what the mind supposes to be true. We know that it is not an act of the will. Nothing can be more absurd than to save a man because he is not intelligent enough to accept the truth, and nothing can be more infamous than to damn a man because he is intelligent enough to reject the false. It resolves itself into a question of intelligence. If the creed is true, then a man rejects it because he lacks intelligence. Is this a crime for which a man should everlastingly perish ? If the creed is false, then a man accepts it because he lacks intelligence. In both cases the crime is exactly the same. If a man is to be damned for rejecting the truth, certainly he should not be saved for accepting the false. This one clause demonstrates that a being of infinite wisdom and goodness did not write it. It also demonstrates that it was the work of men who had neither wisdom nor a sense of justice. What is this Catholic faith that must be held ? It is this : ■“ That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.” Why should an Infinite Being demand worship ? Why �32 ROME OR REASON. should one God wish to be worshipped as three ? Why should three Gods wish to be worshipped as one ? Why should we pray to one God and think of three, or pray to three Gods and think of one ? Can this increase the happiness of the one or of the three ? Is it possible to think of one as three, or of three as one ? If you think of three as one, can you think of one as none, or of none as one ? When you think of three as one, what do you do with the other two ? You must not “ confound the persons ”—they must be kept separate. When you think of one as three, how do you get the other two ? You must not “divide the substance.” Is it possible to write greater contradictions than these ? This creed demonstrates the human origin of the Catholic Church. Nothing could be more unjust than to punish man for unbelief—for the expression of honest thought—for having been guided by his reason—for having acted in accordance with his best judgment. Another claim is made, to the effect “ that the Catholic Church has filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true God, and that it has destroyed all idols by light instead of by fire.” The Catholic Church described the true God as a being who would inflict eternal pain on his weak and erring children ; described him as a fickle, quick-tempered, unreasonable deity, whom honesty enraged, and whom flattery governed ; one who loved to see fear upon its knees, ignorance with closed eyes and open mouth ; one who delighted in useless self-denial, who loved to hear the sighs and sobs of suffering nuns, as they lay prostrate on dungeon floors ; one who was delighted when the husband deserted his family and lived alone in some cave in the far wilderness, tormented by dreams and driven to insanity by prayer and penance, by fasting and faith. According the Catholic Church, the true God enjoyed the agonies of heretics. He loved the smell of their burning flesh ; he applauded with wide palms when philosophers were flayed alive, and to him the auto da fe was a divine comedy. The shrieks of wives, the cries of babes when fathers were being burned, gave contrast, heightened the effect and filled his cup with joy. This true God did not know the shape of the earth he had made, and had forgotten the orbits of the �BOMB OR REASON. 33 stars. > “ The stream of light which descended from the beginning” was propagated by faggot to faggot, until Christendom was filled with the devouring fires of faith. It may also be said that the Catholic Church filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true Devil. It filled the air with malicious phantoms, crowded innocent Sleep with leering fiends, and gave the world to the domination of witches and wizards, spirits and spooks, goblins and ghosts, and butchered and burned thousandsfor the commission of impossible crimes. It is contended that: “ In this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was revealed to man their own relation toa Creator as sons to a Father.” This tender relation was revealed by the Catholics tothe Pagans, the Arians, the Cathari, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the heretics, the Jews, the Moriscoes, the Protestants—to the natives of the West Indies, of Mexico, of Peru—to philosophers, patriots and thinkers. All these victims were taught to regard the true God as a loving Father, and this lesson was taught with every instrument of torture—with brandings and burnings, with Sayings and flames. The world was filled with cruelty and credulity, ignorance and intolerance and the soil in which all these horrors grew was the true knowledge of the one true God,, and the true knowledge of the one true Devil. And yet, we are compelled to say, that the one true Devil described by the Catholic Church was not as malevolent as the one true God. Is it true that the Catholic Church overthrew idolatry ? What is idolatry ? What shall we say of the worship of popes—of the doctrine of the Real presence, of divine honors paid to saints, of sacred vestments, of holy water, of consecrated cups and plates, of images and relics, of amulets and charms ? The Catholic Church filled the world with the spirit of idolatry. It abandoned the idea of continuit5r in nature, it denied the integrity of cause and effect. The govern­ ment of the world was the composite result of the caprice of God, the malice of Satan, the prayers of the faithfulsoftened, it may be, by the charity of Chance. Yet the Cardinal asserts, without the preface of a smile, that “ Demonology was overthrown by the Church, with the • c �34 ROME OR REASON, assistance of forces that were above nature; ” and in the same breath gives birth to this enlightened statement : “Beelzebub is not divided against himself.” Is a belief in Beelzebub a belief in demonology ? Has the Cardinal forgotten the Council of Nice, held in the year of grace 787, that declared the worship of images to be lawful ? Did that infallible Council, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, destroy idolatry ? The Cardinal takes the ground that marriage is a sacra­ ment, and therefore indissoluble, and he also insists that celibacy is far better than marriage—holier than a sacra­ ment—that marriage is not the highest state, but that « the state of virginity unto death is thejhighest condition of man and woman.” The highest ideal of a family is where all are equal— where love has superseded authority—where each seeks the good of all, and where none obey—where no religion can sunder hearts, and with which no church can in­ terfere. The real marriage is based on mutual affection—the ceremony is but the outward evidence of the inward flame. To this contract there are but two parties. The Church is an impudent intruder. Marriage is made public to the end that the real contract may be known, so that the world can see that the parties have been actuated by the highest and holiest motives that find expression in the acts of human beings. The man and woman are not joined together by God, or by the Church, or by the State. The Church and State may prescribe certain •ceremonies, certain formalities—but all these are only •evidence of the existence of a sacred fact in the heaits of the wedded. The indissolubility of marriage is a dogma that has filled the lives of millions with agony and tears. It has given a perpetual excuse for vice and immorality. Fear has borne children begotten by brutality. ^Countless women have endured the insults, indignities and cruelties ■of fiendish husbands, because they thought that it was the will of God. The contract of marriage is the most important that human beings can make ; but no contract can be so important as to release one of the parties from the obligation of performance ; and no contract, whether made between man and woman, or between them and God, after a failure of consideration caused by the wilful �HOME OR REASON. 35 act of the man or woman, can hold and bind the innocent and honest. Do the believers in indissoluble marriage treat their wives better than others ? A little while ago, a woman said to a man who had raised his hand to strike her : “ Do not touch me ; you have no right to beat me ; I am not your wife.” About a year ago, a husband, whom God in his infinite wisdom had joined to a loving and patient woman in the indissoluble sacrament of marriage, becoming enraged, seized the helpless wife and tore out one of her eyes. She forgave him. A few weeks ago he deliberately repeated this frightful crime, leaving his victim totally blind. Would it not have been better if man, before the poor woman was blinded, had put asunder whom God had joined together? Thousands of husbands, who insist that marriage is indissoluble, are the b eaters of wives. The Law of the Church has created neither the purity nor the peace of domestic life. Back of all churches is human affection. Back of all theologies is the love of the human heart. Back of all your priests and creeds is the adoration of the one woman by the one man, and of the one man by the one wom'an. Back of your faith is the fireside, back of your folly is the family • and back of all your holy mistakes and your sacred absurdities is the love of husband and wife, of parent and child. It is not true that neither the Greek nor the Roman world had any true conception of a home. The splendid story of Ulysses and Penelope, the parting of Hector and Andromache, demonstrate that a true conception of home existed among the Greeks. Before the establish­ ment of. Christianity, the Roman matron commanded the admiration of the then known world. She was free and noble. The Church degraded woman ; made her the property of the husband, and trampled her beneath its brutal feet. The “ fathers ” denounced woman as a perpetual temptation, as the cause of all evil. The Church worshipped a God who had upheld polygamy, and had pronounced his curse on woman, and had declared that she should be the serf of the husband. This Church followed the teachings of St. Paul. It taught the un­ cleanness of marriage, and insisted that all children were �36 ' ROME OR REASON. conceived in sin. This Church pretended to have been founded by one who offered a reward in this world, and eternal joy in the next, to husbands who would forsake their wives and children and follow him. Did this tend to the elevation of woman ? Did this detestable doctrine “create the purity and peace of domestic life’ ? Is it true that a monk is purer than a good and noble father . that a nun is holier than a loving mother ? ? Is there anything deeper and stronger than a mother 8 love ? Is there anything purer, holier than a mother holding her dimpled babe against her billowed breast ? The good man is useful, the best man is the most use­ ful. Those who fill the nights with barren prayers and holy hunger, torture themselves for their own good and not for the benefit of others. They are earning eternal glory for themselves ; they do not fast for their fellow­ men, their selfishness is only equalled by their foolish­ ness. Compare the monk in his selfish cell, counting beads and saying prayers for the purpose of saving his barren soul, with a husband and father sitting by his fireside with wife and children. Compare the nun with the mother and her babe. Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity. It tries to put a stain upon motherhood, upon marriage, upon love—that is to say, upon all that is holiest in the human heart Take love from the world, and there is nothing left worth livino- for. The Church has treated this great, this sublime, this unspeakably holy passion, as though it polluted the heart. They have placed the love of God above the love of woman, above the love of man. Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish, because man does not love God for God’s sake but for his own. • , i 4. Yet the Cardinal asserts “ that the change wrought by­ Christianity in the social, political and international relations of the world’’-“that the root of this ethical, change, private and public, is the Christian home. A moment afterwards, this prelate insists that celibacy is far better than marriage. If the world could be induced to live in accordance with the “ highest state, this gene­ ration would be the last. Why were men and women created ? Why did not the Catholic God commence with the sinless and sexless ? The Cardinal ought to take the �ROME OR REASON. 37 ground that to talk well is good, but that to be dumb is the highest condition; that hearing is a pleasure, but that deafness is ecstasy ; and that to think, to reason, is very well, but that to be a Catholic is far better. Why should we desire the destruction of human passions ? Take passions from human beings and what is left ? The great object should be not to destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge passion to the utmost is one form of intemper­ ance, to destroy passion is another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue. The goodness, the sympathy, the self-denial of the nun, of the monk, all come from the mother instinct, the father instinct—all were produced by human affection, by the love of man for woman, of woman for man. Love is a transfiguration. It ennobles, purifies and glorifies. In true marriage two hearts burst into flower. Two lives unite. They melt in music. Every moment is a melody. Love is a revelation, a creation. From love the world borrows its beauty and the heavens their glory. Justice, self-denial, charity and pity are the children of love. Jjover, wife, mother, husband, father, child, home—these words shed light—they are the gems of human speech. Without love all glory fades, the noble falls from life, art dies, music loses meaning and becomes mere motions of the air, and virtue ceases to exist. It is asserted that this life of celibacy is above and against the tendencies of human nature; and the Cardinal then asks : “ Who will ascribe this to natural causes, and, if so, why did it not appear in the first four thousand years ? ” If there is in a system of religion a doctrine, a dogma, or a practice against the tendencies of human nature—if this religion succeeds, then it is claimed by the Cardinal that such religion must be of divine origin. Is it “against the tendencies of human nature ” for a mother to throw her child into the Ganges to please a supposed God? Yet a religion that insisted on that sacrifice succeeded, and has, to-day, more believers than the Catholic Church can boast. Religions, like nations and individuals, have always .gone along the line of least resistance. Nothing has �38 ROME OR REASON. “ascended the stream of human license by a power mightier than nature.” There is no such power. There never was, there never can be, a miracle. We know that man is a conditioned being. We know that he is affected by a change of conditions. If he is ignorant he is super­ stitious—that is natural. If his brain is developed, if he perceives clearly that all things are naturally produced, he ceases to be superstitious and becomes scientific. He is not a saint, but a savant—not a priest, but a philo­ sopher. He does not worship, he works; he investigates ; he thinks ; he takes advantage, through intelligence, of the forces of nature. He is no longer the victim of appearances, the dupe of his own ignorance, and the persecutor of his fellow men. He then knows that it is far better to love his wife and children than to love God. He then knows that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, of parent for child, of child for parent, is far better, far holier than the love of man for any phantom born of ignorance and fear. It is illogical to take the ground that the world was cruel and ignorant and idolatrous when the Catholic Church was established, and that because the world is better now than then, the Church is of divine origin. What was the world when science came ? What was it in the days of Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler ? What was it when printing was invented ? What was it when the Western World was found ? Would it not be much easier to prove that science is of divine origin ? Science does not persecute. It does not shed blood— it fills the world with light. It cares nothing for heresy; it developes the mind, and enables man to answer his own prayers. Cardinal Manning takes the ground that Jehovah prac­ tically abandoned the children of men for four thousand years, and gave them over to every abomination. He claims that Christianity came “ in the fulness of time, and it is then admitted that “ what the fulness of time may mean is one of the mysteries of times and seasons, that it is not for us to know.” Having declared that it is a mystery, and one that we are not to know, the Cardinal explains it : “ One motive for the long delay of four thousand years is not far to seek—it gave time, full and �ROME OR REASON. 39 ample, for the utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the intellect and will of man is capable.” Is it possible to imagine why an infinitely good and wise being “ gave time full and ample for the utmost development and consolidation of falsehood and evil ” ? Why should an infinitely wise God desire this development and consolidation ? What would be thought of a father who should refuse to teach his son and deliberately allow him to go into every possible excess, to the end that he might “ develop all the falsehood and evil of which his intellect and will were capable ”? If a super­ natural religion is a necessity, and if without it all men simply develop and consolidate falsehood and evil, why was not a supernatural religion given to the first man ? The Catholic Church, if this be true, should have been founded in the garden of Eden. Was it not cruel to drown a world just for the want of a supernatural religion—a religion that man, by no possibility, could furnish ? Was there “ husbandry in heaven ” ? But the Cardinal contradicts himself by not only admitting, but declaring, that the world had never seen a legislation so just, so equitable, as that of Rome. Is it possible that a nation in which falsehood and evil had reached their highest development was, after all, so wise, so just, and so equitable ? Was not the civil law far better than the Mosaic—more philosophical, nearer just? The civil law was produced without the assistance of God. According to the Cardinal, it was produced by men in whom all the falsehood and evil of which they were capable had been developed and consolidated, while the cruel and ignorant Mosaic code came from the lips of infinite wisdom and compassion. It is declared that the history of Rome shows what man can do without God, and I assert that the history of the Inquisition shows what man can do when assisted by a church of divine origin, presided over by the infallible vicars of God. The fact that the early Christians not only believed incredible things, but persuaded others of their truth, is regarded by the Cardinal as a miracle. This is only another phase of the old argument that success is the test of divine origin. All supernatural religions have been �40 ROME OR REASON. founded in precisely the same way. The credulity of eighteen hundred years ago believed everything except the truth. A religion is a growth, and is of necessity adapted in some degree to the people among whom it grows. It is shaped and moulded by the general ignorance, the superstition and credulity of the age in which it lives. The key is fashioned by the lock. Every religion that has succeeded has in some way supplied the wants of its votaries, and has to a certain extent harmonised with their hopes, their fears, their vices, and their virtues. If, as the Cardinal says, the religion of Christ is in absolute harmony with nature, how can it be super­ natural ? The Cardinal also declares that. “ the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature in all nations and all ages to this day.” What becomes of the argument that Catholicism must be of divine origin because “ it has ascended the stream of human licence, contra ictum fluminis, by a power mightier than nature ” ? If “ it is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations and all ages to this day,” it has gone with the stream, and not against it. If “ the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations,” then the men who have rejected it are unnatural, and these men have gone against the stream. How then can it be said that Christianity has been in changeless opposition to nature as man has marred it ? To what extent has man marred it ? In spite of the marring by man, we are told that the reason and moral nature of all nations in all ages to this day is in harmony with the religion of Jesus Christ. Are we justified in saying that the' Catholic Church is of divine origin because the Pagans failed to destroy it by persecution ? We will put the Cardinal’s statement in form : Paganism failed to destroy.Catholicism by persecutions therefore Catholicism is of divine origin. Let us make an application of this logic : Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution ; therefore, Catholicism is of divine origin. Catholicism failed to destroy Protestantism by persecu­ tion ; therefore, Protestantism is of divine origin. �ROME OR REASON. 41 Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity; therefore, Infidelity is of divine origin. Let us make another application : Paganism did not succeed in destroying Catholicism ; therefore, Paganism was a false religion. Catholicism did not succeed in destroying Protestant­ ism ; therefore, Catholicism is a false religion. Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity ; therefore, both Catholicism and Protestantism are false religions. The Cardinal has another reason for believing the Catholic Church of divine origin. He declares that the Canon Law is a creation of wisdom and justice to which no statutes at large or imperial pandects can bear com­ parison “ that the world-wide and secular legislation of the Church was of a higher character, and that as water cannot rise above its source, the Church could not, by mere human wisdom, have corrected and perfected the imperial law, and therefore its source must have been higher than the sources of the world.” When Europe was the most ignorant, the Canon Law was supreme. As a matter of fact, the good in the Canon Law was borrowed—the bad was, for the most part, original. In my judgment, the legislation of the Repub­ lic of the United States is in many respects superior to that of Rome, and yet we are greatly indebted to the Common Law ; but it never occurred to me that our Statutes at Large are divinely inspired. If the Canon Law is, in fact, the legislation of infinite wisdom, then it should be a perfect code. Yet, the Canon Law made it a crime next to robbery and theft to take interest for money. Without the right to take interest the business of the world would, to a large extent, cease and the prosperity of mankind end. There are railways enough in the United States to make six tracks around the globe, and every mile was built with borrowed money on which interest was paid or promised. In no other way could the savings of many thousands have been brought together and a capital great enough formed to construct works of such vast and continental import­ ance. �42 ROME OR REASON. It was provided in this same wonderful Canon Law that a heretic could not be a witness against a Catholic. The Catholic was at liberty to rob and wrong his fellow man, provided the fellow man was not a fellow Catholic, and in a court established by the Vicar of Christ, the man who had been robbed was not allowed to open his mouth. A Catholic could enter the house of an unbeliever, of a Jew, of a heretic, of a Moor, and before the eyes of the husband and father murder his wife and children, and the father could not pronounce in the hearing of a judge the name of the murderer. The world is wiser now, and the Canon Law, given to us by infinite wisdom, has been repealed by the common sense of man. In this divine code it was provided that to convict a cardinal bishop, seventy-two witnesses were required ; a cardinal presbyter, forty-four ; a cardinal deacon, twentyfour ;' a sub-deacon, acolyth, exorcist, reader, ostiarus, seven ; and in the purgation of a bishop, twelve witnesses were invariably required; of a presbyter, seven ; of a deacon, three. These laws, in my judgment, were made, not by God, but by the clergy. So, too, in this cruel code it was provided that those who gave aid, favor, or counsel, to excommunicated per­ sons should be anathema, and that those who talked with, consulted, or sat at the same table with, or gave anything in charity to the excommunicated, should be anathema. Is it possible that a being of infinite wisdom made hospitality a crime ? Did he say : “ Whoso giveth a cup of cold water to the excommunicated shall wear forever a garment of fire”? Were not the laws of the Romans much better ? Besides all this, under the Canon Law the dead could be tried for heresy, and their estates confiscated —that is to say, their widows and orphans robbed. The most brutal part of the common law of England is that in relation to the right of women—all of which was taken from the Corpus Juris Canonist, “ the law that came from a higher source than man.” The only cause of absolute divorce as laid down by the pious canonists was propter infidelitatem, which was when one of the parties became Catholic, and would not live with the other who continued still an unbeliever. Under this divine statute, a pagan wishing to be rid of �ROME OR REASON. 43: his wife had only to join the Catholic Church, provided she remained faithful to the religion of her fathers. Under this divine law, a man marrying a widow was declared to be a bigamist. It would require volumes to point out the cruelties, absurdities and inconsistencies of the Canon Law. It' has been thrown away by the world. Every civilised nation has a code of its own, and the Canon Law is of interest only to the historian, the antiquarian, and the enemy of theological government. Under the Canon Law, people were convicted of being witches and wizards, of holding intercourse with devils. Thousands perished at the stake, having been convicted of these impossible crimes. Under the Canon Law, there was such a crime as the suspicion of heresy. A man or woman could be arrested, charged with being suspected,, and under this Canon Law, flowing from the intellect of infinite wisdom, the presumption was in favor of guilt. The suspected had to prove themselves innocent. In all civilised courts, the presumption of innocence is theshield of the indicted, but the Canon Law took away this shield, and put in the hand of the priest the sword of presumptive guilt. If the real pope is the vicar of Christ, the true shepherd of the sheep, this fact should be known not only to the vicar, but to the sheep. A divinely founded and guarded church ought to know its own shepherd, and yet the Catholic sheep have not always been certain who theshepherd was. The Council of Pisa, held in 1409, deposed two popes— rivals—Gregory and Benedict—that is to say, deposed the actual vicar of Christ and the pretended. This action was taken because a council, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, could not tell the genuine from the counterfeit. The council then elected another vicar, whose authority was afterwards denied. Alexander V. died, and John XXIII. took his place ; Gregory XII. insisted that he was the lawful pope ; John resigned, then he was de­ posed, and afterwards imprisoned; then Gregory XII. resigned, and Martin V. was elected. The whole thing reads like the annals of a South American Revolution. The Council of Constance restored, as the Cardinal declares, the unity of the Church, and brought back the �44 ROME OR REASON. consolation of the Holy Ghost. Before this great council John Huss appeared and maintained his own tenets. The council declared that the Church was not bound to keep its promise with a heretic. Huss was condemned and executed on the 6th of July, 1415. His disciple, Jerome of Prague, recanted, but having relapsed, was put to death, May 30th, 1416. This cursed council shed the blood of Huss and Jerome. The Cardinal appeals to the author of Ecce Homo for the purpose of showing that Christianity is above nature, and the following passages, among others, are quoted : “ Who can describe that which unites men ? Who has entered into the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union ? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society ? He who can do these things can explain the origin of the Christian Church.” These passages should not have been quoted by the Cardinal. The author of these passages simply says that the origin of the Christian Church is no harder to find and describe than that which unites men—than that which has entered into the formation of speech, the symbol of their union—no harder to describe than th® origin of civil society—because he says that one who can describe these can describe the other. Certainly none of these things are above nature. We do not need the assistance of the Holy Ghost in these matters. We know that men are united by common interests, common purposes, common dangers—by race, ■climate, and education. It is no more wonderful that people live in families, tribes, communities and nations, than that birds, ants, and bees live in flocks and swarms. If we know anything we know that language is natural —that it is a physical science. But if we take the ground occupied by the Cardinal, then we insist that everything that cannot be accounted for by man, is supernatural. Let me ask, by what man ? What man must we take as the standard ? Cosmas or Humboldt, St. Irenaeus or Darwin ? If everything that we cannot account for is above nature, then ignorance is the test of the super­ natural. The man who is mentally honest, stops where his knowledge stops. At that point he says that he does not know. JSuch a man is a philosopher. Then the �ROME OR REASON. 45 theologian steps forward, denounces the modesty of the philosopher as blasphemy, and proceeds to tell what is beyond the horizon of the human intellect. ■ Could a savage account for the telegraph, or the tele­ phone by natural causes? How would he account for these wonders ? He would account for them precisely as the Cardinal accounts for the Catholic Church. Belonging to no rival church, I have not the slightest interest "in the primacy of Leo XIII., and yet it is to be regretted that this primacy rests upon such a narrow and insecure foundation. The Cardinal says that “ it will appear almost certain that the original Greek of St. Irenaeus, which is un­ fortunately lost, contained either to. 7rpcoTeia, or some inflection of 7rp<DTeva>, which signifies primacy.” From this it appears that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome rests on some “ inflection ” of a Greek word—and that this supposed inflection was in a letter supposed to have been written by St. Irenaeus, which has certainly been lost. Is it possible that the vast fabric of papal power has this, and only this, for its foundation ? To this “ inflection ” has it come at last ? The Cardinal’s case depends upon the intelligence and veracity of his witnesses. The Fathers of the Church were utterly incapable of examining a question of fact. They were all believers in the miraculous. The same is true of the apostles. If St. John was the author of the Apocalypse, he was undoubtedly insane. If Polycarp said the things attributed to him by Catholic writers, he was certainly in the condition of his master. What is the testimony of St. John worth in the light of the following ? “ Cerinthus, the heretic, was in a bath-house. St. John and another Christian were about to enter. St. John cried out: ‘ Let us run away, lest the house fall upon us while the enemy of truth is in it.’ ” Is it possible that St. John thought that God would kill two eminent Christians for the purpose of getting even with one heretic ? Let us see who Polycarp was. He seems to have been a prototype of the Catholic Church, as will be seen from the following statement concerning this Father: “When any heretical doctrine was spoken in his presence he would stop his ears.” After this, there can be no question �46 ROME OR,REASON. of his orthodoxy. It is claimed that Polycarp was a martyr—that a spear was run through his body and that from the wound his soul, in the shape of a bird, flew away. The history of his death is just as true as the history of his life. Irenaeus, another witness, took the ground that there was to be a millennium, a thousand years of enjoyment in which celibacy would not be the highest form of virtue. If he is called as a witness for the purpose of establishing the divine origin of the Church, and if oneof his inflections ” is the basis of papal supremacy, is the Cardinal also willing to take his testimony as to the nature of the millennium ? All the Fathers were infinitely credulous. Every one of them believed, not only in the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ, by the apostles, and by other Christians, but every one of them believed in the Pagan miracles. . All of these Fathers were familiar with won­ ders and impossibilities. Nothing was so common with them as to work miracles, and on many occasions they not only cured diseases, not only reversed the order of nature, but succeeded in raising the dead. It is very hard, indeed, to prove what the apostles said, or what the Fathers of the Church wrote. There were many centuries filled with forgeries, many generations in which the cunning hands of ecclesiastics erased, oblite­ rated and interpolated the records of the past, during which they invented books, invented authors, and quoted from works that never existed. The testimony of the “Fathers” is without the slightest value. They believed everything, they examined nothing. They received as a waste-basket receives. Whoever accepts their testimony will exclaim with the Cardinal : “ Happily, men are not saved by logic.” ��� 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/. 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Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Progressive Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1888 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N390 Subject The topic of the resource Catholic Church Rationalism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Rome or reason? : a reply to Cardinal Manning), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Catholic Church Catholic Church-Controversial Literature Henry Edward Manning Marriage NSS Rationalism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e2ec4f0a0759119152d7e110e1ec2e77.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=YXfJoQmAgLUlnSv%7EeDjH2nRHRzskByLG6MVUhQoxGLDmgcvOEaRAbe%7E95bss6lFcLBBF3bNMudaKS3ait5zpVsgopYiEIQUdAQYzLlFW6GRgMajL-qeoPoegeyThOME6BKNq8Z5SB3YifZSLMWA6qHIlxdRpK93kX0dGSXCaB4Tm4Gq2ZNpiiG89sBYb56HLsUtoYxBKJM9S3h9A51W2HJBfoiTErzVcN7dxgLg33Al6zg6siY1OPnDwRVUHWsv-uUjOALJT96HOQfblxAu2XPYaRlhMJqTeDk7FJvGR89um634BZQ%7Eh-efhqiGKgSfbarD%7EEO%7EZ8Twl7ml1DK7sIA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f6b98b4c122eb9ccce20cd6647185407 PDF Text Text THE RISING GENERATION A DISCOURSE BEFORE THE SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY, JUNE 27TH, 1880, BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A. LONDON : SOUTH PLACE, FINSBURY. PRICE TWOPENCE. �LONDON : Wateblow & Sons Limited LONDON WALL. �THE RISING GENERATION. <^OME of us can remember the time when the heart of England was stirred by Elizabeth Barrett’s poem, “ The Cry of the Children.” A revela­ tion had come from the dark mines of the country telling how little children were held all their lives in gloomy imprisonment, knowing nothing but work. In the mines were subterranean villages gloomy as the chambers of Dante’s Hell; some children were born there, lived, laboured, and died there, and only when dead did they come into the upper world—for burial. Little children were found who did not know what a flowrer was—they had never seen a flower. Then the “ Cry of the Children ” was heard. They uttered none for themselves; down in the pit they silently worked through their miserable lives, while the children of the world danced and were gay; yet their voices were heard in the poet’s lamentation, in the stateman’s eloquence, in the people’s sympathy, and the wrong was swept away. It seems to us now almost incredible that such an �( 4 ) evil should have existed within our own memories. So clear to our eyes are the evils of other times than our own. But, alas, the need is always for eyes that can see the evils of their own time, and how few are they ! In Dante’s Inferno one of the saddest places was the abode of those who moved about in a spiritual fog which obscured everything that was near to them. They could clearly see events in the far past, they could see into the future, but they could not see the present. These, during life, had given no effect to the experience of the past, exerted no influence on the future, because they did not study to discern the facts at hand, the conditions around them. They could not see time’s flowing stream at the point where it passed them, where must be dropped what is to reach the future. It is but a too faithful picture of multitudes who do not seem to themselves to be in any Inferno at all. There are many who can hear the cry of the children in the last generation, but can hear no cry in the present. Yet there is a cry. It comes no longer from subterranean mines, but it comes from unhappy homes; from the gloomy realms of pauperism, ignorance, and disease; and it comes from the sunless dungeons of dogma, where millions of children live and die, never seeing any flower of life, of beauty, or of joy. In speaking to you this morning of the rising �( 5 ) generation I do not propose to enter upon ideal speculations about the future, nor to propose quixotic schemes for abolishing all the evils of the world. I wish rather to limit your attention to facts near at hand, and conditions more or less within our reach. And, first of all, to impress upon you, as practical people, the fact that the visible conditions of the world have invisible foundations. Things are founded on thoughts. The world that man has built up,—the world of society, politics, nationality, religion,—is a phenomenal world, supported by causes always causing it; having for its beams and rafters moral and mental sustainers; and every change of thought or belief in the human mind is followed by a change in the visible conditions of the world. For example, were the Sabbatarian superstition removed from the mind of this country, the bars and bolts which close the refining institutions of the country would also be removed. If the Christian superstition were to die out of the English mind, the wealth and power it freezes up in an iceberg would melt, and streams would flow through the deserts where hearts and brains are famishing. Beware therefore of undervaluing thought, knowledge, beliefs, principles, because they are in­ visible. There are many thousands of Christian people who industriously battle with visible sufferings and vices. They do a little good here and a little good �( 6 ) there, in particular cases ; but the evils invariably return. Like the fabled daughters of Danaus they fill their sieves with water, but it always runs out again, because they do not stop the holes in the sieve’s bottom : they do not stop them because they are invisible; they are the unconscious falsities of their creeds, diverting, human minds and efforts away from the work of practically saving themselves from actual evils, to the fruitless work of saving themselves from unreal evils. The only way'to help men permanently is to enable them to help themselves. To give them resources is to shield them from want and sorrow; to educate their mental and physical strength is to make them rich; to surround them with social interests is to make them good citizens; and all these, and other conditions of human welfare, depend upon the pre­ vailing doctrine of what is the chief end and aim of human life. He who lifts that aim even a little, lifts the lives of millions with it; and a man is never so charitable, never so practical, as when he is destroying an error and affirming a truth. If benevolence wishes to bestow or bequeathe real benefit, let it not give too largely to the institutions which deal with the annual crop of evils that ignorance sows, let it attack the ignorance ; let it not build temperance coffee-houses to be closed on the only day they are much needed, �( 7 ) but attack the superstition which locks the people out of the splendid art-houses already existing, and leaves them no resource but debauchery. I do not disparage the disposition to relieve suffering whenever met with ; but let it not be supposed that such is the highest or the most practical charity to mankind. A single pound given for human culture, for spiritual liberty, for advancement of a high cause or principle, is worth a thousand bestowed to salve over wounds which only knowledge and justice can heal. And 1 will add that as the pound given for the transient mitigation of an evil is but a drop of oil on an ocean of misery, that which is bestowed in freeing a mind from error is strictly economised, and has a fair prospect of being multiplied through generations. This high charity must not only be thus practical and economical in its object, but also in its method. The regeneration of the world must be through its successive generations. You cannot change the habits of an old man. What troubles grow from those habits you may assuage, but they can only be eradicated with the constitution around which they have formed. The best thing a matured generation can do is to run to seed—the seed of experience—to select from these -seeds those that are largest and soundest, and sow •them in the quick soil of youth and vigour. It is the principles so entrusted to the rising generation which �( 8 ) grow with its growth, transmute decays into life, failures into success, and transmit an ever-increasing volume of wisdom and happiness. What then is the present cry of the children ? their perhaps inarticulate, but all the profounder cry ? What are their needs ? How are they being taught ? It is not our business to boast that much has been done, that the children have been taken from the streets and put to school. That was the work of a generation now closed. What work the next is to add to that, is a question more inportant than what has been already done; we can rightly rejoice only if we feel that the best is now being done. It is to be feared we have little reason to felicitate ourselves upon our dealings with the rising generation. To a large extent the young are being taught over again what their elders have painfully unlearned ; they are solemnly and deliberately crammed with that which the best thought of our time has proved to be untrue. A young man recently emancipated from Roman Catholicism gave me an account of how he wasbrought up. When the poor little papist is born, his inborn demon is exorcised. Water is thrown on his head, also salt and oil; the cross signed on its fore­ head ; a candle is held beside it, a Latin formula muttered, and a half-crown demanded. The mother �( 9 ) is also subjected to an exorcism for having borne a demon into the world, and another half-crown is' demanded for the churching. Both of these cere­ monies remain in the Church of England. The water exorcism remains in all denominations. Even some Unitarians are not ashamed to practice a form which is either a mockery, or a proclamation of the diabolical nature of the child. Fortunately the little papist is unconscious of these proceedings ; but unfortunately, his training is on the belief that the exorcised demon is always trying to get back into the form from which he was expelled. He is taught to regard this as the chief danger of his life; he must continually make the sign of the cross, and pray to Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and other saints. He must bow to holy pictures and crucifixes, wear holy medals and charms, and is taught that these are the things which alone protect him from danger every moment. When he enters church or school he sprinkles himself with holy water, bends his knee before an altar, and understands that he inhales mysterious good things with incense. At school he utters “ Hail Mary ” every time the hour strikes. He is fed on miraculous stories of the marvels wrought by saints and holy objects. The Catechism is the . only thing taught him with any real industry : the ■ three principal ideas with which he is impressed are �( IO ) his utter depravity, his utter inability to help himself without the priest, and the diabolical iniquity of presuming to ask any question about the “sacred mysteries.’ At the age of seven or nine he is prepared for confession by what is called ‘ examining the conscience ’ which consists in making him read over a list of all the abominations ever committed by man. The purity of the child’s mind being thus poisoned, he is made to confess all the evil thoughts so awakened. He is then taught the sacredness of penance; worship of the Eucharist as God himself; and so he is given to society. But if all that should succeed in really moulding-him he would be hardly better off mentally than were those children of the mines who never saw a flower. This is the pit from which the Christian child of this country was dug by the Reformation, but was very soon plunged into others where much of its little life is still passed. Puritanism was even a darker pit than Catholicism, and most of the sects were mere variants of Puritanism. The English Church being the church of royalty and wealth, had to accommodate its dogmas to the indulgencies, tastes and sports of the upper classes. The aristocracy preserved many traditions from its barbaric origin, and has steadily refused to be captured by asceticism, or tamed by Puritanism. But unfortunately it did �( IX ) not refuse to submit to hypocrisy; and it goes on still with the supplications of terror on its lips and indifference in its heart. Its catechism indoctrinates in asceticism, its life in worldliness. It cries for mercy on Sunday, and hunts foxes on Monday. It calls itself a miserable sinner at church, and resents the slightest aspersion of its character elsewhere. It were hard to conceive a more continuous drill in hypocrisy than that child undergoes who is taught the church catechism in the intervals of a life practically absorbed in worldly schemes. It is to the credit of human nature that there are so many g&pdjent characters which survive the training of Catrmn8fta, and the repressions of Puritanism; but, still more to its credit that so many frank and earnest men survive the teachings of a church which so baldly separates theory from practice. But statistics show a vast population never going to any church at all. A large number of these are working men, who feel that the church is their enemy, and to whom the sects are unattractive. The labouring masses find in sleep, drink, and public-house gossip, the best compensation for six days’ toil. And there are many literary men, men of science, and gentlemen, who stay away from church and sect out of sheer disbelief and disgust. Yet the families of these generally go to �( 12 ) church, their children are baptised, catechised, and generally taught the dogmas which their parents despise. With the exception of the comparatively few Liberals who have formed Societies of their own, the rising generation is thus instructed in the same catechisms, creeds, confessions in which their prede­ cessors were instructed. Even the learning of the country abnegates its paramount duty to see that the women and children of the nation are taught truth, and consecrated in every way possible to the diffusion of truth. Thus the Catholic procedure, rejected in theory, characterises the actual treatment of the Protes­ tant child, too often of the disbeliever’s child. He is not dealt with as one possessed, but as a moral invalid who must go to the holy doctor every week, and be dosed with piety and texts. It is a terrible misdirection of that child’s mind, and many are mentally hunch-backed for life by it. It is by children being committed to the parsons as to dress-makers. Through this indifferentism, which may almost be called hardened, society goes on repeating the old routine from generation to genera­ tion. Every year rolls up its steady average- of abuses unreformed, evils unchanged, falsities laughed at and maintained. Some progress is made but it is 'mainly through the slow working of natural necessity, �the accompaniment of physical changes incident to the pursuit of wealth. It is as nothing compared with the progress that would be made if all the thinkers and educated people of the community were to seriously set themselves to the work of securing to their families, especially their children, the full benefits of their best knowledge and experience, treating every attempt to teach them fashionable falsities as they would attempts to indoct­ rinate them in sorcery. It is the abstract verdict of science that Christian dogmas are false. That is equally the verdict of moral and mental philosophy. But their verdict remains unexecuted. Until they feel also that these dogmas are so many poisons, the Creeds and Catechisms so many bottles of poison steadily infused into the springs that feed society; until they besiege those sects which so poison spiritual springs as they would water-companies sending corruption through the community, or adulterators of the public food; until then, we need not hope that the best knowledge of this age will enter upon its duty of bringing social institutions out of their barbarous constitution into conformity with reason and right. What is the Creed taught to the millions of children around us ? That they are born totally depraved; that they are in danger of eternal damnation; that they have incurred this danger by no act of their own, and can be saved by no act of their own; that they were �( *4 ) corrupted by a man and woman who lived six thousand years ago, and must be saved by the murder of a man who lived over eighteen hundred years ago. This is what is taught every child, with few exceptions. What does human culture believe? That such teaching is utterly preposterous. It believes every child is born innocent, liable to actual dangers, to be saved from them by others’ care in early life, ultimately by its own intelligence and activities, quite irrespective of any apple eaten in Paradise or murder committed in Palestine. The dogmas are just the reverse of the knowledge, and yet there is no serious combined effort among the intelligent people to substitute knowledge for proven falsities in the training of children. It is too obvious to be insisted on that such a phenomenon is immoral, not to say criminal. Yet many who see the evil are unable to see or suggest the remedy. The impediment that seems to lie in the way is the principle of patriarchal liberty under which the various sects have been able to combine in a political community. We cannot step in between parent and child and interfere with any teaching which professes to be religious. Were such a principle adopted it would be the Liberals who would suffer most. Liberalism cannot afford to advocate any in­ terference by law, not even to protect a child from �( i5 ) having its eyes put out—its intellectual eyes—or its moral back broken by the weight of false dogmas parentally imposed. We are not, indeed, responsible for not doing what we cannot do, but we are responsible for doing our very best with what ways and means are at our disposal. There is no call to quarrel with our tools until we have made the most of them. Have we done that ? Are we aiming to do that! Consider this, for instance : suppose it were no longer for the interest of any social institution, such as a Church, that these dogmas should be taught to any. Suppose, if your imagination is equal to it, that the endowments of the Church were all transferred to institutions which teach no creeds ; all national property going to endow that which all agree to be real knowledge; all sectarian property being taxed because it is private property. That would be the simplest political justice. Because that is not the state of the law, you and I are made to pay every year to support dogmas we abhor. Sadi said that if there were a tax upon reading the Koran in public many holy men would be dumb. Though I would not say that of the Bible, it may safely be said of the Athanasian Creed : if every time those anathemas are uttered from the pulpit the curser of his opponents were taxed instead of bribed, that solemn blasphemy would cease. And many other �( *6 ) things would cease if law, fashion, and respectability did not throw around them a glamour which hides their monstrosity. Without disestablishment of the Church, the dis­ establishment of dogmas generally,—removal of the immunities of the dissenting sects,—cannot take place ; and without disendowment, and the taxation of church property, a vast power would be given up to the unchecked control of superstition. It is, therefore, a plain, legitimate, and not intolerant aim for Liberalism to labour for the total disendowment of all creeds. Parents would then have no inducement, no bribe to submit their children to a catechetical tuition which they did not approve ; and it is very doubtful if many parents, were the matter thus thrown absolutely upon themselves, would summon the catechist to their families. If we could only compel common sense to act upon what is now left to sacerdotal self-interest, many a child would be shielded from inoculation in error. You may smile at the idea of our succeeding in disendowing all creeds. But we may succeed in dis­ endowing them in many minds. Every clear agitation for a rational cause is a process of education; it commands the attention, and if it be right and reasonable it must make its way with the process of of the suns. �( T7 ) Besides this political direction of our influence, we may turn our social advantages, whatever they may be, to the side of what we believe true. The great power of error lies in the social advantages it can bestow upon the young, who can feel such advantages long before they can realise the falsities gilded by them. The desire for polite and attractive society is not only natural but worthy, and liberal thinkers owe it as a duty both to truth and to society that they should contribute all they can to associate their views with the standards of good taste, refinement, beauty, and innocent gaieties. It must be remembered that in the world the decorations and enjoyments of life represent its unorthodoxy. The Church has come to patronise them through compulsion of long experience. It began with nunneries and convents, dust and ashes, cowls and hair-garments; ugly anti-social habits and habiliments were the natural insignia of creeds that taught man’s depravity and despair. Every earthly beauty and joy is a protest against orthodoxy, and they legitimately belong to the religion of Liberalism and Humanity. Social enjoyments, mirth and beauty, are heresies which appeal far more to the young generation than scientific statements. The liberal movement in this country was historically evolved out of the Puritan movement, and some of those sombre traditions still adhere to it; but these should be �( i8 ) outgrown. Carefulness in dress, observance of fashion ■so far as it is healthy, dancing, interchanges of hospi­ tality, should not be regarded as frivolous, but as related to the progressive civility of the world, the true accompaniments of its liberation from sacrificial ideas of religion. Liberalism will be largely benefitted by more generous outlays in this direction, and by ■each thinker taking care to do his and her part that the tastes shall not be starved while the intellect and moral nature are fed. It is of the utmost importance that in the steady effort of the young to improve the style and position of their families, they should less and less have to seek their society chiefly outside of liberal circles at cost of their religious and intellectual principles. It is equally incumbent upon all liberal thinkers to ¿o something towards raising the moral tone of society from its theological depravation into harmony with the standard of personal veracity and honour. It is not veracity and it is not honour that men should submit without an effort to having their children taught pious falsehoods and placed under the influence of priests whose creeds they despise. We need a severer standard of veracity and honesty than that. It is a poor subterfuge to say that the rising generation should be left free to form its own opinions. As well say a garden should be left free to produce what it pleases. �( i9 ) It will produce weeds, and so will the mind not carefully cultured. We owe to all we can influence our very best thought, our maturest experience, and we cannot escape that responsibility. We must tell our children just what we believe true, and let them know that it is a basis for them to build on. They are to think for themselves. Occasions are not wanting to realise for ourselves, and to impress upon the young, the steadily corrupt­ ing influence of proven errors established by law. We have just witnessed in the legislative assembly of this great nation how easily, when a constitutional super­ stition is touched, men, who in worldly affairs are gentlemen, relapse into coarseness, calumny, and lawlessness. In the name of what they call God, but which is no more a God than Mumbo-Jumbo,—a fetish made up of the aggregate ignorance of church­ men who find it a paying stock, recreant Jews courting Christian favour, Catholics sniffing again the burning flesh of Smithfield once mingled with their incense,—in the name of that God who cursed nature, kindled Tophet for man, and founded in the world as under it a government of fire and faggot, they have not hesitated at any meanness, falsehood, or injustice to inflict a blow upon intellectual liberty, and even national liberty which dares disregard dogma. We have seen one bearing the title of Knight, �( 20 ) which used to mean defender of woman, dragging up the name of a lady of spotless character amid brutal laughter, trying to rob of reputation one whom an unjust judge had already robbed of her child. All this we have seen done in the name of an established phantasm called God. The outbreak of fanaticism in some deputies from wild districts is far less base than the partizan fury, which, in its eagerness to strike their conqueror, led a party to vote like one herd upon a question of fact and law. By a remarkable coincidence the law is just what will most annoy their opponentsand most delay public business, so punishing the country for taking its business out of their hands. There’s truth and honour for you! These are the followers of Jesus and protectors of Omnipotence ! These be thy gods, O people of England, who demand that woman should be insulted, law defied, and the sanctuary of law turned into a bear-garden, rather than that a man holding the opinions of the majority of scientific men in Europe shall be admitted to sit beside sanctified sporting squires, priest-ridden papists, and capacious city-men, making gold out of his blood who had not where to lay his head ! The Member for Northampton no doubt has his faults; but now when he suffers not for his faults but for his virtues, and when in his person are assailed the rights of every independent thinker in this nation, I will undertake to affirm that he is nearer to that man whom the Sanhedrim scourged than the best �( 21 ) of his assailants, and that the spirit which pursues him because of his testimony against priestcraft and his fidelity to the people, is the self-same spirit that crowned Christ with thorns and pressed poison to the lips of Socrates. We need not much regret this revolutionary out­ break of superstition allied with the class-interests pre­ served by superstition. A more salient illustration of the wolfish hunger for power underlying the unholy alliance of pious and political tyranny was never given to a people. If the Member for Northampton had lived to Methuselah’s age, and made a daily speech in Parliament, he could not have done so much as his enemies have done in a few days to advance the cause of atheism, so far as that means disbelief in the God of his oppressors. The Bishop of Peter­ borough says the French Revolutionary Assembly decreed the suppression of God; but the revolutionary House of Commons has decreed his disgrace. Their deity is unmasked and turns out to be only a party whip. If John Milton were living he might see in this disgrace of the political deity the hand of the real God overthrowing the usurper of his place. In his time also imperialism made God into a prop of its despotism, and Milton then wrote, “ Sure it was the hand of God to let them fall, and be taken in such a foolish trap as hath exposed them to all derision ; �( 22 ) ........................ thereby testifying how little he accepted (prayers) from those who thought no better of the living God than of a blind buzzard idol, fit to be so served and worshipped.” This nation is more hopelessly sunk in superstition than I believe it to be, if it be not now awakened to the politically destructive tendencies of dogmas imported from barbarous tribes. It is, however, of importance that we should see to it that the lesson is not lost upon the rising generation. We have in this country a great literature in which the highest principles of morality and honour are reflected. On the other hand, we have a so-called religion in which all the massacres of Judaism and Christianity, their treasons to humanity, are sanctified. We have simply to let every unsophisticated mind look on this picture and on that. We have only to point to theological morality in Parliament putting a premium on hypocrisy, by declaring that it is ready to receive an atheist if he conceals his opinions; to theological morality trampling law for party ends; to theological morality foul-mouthed, insolent, treating honesty of mind and honesty of speech as crimes. We have only to ask the con­ science of the mother, whether she would be glad to have her child grow up to so encourage conceal­ ment of thought, so brow-beat honesty, so over-ride �law, slander man and insult woman, all for the sake of God ? We have only to ask the heart of youth whether it is prepared to worship a God so upheld, or for any success or ambition to pretend to believe in a religion so built on baseness ? I believe that these questions are stirring millions of hearts this day, and that the rising generation will show it when fully risen. I believe that it is largely because lessons like this have been impressed upon past generations that the present struggle of freedom against sacerdotalism has come. It is also because our wise fathers taught those now grown gray that their trusty weapons were to be free and honest thought, fact, argument, lawful, that we now see Oppression taking to violence, to revolution, and Progress standing by the law. Let us better their instruction. Let us impress upon the rising generation that in calmness and justice is their strength. Let us teach them the gentle, irresistible force that goes with intellectual power, with study, mastery of their cause, and above all the might that ever gathers to the higher standard of morality and humanity. �SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL* WORKS TO BE OBTAINED IN THE LIBRARY. BY M. D. CONWAY, M.A. Prices. 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...................... ... 0 1 Alcestis in England........................................... 0 2 Unbelief : its nature, cause, and cure ............. 0 2 Entering Society ........................................... 0 2 The Religion of Children ... ... ... ... 0 2 What is Religion ?—Max Muller's First Hibbert Lecture ...................................................... 0 2 Atheism: a Spectre........................................... 0 2 The Criminal’s Ascension................................. 0 2 The Religion of Humanity................................. 0 2 A Last Word..................................................... 0 2 NEW WORK BYM.D. CONWAY, M.A. Idols and Ideals (including the Essay on Chris­ tianity ), 350 pages ............. ... ••• 6 0 Jiembers of the Congregation can obtain this Work in the Library at 5s. BY MR. J. ALLANSON PICTON. The Transfiguration of Religion....................... BY A. J. ELLIS, B.A., F.R.S., &c., &c. Salvation ..................................................... Truth Speculation ..................................................... Duty ............................................................... The Dyer’s Hand ........................................... BY REV. P. H. WTCKSTEED, M.A. Going Through and Getting Over ............. BY REV. T. W. FRECKELTON. The Modern Analogue of the Ancient Prophet BY W. C. COUPLAND, M.A, The Conduct of Life........................................... 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 2 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 Hymns and Anthems... ... ... 1/-, 2/-, %/■ Report of the Conference of Liberal Thinkers, 1878, 1/- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The rising generation: a discourse before the South Place Society, June 27th 1880 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.] Description An account of the resource 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 list of works to be obtained in the Library of South Place Chapel at end of pamphlet. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [South Place Chapel] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1880] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3348 Subject The topic of the resource Child rearing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The rising generation: a discourse before the South Place Society, June 27th 1880), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Child Rearing-Moral and Ethical Aspects Children Dogma Education Free Thought Moral Education Morris Tracts Rationalism Youth-Great Britain-Religious Life https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/292604ba735c854c0007d0d9e76d743e.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=tZNOShiSMUmEIVVDFa7rWC1u-OC80rbMLeEdOpU5ro7GHgvjMvtKIZLR6XZQRDO1%7E-S306mWUHaJsGOQYn6rMfQI42MAkX9WNXlBOF%7ERtQULIG8kmbCOLAy5z-yGrhU40h8hzre%7EPZqYlnWotKXo9eaCrKwidjtagXdFwQTacMtBYvmpIG3sTZ44lV%7EzfPH24lPtCnNieQDyjWpL7bD-v1w107StWjP7wCY5Annjw5OAMPwQ7AJDNp3FRRlqACjScrcJNSr8zdQkHvkrCMr9BPS8lN80qxrVKc1mA8tAy3LCiYj%7ES92HL63NlVtigKS10DM2LFPwuG29xJSReqh1LQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 0e6fd2ad430af41911cb89b0d2f8f01a PDF Text Text ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Essays towards peace Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon) [1856-1933] Westermarck, Edward Angell, Norman [1874-1967] Swinny, S.H. Bonner, Hypatia Bradlaugh [1858-1935] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 91, [4] p. ; 17 cm. Notes: Contents: Superstitions of militarism / John M. Robertson -- Christianity and war / Edward Westermark -- War as the failure of reason / Norman Angell -- Rationalism and international righteousness / S.H. Swinny. Published for the Rationalist Peace Society. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1913 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1074 N561 Subject The topic of the resource Pacifism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Essays towards peace), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Militarism NSS Peace Peace-Moral and ethical aspects Rationalism War https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/dd9c7efb20b9eb000469c5dfecf84ed0.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=UB3b1dD-NeuZTDBlU5SrmPijJ%7ErdRzcOxetFiAolehj3GieV3Pfs%7EBVK-I5D2yli25tCw2IbM-z8QYlbKuD7xcd6Ngb72rZIs9H4ydtGpXNqv9MMQKCEAhELeTJSD%7ENIjoM66aNwREMJvXGDTZgw%7EsA7dvxFBbXB4wDg0mzo-yFqFqNX78kwYnqti5XKim21sgO8lb5wdN-qr%7E-EiGOWa5VKaEJlJnhk-0GwMRGj0AOlLSZ98LdRFWSKIjfG25iXTBJf3VD3IIz0x7OWIDfglHErilfDj37mTE%7EUlY%7E4Z8upLGdhrVIvRt4qml27JotRFgWTSs7nspYH0Qg1IxS%7Ebw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 03fab77ec34ba2916405a1326a098b09 PDF Text Text HUMAN SACRIFICES IN ENGLAND. FOUR DISCOURSES BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A., Minister of South Place Chapel, and at the Athenaeum, Camden Road. LONDON: TRUBNER AND CO., LUDGATE HILL. 1876. �CONTENTS. PAGE 1. Human Sacrifices 2. The Daughters of ... ... ... $ Jephthah ... ... 7 3. Children, and their Moloch ... ... 19 4. The Sabbath-Jugernath 33 5. The Martyrdom 51 of Reason �HUMAN SACRIFICES. I passed a morning of the last week in the St. Marylebone Police Court, having been summoned there as a witness. As I waited through the hours there passed by a dismal gaunt procession or chain­ gang of the captives of the ignorance, the brutality, the shame, sorrow, despair, of this vast metropolis. There were young men arrested in one drunken brawl, and women arrested in another. A shop-girl of twentyone, who had been sent by her humble parents from the country to earn her living, had stolen a little finery, perhaps for a babe that would soon be born. A young “ gentleman,” as he was described, who had run through an estate, was sentenced for assaulting a young woman, whose downcast eyes and deep blush of shame confessed to the judge what her lips could not utter. A woman of twenty-two, who might once have been comely, had been arrested for intoxication. During the night she had three times attempted �4 suicide, and was barely saved for a life of despair. It is terrible to look upon a face which tells only of a life in ruins, and to listen to sobs broken by no plead­ ing or word indicating any interest, however faint, in what the next moment may bring. A little boy five or six years old, wretched and ragged—with hardly rags enough to cover him—charged with being “ desti­ tute.” Every eye that saw him could testify to the truth of that charge. The poor boy had been found asleep on the pavement, and said he had slept there for three weeks. The magistrate set himself to ferret out the facts, and little by little was revealed his story. He was one of six children who had been living with their father and mother, in utter poverty, all in one room. At length the mother left that miserable room to wander and live as she could. But this little boy had followed her, clung to her; she carried him about with her for one day, in some strange place he slept with her the same night; but in the morning she sent him back home. The father drove him out because he had gone off with his mother, and so he had found a London pavement the only pillow extended to his little head. The magistrate was consideratej he did his best to do justice to all, but he must have known—it was plain—that in no case did he judge or sentence the real criminal. The visible offenders before him were �5 victims. Behind each stood the grim and awful shadow of some ghoul that had fastened upon him. As the wretched men, women, and children were led away in custody, free and unfettered beside them stalked their demons,—Ignorance, Strong Drink, Neglect, Injustice, Hereditary Taint, Malformation of Brain. These are the real criminals, and it is they that elude the grasp of the law which can only deal its penalties to the already punished, the utterly helpless creatures on whom the ghastly vampires of our time are battening. I am about to speak for a few Sundays of what seem to me the heaviest wrongs of the present time; but I do not wish to point out wrongs for which there are no remedies. Indeed, we can only very dimly dis­ cover evils, we can not feel deeply concerning them, until the light of its remedy falls upon each wrong. The remedies may be, as yet, ideal; but that is not their fault; they are necessarily ideal until they are applied : it is the fault of those great Interests, em­ bodying public Selfishness or Superstition, which reject the truth and the justice which threaten them. But I believe in the power of ideas. In the end they are stronger than armies. Waiting there at St. Marylebone—as it were in some weird whorl of Dante’s Hell __till, to my eyes, all present seemed impersonal, types and shadows of remorseless forces which once �6 St. Mary-the-Good tried to conjure down with her tender image, and then departed, leaving only her name, made way for the police,—there came upon me by some association, a memory of early days passed in a land where the Black-tongued Plague was raging. Hundreds were struck down daily with swift death; mourning was heard along the streets of every town and village ; cries were heard in many homes that had been happy. Every face was pallid ; the strong­ est men and women moved about in the silence of fear. One night the thermometer fell a degree, and the Plague was dead. Not swift and sudden, but just as certain is the in­ visible power of the air which works through ideas. “ God is a spirit.” There is an intellectual, a religious atmosphere, in which lurks the miasma of moral death, or through which breathes the spirit of life ; and any least change in that ideal region will tell upon the earth as surely as on it is recorded in frost or flower the viewless march of the seasons. �THE DAUGHTERS OF JEPHTHA. Jephtha, Judge of Israel, marching against the Ammonites, made a vow unto the Lord that, if victorious, he would offer up as a burnt-offering to Jehovah the first person that should come forth from his house to meet him. Wife or daughter it must have been : Jephtha had no other offspring but an only daughter, and who so naturally should hasten to welcome a father’s return from war and danger as an only daughter? So went forth the happy maiden with timbrels and dances to meet her father, the Prince. The father was in distress, but it never occurred either to him or his daughter that the Lord might sympathise with their love and their reluctance rather than with the vow, and so the fair maid was slain and burnt on the Lord’s altar. Some efforts have been made by casuists to show that Jephtha’s daughter was not sacrificed literally, but only consesecrated to the Lord by not marrying : but such attempts are unworthy of notice. Human sacrifices were a recognised part of the Jewish religion, and �8 careful provisions were made for the redemption of a man or woman vowed to the Lord by money,—except when devoted by anathema, in which case the man or woman the law declared (Lev. 27) “ shall surely be put to death.” I do not wonder that theologians would like to escape the effect of the story, for it is said “ the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephtha,” in the Old Testament, and in the New that king who sacrificed bis daughter is enumerated among saints of whom the world was not worthy. Well, the story drifted about the world and had its effect. Jephtha’s daughter was caught up by the Greek imagination, and reappeared as Iphegenia (probably Jephthagenia), the daughter of Agamemnon, who was nearly sacrificed in obedience to a similar vow made by her father to Artemis. Human sacrifices were unknown to the ancient Aryan race until it came in contact with this dark and horrible Shemitic belief that the deity required blood—and especially the blood of some spotless being, as the dove, or the lamb, and finally the most beautiful virgin. This wild and guilty superstition may be tracked in blood wherever the Jewish religion passed, and when Humanity had by reaction revolted from it, the spirit of it was caught up and preserved in the Christian idea that the world was to be saved only by the sacrifice of the one most vir­ ginal unblemished Soul, the Lamb offered up on Cal­ vary to soothe the wrath of God. �9 But even after that offering, though it was said to be a final satisfaction of Jehovah’s universal claim and thirst for blood, the old superstition survived to the extent of teaching women that it was a holy thing to vow their virginity to the Lord, to seclude themselves from the world, and to count themselves especially happy if they lost their lives by ascetic devotion to their invisible Spouse. All the nuns of Christendom were, and are, Jephtha’s daughters. But that has been by no means the worst result. The ancient Hebrew idea that woman is the natural sacrifice to God coloured the whole relation of that religion and its civil laws towards the female sex. Woman became the law’s normal victim. We never read of a Jewish Queen; we rarely read praises of a woman of that race, except as part of the estate of some man who was to her the representative of God. She is sold and bought with her dead lord’s assets. It is deemed no blot on Abraham when he drives Hagar from his door. There is no law in the decalogue, or elsewhere in the Bible, that mitigates the masculine decree—“ Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” All this was reflected in Christianity. It taught women to submit to their husbands as to the Lord himself; never to speak in public, or to appear there unveiled; to stay at home and obey their husbands,— �IO “ as also saith the law,” adds Paul,—and understand that woman is made for man and not man for woman. I need not pause here to discuss the origin of this view of the position of woman. We may admit that, far away in some hard wilderness, or amid certain primitive exigencies of society, such a theory of woman was inevitable as a phase of social evolution. To keep at home and obey might have been the only way of continuing to exist, or to escape capture. But when a particular phase of human evolution gets asso­ ciated with divine sanction, it gains a permanence which fetters progress. Most gods have been the means of perpetuating the barbarism of the age which invented them. The Christian system brought this idea of woman into Europe. Whatever relation it may have had to Arabia or Syria, whatever justification it might have had in savage periods, surely it was out of place and out of time when imported into Europe. And there is not a more cruel chapter in history than that which records the arrest by Christianity of the natural growth of European civilisation as regards woman. In Germany it found woman participating in the legisla­ tive assembly, and sharing the interests and counsels of man, and drove her out and away, leaving her to­ day nothing of her ancient rights but a few honorary idle titles, titles that remain to mark her degradation �11 and ours, as they remind us that a peeress, a duchess, a baroness, a princess, a queen, are not the political equals of many an illiterate sot who calls himself a man. Even more fatal was the overthrow of woman’s position in Rome. Read the terrible facts as stated by Gibbon, by Milman, and Sir Henry Maine, read and ponder them, and you will see the tremendous wrong that Christianity did to woman. All the laws by which women were protected in their individual existence were overthrown. The sum of money which Roman law demanded should be settled by her father on every married woman, the new Christian code caused to be paid to the husband instead of her, as a dowery, or consolation for taking her off her father’s hands. The idea that the virgin belonged to God survived, and her espousal to a man could only be by payment of redemption-money, which is the marriage fee. Christianity struck the fatal blowat the independence of woman by allowing her but two alternatives,—im­ prisonment in a nunnery or servitude in a husband’s house; anything else was for generations accounted sin. But am I speaking of the far past ? Is it not true also this day that women are sacrificed to this old Jewish regime and its Lord? What woman needs to­ day is to have her rights and her wrongs decided in accordance with the conditions and the needs of �12 Europe, not those of Judea; what she requires is the unbiassed verdict of the sense and sentiment and science of the present day ; and yet her case is yielded up to the authority and law of an ignorant tribe, whose very Judge knew no better than to burn his daughter as an offering to his god. It is to that same Jehovah, to the laws he is supposed to have proclaimed, the Bible he is said to have written, and the religion in which his ferocity is still reflected through all later mitigations,—it is to him that womanhood is still sacrificed; and so long as the name of Jehovah, the god of Jephtha, is bowed to with awe and fear, so long will the victim-daughters of Jephtha surround us. But how are women sacrificed ? First of all in education. The intelligence and common sense of Europe declare that there can be nothing more important, both for themselves and for man, than the right and thorough education of women. As the physical mothers of the race they have the utmost need to know the laws of life, the nature of their own frame, the principles of health. As the intellectual and moral guides of all human beings during the years when they are most susceptible of impressions and influences, women have need of the very best knowledge. Their need of scientific drill is, if anything, greater than that of men. Yet in �education they are thrown the mere crumbs that fall from the table of our male youths. It has been shown that over ninety per cent, of the provision for education in this country is devoted to boys and young men. It has been shown that in our universities there are large sums of money inadequately used,—wealth accumu­ lated from ancient endowments, furnishing annual revenues to the extent of ^500,000,—and yet amid all the discussions as to what shall be done with that money, hardly one voice is heard demanding that it shall be devoted to redressing the heavy wrongs which woman has suffered through ages, and now suffers as she sits famishing in sight of such abun­ dance. And while the universities are thus barred against her, and the keys of knowledge denied her, she is compelled to hear the very weakness and ignorance so entailed quoted for her further disparage­ ment. We are told, woman cannot reason; she is not logical; she acts by mere impulse and sentiment; she is superstitious. Well, why is it so ? Who has so made her? The god of Jephtha, the deity who exacted the sacrifice of the fair virgins of Israel, and who by his Bible still demands that we hold English women mere appendages to man, against all the best light and conscience of our own time. Again, women are morally and physically sacrificed by the denial to them of the right of freedom to enter �i4 into all the avocations of life by which human beings may find support, livelihood and independence. In the laws made by the worshippers of Jephtha’s god it was enacted that every woman should be sold to some man as wife or concubine. It was strictly obligatory. Even that miserable means of obtaining a livelihood is impossible in this country, where women are in ex­ cess of men by nearly a million; but still we find male prejudice and law providing that marriage shall be regarded as the only recognised profession, trade, or vocation by which women may obtain an honour­ able livelihood. Compelled by the over-powering exigencies of modern life we are tolerating them in a few other simple occupations, but without according social equality to such; and we make no adequate provision for their apprenticeship or training for occu­ pations which would yield them that independence which our theology and conventionality most dread. The sacrificial results of such a state of things are so appalling that I can hardly name them. By shutting the usual lucrative professions and occupations to women, society is driving them by thousands to sell that which is alone left to them to sell, their own honourj that which not one woman in a hundred would part with, were not pauperism and starvation the dread alternative ; and thereby society sacrifices to ancient superstition the health and the purity of both manhood and womanhood. �i5 I have named but two out of the many forms in which women are bound hand and foot on the altar of Jephtha’s god. Why need I repeat the long catalogue of her wrongs as a wife and a mother ? Even after the battles and the appeals of generations have wrung from the reluctant hand of her master a link or two from the chain with which she was so long fettered, sheis still liable to alienation of her children, and other­ wise subject to the caprice and the cruelty of man. And yet we are told that her interest and necessities may safely be entrusted to the care of a legislature in which she has no voice or representation j and that personally she is not equal to the task of political deliberation and voting. The ballot is not my idol. My desire to see woman enfranchised is not because of any abstract theory of human rights. I admit that because of the long thraldom that sex has undergone, and because of the long denial of education and all re­ lation to the large affairs of the world, it would be better if men could be induced to relieve them of their oppressions—liberate them from the altar to which they are in large part bound by chains of their own superstition, and so prepare them for that share in political power which should be accorded only to intelligence and moral freedom. Women need the full advantages of education far more than they need votes. What they are perishing for is not a ballot, �i6 but the opening of all the work and culture which make the equality and secure the liberties of man. But, with them, I despair of such practical results until they are admitted among the constituencies of Par­ liament. They have amply proved their case. They have clearly defined their wrong and its remedy. They have appealed for redress in vain. They are met by frivolous sneers, by sentimental evasions, not by reason and argument. Their sufferings have edu­ cated them sufficiently to know at least their own needs, and the unwillingness of men to respond to them. Their cry for enfranchisement is the cry of victims bleeding on the altar of established error j it is the cry of despair ; and it can only increase in painful in­ tensity and grief until it shall be redressed. Indeed, the very sentiment, no doubt sincere with the great majority of men, which dreads the departure of woman from the sacred sphere of domestic life, must ere long be enlisted on the side of her enfranchisement. It will become more and more clear that there can be no peace with injustice ; that women in increasing num­ bers are, and will continue to be, excited to protest against the wrongs of their sex. They will appear on platforms; they will be public speakers; they will be stimulated to that very life of political agitation which so many fear, but are blindly engaged in promoting. For the sake of peace and quietness, if for no higher �motive, this justice must assuredly be done to woman, and my own apprehension is that it will not be done until society has suffered yet more serious disturbances through the obstinacy and folly of the opposition to a measure which, if adopted, could not cause anything more revolutionary than has been caused by the ad­ mission of woman to the municipal franchises they now possess. That which is to-day demanded in the name of justice, must to-morrow be conceded in the interest of social order. But this is a poor, mean way of securing any measure of justice. When wisdom pre­ vails the right will be conceded to reason, not wrested by agitation. But however men may throw away experience, it still remains true that trouble tracks wrong like a shadow, and justice alone is crowned with peace. 2 ��I9 CHILDREN AND THEIR MOLOCH. Five years ago I clipped from a newspaper the follow­ ing letter, addressed to the Editor from Shetland :— “Lerwick, July, 7, 1871. “ Sir,—It may interest some of your readers to know that last night (being St. John’s Eve, old style) I •observed within a mile or so of this town, seven bon­ fires blazing, in accordance with the immemorial custom ■of celebrating the Midsummer solstice. These fires were kindled on various heights around the ancient hamlet of Sound, and the children leaped over them, and ‘passed through the fire to Moloch,’ just as their ancestors would have done a thousand years ago on the same heights, and their still remoter progenitors in Eastern lands many thousand years ago. This per­ sistent adherence to mystic rites in this scientific epoch seems to me worth taking note of.—A. L.” In ancient times, however, the children had to leap into the bonfire—which is defined in Cooper’s “ The- �20 saurus ” as 11 Pyra, a bonefire, wherein men’s bodyes. were burned,”—and not over it. I have often leaped over a bonfire myself, with little thought that my sport was the far away relic of the tragedies of human sacri­ fice. Our bonfires of Virginia had been lighted from those of Scotland, whence the first settlers of the neigh­ bourhood had come; and there is some reason to believe that in some obscure nooks of Scotland the Midsummer fires are yet kindled, and some may still be found who believe that it is good for a child to passover them. The Reformers of Scotland made a tremendous effort to trample out these survivals of ancient super­ stition, and measurably succeeded in suppressing the outward manifestations of them. But they preserved, the very atmosphere of superstition amid which such practices were bred originally, and there is reason to fear they made matters worse. The sacrifice of chil­ dren to Moloch had become a pastime, but their subsequent sacrifice to Jehovah ofSabaoth was serious. The Scottish Reformers also exterminated with fierce piety the superstitions of the Church of Rome. They particularly punished pilgrimages to the so-called1 holy wells which abounded in that region. On the 28th November, 1630, Margaret Davidson, a married woman, residing in Aberdeen, was adjudged in an “unlaw” of £5 by the Kirk Session “ for directing �21 her nurse with her bairn to St. Fiack’s Well, and washing her bairn therein for recovery of her health - . . and for leaving an offering in the well.” The point of idolatry, as stated by the Kirk Session, was “in putting the well in God’s room.” After the fine Margaret, perhaps, put God in the well’s room; but we may doubt whether the change was of any advan­ tage to the bairn. Pure water has its sanative effects, and it is very likely that the wells became holy because they were healing. But St. Fiack—a Scottish saint— had to go, leaving only his name to a vehicle {fiacre), in which his French devotees travelled to his shrine, and instead of him was set up a Judaic deity whose providence was not associated with anything so rational as the use of pure water. Not one particle of super­ stition the less remained in Scotland when the fires of Moloch and the candles of Rome were put out. The only religious advantage one could have hoped from the revolution was not gained. It might have been hoped that when popular Superstition was divested of its picturesque features, its pilgrimages to holy wells and shrines, and bonfires and images, its grim and ugly visage would have been simply repulsive, and its further reign impossible. But, strange to say, the Scotch seemed to cling more to superstition the uglier it became. A Puritanism arose in which all the Molochs were summed up, and all human joys were �22 represented, in Shakspeare’s phrase, as 11 the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire,” the flowery path tohell. It is passing strange that this hideous system should have been able to desolate beyond recovery the “merrie England of the olden time,” and to over­ shadow America for more than a hundred years. There is a singular society which met last week, called the Anglo-Israel Society, whose object is to persuade this people that they are the lost tribes of Israel, and the eagerness with which the majority of this nation has always laid hold upon everything Semitic, gives some plausibility to their notion; but one thing is certain, if we are the tribes that Israel lost, we have never lost Israel. We have hebraised for ages, made long prayers, sung psalms, named children Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and otherwise pertinaciously adhered to the Semitic idolatry. When Jehovah was brought to Scotland, Moloch was nominally dethroned, his bonfires extinguished; but the change was only nominal; all that was dark and cruel in Moloch was superadded to all that was dark and cruel in Jehovah; and the result was a Scotch Jehovah more harsh and oppressive than the phantasm which haunted the Jews. For the ancient Jews do not seem to have generally entered into the spirit of Moloch,—that old brass deity, whose head was that of a calf, and whose stomach �23 was a furnace in which children were consumed. The Jews generally were careful of their children, and those of them that worshipped Moloch and sacrificed their children were sternly denounced. That old idol which, according to Amos (v. 26) the Israelites bore with them from Egypt through the wilderness, would per­ haps have faded away had it not been for Solomon. Solomon is odiously memorable for two things. He erected a temple for Moloch on the Mount of Olives, where children were burned to death, and he wrote the sentence—which might appropriately have been inscribed on that Temple—“ Spare the rod and spoil the child.” The man who wrote that sentence had, of course, no idea that any people would exist foolish enough to believe it the very word of God; but, nevertheless, in conjunction with human superstition, he has been the cause of more evil to the human race than any other one man that ever lived. The rod is a little thing, but it is full of deadly poison ; it has fostered in the world more deceit, meanness, cowardice, servility, stupidity, and brutality than our race will outgrow for many generations. Mr. Edward Tylor recently exhibited at the Royal Institution the poison­ ous Calabar bean used as an ordeal in Africa, whose consecration enables the savage kings to put out of the way every man who proposes any change in their government; and he (Mr. Taylor) expressed �24 his belief that the continued savagery of Africa was in large part an effect of that little bean. And I be­ lieve that it can be shown that the rod has been the means of preserving the savage rule of physical force in the greatest nations of the world. The parent or teacher who strikes a child does so because his parent or teacher struck him; and the child that is struck catches the idea, transmitted all the way from Solo­ mon, that the way to deal with people who don’t do what you like is to strike them. That is, if you are stronger than they. If they are little and you large, that is a sign that the Lord has delivered them into your hand. You must make the child yield his will to yours, not by love and persuasion, but by brute force and pain; break his spirit, though that harms him far more than breaking his back-bone; make the child another you : so will your child do the like by his children, and they by theirs, and independence and individuality be beaten down by violence, genius crushed, character made characterless, as “ To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,” and all our yesterdays light us on the highway of commonplace, though not, I hope, to the last syllable of recorded time. Does it not strike you that a child consists of an individuality, a will, a spirit, a mind, and that its real �25 existence depends upon these; and that if these are not trained, encouraged, cultivated, the child has no real existence at all? An animal existence it may have, but beyond that it were a mere appendix or sequel to somebody else, unless its peculiar powers are healthily carried forward to maturity. If these are sacrificed the child is sacrificed, and the man that is folded up in him. Will a gardener beat his rose-buds with a stick to make them grow ? The growing of thoughts and emotions is more tender work than the culture of roses. But children will be naughty; of course they will sometimes be naughty if they are healthy, and they will require restraint until they can restrain themselves : they must learn morals as they learn letters. But one might as well flog a child for not knowing Greek as to flog it for a deception or for selfishness. Every blow is an appeal to selfishness, and a lesson in deception. We pardon our parents and predecessors in this, for they knew not what they did. But it is a scandal that the rod should linger in the homes and schools of England, after Herbert Spencer and others have proved the evil of it. For many months now I have been trying to find a school in Kensington for a boy in his eleventh year, and in that great parish I cannot find one in which they do not insist on two things,—Beating and the Bible. I must leave the parish to find a school which will give me a. conscience clause on these points. �26 Now, I may ask any person of intelligence, not hopelessly blinded by superstition, is the Bible a fit book to put into the hands of a child ? I do not believe that a child as it advances to boyhood and girlhood should, with prudish jealousy, be kept in ignorance as to the follies and vices of the world in which it lives. But our children do not live in ancient Judea. The Bible, moreover, is not limited to any years. It is believed by bibliolaters to be so holy that it can do no harm even to a child of tenderest years, who so soon as he or she can read is permitted to receive the unnatural stimulant of perusing narra­ tives obscene, shocking and cruel. What would be a glass of gin in the child’s throat, compared with its first familiarisation with the grossest vices of semibarbarous tribes; vices many of which are even unfit for more advanced youth to read about, for they are not those which they will now find in the world around them, or require to be guarded against. The very memory of some of the primitive brutalities of mankind is kept alive only by the Bible. With its pages are broadcast narratives which the law does not permit to be printed in any other book. And when these crimes and vices are laid before a child as the word of God ; when it reads in that book that many of the worst of them were instigated by Jehovah,— that he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and ordered persons �27 to be stoned to death, and children to be put to thesword, and so on,—why it is enough to slay theirreverence on the spot, and strike them with moral idiocy. This is, indeed, the way in which, morallyspeaking, the sins of the father are visited on the children, to much more than the third and fourth generation. The Bible is an invaluable book, but it is not a book for children : there are many forms in which the incidents and chapters suitable for them can be separately procured; and for the rest, the volume may be safely left on the shelf to be searched out when it is wanted. The Rod, and the Bible which consecrates the Rod, along with many other barbarities, make up princi­ pally the Moloch of children in the present time. The sacrifice of the young among us is mainly moral and intellectual. Physically a great deal is done for the average of them. There are indeed terrible regions where children are caught up in the great engine of commerce and labour, and crushed. There are mines, and fens, and factories where the struggle for existence means a joyless existence—hunger and pain, and pre­ mature death to many a child ; and yet, because it isa struggle for existence we can only look upon it with sympathy and with resolution that no man shall add tothe anguish of it. But when we follow even such appa­ rently inevitable evils as these to their causes, we dis- �2S •cover that they could not continue but for the radical •error of English Christianity—the principle of sacrifi­ cing man to God. We can never hope thoroughly to master the evils of society while the great religious organisations of the country, and their vast endow­ ments, are directed to divine service instead of human service, and the poor are taught that their ■chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever. When the wealth and the religious earnestness of this nation are devoted to the benefit of humanity, instead •of to the childish notion of personally pleasing and ■.satisfying the deity, there cannot long remain an unhappy home in it. But until that Gospel of Pure Reason is heard round the world, bringing its glad tidings, the weak and ignorant must still bleed as victims on the altar of an imaginary being who may be called God, but is much nearer the ideal of a Demon. Dogma, too, has still its altar in England upon which the child is sacrificed. It is true that among the educated the old doctrine that every child is at birth a child of the devil, and human nature totally de­ praved, has ceased to exist; and even among the illiterate parental affection has been too strong to admit of its practical realisation. But still it is taught by vulgar sects to many millions, and avails to mis•»direct many fathers and mothers, and teachers, in their �29 dealing with the natural instincts and needs of child­ hood. The mirth, the love of beauty, the longing for amusement, in the young, so indispensable for a healthy and happy growth, are forbidden, the dance is held tobe sinful, the theatre immoral, and thus many thousands of children never have any real joy, and pass on to a youth of precocious anxiety, and a manhood or woman­ hood of hard, morose alienation from nature. The only relief to the gloom of this unnatural religion, which casts its shadow over so many young lives, is that dogmatic preaching has become so inhar­ monious with the enlightenment of civilised society, that it tends more and more to sink into the hands of pulpit mediocrities, who rehearse it in such a dull, perfunctory way that it loses all impressiveness, and can now hardly keep congregations awake. Sermon­ ising is almost another name for boreing. In an admirable story just published, called “ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain,” the author presents a picture of an average congrega­ tional assembly on Sunday, among whom his little hero was a sufferer. After the lugubrious hymn came the long, long prayer. “ The boy,” says the author, “ did not enjoy the prayer, he only endured it—if he even did that much. He was restive all through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously -—for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of �3° old, and the clergyman’s regular route over it—and where a little trifle of new matter was introduced, his ■ear detected it, and his whole nature resented it; he considered additions unfair and scoundrelly. In the midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the pew in front of him ”—but I will pass over the fate of that fly. The sermon came on. “ The minister,” writes our author, il gave out his text and droned along monoto­ nously through an argument that was so prosy that by and by many a head began to nod, and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone, and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving. The boy counted the pages of the sermon; after church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew anything else about the discourse.” Once, indeed, he became interested for a moment. It was when the preacher, instead of his own dreary thoughts, drew from an ancient poet the picture of the hosts of the world gathering at the millennium, when the lion and the lamb should lie down together, and a little child should lead them. The boy said to him­ self that he would like to be that child, if it was a tame lion. I suppose there are many poor little sufferers like this lad, dragged this day into the chapels and churches of the world, but we may console ourselves partially �3r with the reflection that in their sufferings many a false­ hood is smothered. The deadly dogma is happily also dull, and sinks through the vacant mind into the gulf of oblivion. And yet that boy is passing through the years which should be sown with the seeds of truth, and the germs of thought and purpose. His faculties need encouragement : they say briars and thorns are non-encouraged buds. So long as those sweet, susceptible years are passed amid such errors that apathy to them all is the child’s best hope, we must still confess that in this age of light innumerable children are still passing through the fire to Moloch. �_______ _ __ �33 THE 8ABBATH-JUGERNATH. On the sands at Puri, in India, stands the famous temple of Jugernath. It is nearly seven centuries old, and the building of it cost as much as a half million sterling. It is six hundred and fifty feet square, and its sanctity consecrates the soil for twenty miles around it,—that land being held rent-free on condition of the tenants performing certain sacred rites in honour of Jugernath. There are twelve great festivals held every year at this shrine, and the alleged performances at these festivals have been the never-ending theme of mission meetings ever since we can remember. You must have been fortunate children if you have no memories of Sunday School days when your childish heart was harrowed by accounts of poor Hindoos crushed under the wheels of Jugernath, and a tithe of all you possessed annually sent away to convert that hard god into a Christian, and stop that terrible car. Some old missionary once estimated the immense amount of money and labour devoted to the care, the 3 �34 ablutions, and other affairs of this temple, and he said the same amount of wealth and toil usefully bestowed might make every barren spot of India into a garden ; and that missionary might have added that the amount of money which has been evoked from Christian pockets by that one idol might have made an equal number of gardens there, or here,—whereas it has all been spent, and the car rolls on just as grandly as ever. And not only this, but we have now learned on the best authority that all those pictures of Hindoos cast­ ing themselves beneath the Jugernath car to be crushed were purely imaginary. When the car is drawn, with the sacred image of Vishnu set up in it, the crowd of the curious and the devotees is enormous, and no doubt many accidents have happened. It may be, because some from a distance are ignorant of the danger, or that enthusiastic devotees put themselves unintentionally in danger by going too near the image they believe holiest on earth, or try to draw the car with hundreds of others when they are too weak or aged to do so. But there are no intentional sacrifices under the car of Jugernath, nor could there ever have been at any period. For Jugernath, or rather Jaganatb, means simply “ the Lord of Life •” it is a title of Vishnu, and the temple is purely sacred to Vishnu. Nothing is more rigidly forbidden than to slay anything that has life in �35 the neighbourhood of the Lord of Life. The Hindoos declare that the holy pages of the Vedas themselves sprang from drops of blood lost by their Saviour while protecting Agni in form of a dove from Indra in form of a hawk; and to Vishnu they offer only things that are fresh and beautiful, like flowers, and even the . flowers must not be in the least faded. So it is impossible that there could have been human sacrifices to Jugernath except by accident. The accidents were probably very frequent at one time,—at least it is •charitable to missionary reporters to think so,—the vast increase of popularity in the festivals having made the crowd unwieldy. But in recent years British authority has insisted upon carefulness—threatened to stop the car if men and women were injured—and there is now far less destruction of life by the car of Jugernath than by the London cab. Happy Hindoos ' who have at hand an enlightened authority willing to respect their religious customs so long as they are harmless, but ready to put Vishnu himself under arrest if he injures humanity. I would match an Englishman against any man living for good sound sense in dealing with such superstitions, pro­ vided they are not his own. But when that clear­ headed English authority which has put out the fires that burned widows in India comes to deal with laws that torture women here, it gets confused among �36 Scripture texts and precedents. When it is needed to curb a fanaticism here which deliberately sacrificeshuman life—that, for instance, of the Peculiar People, who, because of a text in the New Testament, refuse to call medical aid for their sick, letting them die in numbers every year, even helpless children—why then all that common sense seems to vanish. When it is called upon to regulate our Sabbath-Jugernath, beside which the car at Puri is an innocent toy, beneath whose wheels millions of hearts and brains are crushed in this kingdom, why then the intelligence of the nation grows timid, and its arm is paralysed. The celebrations of Jugernath, the Lord of Life, bring to the poor twelve festivals in the year, The celebrations of the Sabbath, Lord of Lifelessness, bringto our poor fifty-two funereal vacancies in their exist­ ence. They ought to be fifty-two festivals of Reason, of Beauty, of Happiness, but to the poor they are days of unreason, of ugliness, of torpor and drunkenness ; days hateful to children and hurtful to all. Now it is not merely fanciful to bring together the Jugernath and the Sabbath superstitions. Even in origin their consecra­ tion came from the same source. Our theology has arbitrarily transferred the sanctity of the Jewish Sab­ bath, the Seventh Day of the week, to the Sun-day, the day consecrated to sun-worship, our first day of the week. I say arbitrarily, for' there is not a word in the �New Testament consecrating Sunday, but there are •strong sentences declaring one day as holy as another. The early Christians when they went among so-called pagan ” races met for worship on the first day of ■the week because it was a holiday, and they could only then get at the people. For the same reason we meet to-day, because it is the day when people are liberated from business. But the Primitive Christians had as •little thought of consecrating the “pagan” Sun’s day as the Jewish Sabbath, just as most of us would abhor •the notion that any day is less sacred than another. But Vishnu also was to his provincial worshippers the -quickening sun, and his chariot is the car of Jugernath. So the two institutions are linked together archeeologi•cally. But in a more important sense they are related by the fact that they are both idolatries. lhe Sab­ bath is one of the only two visible idols which pro­ nounced Protestantism has left standing for a race of kindred origin to the Hindoos, and like them naturally loving outward symbols and images. We •all belong to the Great Aryan race, from which pro­ ceeded all the bright gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome, and Germany, and all their variegated symbolism. Through certain historic combina­ tions our Aryan race as it migrated westwaid, became invested with a Shemitic religion, one which had no arts and pictures itself, and regarded them as impious �38 in others. In obedience to this alien religion, our race now wrote on its temples, “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images, or pictures of anything in heaven, earth or sea.” But it was one thing to say this, another to practise. The Eastern Church evaded the law by putting up certain holy pictures with frames in relief, which are something like sculpture. The Roman Church boldly disregarded the law in its lordly way of requiring the Bible to accommodate itself to the Pope. In this country all the sacred visible images were swept away by Puritanism from its own and . many other churches—leaving all the more graven images in the mind ; but that race-instinct, that love of outward symbols and objects of worship with which the Eastern Church compromised, and to which the Romish Church succumbed—that instinct and senti­ ment remained in our people, and in the empty niche of the Madonna, on the altar from which god and goddess and crucifix had been successively swept, there were now set up the only two visible images of determined Protestantism—the Bible and the Sabbath. There are some branches of the Church of England which approximate to the Catholic Church enough to preserve other symbols—exalting the sacrament, mag­ nifying the cross, or the liturgy—and such care less tomake overmuch of the Sabbath, and respect saintly tradition as much as the Bible. But when you find �an out-and-out Evangelical, or a Calvinist, or a member of a sect which has nothing symbolical about it, you find one who will fight for the literal Bible and the literal Sabbath, exactly as a barbarian fights for his idol. They are his idols. They are to him precisely what the Jugernath is to the devotee in India. The Bible and the Sabbath are all he has left; and if you were to really take from the average sectarian his idolatry of those two visible objects, he would feel as if he had nothing to lean upon at all. For this aver­ age religionist has not a vivid interior life, he has not the mystical sense cognisant of pure ideals, most visible when the outward eye is closed. He needs to have something he can see and handle, and feel physically, or realise by physical effects. There is not the least use in trying to argue with an idolator. Nothing can be influenced by reasoning which was not reached by any effort of reason. Real thinkers, even in the sects themselves, have tried their strength against this miserable Sabbath superstition, Luther and Calvin, and George Fox, as well as the most learned men of the English Church. But the Sabbath stands like the Hindoo Temple described in the curse of Kehdma :— “ And on the sandy shore, beside the verge Of ocean, here and there a rock-cut fane Resisted in its strength the surf and surge That on their deep foundation beat in vain.” �40 Even so, deep-cut in the plutonic rock of human ignorance, is this idol shrine, against which all our protests, appeals, facts, and arguments will beat in vain, until the ignorance itself shall be undermined and crumble away. There is no advantage, therefore, in pleading with Sabbatarians. The more we groan the better they feel, for it shows them that Jehovah is having his will by crushing ours. But there is great reason that we should appeal to the constituted rulers of England, in the name of our religious liberty, against the claim of Sabbatarians to oppress consciences that are not Sabbatarian. The right of any individual to be him­ self a simpleton seems inalienable. We do not deny, though we may deplore, the claim of Sabbatarians to pass their “ holy time ” in any depth of sanctimonious stupor they like. But they have no right to bind on the altar of their ugly idol the life of other people. That they are still able to do so is not due to any Sabbatarianism in those who make our laws. There is not one member of our Government or Parliament who does not violate the Judaic Sabbath law every week of his life. Nearly fifty years ago, William Lovett, and several thousand working men with him, drew up a petition to Parliament, declaring their conviction that much of the drunkenness and crime in London is due to the absence of proper resources for instruction and �amusement on Sunday. Honest Joseph Hume pre­ sented their petition and appealed to Parliament for the opening of such resources. Since then the appeal has been repeated by Sir Joshua Walmsley, Peter Taylor and others, but steadily refused, even while the principle has been conceded by the opening of museums in Ireland, where Puritanism is not strong. The last-named valiant member of Parliament has now for some years moved that body to admit the poor drudges of this metropolis to gain some know­ ledge, to catch some gleam of light and beauty, on the one day when they are released from toil, in our grand national collections which they help to support but never see—institutions which represent the secrets of nature and ideality of poets and artists, the history of man in his steady mastery of the earth by skill and genius, the sacred story of heroes, saints, saviours of humanity. But at last that member has declined to renew his appeal, because, as he has stated to me, he has ample evidence that while the majority of the House are quite convinced that his motion is right, and have no respect for Sabbatarianism, they yet vote for it. The Puritan Sabbath can always roll up a majority even in a House that applauds arguments against it. The member referred to is naturally not willing to go on convincing men already convinced. But why then do these politicians vote against the �42 relief of suffering non-Sabbatarians ? Why, because they do not wish to be also victims of the Sabbath. To the average Member of Parliament his seat there is the immediate jewel of his soul. He would, no doubt, like to have right on his side, but he must have his borough. He knows perfectly well that if he votes for opening museums and picture galleries to the people, on the very next Sunday his constituency will be listening to awful burdens against him from all the reverend Chadbands and Stigginses and Mawworms and Cantwells and Pecksniffs, whose com­ bined power can defeat any man in England, as their like defeated the great man in Jerusalem who broke the Sabbath, and declared it subject to man, not man to it. Nevertheless, we must not proceed upon the opinion that the average Member of Parliament is so much afraid of this power behind him, or so tenacious of his seat, that he will carry it to the extent of sup­ porting what he felt to be a very serious oppression. All the honour and courage have not entirely gone out of this nationality. Men will be found ready to risk their seats when they have fully apprehended the nature and extent of the wrong that is suffered. Parliament consists mainly of wealthy gentlemen, whose every earthly need is so com­ pletely answered that they can only with difficulty realise the wants of the poor. On Sunday they have �their carriages to drive in, their right to visit botanical and zoological gardens, their libraries, pictures, clubsand billiard-rooms. Their Sunday is free enough. They turn it to repose or recreation as they may need, In all their lives they have never had one day of serious want, not one day of confinement in a miserable lodging with no alternatives but the chill street or thegin-shop. In some way it must be brought before these gentlemen, and kept before them— like the widow’s plea in the parable before the judge, who waswearied out at last—that the lot of the masses whose labour makes so much of their comfort is a mean and miserable lot. They must be made to know that there are millions who from the cradle to the grave, toil—and toil—and toil, year in and year out, and whose life is one long want. It must be impressed upon them that a large part of the sorrow and heavi­ ness of the poor man’s and poor woman’s fate is the presence in them of mental and moral faculties and possibilities which are a perpetual hunger without any supply, which never rise to be real intellects and tastes because they are kept by drudgery as seeds under the sod, unquickened by any beam of light shining from all the knowledge around them, unsunned by any ray of beauty. Then they will comprehend that a fearful system of human sacrifice is going on around them, and they will not find their parliamentary seats easy �44 if retained by any connivance with those sacrifices. There is an Eastern fable of a throne luxuriously soft to any monarch who sat upon it, until a wrong had risen somewhere in his realm; then the throne became so hard that no sovereign could sit upon it, until the wrong was sought out and redressed; and there is •conscience enough among our commoners to change many a legislative seat to flint, when its holder shall know that he maintains it only as a coward, through the servility that dare not grapple with serious in­ justice because it is in the majority. Those are the men who must ultimately listen to our cause and decide it rightfully. And our cause is that the brain and heart, and even the work of the poor, is suffering grievously because of the restrictions placed by superstition upon that day of the week which represents their all of opportunity for any high enjoyment or improvement. The Sundays of life represent one-seventh of every man’s time; but for the drudges of the world it represents the whole of their time. All the rest of life is not their time; it belongs to their employer; it is mortgaged by physical toil. What life is at their own disposal is counted by .Sundays. If those free days are unimproved or unhappy the whole life goes sunless to the grave. What provision does this nation make, and wnat ■does it permit to be made, for the elevation, instruc­ �tion, and happiness of those whose other days, asGeorge Herbert said, “trail on the ground,” on the one day susceptible to nobler impressions ? First it provides sermons. Twenty thousand churches are open this day for the people, and in them are places for a limited number of the poor. Well, let us forget how many dull sermons are preached, how many gloomy, false, repulsive dogmas,, how many threadbare superstitions, and how few work­ ing people have any disposition to enter these assem­ blies, or such dress as would let them feel comfortable when there. Let us pass over all that. Admitting that one hour and a half or two hours of the poor man’s only leisure day may be so passed, what provision is made for the remainder ? Why, there are the parks in which he may walk. But that is a very inadequate reply. Our English weather renders the park attractive for but a small part of the year. Much of the labour done is too wearisome to render mere walking on Sunday any delight to the workers. Nor is there anything in that merely physical exercise which answers the real demand, a demand not of the feet but of the head. Well, there is the great provision that comes next to the church, the public house. This great nation has been appealed to by some of its noblest scholars for permission to accompany the poor on Sunday �46 ■afternoons, when churches are closed, through the national collections of art and science, to explain to them the objects of interest, to interpret for them the wonders of nature and unfold the splendours of art. But thus far our rulers have replied, “ No, we will deliver you to the publican, but never to Dr. Carpenter; Ruskin shall not teach you the glory of Raphael’s •cartoons, but you may gaze at pleasure on the interior decorations of the gin-palace; you must not see the grandeurs of art, nor the fine traceries of skill, nor the antiquities of humanity, nor the wondrous forms and •crystals of Nature, but do not complain : do we not allow you limitless supplies of whiskey and beer?” And just here, by the way, I remark a little sign of hope. The Sabbatarians begin to perceive the scandal that the beer-house should be kept open while the museum is closed, and they begin to demand the closing of the public-house also. They have carried a. measure of that kind for Ireland, and I sincerely hope they will manage to carry one for England. For the day that sees the beer-house close will see the door •of the museum start. The great ally of the Sabbatarian has been the publican, and when that alliance is broken our success will draw near. The parson drugs the people’s brains with superstition, and the publican drugs with beer those whom the parson cannot reach; and the streams from church and tap-room blending �47 together reinforce the Lord’s-day people, so that they can always outnumber us. If the Sabbath were not an idol it would long ago have recoiled from all this part of its work. It would have said, “ Open a thousand museums rather than drive the poor to find their only Sunday amusement, and spend the means for which their wives and children suffer, in drink !” But an idol may always be recognised by just this fact: z? demands human sacrifices. It may not always demand the cutting-up or burning of its victims; but, if not that, it will demand the sacrifice of his intellect or his affections, his happinesss or his welfare; in some way a human body, or heart, or brain will be found bound wherever an idol stands. And though I cannot, in such brief space, enter into all the details of the holocaust of human benefits offered up to the Sabbath, I will affirm for myself that the more I have considered the needs of this people, and the lost opportunities of meeting them, the more have I felt that there is now no cause worthier of a good man’s zeal than the overthrew of this Sabbath oppression. It is a wrong for which I have no toleration at all. I can tolerate any man’s religious conviction about the Sabbath or anything else ; but I cannot tolerate him when he insists on binding his dogma upon others. I will not tolerate his intolerance. This is no issue of abstract opinion for theological fencing. It is no �48 sentimental grievance. The hunger of a million famished souls is in it. It is a great heart-breaking wrong, crushing lower and lower one class of society at a time when other classes are rising higher daily. And that the poor do not feel it to be so, are in boozy contentment with their beer or their prayers and demand nothing better, is only a proof of how fully the oppression has done its miserable work. Yet they use this as an argument against us ! They cry, “The workmen do not want it; behold our majority.” I answer, the majority is always wrong. The majority crucified' Christ and poisoned Socrates. Part of the masses you have deceived by the con­ temptible fiction that their day of release from toil will be endangered by that which would make it more attractive and therefore more precious; and a larger part you have so besotted with beer and ignorance that they are pauperised in soul as well as body, and hug their own chains. Theirs is not the real voice of the people. A true statesman will take the only suffrage they are competent to cast from their degraded foreheads and their brutalised forms and faces. The gardener will not follow the will of the weeds, though they report the soil he works in. At any rate a rational man’s duty is clear. The authority of the Sabbath rests upon what every intelligent mind knows to be fiction; upon a deity who is said to have created the �49 universe in six days and rested on the seventh, and then ordered that anyone working on the seventh should be stoned to death. That is a fiction. There is no deity who did anything of that kind. We are told this is the Lord’s day. We know that if that Lord be other than a phantom every day is his day. J esus said, 11 My Father works on the Sabbath and so will I.” Rest is not stupor. It is well to change our occupation occasionally, but never well to be idle. There is no ground whatever for this superstition. The day of rest originated no doubt in a human want, afterwards invested with sanctity: but the sanctity must be entirely removed if the day is to be changed from a curse to a human benefit. 4 ��51 THE MARTYRDOM OF REASON. Reason is that supreme faculty of man by which he is cognisant of principles apart from their applica­ tions, of laws as distinct from particulars, of ideas as separate from relations. It differs from the under­ standing, which is concerned with those special appli­ cations and relations, as a code of laws differs from the various decisions of courts and judgments made under that code. A man may reason rightly when his understanding is in error. A Hindoo walking out saw a large and dangerous cobra, as he supposed, across his path, preparing to dart upon him ; it so overcame his nerves that he fainted; the object proved to be a piece of rope. The man had reasoned correctly; he knew the nature of the cobra, and rightly inferred the danger, but his judgment was in error. Now judg­ ment is at the point of distinction between reason and understanding. By origin it is an organ of rea­ son, by result it is the agent of the understanding. �52 When we consider our human faculties in this abstract way, we find them perfectly harmonious. They move in their appointed orbits, in constant rela­ tion and interaction, but without collision or jar, their very differences completing the harmony. Abstractedly no mortal can conceive of a special judgment with no general principles to guide it, and none can think of ideas and laws as things inapplicable to the particulars of nature and life. And yet we find in all races and ages a wide-spread suspicion of reason. Even at this day, and in nations which are daily reaping and enjoying the fruits of reason, we find vast numbers of people who have an impression like that which Shakspere puts into the mouth of Caesar, “ He thinks too much ; such men are dangerous.” Still more general is the notion that the man of ideas must be unpractical. It is easy to perceive the origin of that notion; it is suggested in the common saying, “That is well enough in theory, but it won’t do in practice.” Of course the phrase is a mistake ; it should be, “ That is wrong in theory, for it won’t do in practicebut it discloses the fact that there has been so much false reasoning in the world that many have come to distrust reason itself. And just here arises a misunderstanding and a quarrel between the theorist and the practical man. One says the error is in the theory, the other that it is �53 in the application of it. Among educated people the matter would be tested by experiment. Science, for instance, has long affirmed that when salt water freezes it loses its saltness; but the Arctic explorers melting the sea-ice found it so briny that they could not drink it. The result is, of course, a revision of theory by experiments which will probably show that the salt does not remain strictly in the ice, but between its crystals, that the theory is not wrong but requires more careful statemeht to include the practical fact. In this way the old feud between theory and practice has entirely ceased from the domain of science. • But it is in religion that we find the distrust of rea­ son most intense and familiar. On that distrust Christianity is founded. Christ appealed to reason; but Christianity has very little to do with him ; it re­ lapses into barbaric ages and finds its corner-stone in a fable that the first effort of intellect led to the cor­ ruption of the whole human race. It said that when God made man and woman he put them into a para­ dise for enjoyments sensual and sensuous. The one thing he was opposed to was knowledge. So resolute was the Creator on that point, that he did not hesitate to accompany his prohibition of that one fruit with a deception. He told them that on the very day they should eat of the tree of Knowledge they would die. The serpent persuaded the woman that this was a �54 fiction, as it proved to be. The truthful serpent also said, “ Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,” and no sooner was the fruit eaten than Jehovah, making no mention of what he had said about their dying, acknowledged the veracity of the serpent. “ Behold,” he said, “ the man is become as one of us (gods) to know good and evil.” Then, lest the gods should have no advantage at all, and man should eat of another fruit and become immortal, the first pair were expelled from Paradise. This fable, which re­ presents the first priestly scream against education, shows us a deity cursing knowledge and a demon en­ couraging it; it shows a deity trying to delude man to remain in ignorance, while the demon speaks the truth, and secures the birth of intelligence for man and woman, where Jehovah meant them to live only the life of the senses. On that fable the whole Plan of Salvation is founded. The knowledge gained that day brought on mankind the curse of total depravity, and doom of eternal torture. To avert that the Son of God became incarnate on earth and suffered in a few years all the agonies which the whole human race would have suffered if every man, -woman and child that ever lived were damned to all eternity. All of this is meaningless, and the whole theology of Chris­ tendom mere chaff, except to avert the wrath and undo the curse which fell from a deity jealous of the attain­ �55 ments of his own creature, upon man, because of his first endeavour to gain knowledge. Fortunately, while that is the theology it is not the religion, and still less the morality of this country. It is a sublime example of the kind of theory which does not do in practice. Nevertheless we must not under­ rate the results of the long pressure of instructions like these upon every human being through a period of sixteen hundred years. Even now, in the most en­ lightened nations, the money devoted to teach that theology is counted by millions where the money devoted to pure knowledge is counted by tens. And we need not wonder that the spirit of that old curse on knowledge still survives to haunt every seeker of it for its own sake. It is still strong enough to cast a certain odium on the tasks of reason. To the popular mind there is something uncanny about the rationalist, which means a reasoner, and the sceptic—literally, he who considers a thing—has still an evil name. Thou­ sands who shout for every other kind of freedom will cry down freethought. They will mourn over an en­ slaved African thousands of miles away, but have no tears to shed for fettered minds at their own door. Nay, even among those liberated from the old theology, how much suspicion of reason do we en­ counter ! How often do we hear such speak of science as cold, and of the intellect as inferior to something �56 they call faith or intuition ! They who have no doubts about reason are still comparatively few. And yet our age is full of the grandest facts and illustrations, proving that it is among the devotees of reason and science that the divinest life and fire of our age is manifest. I have just been reading a history, written by the leading rationalist minister in America, of what is called “ the transcendental movement” in that country. * And it is well called a “movement ;” for the chief impres­ siveness of it lies in the fact that what had been mainly a speculative philosophy in Europe, there, among one of the most shrewd and practical nations of the world, blazed out into a movement, a noble enthusiasm for humanity, a passionate religion which kindled the hearts of young men and women, and made them Reformers, Apostles, Martyrs, who gave up all their goods for the poor, who brought glad tidings to woman and lifted the heaviest burthens of her life, and who broke off the bonds of the slave. There was not an orthodox man or woman among them. They were rationalists. The Bible they studied was Kant’s “ Critique of Pure Reason,” Goethe’s Works, Carlyle’s Essays, Cousin’s Philosophy: the ideas of Europe became ideals in America, rose up like pillars of flame; they became a * Transcendentalism in New England. A History. By Octavius Brooks Frothingham. New York : E. P. Putman & Sons, 1876. �57 gospel in the genius of Emerson, the mind of Parker, and the heart of Margaret Fuller, and under its charm humble people formed themselves in communities, ceasing to care for worldly wealth and honours. There is no type of character that is beautiful in the past which did not reappear. St. Francis d’ Assisi, Fenelon, Madame Guion, Berkeley, Sydney, they all had true counterparts in the piety, devotion, virtue, and genius, which characterised that movement. This is the hundredth birth-year of America as a nation; they who established its independence in the name of humanity were free-thinkers—Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Thomas Paine—and they broke for ever the power of a priesthood in the State. And now remark, in that country where conscience is free, a hundred years has witnessed but one great religious movement—but one which corresponds with the movements under George Fox, and Wesley and Whit field in this country—but one which exhibited power to command the passions, conquer selfishness, and trace itself in practical reforms and a new Church and that one was a movement born of pure reason. Such has ever been the work of reason where it has been set free. And yet there are eloquent men, like Pere Hyacinthe, who are going about imploring the priests and prelates of Europe to make a holy alliance of Anglican, Greek, and Gallican Churches against �58 this terrible monster—Rationalism. I rejoice to hear they think there is need of a new league. It is a valu­ able testimony to the stream of tendency that makes for truth. But we must not allow the good father’s confession, that many people are not only, like him­ self, denying that two and two make five, but even running into the excess of denying that two and two make three—a radicalism he so much deplores—we must not allow that to make us over-confident. We must still face the fact that Reason is a sacrifice and a martyr amid the great institutions around us. What is the history of nearly every child born in this country? The few who are brought up by rational methods, and taught to cultivate and obey reason as their highest guide, are hardly notice­ able as to numbers. A large proportion are neglected, so far as Christian fables are concerned, but they are victims of popular superstitions, believe in ghosts and goblins, fortune-telling and the evil eye, their minds overgrown with rank weeds. The ave­ rage Christian child is taught superstition above every­ thing else ! Other and true things may be taught, but they spring up only amid those briars which choke each other growth before it can bear its fruit. Car­ dinal, and bishop, and cabinet, alike agree that no seed of wheat shall be sown in any mind without a tare of fable or dogma beside it. Of what use is �59 geology if one believes that Jehovah created the universe in six days ? What is the use of any science to a mind which believes that the laws of nature are arbitrary, have often been suspended, and may be changed and altered by the breath of a mortal’s peti­ tion ? There can be no reason cultivated where the law of cause and effect is disregarded. To believe in the connection of things that have no connection—for instance, that a man’s word can raise the dead to life—is to strangle reason. To believe in an effect without adequate cause—for instance, that the world stopped revolving that a captain might have more daylight to fight by—vastates the mind. To believe in anything whatever for which there is no evidence, or insufficient evidence, is superstition; and the essence of superstition is that reason is dethroned and a mere compulsion of habit, fear, or self-interest set up in its place to direct the life. Well, the ordinary studies of the average Christian child having thus been prevented from developing his reasoning powers in the direction of religion, he is completely subjected to the powerful stimulants of those preternatural fears and hopes which make the ordinary sanctions of what is called religion, but really is selfishness. He is warned to avoid certain things, and do others, because he will go to hell if he doesn't comply, but will enjoy eternal bliss if he �6o does,—motives of calculating self-interest, which it is the very mission of Reason to restrain and to remand for the work of mere physical self-preservation. While we despise the man who loves and serves a wife or a friend from such base calculations of interest, children are taught to love God and serve him for fear of punishment and hope of reward. But let us follow the growth of the child thus in­ structed. The time comes when he must enter into life. Physical cares, business, the healthy work of the world claim him. Amid them he is pretty sure to discover that the theology he has been taught is not confirmed by experience. Then, haply, he may be able to assert the rights of his own reason. But, sup­ posing he does not, one of several other results will follow, i. He may believe that the doctrines he has been taught must have a formal homage as divine mysteries which he is not expected to understand, but only blindly to obey. 2. He may become a hypocrite. 3. He may become utterly indifferent to the whole thing, and utterly reckless. In either case his sacred reason has been sacrificed. But do we fully appreciate the tragedy which has thus happened ? Do we fully realise that even when men and women do not become either hypocrites or reckless, they are almost certain, as things now stand, to reach some day the appalling discovery that they �6i have wasted the best years of their life on a sham and a fraud ? In the twenty-five years during which I have been in a position to receive the confidences of those who were struggling amid doubts, and in the pangs of transition, the chief agonies I have witnessed have been those whose awakening came too late for oppor­ tunities to be recovered. Youth is gone, enthusiasm has gone, the time for study and devotion for ever passed away, and the collective force of all the light around them enters at last only to bring the bitter consciousness that the glory of life has been cast away upon the barren deserts of delusion. These are the martyrs whom every devotee of reason should see around him. There is no sorrow equal to theirs. No doubt rationalism may bring with it many trials so far as the world is concerned. There may be separations, friendships clouded, affec­ tions wounded ; for superstition can turn hearts to stone even against their own blood where its autho­ rity is denied. There may be intellectual doubts, too, not to be satisfied, some loved legends vanish­ ing, and some pretty dreams made dim along with the nightmares escaped. But amid all these there is nothing half so terrible as the fate of those who have no alternatives but either to slay their reason .altogether, or to admit its testimony only to find that the whole life has been a gigantic mistake. �62 Therefore it is the high duty of every human being to maintain openly and valiantly the verdict of his own faculties. Unfortunately the guardians of the young are so eager to teach them how to say prayers, and keep sanctimonious on Sunday, and to refrain from kneeling down to graven images, that few have ears to hear the great decalogue announced in their own time. The first of the new commandments is this,—Seek truth ! and the second is like unto it, Live the Truth in thought, word, and deed 1 So little has the virtue of self-truthfulness been taught, that we often meet people who actually make a merit of con­ cealing their convictions, especially if they think they are thereby saving somebody’s feelings. There is a great deal of selfishness, as well as sentiment, sheltered under Paul’s dangerous maxim about being all things to all men, and a great deal of Jesuitism hides itself under Christ’s admonition against casting pearls before swine, which is true only if read by the light of his own martyrdom for speaking the truth. As a rule the men and women you meet are not swine, and you need not fear to offer them—it is cruel to refuse them —your pearls of truth and sincerity. Many of them, indeed, are going about silently seeking those very pearls. No doubt there are times for reserve, no doubt there are rocks of prejudice and ignorance which have to be slowly pulverised into a soil before any seed can �63 y 11 jl 0] 'j’l d ill t'i g $ <i if w Eff Itl oi rfl itt be sown in them. But no one will ever lack wisdom for all occasions who is animated purely by that love which is not seeking his own, nor vaunting himself, but seeking only to advance Truth. Reason supplies an instinct adequate to all emergencies. Remember again what reason is, and the ground of its supremacy I Remember now and always, that its very soul is dis­ interestedness. It is the clear vision of the mind as it rises above all the considerations of self-interest, pre­ judice, conventionality, passion, which would lower and discolour its pure light. Reason is to see things as they are, and not as majorities or institutions say they are, or wish them to be. And it is just as much as a mind can do to keep that holy lamp burning steadily through life in a world where the most powerful threats and bribes are continually used to sway and pervert the judgment. In legal affairs no judge is allowed to decide a case involving his own interest; a heavy punishment follows any attempt to bribe judge or jury­ man. So we can get just verdicts. But how are we to get just verdicts on religious questions, when untold millions and all social advantages are set apart by Church and State to influence every mind in favour of creeds and dogmas, as against pure reason? We can hope for a true verdict only from those who have ascended above such considerations, and surrender themselves wholly to the guidance of reason and right. �64 When the poet Heine was in Paris, poor, sick, wretched, he renounced his rationalism. His friends in Germany heaped scorn upon him. Heine then wrote :—“ They say Heine has changed and become a reactionist. Ah, well, lately I went to the Louvre, and knelt before our lady of Milo. Many tears did I shed as I gazed upon her beautiful form and face, but I rose and left her, for she had no arms. She had no arms, and I was poor and needy.” So he turned to our lady of the Church, for she had arms and hands, all full of rich gifts to reward any poet for singing her praises. We cannot help feeling compassion for those who yield to rich and powerful superstition the homage which is due to reason alone: but the standard cannot be lowered, whoever may go away sorrowful. He alone is a true man who stands firm to the mandate of the Sinai within him, and sees that whatever may bend or break, it shall not be his fidelity to truth. �� 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Human sacrifices in England : four discourses Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907 [1832-1907] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 64 p. ; 16 cm. Notes: Contents: I. Human sacrifices -- 2. The daughters of Jephthah -- 3. Children and their Moloch -- 4. The Sabbath-Jugernath -- 5. The martyrdom of reason. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Trübner and Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N178 G3343 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Rationalism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Human sacrifices in England : four discourses), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Child Rearing-Moral and Ethical Aspects Children Children's Rights Education Morris Tracts NSS Rationalism Reason Religion and Civil Society Sabbath Social Justice Women-Religious Aspects-Christianity Women's Rights https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/331669cd5d7e7af9da76f68b2344feb3.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=QnUcyAydvqeM7YeLQaOf2w6B%7EgdkRAweutVHE1NG9EECxi87mrKiLZI2322aVZDwRDmUE%7EkXzU23BPM0Ai8z20QWhpchkQt86lC5lFJWWdmv694udcUXkKH0DgD-luPpddnZibVhe4VBWm8AM8JMQHsKQVGVyp3Le1ZUj2wYd12CNGX%7Es9qhfReq-qA1geus1r8sERLSM3-qsTLcQhXr3OgmXyYlKOtOsRShCjbSS-82bW3gBSHLRl26-riN1hU4dMWP9EN3XCxNKBRMeN2wxKsLCEN-wXqOY7BHIkiYMH3CeBsCuyoVKXHdLe%7E3BzIAkYQ8glMYXJs1R4r41X%7ERog__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 07499ca6b904827b1b5807836164cbed PDF Text Text 2SZ-l> mag OUR CAUSE AND ACCUSERS. ITS A DISCOURSE GIVEN AT THE ATHEN/EUM, CAMDEN ROAD, UNE 1 1TH, 1876. BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A. ��OUR CAUSE AND ITS ACCUSERS, It is not because the believer in rational religion has not clear convictions that he will not shape them into a creed. It is because the experience of the world has proved that however well a creed may express the thought of one generation it is very certain to impede the thought of another. An oriental Prince once sent his servant some miles to get a bit of salt for his meal while out hunting; but when he found that his messenger had not paid for the salt he sent him all the way back with some money; for, he said, though the pinch of salt is a trifle, precedent is not a trifle, and if he should take even so little without payment the custom might grow until some prince of the future might desolate the country. As great despotisms have grown from small beginnings, so have oppressions �4 for the human mind and conscience grown out of the bad habit which our ancestors had of putting their opinions into dogmatic shape. For when a creed is so made they who believe it commit their pride of opinion to it; they get a party to build schools and churches to teach that creed ; then many people have pecuniary interests invested in such schools and churches, are furious with those who question the creed which props their power and wealth, and do them all the mischief they can. This is why the church never burned people for immorality, but only for doubting or denying their creed. All this amounts to systematic discouragement of thought; and, as the rationalist desires to encourage thought, he refuses to formulate his opinions as dogmas or creeds, or to build his organisation on any corner-stone which may crush intellectual liberty beneath it. I have no claim, therefore, to commit those who have for many years honoured me with their confidence to any belief except belief in this liberty of mind and conscience. We are aiming to build a science of religion and of morals, based upon the facts of consciousness, the history of man, the laws of nature,- and in science there can be no finality, no authority. In stating the views of rationalists, I speak only as one who has had long acquaintance with such, and has devoted his life to study of their principles. Occasionally, indeed, some few liberals—not exactly �5 rationalists—have wished for something like a set of articles; but I think we are justified in our repugnance to everything of that kind not only by the history of persecution for opinion’s sake, but by what is now occurring around us, even here in the most enlightened metropolis of the world. The transfer of our little Society to a larger hall than that in which we have gathered for near ten years in quietness, has been the occasion of denunciations which could not have been more fierce had we during those years demoralised the whole neighbourhood. We have been vilified, accused, misrepresented, and for what offence ? For inability to subscribe to a creed framed in an age when science did not exist, by men who believed more childish superstitions than the Church of Rome, a creed which our assailants themselves could not and would not believe were their faculties unfettered. Here are two printed sermons directed against us, and all who tolerate us, by the Vicar of St. Luke’s, West Holloway. One is entitled “ The Lord’s Derision of Opposer’s Schemes;” and in it he describes his God as laughing, but with an awful angry laugh, at our opposi­ tion to the Vicar’s creed. The other is called “ The Lord’s Question to those who harbour his enemies,” the question being that which Jehovah is said to have asked Balaam, “ What men are these with thee ? ” The Vicar talks about his God in this way :—“ First, then, it is a question of Surprise. It is asked even by God �6 in a tone of surprise and of startled wonder. What! God seems to say ; is it possible ? ” And again “ the question is also one of anger and high indignation" He also represents Balaam as being killed in battle because he had joined Jehovah’s enemies. Now this so-called deity is familiar to all students of superstition. The God that laughs at the calamity of his own creatures and mocks when their fear cometh, and sends into the world opposers only to deride and then kill them,—even as he hardened Pharaoh s heart in order, as he said, that he might show his own glory upon him,—this fearful phantasm of a semi-barbarous Syrian tribe, is known to us. But how comes it that he is held up as a real god here in London, in an age of refinement and culture ? How comes it that the graduate of a University is prepared to bid men love their enemies in one breath, and in another bid them worship a God who derides, mocks, pursues, and slays his enemies, even though he made them himself voluntarily ? Why the reverend gentle­ man himself shows us how it has come about. He says, ii There is a false and mock liberality which says that we may allow people to think and do as they like I Now that might be true if God had given us no rule, no law to guide us ; but as He has, men have no such liberty.” I honour that clergyman’s candour. He confesses that what he preaches is not his own thought, not what he might like or believe if he should indulge �7 in the wickedness of reasoning without prejudice. He thinks only as authority has prescribed; and because for ages men like him have laboured not to discover what is true but to defend the incredible creeds of the world’s infancy, around which temporal interests and institutions have grown, we find this idol of the Stone Age artificially preserved to disgrace the Age of Reason. This clergyman says our God is “ a clot on the brain.” I can assure him that I do not believe his startled, angry, jealous, plotting god is a clot on the brain : it is the yet uncrumbled fragment of an ancient cosmogony occupying the place where a brain ought to be at work in the life that now is, and in the light shining for its direction. It is a formidable thing for a man to take such a conception of God into his mind, and set it up on the tomb of his freedom; for the day has passed by in which it can be maintained by fair and honourable means. As the angry, jealous, mocking god gives no sign or miracle to attest his existence at a moment when in all the ranks of literature and science no un­ professional defender of that existence is discoverable, they whose all is based upon that superstition are tempted to support it by intemperate language, by personal misrepresentations, and foul aspersions. I do not feel animosity towards the Vicar on account of the injustice he has done my friends and myself, because his sermons reveal the earnestness of his �8 feeling. His pain and alarm are at least more creditable than the hypocrisy of the hirelings who flee when they see the wolf approaching their fold. The only sorrow I have is that so candid and earnest a gentleman should mistake me for a wolf, for he cannot help fighting me as such, without being particular as to his weapons. Not being a wolf, and indeed trying to watch beside a flock of my own, I am compelled to remonstrate against his misrepresentations. He tells his people that I call their Lord and Saviour “ a dead Jew.” That is not true. This phrase, il a dead Jew/’ is taken from a book of mine, * and by detachment is made to seem like an epithet on Christ, instead of a rebuke to those who ignore his grand humanity. I remember once to have had a fear that some one might fancy that sentence was a slur upon the Jewish race, which I honour for its genius and its high record in art and philosophy ; but it did not occur to me that it would ever be so hopelessly wrested from its meaning as it has been by the Vicar of St. Luke’s. In the preceding sentence I speak of laying my “ palm before the heroic prophet of Jerusalem,” and immediately after on the same page of “the brave reformer” sacrificed to “the High Church of Palestine.” When, therefore, I asked in that connection, “ What shall we say of the cultivated * The Earthward Pilgrimage. Chatto and Windus, 74, Piccadilly, W. The reference is to p. 240. �9 Europeans whose god is a dead Jew ?” I was plainly not expressing my conception of Christ, but that of the Churches generally. I heartily wish it were otherwise. I wish that the sweet humanity of Christ, his heroic struggle with the Established Church of his time, his poetry and eloquence, were recognised by the orthodox; but unhappily it is untheological to dwell on the human characteristics of Christ. They insist that he was going through a prescribed routine in a perfunctory way; his temptations, difficulties, all unreal, as, being God, he could not sin, and was never in any danger of failing. So there is no man there at all. According to that view, so far as his humanity is concerned, he is merely a dead Jew, his death being the only seriously important thing about him. Again, my reverend critic writes as follows :•—“ Can you ‘ receive into your house’ men who speak thus of the sacred mystery of the Incarnation. . . ‘ His infant head, (said the poets)—alluding thus, it would appear, to that most reverent and devout hymn of good Bishop Heber—and where can Rationalism find among its disciples such a specimen of pure high morality, to say nothing of heavenly spirituality, as we can present it with in Heber ?— £ Low lies His head, mid the beasts of the stall ’:—‘ His infant head was laid down amid the beasts of the stall.’ And now listen to the way in which the Son of God, your Saviour, and His holy Gospel are �IO spoken of: ‘Its helpless infancy must be confided to donkeys, who shall mingle many a bray with this new Gospel.’ ” Such is the fate of my honest effort to save faith in the wisdom and the greatness of Christ from being hid and lost for rational people by reason of the stu­ pidity and bigotry which for ages have been taking him under their fatal protection, making him into their own image, until it is almost impossible to con­ vince able men that there was any grandeur in him at all. In charity I must suppose that some one must have handed the Vicar the extract, for if he had read it in its connection he must have known that he was conveying to his people an impression widely different, and, so far as related to Christ, exactly the reverse of what is said in my book. I must now ask you to listen to what I there wrote:—“ Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that can pierce through its glittering shows, and see this Nazarene peasant to be the Son of God? From that moment the old heavens begin to fade: on the soul’s eye shines already the new heaven to whose every tint the new earth must respond. ... A thousand revolutions ger­ minated when the people knelt before a right and true, and a poor man. He was born amid the wild winter, said the poets; his infant head was laid low amid the beasts of the stall; his cause must struggle with the hostile elements of an icy conservatism; its �II helpless infancy must be confided to donkeys, who shall mingle many a bray with this new gospel. All the old fables about Jahve, Zeus, and the rest, shall swathe this babe. Nevertheless, to us this child is bom; where he enters idols shall fall, oracles be struck dumb, and all the signs of the heavens hold themselves honoured in weaving an aureole about the brow of a Man. This babe shall consecrate every babe; this mechanic shall establish the dignity of labour; this pauper shall liberate slaves and strike off the burdens of the poor.” Such is the page in which the Vicar detects blas­ phemy. I have given it at length, because it is of very serious importance to me that I shall not be held up before this community as falling beneath any man living in my homage to Christ. In a ministry that has now lasted a quarter of a century no word concerning that great soul has yet fallen from my tongue or pen that was not inspired by reverence, love, and even enthusiasm. •So much in self-defence. The next point in the Vicar’s attack is a more serious one, and it involves the whole Rationalistic community. He virtually charges it with sensualism. He tells his hearers ■that if they even tolerate us God will withdraw his light from their mind and his grace from their heart. “ You will become,” he says, “ first a sceptic, and then an infidel, and then a scoffer, and then, at last �12 the openly immoral sensualist!” What is a sceptic? It is a Greek word, meaning a man who “ considers.” What is infidel? It means a man who disbelieves what the majority^believe. It was what Paul con­ fessed to when he said, “ This I confess, that after the way they call heresy so worship I the God of my Fathers.” According to the Vicar, to consider (o-KeTTTeiv), and to adopt an individual opinion, in religion, is the sure path to immorality. Well, Christ was called a blasphemer and a friend of sinners, and in league with Beelzebub ; and if priests spoke so of him we need not be disturbed when priests say hard things of us. But we have the right to ask the Vicar to prove his case. The Liberal religious body is of respectable age, and the Vicar should point out the examples of immorality in its record of eminent men. Will he select Channing, or Belsham, or Priestley— whose house a Christian mob tore down—in the past, or Martineau and John James Tayler, Dr. Carpenter and Miss Mary Carpenter of recent years ? Or, taking more pronounced rationalism, will he name as sensualists Professor Newman, or Miss Cobbe, or Sir Charles Lyell, or Mr. Justice Grove, or Lord Houghton, or the Duke of Somerset, or the poet Tennyson, or Matthew Arnold, or Herbert Spencer? These are men who have carried scepticism and rationalism to its fullest logical results. Are they known as sensualists, or even as men who bear false witness against their neighbours ? �r3 I think most persons will agree that Mr. Gladstone is about as good a judge of the religious world as the Vicar of St. Luke. In his article on “ Modern Reli­ gious Thought,” Mr. Gladstone speaks of those whom the Vicar calls Sensualists, in the following terms :— “ There are within it,” he says, speaking of the Unitarian, theistic, and rationalistic class generally, “ men not only irreproachable in life, but excellent; and many who have written both in this country and on the Continent with no less power than earnestness, in defence of the belief which they retain. Such are, for example, Professor Frohschammer in Germany, and M. Laveleye in Belgium ; while in this country, without pretending to exhaust the list, I would pay a. debt of honour to Mr. Martineau, Mr. Greg, Dr. Car­ penter and Mr. Jevons. . . . They are generally men. exempt from such temptations as distress entails, and fortified with such restraints as culture can supply. . . . We should not hastily be led by antagonism of opinion to estimate lightly the influence which a School, limited like this in numbers, may exercise on the future. For, if they are not rulers, they rule those who are. They belong to the class of thinkers and •teachers ; and it is from within this circle, always, and, even in the largest organisations, a narrow one, that go forth the influences which one by one form the minds of men, and in their aggregate determine the course of affairs, the fate of institutions, and the hap­ piness of the human race.” �14 Such is the judgment upon the men and the influ­ ences at work in the rationalistic movement uttered by one who has given as much attention to religious subjects as any man of our time. The Vicar challenges us to show in the ranks of rationalism any man so moral and spiritual as Bishop Heber. That kind of argument is more absurd than if I were to ask him to point out among rationalists one so coarse as the present Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, who advised the landlords, when Joseph Arch and other leaders of the Agricultural Unions came, “ to duck them in the nearest horsepond.” It is at least more pertinent to illustrate the character of an existing belief by living examples than by going back to one dead over fifty years. There was a time when the saintliest souls in Europe were Roman Catholics. The falsity of the system had not then been exposed: Since Bishop Heber died the religious mind of England has been revolutionised by the great discoveries of science, the generalisations of philo­ sophy, and the opening to us of the religions of the East. It is under such influences as these that the Hebers of the past have become the Thirlwalls, and Colensos, and Temples of the present. For the ra­ tionalist movement in England has been fed at a fountain which is now the most living in the English Church. Possibly the Vicar of St. Luke’s may have excommunicated the late Bishop of St. David’s, when �he refused to act as a reviser of the Bible translation, if a leading Unitarian were excluded from the Com­ mittee ; and perhaps he is ready to excommunicate, the rationalist Bishop Colenso, and the Bishop of Exeter, and Dean Stanley, and Stopford Brooke who extols the poet Shelley, and the Rev. Mr. Haweis whodeclares that prayer can have no possible effect on the unalterable course of Nature. Nevertheless, I will venture to suggest that it is not one of the thirty-nine articles that the neighbouring Vicar shall represent all the wisdom in the Church, of England. At any rate, it is plain that he can hardly expect to exterminate our humble society here until he has dealt with those who in his owrL Church are fraternising with heretics. We may return, upon him “the Lord’s question” to Balaam—“What men are these with thee ? ” Here, for instance, is the Rev. Dr. Mark Pattison of your own Church, who answers for us your threat of endless despair, telling us. that to act in any way “ because God is stronger than we and able to damn us if we don’t,” argues “a sleek and sordid epicurism.” Here is the late Professor Baden Powell who tells us that “ in nature and from nature, by science and by reason, we neither have, nor can possibly have, any evidence of a Deity working miracles.” Here is the present Bishop of Exeter who declares that men who do not use their reason in perfect freedom without restraint from any external authority,. �i6 are “under the law.” “Such men,” he says, “are sometimes tempted to prescribe for others what they need for themselves, and to require that no others should speculate because they dare not. They not •only refuse to think, and accept other men’s thoughts, which is often quite right, but they elevate those into •canons of faith for all men, which is not right.” And finally I will quote from a man who occupies the highest educational position in Great Britain,—a man •to whom this nation has entrusted a position of in­ fluence in the training of young men, second to none <on earth. I refer to the Rev. Professor Jowett, the Head Master of Balliol College, Oxford. In words that should have their weight for every mind that hears •me, he says:—“ The suspicion of Deism, or perhaps of , Atheism, awaits inquiry. By such fears a good man refuses to be influenced; a philosophical mind is apt to cast them aside with too much bitterness. It is better to close the book (the Bible), than to read it •under conditions of thought which are imposed from •without. Whether those conditions of thought are -the traditions of the Church, or the opinions of the religious world—Catholic or Protestant—makes no •difference : they are inconsistent with the freedom of ■the truth and the moral character of the Gospel.” Do not imagine that I have got these testimonies -from the Vicar’s clerical brethren by garbling their »thoughts as he garbled mine : you will find such �thoughts the main burden of the “ Essays and Re­ views,” from which I have taken them. I supposeour accuser does not wish his Church to monopolise rationalism, nor think that such thoughts become' sound if one only wears a surplice. Consequently I have a right to ask him, “ What men are these with thee ? ” Are you quietly submitting to them, frater­ nising with them, getting your living from a church that exalts them, and then denouncing as blasphemers­ and sensualists humbler people who are animated by the same spirit and honestly carrying out the same prin­ ciples? Is it the high Christian spirit to hush up the heresies of a Bishop or a Dean, and then turn with fury on the press that gives their views fair play ; to threaten with vengeance from Heaven English gentle­ men who refuse to aid in barring freedom of speech out of this Athenseum; or is it Christian to conspirefor the injury of an institution because it will not turn itself into a prison to restrain and punish thought and. inquiry ? It may be Christian, but it is not like Christ. It is. not the spirit of him who said, “ Of yourselves judge ye what is right,” and “ The truth shall make you free.” It is not that of his early followers, who said, “ Try the spirits; prove all things, hold fast that which is. good; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Intolerance burned the books of Copernicus,, and the bodies of scholars, in the past, and it may �i8 •still trample on the book it cannot answer, and doom to hell-fire those whom it can no longer bum with earthly fire; but it is in sharp discord with the civili­ sation of our age, which protects the freedom which is essential to the elucidation of truth, and inhar­ monious with that spirit of inquiry which is the great need of our time, and the charity which is the need of every time. Of these tendencies of our age our Society is one result among many,—an inevitable result. We are not prepared to adopt any sectarian shibboleth what­ ever. We admit ourselves unable to comprehend the •divine existence, while we feel the reality of that supreme influence which is expressed by humanity in the word God. We find in the Bible a sacred reve­ lation of the human heart—able to stimulate into activity our own hearts, but we cannot call that book the Word of God in any sense that would localise or limit the spiritual sunshine which has illumined every race and period. While we love to think upon Christ, •and study his words, and recognise his unparalleled •grandeur, we decline to call ourselves “ Christian,” technically, because, in the first place, we do not wish to separate ourselves from those brought up in other religions—Israelites, Hindoos, Mahommedans—among whom Christianity has for ages carried fire and sword, unwilling to raise any name by them historically as­ sociated with their subjugation and suffering, as a bar �I9 to that common Religion of Humanity for which we long and hope. Nor do we wish to raise any sectarian name, like Christian, which would imply that the religious culmination of our race has already taken place in the distant past. We believe that in religion, as in knowledge and civilisation, the law is progress. That indeed is the essence of our faith in God. Jesus called himself by the name of no preceding religion or sect; neither did the disciples or apostles call themselves Christian; that word has no sanction in the New Testament. In the day when souls are breaking their ancient bonds they cannot live on memories of days that have set, but keep their faces ever to the sunrise. There shines the light that can alone transfigure the life of to-day, and. in its glory Moses and Elias will again ascend, in it Christ and all the Prophets and Saviours of the world shall be glorified. This is our cause. We have no fear for it. We love it, for it means to us reverence for all that is sweet in the past and pure in the present; we have faith in it, for it means to us pursuit of truth and fidelity to it; we rejoice in it, for in it we see germi­ nating the freedom and fraternity of man, and in it all the great hopes of Humanity climbing to fulfilment. �NOTE. Without undertaking to speak for the Committee of the Athenseum, who are able to speak for them­ selves, it may be well enough to say here that our Society regards the contract for the hall as purely a business arrangement, made in accord­ ance with the usage under which the building is let for orderly meetings of various characters, and not in the least as implying any sympathy with our opinions on the part of that Committee. � 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Our cause and its accusers: a discourse given at The Athenaeum, Camden Road, June 11th 1876 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907 [1832-1907] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 19, [1] p. ; 15 cm. Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Includes a bibliographical reference. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1876] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G3333 Subject The topic of the resource Rationalism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Our cause and its accusers: a discourse given at The Athenaeum, Camden Road, June 11th 1876), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Morris Tracts Rationalism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a420e7d248b892e0ed287b3ff420908e.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=YUeFwUNI2PLSj0z7VhsVICp5gYiNj2C3dlQwJwz9U9Z4odUpYX5Bm8-HtUneqFuO-fwlC9N5XqCt2wIkyx-fyi0vAEdr5QntwHyXS8tBrvr3SyvzKFD9zQSmSbhV-YaoI%7EWg2ybi0BEBZGSZ04zazCNs0XLSEC0KRwuMUcg3hjMimN6G-R4tdwC08aiwfhNb5DUaW%7E%7Edlynlywf8tygWqtUrROJR-yYECDPLOx69u36yNygiPMI9x0AOKCf1hm3zNViA-Pajc-iYZDkwo0WRoEVo6I%7EDphaY2QTzRlZKKLIpifyC7lISM-Cj5dxtkOzLipX6u0pq7ogm0UrJ3tW0eg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM ff68873613dab3e634b2903f3c5863fa PDF Text Text REASON VERSUS AUTHORITY. BY W. 0. GARR BROOK. “ Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” Thess., v. 21. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE. 1871. Price Threepence. �LONDON: PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET, W. �REASON VERSUS AUTHORITY. HE present is a sceptical age. We do not, as in former times, believe, but criticise. Faith, in these days, has no province, but the whole area of human expectation is limited to the range of our reason. If a truth can be shown to be probable, we accept it. If it is not, in our estimation, reasonable, we reject it. We assert, in short, that the instrument and method of our apprehension is the same, whether the thing to be apprehended be an episode in Homer’s Iliad or an incident in Luke’s Life of Christ. If we interpret aright the intellectual position of those who urge this as a sign of our spiritual deca­ dence, they are, in some sense or measure, prepared to affirm that reason is unrelated to the subject of religion. We should not, they think, consider the pro­ priety or impropriety of a given religious observance, the reasonableness or unreasonableness of a supposed religious obligation, the credibility or incredibility of an affirmed revelation from heaven, but, with regard to such matters, our reason is to be held in abeyance. Within the sphere of our higher life, we are not to argue, but accept; not criticise, but believe; not ask for evidence, but proceed upon authority. T �6 Reason versus Authority. Taken absolutely and universally, this instruction to us for our guidance needs, we think, but to be touched to be disproved. If everywhere and at all times, within the sphere of religion, reason is to be quiescent and faith supreme, either we must adopt every creed, however opposite, in turn, as the advo­ cate of each presses it upon us, or we must, under all circumstances, abide by our original religious impres­ sions, and refuse to relinguish them whatever a deeper experience may say in opposition. In the former case, it will be our duty, to-day, being urged thereto by the Protestant, to denounce Mariolatry, and, to­ morrow, pressed by the Catholic, to bow down, in utmost reverence, to the Virgin Mother. In the latter, it will be incumbent upon us, whether we are the children of Protestant or Catholic parents, to ask no questions and to listen to no persuasion to change our religious sentiments, but accepting them at first without inquiry, and abiding by them ever afterwards irrespective of their hold upon our judgment, to reduce the problem of the growth or retrogression of Protestant or Roman Catholic sentiment in this country to the question of the relative fruitfulness of Protestant or Roman Catholic parentage. If they who affirm the supremacy of faith and the unrelatedness of reason to religion do not affirm it always and everywhere, they, then, affirm it some­ times and somewhere, and the question, of course, is when and where. In reply, if we ask the Protestant, he informs us that our reason is to give place to our faith when we read a certain book, but that our faith is to give place to our reason when we read any interpretation of the book which is not our own. The Catholic, in opposition, says, with much show of sense, that if we need an infallible book we must, being often ignorant and always liable to err, need, from the same consideration, an infallible interpreter, �Reason versus Authority. y and offers us that which he esteems to be so. If we .relinquish our reason, however, since we cannot assent to both, we can assent to neither. The double assertion of our duty to accept and not to question is equivalent, in force, to the single assertion to ques­ tion and not to accept. Where there are two autho­ rities, each of which denounces the other and claims exclusive obedience from ourselves, it may or may not be fortunate, but it is inevitable that we should withhold our faith till we have exercised our reason. Regarding the position more leisurely, we think that whether or not it may be otherwise defensible, it is not to be expected that we should admit it merely because they who assert it have the strongest possible impression that it is so. They may, as they no doubt most unquestionably do, very sincerely believe that they are not, but, unless they are prepared, in addi­ tion, to affirm their personal infallibility, they must admit that they may be, mistaken. The positive certainty which they assert themselves to possess in an inward impression which they consider transcends their reason, they must, nevertheless, when affirmed by others on behalf of an opposing conclusion, and, therefore, in their case, on behalf of their own, allow, at least, admits of question. Since Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Christian and Heathen, have, in turn, been so assured of the truth of their convictions as to die for them, and such convictions have, necessarily, been not merely dissimilar but professedly antagonistic, it is evident that no con­ viction can be so strong, and no fidelity to it so persistent, as to yield, therein, any, much less a perfect, guarantee, that their faith is a synonym for the truth. Neither can we consent to the relinquishment of our reason in our religion from the affirmed necessity of an exact intellectual conception of God, and the �8 Reason versus Authority. impossibility, by reason, of attaining to it. Were it true that a certain intellectual conception were essen­ tial to the divine favour, it would, of course, follow that we might expect the Divine Being to supply us with an unquestionable method of attaining to it. On the other hand, it is to be inferred that if the Divine Being has not placed within the reach of men generally an infallible method of arriving at an absolute knowledge of him, it is because it is not necessary to his favour that they should possess it. The question, then, is, which of the two is the more reasonable alternative ? and the answer, we think, is obvious. Which of the many existing and opposing conclusions, from Catholicism to Rationalism, shall be ours, in our youth, will be dependent upon the accidental circumstances of our birth, and, if we are not to reason but acquiesce in our original religious impressions, will continue to be so always. But, if so, there can be no more unquestionable method of knowing God without than with our reason—rather, the alternative to which we fly will be worse than that from which we flee. The assertion that we should judge for ourselves renders it possible that we should mistake, but the assertion that we should not judge for ourselves makes it inevitable that the greater portion of mankind must do so, and, accord­ ing to the theory of those who affirm the necessity for an exact intellectual conception of God, to their eternal ill-doing. We must, also, we think, reject the argument that the subject-matter of religion is of that kind which precludes the competency of our reason. Admitted that the divine existence is not cognisable by our senses, it does not therefore follow that we should accept the opinions of other persons with similarly imperfect bodily organs, but, simply, that we should listen to them upon this as upon other questions �Reason versus Authority. 9 with a view to form a correct opinion of our own. Admitted that the certainty of a future life is not to be proved by our reason, so, neither, on the other hand, can we be certain, though we may feel so, with­ out it. He who tells us aught which we could not know without his telling, must bring proof to us that he has special or exclusive information upon the sub­ ject, and the only part of us which is capable of dealing with proof is our reason. Admitted that theological truths cannot be known but must be believed, the conclusion to which it leads is, not unreasoning acquiescence in anything or everything which may be affirmed, but a rational endeavour to discover that which, if not certain, is most probable. There may or may not in the circumstance that we cannot know God fully without a revelation, be ground to expect one, but, even upon the supposi­ tion that one is to be expected, whether or not it has been given, and if so, when and where, and what its purport, must be matter of opinion ; and inasmuch as experience teaches us that men are positive upon such questions, not in proportion to the breadth, but the limitation of their vision, the strength and extent to which a conclusion thereon is positively affirmed is the measure of the necessity for calling it into question. Relinquishing our, so far, merely defensive position, and assuming the initiative in the controversy, we think we are justified in saying that the primd facie argument is opposed to the conclusion. If there is a distinguishing mark of Divine Authorship, it is the relatedness of the means to the end, and the sub­ ordination of the lower to the higher methods of nature. The unreasoning trust of the child, how­ ever, is not equal to the intelligent appreciation of the man, and the higher purpose of our life is not in eating or drinking, or buying or selling, or marrying �io Reason versus Authority. and giving in marriage, but in the right understanding and performance of our spiritual relationships. But if our reason is the highest endowment, as it un­ questionably is, with which the Divine Being has favoured us, and if, even in the estimation of those who differ from us, the highest purpose of our life is not in the enjoyment of the present but in prepar­ ation for the future, it would seem that if our reason were intended to serve any purpose whatever, it was, in any case, intended to guide us in the matter of our religious hopes and expectations. This impression is confirmed, we do not hesitate to say, by the circumstance that the same persons who call upon us to suspend our reason, nevertheless find themselves under the ceaseless necessity to appeal to it upon the subject of our religion. If we remind the Catholic, for instance, when he presses us to assent to his proposition, that the Protestant also puts in a claim, he brings to our mind the modern origin of the Protestant, calls him a schismatic, and, gene­ rally, uses his best endeavours to prove that the Protestant claim is inadmissible. If, on the other hand, we inform the Protestant, when he calls upon us to urge his authoritative dogma, that the Catholic has anticipated him, the Protestant proceeds to re­ mind us that the Catholic is an image worshipper, quotes secular and ecclesiastical history to bedaub his church, and, imitating his Roman Catholic compeer in this at least, uses all his art to persuade our judgment that he is, and that tho Catholic is not, entitled to prescribe our religious opinions. But, if it be true that we should not reason, why do they each play the part of tempter, and solicit from us a judgment ? Is it not singular that our reason should be unfitted to deal with a subject, and yet that, upon it, the several parties to the affirmative should never hesitate to appeal to it. �Reason versus Authority. 11 Surely, of all the transcending mysteries of life, that which most transcends is the mystery that each should systematically deny the competency of an authority to which they appeal, repudiate a right which they equally recognise, advance and with­ draw, according to the conveniences of their argu­ ment, the intellectual position, upon which, they assert, hangs the eternal destinies of their race. If the pertinency of their conclusion, however, is not apparent, its wondrous impertinency, if we ex­ amine it, it will not be difficult to discover. Traced to its mental base, is not the meaning of those who assert that we should not reason but believe, that they have themselves come to a conclusion upon re­ ligious subjects which they wish, whether or not it is agreeable to our judgment, to impose upon us? Is it not that the training of their youth, the prejudices of their class, or the intellectual preferences they have acquired, point in a certain direction, and that these appearing to themselves to be sacred, they cannot understand, and are not prepared to allow, prejudices and opinions which are not their own ? The reason why we should not reason is, after all, simply that they wish to undertake the duty for us. The ground of their objection is, not that we should come to a conclusion, bat that we should not come to their con­ clusion. If this be not so, wherefore do they recom­ mend us to listen to their own polemical discourses ? How does it happen that books written in defence of “ the truth,” as they regard it, are laudable, and only those written in opposition are pernicious ? Of what other solution is their conduct capable when they permit — nay, commend — our disposition to reason, so long as it results in the adoption of their sentiments ? Stripped of its unintentional disguise, the assertion that we should not criticise but accept, �12 Reason versus Authority. is, simply, the assertion that they who make it believe that their judgment is, and that the judgment of those who differ from them is not, to be trusted. Studiously regarded, indeed, the recommendation to us for our guidance is not more intellectually puerile than practically impossible. If the Catholic has faith in the teaching of his Church, it is not because he does not exercise his reason, but because, owing to early training, social circumstance, or tendency of mind, its claims, upon the whole, appear to him more rational than any alternative of which he takes note. If the Protestant is averse to the claims of the Catholic Church, and sympathises with the Anglican or any Dissenting formulary, it is not because he does not come to a judgment upon the subject of their respective merits, but because, how­ ever ignorant and swayed by prejudice, and however unconscious of the mental operation, his judgment, nevertheless, inclines to the one in preference to the other. Nay ! our reason is the only instrument with which we can assent. Our intellect is the only part of us capable of faith. Diversity in the things to be apprehended involves no diversity in the instrument of our apprehension. Two and two are four, and the mental operation is the same, when the addition is of men or angels. The things which are believable by us, and they only, are such as appear to us to be probable, whether they be secular or sacred. Paith is not opposed to, but is the product of, our reason, alike when it relates to our anticipation of a summer shower and the second coming of the Saviour. Taste, feeling, hope, fear, love, hate, educa­ tion, or the want thereof, may, as the atmosphere influences the pendulum, influence the judgment; but as the eye only sees, and the ear only hears, so the reason only can assent or dissent, whether the �Reason versus Authority. 13 proposition submitted to it be the physical relation of the earth to the sun, or the moral relation of the human to the Divine Spirit. In conclusion, we must regard the moral as of equal value with the intellectual position assigned us by our critics. The interpretation which they who do not approve put upon the change which they correctly assert is coming over society, is that the present, by consequence, is the less religious age. Other nations and earlier races, they argue, believed more readily because they were more spiritual than we : we are more critical because we are less subject to a sense of divine obligation. Were we as desirous of doing God’s will as they were who preceded or they are who rebuke us, we should be as ready as they to accept their theological opinions and act upon their sense of duty. We cannot accept this interpre­ tation of our position. Orthodox opinion is sufficiently tyrannous and persecuting to deter any merely pre­ sumptuous person from lightly setting at defiance the opinion of the many, and asserting, from sheer pride of intellect, as it is called, a new creed. Were there no external disadvantage in professing singularity of religious belief, the force of early association, and the merely superstitious regard which we have for the sentiments of our youth, whatever they may be, would be a sufficiently penal preventive from change, for the sake of it. The ordinary interests of life are too present and pressing to admit of length­ ened study of religious questions, unless the spirit within, under the impulse of some strong conviction, is constrained to give personal attention to a matter which people generally are willing to leave to the decision of others. In short, so long as excep­ tional attention to a subject is regarded, not as an indication of the want of ordinary, but of the possession of a special interest in it, it must be �14 Reason versus Authority, assumed that those amongst us who see reason to change their religious attitude and stand apart, do so, not because they are less but more impressed; and they who do not understand and therefore mis­ interpret their motive will do well, if not because it is rational, because, by an authority which they do not dispute, it is commanded, to follow their example, and “ prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.” � 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Reason versus authority Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brook, W. O. Carr Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Ramsgate Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1871 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT151 Subject The topic of the resource Rationalism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Reason versus authority), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Faith and Reason Rationalism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9d11d30072eae929ee5de14566f0ee96.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=lUDGzBXXZjuVjMRx43Fv30g6DL-rf1%7EC8SYysrW31VKSKKIoQArB42bQVq2TefsRnBI5bbY94NJhOEDMxIyzQbJKFK2aT6ggZDPMREenyGhviDBBu817E7UKwLp%7E-1%7EoRIJvF7Qh5jhcQqaR2UKadQFbkoYR-dShvU7OHH4KDcUoxbeAZkNXRQlgBmSLxc-d1-oaQZqn8joQP2P4-Me4FFkbC7ufsWhuwL5FduEVrN-DOGdADAgKSql6HTrdUWDxfyun7RWHIoa3kNql09D08aFWSIjff4Syjl32dz6BqxylSN-GZWORVEsoGqaNZ3ekGYZQHfNRipmCRm0xkhsFYQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 44e15080df459f0175226f2d4c4d7651 PDF Text Text RATIONAL CHRISTIANITY ITS NATURE, ITS PRESENT RELATION EXISTING CHURCHES, AND A FLEA FOR ITS SEPARATE ORGANISATION. LONDON: E. CALLOW, 7, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. Price Sixpence. > ��Rfflfioii TiRJhkistiIJn itiW ITS NATURE, ITS PRESENT RELATION TO EXISTING CHURCHES, AND A PLEA FOR ITS SEPARATE ORGANISATION. Rational Christianity—considered as a science is strictly governed by induction. It discards all claims to the supernatural, as on the one hand wanting in evidence, and as being on the other plainly con­ tradicted by the ever enlarging knowledge of the dominion of law, which presenting as it everywhere does, in whatever direction scientific investigation is extended, an absolutely unbroken continuity, and an absolutely irresistible supremacy, abundantly warrants the conclusion of its absolutely undeviating univer­ sality. Whatever principles embodied in the teaching of Christ, or in the current traditions of Christianity, are, by experience, proved to be beneficial. in their operation are accepted. Whatever is found to be of a contrary tendency is rejected. In this way amongst a heterogeneous admixture of other and worthless or mischievous elements, there are discovered in Christianity many, if not most, of the elements of a perfect religion. Or in other words it is found that Christianity contains, to a very large extent, the actual laws of religious life as they exist in nature; just as chemistry contains, to a large extent, the actual laws of the elements of matter. Moreover, in many points, in which Jleficiency exists, there is found to be, at least, an aptness to coalesce with what is wanting: even if it is not more correct to say, there already exists the undeveloped germ of it. If, for example, some of the sterner virtues are slighted or discouraged in the teaching of Christ; yet, since experience proves their value to the well-being of society, the love of our neighbour prompts their exercise. These laws of the religious life, thus extracted from Christianity, supplemented and de­ veloped where necessary, constitute the principles of Rational Christianity. �Nor is to be thought that in this way the name is unwarrantably appropriated, or that any violence is done to the nature of Christianity. Although, as was in­ evitable to a'religion originating eighteen hundred years ago, it has entangled itself with philosophies current then, and at the different periods through which it has passed; still the simple and elevated principles upon which it is based, are, in reality, quite independent of these, and more in harmony with the results of modern science, or, at least, not less so than with them. So that no essential or peculiar feature of Christianity is .sacrificed by replacing exploded philosophies by those •of the present day. For example, Christ taught that the whole of religion was comprehended in love to God and love to man. And he evidently regarded the government of God, and his relation to man, as of a personal character. But the replacing of this per­ sonal element, by that of unchanging law, does not make the character of God less entitled to be loved: nor does it lessen the elevating influence of loving God, the fountain of all goodness, with all the heart and all the mind. It raises indeed our conception of the infinite greatness and incomprehensibleness of God, but does not diminish our estimate of his goodness. And even if science should warrant the conclusion that God has no personality at all, that he is but the grand sum total of all goodness, the first great Christian law would stand with un­ diminished authority. The theory of the atheist is certainly not inconsistent with the universal obligation to love with all our heart and mind and strength, all apprehended goodness of every kind. And it is selfevident that man rises in the scale of humanity, just in proportion as his whole consciousness is alive with the love of all that is pure, and noble, and true, and beautiful, and good. But this rational self-commending obedience to the first great Christian law fulfils all that is essential and peculiar to Christianity therein. So with respect to the second great command, “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Does modern �philosophy lead us to the conclusion, that the mind bears exactly the same relation to the brain that sight bears to the eye; and that therefore our existence is limited to the present life ? The value of true Christ­ ian benevolence and beneficence is not lessened for the life which we have; but its purity is rendered more apparent when all hope of future recompense, for the sacrifices it here makes is taken away. It is placed beyond doubt then, that a man “ does good hoping for nothing again or, in other words, that he is in very deed, and in the best sense of the word, a Christian. When rational Christianity is thus separated from other elements in the concrete mass, it will be found that it retains all that is peculiar to Christianity. While on the other hand there is nothing peculiar to orthodoxy, as distinguished from rational Christianity, which is not common jto Judaism, or other less perfect system of religion, while there is scarcely anything peculiar to it, as distinguished from rational Christianity, which can plead the sanction of the master, and positively nothing that is peculiar or essential to his teaching. Rational Christianity, therefore, need not fear any investigation of its, title deeds. And it is noteworthy that while rational Chris­ tianity is thus seen to embody all that is essentially Christian, it is also true that Christianity did exist in its infancy apart from a belief in a future state. There were at Corinth some who said that “there is no resurrection of the dead”—1 Cor. xv. 12; while others taught that the resurrection was past already, 2 Tim. ii. 18; and even of the eleven disciples some doubted the Master’s resurrection, Matt, xxviii. 17, which would probably carry with it doubts of their own. The tone of the narrative forbids the idea that this scepticism, at that day, was regarded as invalida­ ting their discipleship. St. Paul, indeed, as was natural in one who had lived as a pharisee and was the son of a pharisee, stoutly opposed this feature of Sadducean philosophy; but even he never once treats �6 it as a fatal error, nor hints at excommunicating those who held it. How long this opinion survived, or how far it may have prevailed in the early church, there appears to be now no sufficient data to determine; but clearly, neither in the estimation of its adherents nor of its opponents, was a belief in a future state of existence regarded as essential to Christianity. But Christianity is much more than either a science or an art. It is a moral and religious force having a character peculiarly its own, distinguished from all other religious influences by strongly marked features, especially, by its intense benevolence and beneficence. Principles underlying it there necessarily must be; but these were never very clearly defined by its founder, and never attempted to be systematised by him. The undiscerned law of its own life, in a good degree, gave it form, and preserved to some extent its symmetry; even in spite of the injurious effects of erroneous modes of thought and systems of philosophy, which too early, too frequently, and too extensively distorted and disfigured it. This grand living power of goodness, the purest, noblest, and best, which has ever been known in the world, is, by the systematic application of rational principles, purged of polluting and diluting elements, brought out into healthful and vigorous exercise, developed in accordance with the law of its life, supplemented where necessary, and applied to the multifarious and complex circumstances of our in­ dividual, social, and political relationships, and will yet be made the salvation of the world. This is Rational Christianity. What now is its position in the Christian Church ? Its avowed disciples are but few, although its unavowed adherents are, it is believed, to be found in very many churches, and constitute collectively a body of no inconsiderable influence in numbers, intelligence, and piety. �Up to “he present time, however, so far as is known to the writer, no single congregation exists where they can find a congenial home. Everywhere they are liable, either to be expelled, or treated with so much disrespect, if they plainly avow their con­ victions, that the course of wisdom generally appears to be, to keep their peculiar opinions to themselves; or to confide them only to a few bosom friends, and to labour on so long as they can do so without violating their consciences: doing what quiet Christian work their hands find to do, and waiting for the time when their distinguishing opinions may win for themselves their rightful place in the church; content in the meantime to submit to the discomforts of their position, and often to undeserved suspicion and ungenerous treatment, brought upon them simply by their want of sympathy with the feelings, opinions, and sentiments of the majority. Should the reason be sought for this intolerant antipathy to Christian rationalism, which has hitherto so effectually restrained its open avowal; it is to be found in the mistake, which has unhappily so uni­ versally prevailed, of regarding the belief of the supernatural as an essential element of Christianity. The fact, however, remains, that this intense antipathy is, at present, and is likely to remain, an insuperable barrier to the healthful development of rational Christianity, within any of the existing churches. And, even if it were not vain to hope to overcome it, there are other insurmountable obstacles to the two systems working properly together. They are in fact mutually incompatible. The one makes the well-being of the future life the basis of its system, and the other regards solely the interests of this present life. The one therefore draws its motives mainly from the future, the other exclusively from this. The one re­ gards religion as a service to be rendered to Grod, for his happiness and well-being. The other esteems it a matter (so far as man is concerned in it at least) as alone affecting his own happiness and well-being, and �8 that of his fellow creatures. The one regards prayer as intended to produce an effect upon God, and there­ fore makes it to consist of actual requests for his assistance. The other regards it simply as intending to influence himself and those of his fellow men, who are connected in some way or other with the act, and therefore, confines it to aspirations after blessings for himself and others, which do not involve any interference with the laws of nature in their accom­ plishment, and which in fact are not perhaps properly addressed to God at all. They with the poet regard prayer as:— “ the soul’s sincere desire, “ Uttered or unexpressed, “ The motion of a hidden fire, “ Which trembles in the breast.” It follows, therefore, that rational Christianity must look for a home of its own. Whether the time is ripe for its disciples to make the attempt to provide one, events must prove. One thing is clear, it cannot expect to make a home in the churches in which it has been born, and where it at present merely lives on sufferance. Many reasons may be urged why no unnecessary delay should be incurred in doing so. In the first place there is the individual comfort of having a home of our own, where we shall no longer be treated as inferiors to be tolerated; but where we shall be free citizens in a free state, enjoying the consciousness of rightful possession, position, and influence. This is by no means to be despised. Indeed, this would be a suffi­ cient reason in itself to warrant the attempt. Then, there is the imperative law of our Christian life, which demands that we should avow all our convictions, at all events, when there is any reasonable prospect of the avowal being beneficial to one another, or to others: a law that we cannot disobey without lowering our religious vitality. We must not at our peril hide our light under a bushel. Then there is the advantage to be gained from church life. It is equally a law of oijr �religious life, that intercommunion of kindred hearts and minds is necessary to its healthy development! But this intercommunion can never exist in any perfection, where there is such a great discrepancy, as that which divides the rational Christian from others. Then there is the sad fact, that thousands upon thou­ sands, and among them some of the finest intellects both of the rising generation, and those of mature age, are being lost entirely to the Christian church, and to the cause of Christianity, through failing to discriminate between the absurdities of exploded superstitions, which are almost everywhere set forth as alone constituting the essence of Christianity, and that which is in reality entitled to be so regarded. Mere rationalists I do not expect to be greatly influenced by such considerations. To them, however, I do not appeal. But to rational Christians, to the men who have put in practice the beneficent precepts of Christianity, and who in doing so have felt a hearty sympathy with Jesus in his blessed and noble work, I know such appeals will not be in vain. With the writer they will feel that we must set up a beacon light (which a church founded on and animated by our principles would be,) to warn these thousands of the rocks upon which they make shipwreck. Closely connected with the last is the value of our stand-point, for giving prominence to the really essential motives of the gospel, arising from their own intrinsic excellence and loveliness. These are practically greatly obscured, by their association in the current systems, with the overshadowing supernatural. Again, no thoughtful observer can fail to notice that although the supernatural, thus so greatly over­ shadows everything else, yet it is, owing to the increasing light of science, losing its power with astonishing rapidity, even among those who still honestly believe it. The future world is fast becoming everywhere an unrealisied thing. Nowhere are its out­ lines drawn now with a clearness, boldness, and dis­ tinctness, which formerly characterised them. Instead �TO of the vivid spirit-stirring thing it once was, it is fast fading into nebulous generalities which can no* longer awaken the powerful emotions which formerly aroused men from their selfish sloth, or arrested them in the midst of a reckless career of vice, and guilt, and crime. Here then is a loud call for rational Christianity to step in and supply, where motives appealing to men’s selfishness are needed, those real and tangible considerations, drawn from the con­ sequences of wickedness in this present life, which its stand-point naturally leads its disciples to give so much greater attention to, and which its principles prompt them to supplement and render more effective. The principles of supernaturalism too often lead to the conclusion that the evils caused by wicked men, are a part of the providential dispensations of God and therefore to be submitted to. And this feeling is strengthened by the great error in Christ’s teaching, that we should not resist evil; an error which, not­ withstanding the neutralising influence of common sense, which leads Christians to act more agreeably to the evident law of right, still paralyses the Christian Church in grappling with the rascality of the world; and leaves iniquity, to a very large extent, unchecked. Let rational Christianity come forth with the high praises of God, or goodness, in her mouth, and a two-edged sword in her hand, to execute upon the wicked the judgment written ; that is to say the judgment which is dictated by benevolence, not by hatred. Let her do this, and she will soon find her efforts a potent check upon the evil-doer. Let her unite her disciples as a well disciplined force, everywhere making it one of their leading objects to checkmate the workers of iniquity: and although she must of course expect to be hated by wrong-doers, with an intensity almost passing belief, yet this very intensity of the hatred evoked is an index to the fear she will inspire, and to the effectiveness of the work she will be accomplishing. Nor is it to be imagined that the checking and arresting evil is the limit of the good she will ac-j �complish. This is but the preliminary work in turning evil-doers to paths of righteousness. Wicked men, finding themselves foiled in their wickedness, and fools, just where they had prided themselves upon their superior wisdom, will begin to suspect themselves to be fools in preferring to listen to the cravings of mere selfishness, which is the root of all sin, vice and crime, and be willing to let the higher feelings of their nature make their voice heard. In short they may thus be made willing to listen to the gospel of Christ, and be brought to learn of Him who was meek and lowly of heart; and thus, not only find rest to their own souls; but become blessings to the world, where they had been curses. Indeed no one can estimate the immense power which good men could bring to bear for the regeneration of the world, if it could thus be directed by the principles of rational Christianity. Nor, must it be forgotten, that to give full effect to these principles, church organisation is indispensable. Their power may be immensely enhanced by virtue of concerted action. We are all familiar with the fact, that a bridge may be broken down simply by a regiment of soldiers passing over it, if they keep step, while their united weight will produce no injurious effect if they pass over without this measured tread. So if all the rational Christian members of any one trade, or any similar walk in life, meet together in church-fellowship and take counsel, to attack whatever form of evil is most prominent in their particular sphere; pledging themselves to guard against the evil in their own conduct, and to take all proper means to expose and punish it in others, and to afford each other mutual sympathy and support in the work, it may safely be said that no evil of any magnitude could long survive. Moreover it would soon be seen whose sympathies were on the side of right, and whose on the side of wrong. This alone would be an immense advantage, in the holy war which Christianity is ever waging, against the powers of evil. The preservation of Christianity in full vigour and �healthfulness, is another reason for the formation of a separate church, on the basis of rational Christianity. We have seen that existing churches cannot afford a home for it; and yet we are sure that Christianity must be injured by continuing in intimate association with superstitious beliefs, for which there is no longer any excuse, and which therefore cannot long be held by anyone with perfect honesty. And while we gladly recognise the abounding vitality of Christianity, which manages to live even amidst such prostration of in­ tellect as is produced in the Roman Church; yet we cannot for a moment believe that it does not materially suffer by this deterioration of the mind; and still more, by the violence done to conscience, which must be continually increasing, just in proportion to the in­ crease of the available light of truth. The painfid exhibitions of disingenuousness, which are constantly being made to bolster up exploded beliefs, and to harmonise the results of modern science with the claims of Bibliolatry, only too plainly reveal the un­ healthy condition of the religious li feA nd the want of power in the evangelical churches, evinced in their obviously futile attempts to stem the rising tide of Romanism, either within or outside of their own pale, is one of the saddest features of our times; for these churches have been long the home of healthy, vigorous, robust Christianity. Nothing but the establishment of Christianity on the same basis as that upon which modern sciences rest, which is the basis of rational Christianity, can reasonably hope to secure perfect accord between Christianity and science, or to enlist the disciples of the latter in the service of the church. And anvthingless than this, must necessarily involve either a cramp­ ing and deadening of the intellect, or a tampering with the conscience, which is fatal to healthful religious life. And indeed, both these evils must as a rule thus be involved. On the other, hand instead of decay and decline of power, Christianity, once firmly established on a rational basis will, doubtless, exhibit a beauty and �sheR® never yet displayed? Her prin­ ciples, released from the fetters of Bibliolatry, and from all the restraints of obsolete philosophies, will become better understood than ever; and being more clearly defined will be more easily, and therefore, more exten­ sively applied. Besides which, as they are better understood, new applications of them will be made, and opportunities of developing and supplementing them will be discovered; and having now as a standard their own unchanging nature, misconceptions can be, and will be, corrected by repeated and multiplied observa­ tions; and thus Christianity may reasonably be expected to acquire a unity and consistency greatly supassing anything she has ever manifested, or could possibly possess, 'while her standard was an undefined and incoherent assemblage of old world philosophies and metaphysics. A theology in short, which having had its birth with astrology and alchemy, ought to have been allowed to die with them; possessing as it does no better foundation, and no better claim to live. A Christianity thus firmly rooted in the great facts of religion, will have within it a vitality, that cannot fail speedily to accomplish results of startling grandeur, in the redemption of the world from sin and conse­ quent suffering. Results which will surpass even what the supernaturalist looks for by supernatural agency, in a future world. Results which will realise the prophetic longings, aspirations, and predictions of the good in all ages and nations:—the millenial glory:— the golden age:—the good time coming:—the new heaven, and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous­ ness. In order to test the practicabilty of proceeding at once to (pmmence a church on this footing, the writer will be pleased to be the medium of intercom­ munication between those who share these views, and who are desirious of doing something to give practical effect to them. But while he will cordially welcome the humblest worker, he wishes it to be distinctly understood that he does not wish to have �14 his time wasted by mere talkers, or theoretic disputers. He wishes to co-operate with, and will gladly welcome communications from, any who are prepared to render any kind of practical aid. Communications may be adressed to Eusebius, care of Publishers. James & Co., Printers, 12a, Well Street, Crieplegate. �i �� 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 &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rational Christianity: its nature, its present relation to existing churches and a plea for its separate organisation Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Eusebius Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 14 p. ; 22 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "Communications may be addressed to Eusebius, care of publishers." [p. 14]. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Printed by James & Co., Well Street, Cripplegate. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available E. Dallow Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [187-?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5326 Subject The topic of the resource Rationalism Christianity Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Rational Christianity: its nature, its present relation to existing churches and a plea for its separate organisation), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Christianity-Controversial Literature Conway Tracts Rationalism