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Text
THE
CRIMINAL’S ASCENSION
A DISCOURSE
Given March 2nd 1879.
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.
MINISTER OF SOUTH PLACE SOCIETY, AND AT THE
ATHENASUM, CAMDEN ROAD.
FRIGE TWOPENCE.
��THE CRIMINAL’S ASCENSION
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To a rational eye it would be difficult to picture a
more startling, scene than a man with the hangman on
one side preparing to strangle him, and a clergyman
on the other promising him bliss at God’s right hand.
But no eye can rationally take in at once a scene so
familiar. It requires patient analysis to discover the
full significance of a situation in which human society
by one officer decides that a man is unfit to live on
-earth, by another officer pronounces him quite fit for
the society of the beings it worships. In the majority
of modern executions, the gallows has been looked
upon by the criminals as a stepping-stone to eternal
glory; and no clerical voice have I ever heard denying
their probable ascension to Heaven. Theology still
represents a Christ saying to the malefactor, “ This
day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” The old
story was recently repeated when an exceptionally
base criminal exclaimed, “ I am going to Heaven/’
�4
and the chaplain said, “Lord Jesus receive his soul.”
I am glad to observe that the public conscience is
shocked, and common sense recoils.
Such ever-recurring facts reveal a fearful chasm
dividing the practical needs of man from the alleged
requirements of God. They disclose the awful fact
that “religion” and morality use totally different
weights and measures. The vilest scoundrel to one
may be a saint to the other. What moral laws pro
nounce a life of villainy outraging man and woman,
“ religion ” says may be outweighed by a few moments
of prayer to God and compliments to Jesus.
I think it is not going too far to say that it is
impossible for the masses of a community to obtain
any apprehension of the real nature of crime, so longas the religious instruction provided for them teaches
that the supreme rewards of existence are attainable
without reference to life and character. It does not
materially affect the case that the Ten Commandments
are solemnly repeated. The power of any law to
control human passions depends on the sanctions it
carries; and these sanctions are penalties. A whole
code of mere remonstrances against theft were vain.
The Decalogue, so far as it is enacted law, is powerful
simply because a punishment is affixed to each com
mand. But if the Legislature should provide that
every individual violating any law might escape its.
�5
< penalty by kneeling before the Queen, it would be
equivalent to abrogation of the law. Society could
not exist under such conditions.
The moral sentiment of a community is not repre
sented by its lawyers, but chiefly by its religious
teachers. The law-books represent certain practical
interests of society which may be of moral importance,
but may not. One law preserves the life of a pheasant,
-another the life of a man; the same code punishes
fictitious offences, like fishing out of season, and
immoralities. It is a business-like matter, and, were
there no moral or religious sentiment, a man might
take his day of sport out of season, or his neighbour’s
property, and run his risk, and feel no worse morally
for either.
There are indeed moral forces that can supplement
social laws, forces that for some wield heavy rewards
and punishments. There are men and women who
live lives of honour, honesty, and virtue with as little
reference to the law-books as to any future world.
But, unfortunately, for the less refined but more
tempted masses of the world, all the moral induce
ments to self-control are rendered nugatory by a
sacred system which transfers the sanctions, the
■rewards or penalties, from moral action to a ceremony,
to a motion of the lips, to that last abjectness of
.arrested villainy called repentance.
�6
The voice most authentic to the masses says tothem,—In the name of God we declare to you that
no merits of your own are of any importance in His
eyes. He sees not as man seeth. Your thefts, murders,
adulteries, cruelties, and general baseness, may be to
man of vast importance; but to God the one question
is, do you believe in his Son or not ? If you do, the
crimes, scarlet to men, are to Him white as snow.
Shew by kneeling, praying, accepting Christ as your
' Saviour, that you are all square towards God, and it
matters little what the world says and does to you. What
need one care for men if God is for him, and Jesuswaiting to take him to His bosom ? Fear not them
that kill the body and after that have no more that
they can do, but fear Him who is able to cast both
soul and body into hell fire 1
Those who have been liberally instructed mayimagine
that I am stating too strongly the voice that goes forth
to the masses in the name of religion; but, in truth, I
am stating not only what is largely taught, but what is
the necessary sense of all teaching, however interlarded
with morality, which gives man as his highest end and
aim something unconnected with morality. However
disguised by and for the cultivated, to the masses it
must mean that at last. There is in every mind in the
country which has not out-grown it a formula called
the Plan of Salvation.
It is declared by every
�.7
church, every sect—substantially the same, under
superficial variations—to be a scheme formed by God
for raising man to angelic perfection, divine virtue,
eternal joy. And in this Plan of Salvation no provision
is made for morality. Not one item in it refers to
morality. Morality is not made a condition, nor im
morality a disqualification, for its full enjoyment. Its
conditions are confined to repentance for an ancient
personal offence—not a moral offence—committed by
Adam to his Maker, and an acceptance of a human
and divine sacrifice offered for that sin. It is a corol
lary of that Plan that no amount of crime can prevent
him who uses the charm from summoning the Holy
Ghost to his side, and enjoying all the favours which
God can bestow.
This Plan of Salvation may appear to you so irra
tional and immoral as to excite wonder how any one
can believe it, and doubt whether any human lives are
really practically guided by it. And this, indeed, is
the vital point. Our question is not whether this
notion of Salvation be really true, but whether it is
genuinely believed by those most tempted to evil, and
least surrounded by refined restraints. My own con
viction is that no system could be conceived more
exactly adapted to the rudimentary reason of the
ignorant, to the pauper sense of justice, and none can
so readily explain to the suffering masses the hard lot
�8
in which they are cast. In their hereditary disease
and despair, they have daily proof of hereditary sin;
the pedigree of their sorrow may as well go back to
Adam as to their grandfathers; they suffer for sins
' they never committed. And how shall they be saved?
Is it reasonable to say they can only be saved by being
moral, virtuous, honest, self-denying, truthful? Would
it be just in God to set on Heaven a price they cannot
pay ? By his decree their lot is amid ignorance, vice,
temptation, grossness; how then can he demand a
harvest where he has not sown ? The so-called Plan
of Salvation is an evolution out of ages of superstition
to meet just that low state of mind, that hard lot of
the ignorant and suffering, of which the intelligent and
the happy have little conception. High ethical science
has no meaning for them; but it appeals to their sense
: of right that their Maker should make Heaven as cheap
as earthly happiness is dear. It seems but fair to them
that one of the Godhead should bear the guilt of all
their sins, which grow out of that vile lot which the
Godhead arranged. They did not choose a life down
in the social mire. They do not feel the guilt of the
immoralities besetting that lot; and they listen favour: ably to the preaching which tells them they will go,
: like the penitent thief, straight from the prison or the
scaffold to the side of Jesus, there to be equals of the
proudest and greatest who despised them on earth.
�9
So runs a hymn—
“ Let the world despise and leave me,
Once they left my Saviour, too.”
In the course of its long experience, Roman
Catholicism had found the danger of this notion, and
the necessity of modifying the bold dogma of salvation
by faith alone, and had devised a purgatory. It said
to the evil man that he might be saved eventually,
however wicked, but in proportion to his bad conduct
would be the length and severity of his purification
after death. In the course of time, this dogma of
purgatory lost its value, deliverance from its pains
being offered for money, and Protestantism threw
away not only the theory but the experience of ages
which underlay it Protestantism offered the whole
world of men the indentical salvation, irrespective
of their merits or demerits.
Nay, we cannot disguise from ourselves, however
divines around us may try to disguise it from them
selves and us, that the logic of Protestant Christianity
goes even farther, and necessitates the position that
mere morality is a danger to the soul. The man of
cultivated reason has been found likely to trust his
reason ; the man of good works has a tendency to trust
to his good works ; and such have been proved less
amenable to the plan of trusting solely to the divine
scheme above reason and to the merits of Christ.
Under pressure of this experience, the sects have been
�IO
reduced to the necessity of building up their strength
from those less addicted to reason and to good works,
and have evolved the doctrine that God looks with
special favour on the mind that fancies itself humble
when it is only uninquiring, and the character which
confuses its weakness with dependence on Christ.
This positive discouragement of the formation of
. self-reliant and moral character has, unhappily, found
a means of diffusing itself which theology could not
command,—namely, by hymns. Those especially of |
sects that deal with the masses are pervaded with I
contempt of good works.
The Wesleyans sing—
‘ ‘ Let the world their virtue boast
Their works of righteousness;
*•
I, a wretch undone and lost,
Am freely saved by grace.
Other titles I disclaim ;
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This, only this, is all my plea—
I the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me.”
This special claim to Jesus’s favour—that one. is L
the chief of sinners—has passed to many hymns, from I t
the Bible. Unhappily, there is much in the New
Testament, when detached from its own time and
place, to confirm the faith of the coarse and ignorant
in their miserable conceit. Their teachers have perverted the liberalism of Christ and Paul to these
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meanest ends. Christ, in trying to do away with the
bigotry around him, seeking to expand Jewish minds
so as to include Samaritans, Greeks, Romans, as
children of a divine Father, sought to win them to
charity by sweet parables. He told them of the mer
chant who paid so largely for the pearl ; and what
- pearl was more beautiful than Greece ? He told them
of how the woman rejoiced when she found the lost
coin, the shepherd when he found the lost lamb, the
father when his prodigal son returned. All these
were pictures of the hated Gentiles. They are our
lost sheep, taught Christ, our wandering brother; if
they will mingle with us, let us not repel them—rather
we will kill the fatted calf and make merry, because
the lost is found. And in his enthusiasm he may
have said, 11 There should be more joy in our new
kingdom over one such returning wanderer—one
fraternal Gentile—than over ninety-nine that never
went astray from the true God after images.” When
these poetic metaphors were written down in the
doctrinal period—in the Gospels—Jesus was more
than a hundred years dead, Jerusalem was destroyed,
the parables had lost their special point, and so the
moral was made universal and false by saying,“ There
is joy among the angels over one sinner that repenteth
more than over ninety-nine just persons who went
not astray,” a text either absurd, or a direct encourage
ment of vice.
�12
According to that text the roughs of England may
not only behold in that chief of sinners, who ascended
at Sheffield, a hero bold, who long defied Great
Britain, and, when overpowered, died happy, but they
may also see him causing an equal commotion among
the angels, though one of delight, as they leave the
humdrum souls who never went astray to rejoice over
this dear, daring, sensational fellow, whose salvation
illustrates the potency of divine magic so much better
than that of a mere moral man.
Paul has been put through the same process of per
version as Christ; his admirable statements for one
situation wrested for another, and stereotyped into
dogma. In furthering Christ’s broad inclusiveness j
Paul had to confront the new difficulty that his J ewish
brethren were disposed to insist on the Gentiles sub
mitting to their ceremonial law. They were willing
i
to receive the Gentiles as returning prodigals, but
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they must consent to obey all the regulations of the
father s house that is, the house of Israel. To this
the Gentiles would not submit; and it cost Paul the
labours of a life, and all his resources of eloquence
and art, to persuade the Jewish wing that a common
faith in Christ was all-sufficient without exacting from
Greeks and Romans the deeds of the law—that is, of
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course, the rites and ceremonial deeds of the Jewish
religion, circumcision and the like. When this argu-
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ment was detached from its point and purpose, when
it was read letter by letter by the eye of bibliolatry—
as little able to see its whole meaning as a fly the
statue over which it creeps—Paul’s “ deeds of the
law” were supposed to be the moral law—English
law; not circumcision and Sabbath, but laws against
theft and violence; and so Paul was brought at last
to sanction the dogma that men are saved by faith in
Christ, without requiring any good deeds, or con
formity with human laws.
It is greatly to the credit of human nature that this
.kind of teaching has not utterly corrupted Christian
society. If human nature had been half as bad as
theology says, the Christian name would to foreigners
have been synonymous with barbarism. But a great
many influences have intervened between the dogmas
and large numbers of the people—the saving grace of
common sense, pictures of virtue and vice on the
stage—these and other forces too complex to be now
considered have supplied some counterpoise to dogmas
that despise human merit. But there is a yet very
large class which may be called the potential criminal
.class—and against that class society is left with no
defence but that of superior force. It is a. war for
■advantages to the burglar, the murderer, in which he
:may be defeated, but in which he does not feel much
/disgrace or guilt, if any. His life is being lived in a
�general way under the necessity that knows no law,
and particular crimes are mere accidents in the
current that masters him. And he will remain somastered—without conscious responsibility or guilt—■
until a will is stimulated within him by some motive
of action stronger than that which tempts him. Now,
what is to stimulate in a person of strong appetites
the will to control those appetites ? Remember, our
problem now is not that of punishing crime, but of
how to keep people from committing crime. Can
Christianity do that ? What are the motives to which
it appeals ? Judgment Day and eternal Hell ? Now,
these would be very strong if they were penalties for
immorality, but Christianity repudiates that idea.
Hell it declares is for those who forget God, or donot believe on his Son. Consequently the criminal
may snap his fingers at the Day of Judgment. Hell
is a mere display of fireworks to the man who is
insured against it by the blood of Jesus. Charles
Peace, on the morning of execution, arose from
pleasant sleep, breakfasted heartily, then sat down and
wrote as follows :—“ To my dear wife and family,—I
tell you this great joy that I could not tell you yesterday.
No fear now, for it is all cleared up as to where I
am going to. I am going to heaven, or to the place
where the good go to that die in the Lord; or where
is the place appointed by God for the good to wait
�i5
until the resurrection of the dead. So do not forget!
Our meeting place is in heaven. So do come at the
last and you will find me there. This letter is wrote25 minutes before I die, so I must say good bye to
all. I am going to heaven.” A few moments after
he is on the scaffold preaching to the reporters, says
he is going to rest with the good till Judgment
Day, forgives his enemies, and says, “ I wish them tocome to the Kingdom, to die as I die.” That is hisbest wish for us all, to die as he died ! And that iswhat Judgment Day and Hell amounted to in the
eyes of this criminal. But what other motives canChristianity arouse now that it has enabled the criminal
to quench Hell with a drop of Christ’s blood? It
may say that it sets before him the life of Christ,—the perfect life,—-and so makes an affecting appeal toall the good in him. Be like Christ, it says. But that
ideal too it destroys by declaring Christ to be God.
The criminal is not a god. The virtues of a god are no
example to him. So far as Christ was a man his expe
riences are not attractive. We are now in Lent, and
Christendom recalls a poor man wandering in a wilder
ness 40 days, cold and hungry, resisting all temptations,
to get his living by evil ways. From a loaf of bread to
the kingdoms of the world, all the temptations were
offered him and resisted. What did he get by it ?*
A gallows. He might, to the criminal mind, he-
�i6
might well envy the happy end of our latest ruffian.
One sacrificed himself for others, and at execu
tion cried, “ My God, why hast thou forsaken me ?”
the other sacrificing others to himself, exclaims, “1
.am going to heaven.” So far as the virtuous, selfsacrificing, human life of Christ is concerned the re
ligion called after him goes into the criminal’s prison,
and in a few moments enables him to show vice tri.umphant, beside virtue agonizing on the cross of its
own Saviour. So it is on earth; and Christianity
.assures the criminal, converted after he can sin no
more, that heaven has the same place and rewards
for the life of crime and the life of virtue. He gets
.after a life of evil just what Christ gets after a life of
moral excellence. There are many Christians who
me moral, many who are wiser than their creed, but
-they cannot alter the remorseless logic of their
system. Either it is the blood of Jesus that saves
men or it is not. If man is saved by the sacrifice
and merits of Jesus, then he cannot be saved by his
-own merits or sacrifices. Consequently, so far as
eternal bliss and blessedness are concerned, he may
do without any merits or morality at all.
And in this claim, the very basis of Christ’s atone
ment, lies the fact that the criminal mind finds in
rthe orthodox system precisely its own method. For
what is the criminal mind ? It is a mind which seeks
�to gain advantages without working for them,—that
.it is, without fulfilling the conditions with which justice-
'di to others surrounds them. The criminal mind seeks
iri nothing that may not be fairly sought. This miser
able man, just executed, wanted beauty in dress, a
He:ai is quite credible when he declared that he never
fit? harmed living creature except when they were inter
fering with his appropriation of things he desired.
No man loves crime for itself. But the moral law>
says you must seek these things by patiently working
reft for them, not by snatching in a moment that for5
W which others have toiled, enriching yourself throughiiil the merits of others, or by sacrificing their lives to
ey your own happiness. But the criminal may point to
M a law holier than morality; to every Christian creed
iw which is on his side. Just as he gets his neighbour’smljewellery without toil, so is he to get paradise. Without
)fn| money and without price is he to attain the bliss of
eternity. By a great human sacrifice he is enabledj Oil to dispense with all toilsome conditions and
enjoy
jibj the celestial raiment and rubies that represent theheaven of every criminal’s dream—everything pretty
ms and pleasant, and no work to obtain them.
I
The essential superstition represented by the crimiteiil nal’s ascension to the right hand of God, by divine
aig grace, is as gross as anything among the Zulus. When
Sfi neat wagonette and horses, violins, and money.
�i8
'the chaplain, said, “Lord Jesus, receive his soul,” it
either meant that the vulgarest and meanest murderer
was a fit companion for Christ; or else it meant that
■a miracle was to be then and there wrought, and
villainy at once transmuted to perfection. The ascen
sion of the dead body through prison walls would be
no greater miracle than the ascension of that evil
mind to any realm of purity.
It is a superstition to suppose that animal had any
soul. Nevertheless, he might have had one had he
been born in a world that had made the best instead
■of the worst of him. From first to last his “ career,”
■as he grandly called it, reflects the unreason which
from the past has come to bind the present. A pre
tended religion turns his earthly life to a transient
trifle under the eternity to come ; and tells him that
his good or evil deeds here are equally unimportant;
•that heaven is had for the asking. Had religion told
him the truth, that this life is the only one he is sure
of, and that it is the only possible life he could have,
unless he developed moral powers useful elsewhere,
he might have ascended from animalism to manhood.
When this solemn sanction of his indolence and
worthlessness have borne their evil fruit, the law pro
ceeds to make him a hero, the sensation of months.
Biographies of him, reminiscences of him, myths and
legends, accounts of his down-sitting and up-rising;
�19
and all because he is slain like some formidable
prisoner of war. “ I want you, sir,” he said to the
clergyman, “to preach a special sermon over my case
. . . to hold me and my career up as a beacon ”—
such is his grand phraseology—“ that all who see may
avoid my example.” But is that the effect of his emi
nence ? Thousands of the wretched around us now see
how their obscure lives may achieve fame. As the
Saturday Review said, no statesman, author or artist
could hope to receive such obsequious attention at
death. Whereas it had been easy to put that man in
a particoloured dress with a chain gang, paving roads
for honest men, and make him a living witness to the
criminal’s disgrace and degradation, as he now is of
the criminal’s glory and ascension. He said, “ I hope
God will give me strength to go like a hero to the
scaffold. I had much rather die than live in penal
servitude.” Why not, when death meant ascension
to glory, and the other meant just that hard work it
was the aim of his life to avoid. Years ago he at
tempted suicide to escape a term of hard labour. I have
no sentiment about the death of such people, except
that I believe such death too good for them. My ob
jection is not sentimental, but scientific. It is a terrible
error for society to suppose that swift death is the
severest punishment. The Bible represents Satan as
believing that all that a man hath he will give for his
�20
life; but that was written by a people who believed
in no future life, and it was said about a man who had
a great deal to lose. But our criminals come of classes
to whom earth means poverty and misery, and heaven
means luxurious idleness. It is a great error to believe
that death is the chief deterrent to these. The main
terror of it fled when theology allowed salvation to alL
That was the practical abolition of hell. It has pro
claimed to the scoundrel world that it may cheat men
in this life, and then cheat the devil in the next. It
has added to the criminal’s morbid satisfaction in
creating a sensation, the assurance of ascension to
heaven by a more painless death than Charles Peace
had twice sought by his own act.
Waterlew & Sons Limited, Printers, London Wall, London.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The criminal's ascension : a discourse given March 2nd 1879
Creator
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 20 p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Printed by Waterlow and Sons, London Wall. Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 2.
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[Waterlow and Sons]
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[1879]
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G3344
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Crime
Evil
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The criminal's ascension : a discourse given March 2nd 1879), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
Crime and Punishment
Crime-Religious Aspects-Christianity
Good and Evil
Morris Tracts
Salvation
Social Problems
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NATIONAL SPOTT
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SALVATION
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Here
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Hereafter
£1 Uecture
DELIVERED TO IMMENSE AUDIENCES IN THE
UNITED STATES
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ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
plb
Grade supplied bp
JOHN HEYWOOD
RIDGEFIELD, JOHN DALTON STREET, MANCHESTER
ii PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, LONDON
ONE PENNY
�DISCOURSES BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
MISTAKES OF MOSES,
GODS: PAST AND PRESENT.
GREAT INFIDELS,
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HOW GODS GROW,
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SALVATION: HERE AND HEREAFTER,
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Id.
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Id.
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SPIRIT OF THE AGE; OR, MODERN THINKERS,
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COLONEL INGERSOLL AT HOME—a Biography,
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HELL,
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.......
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PROSE POEMS : Spoken on Memorable Occasions,
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REPLY TO MR TALMAGE ON BLASPHEMY, &c.,
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(handsome edition)
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SALVATION: HERE AND HEREAFTER.
Ladies and Gentlemen,—The history of the world shows
that religion, has made enemies instead of friends. That one
word “ religion ” paints the sky of the past with every form
of agony and torture. When we pronounce the word religion
we think of 1500 years of persecution, of 6000 years of
hatred, slander, and vituperation. Strange, but true, that
those who have loved God most have loved men least;
strange that in countries where there has been the most
religion there has been the most agony; and that is one
reason why I am opposed to what is known as religion.
By religion I mean the duties that men are supposed to owe
to God : by religion I mean, not what man owes to man,
but what we owe to some invisible, infinite, and Supreme
Being.
The question arises : Can any relation exist between finite
man and infinite being ? An infinite being cannot receive;
a finite being cannot give to an infinite one. Can I increase
his happiness or decrease his misery ? Does he need my
strength or my life? What can I do for him? I say,
nothing. For one, I do not believe in serving God, or that
there is any God who gives rain or sunshine for praying.
For one, I do not believe there is any being who helps man
simply because he kneels. I may be mistaken, but that is
my doctrine; that the finite cannot by any possibility help
the infinite or the infinite be indebted to the finite; that the
finite cannot by any possibility assist a being who is all in
all. What can we do ? We can help man; we can help to
clothe the naked; feed the hungry • we can help to break the
chains of the slave j we can help to weave a garment of joy
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that will finally cover this world. That is all that man can do.
Wherever he has endeavoured to do more he has simply in
creased the misery of his fellows. My unaided reasoning does
not carry me beyond the limits of this life, but if there is an
infinite God and I have not reason enough to comprehend His
universe, whose fault is it ?
I am told that we have the inspired will of God. I do not
know exactly what is meant by inspired. Not two sects
agree on that word. Some tell me that every great work is in
spired, that Shakspeare is inspired. I would be less apt to dis
pute that than a similar remark about any other book on this
earth. If Jehovah wanted a book written, the inspiration
of which should not be disputed, he should have waited
until Shakspeare lived. Whatever theologians mean by
inspiration they at least mean that it is true. If it is true,
it does not need to be inspired. The truth will take care
of itself. Nothing except a falsehood needs inspiration.
What is inspiration ? A man looks at the sea and the sea
says something to him. Another man looks at the same sea,
and the sea tells another story to him. The sea cannot tell
the same story to any two human beings. There is not a
.thing in nature, from a pebble to a constellation, that tells
the same story to any two human beings. It depends upon
the man’s experience, his intellectual development, and what
chord of memory is touched. One looks upon the sea and
is filled with grief ; another looks upon it and laughs. Last
year, riding in the cars from Boston to Portsmouth, sat
opposite me a lady and gentleman. As we reached the latter
place the woman, for the first time in her life, caught a burst
of the sea, and she looked and said to her husband : “ Isn’t
that beautiful,” and he looked and said: “I’ll bet you can
dig clams right there.”
Another illustration. A little while ago a gentleman was
walking with another in South Carolina, at Charleston,
one who had been upon the other side. Said the Northerner
to the Southerner, “ Did you ever see such a night as this;
did you ever in your life see such a moon ? ” “ Ob my
God,” replied the Southerner, “ You ought to have seen that
moon before the war.” I simply say these things to convince
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you that everything in nature has a different story to tell
every human being. So the Bible tells a different story to
every man that reads it. History proves what I say. Why
so many sects ? Why so much persecution ? Simply because
two people couldn’t understand the Bible exactly alike. You
may reply that God intended it should be understood in such
and such a way, but that decides nothing.
For instance, I write a letter to Smith ; I want to convey
>to him certain thoughts. If I am honest, I will use the
words which will convey to him my thoughts,, but not
being infinite I don’t know exactly how Smith will under
stand my words ; but if I were infinite I would be bound
to use the words that I know Smith would get my exact
idea from. If God intended to make a revelation to me
he has to make it to me through my brain and my reason
ing. He cannot make a revelation to another man for me.
That other man will have God’s word for it, but I will only
have that man’s word for it. As that man has been dead
for several thousand years, and as I don’t know what his
reputation was for truth and veracity in the neighbourhood
in which he lived, I will wait for the Lord to speak again.
Suppose when I read the Bible, the revelation to me, through
the Bible, is that it is not true, and God knew that this
would be the result of my reading, and knew that if I did
not make known this result I would be dishonest, is it pos
sible that he would damn me for being honest, and give me
wings if I would play the hypocrite ? The inspiration of
the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who
reads it.
They tell me this book was written by the Creator of
every shining star. Now let us see. I want to be honest
and candid. I have just as much at stake in the way of soul
as any doctor of divinity that ever lived, and more than
some I have met. According to this book, the first attempt
at peopling the world was a failure. God had to destroy all
but eight. He saved some of the same kind to start again,
which I think was a mistake. After that, the people still
getting worse, he selected from the wide world a few of the
tribe of Abraham. He had no time to waste with everybody.
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He had no time to throw away on Egypt. It had at that
time a vast and splendid civilization, in which there were
free schools; in which the one man married the one wife ;
where there were courts of law; where there were codes of
laws.
Neither could he give attention to India, which had at
that time a literature as splendid almost as ours, a language
as perfect, which had produced poets, philosophers, statesmen.
He had no time to waste with them, hut took a few of the
tribe of Abraham, and did his best to civilise these people.
He was their Governor, their Executive, their Supreme Court.
He established a despotism, and from Mount Sinai he pro
claimed his laws. They didn’t pay much attention to them.
He wrought thousands of miracles to convince them that he
was a God. Isn’t it perfectly wonderful that the priest of
one religion never believes the miracle told by the priest of
another ? Is it possible that they know each other ? I heard
a story the other day. A gentleman was telling a very
remarkable circumstance that happened to himself, and all
the listeners except one said, “ Is it possible; did you ever
hear such a wonderful thing in all your life ? ” They noticed
that this one man didn’t appear to take a vivid interest in
the story, so one said to him, “ You don’t express much
astonishment at the story ? ” “ No,” says he, “I am a liar
myself.”
I find by reading this book that a worse government was
never established than that established by Jehovah; that the
Jews were the most unfortunate people who lived upon the
globe. In all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but
passionately asserted, that slavery is an infamous crime ; that
a war of extermination is murder; that polygamy enslaves
woman, degrades man, and destroys home; that nothing is
more infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men and help
less women and of prattling babes; that the captured maiden
should not be given to her captors ; that wives should not be
stoned to death for differing in religion from their husbands.
We know there was a time in the history of most nations
when all these crimes were regarded as divine institutions.
Nations entertaining these views to-day are called savage,.
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and with the exception of the Fiji Islanders, some tribes in
Central Africa, no human being can be found degraded enough
to agree upon those subjects with Jehovah.
To-day the fact that a nation has abolished and abandoned
those beliefs and practices is the only evidence that it
can offer to show that it is not still barbarous. But a be
liever in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to say
there was a time when slavery was right, when polygamy was
the highest form of virtue, when wars of extermination were
waged with the sword of mercy, and when the Creator of the
whole world commanded the soldier to sheathe the dagger of
murder in the dimpled breast of infancy. The believer in
inspiration of the Bible is compelled to say there was a time
when it was right for a husband to murder his wife because
they differed upon subjects of religion. I deny that such a
time ever was. If I knew the real God said it, I would still
deny it. Four thousand years ago, if the Bible is true, God
was in favour of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination,
and religious persecution. Now we are told the devil is in
favour of all those things, and God is opposed to them; in
other words, the devil stands now where God stood 4000
years ago; yet I am assured God is just as good now as he
was then, and the devil just as abominably bad now as
lod was then. Other nations believed in slavery, poly
gamy, and war and persecution, without ever having received
oie ray of light from heaven. That shows that a special
rvelation is not necessary to teach a man to do wrong.
Gher nations did no worse without the Bible than the Jews
di with it. Suppose the devil had inspired a book. In
wat respect would he have differed from God on the subject
of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious
peiecution ? Suppose we knew that after God had finished
hisbook the devil had gotten possession of it, and wrote a
fewpassages to suit himself, which passages, 0 Christian,
word you pick out now as having probably been written by
the levil ? which of these two, “ Love thy neighbour as
thysif,” or “ Kill all the males among the little ones, and
kill ^ery man, but all the women and girls keep alive for
your^.ves,”—which of those two passages would you select
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as having been written by the devil ? If God wrote the last,
there is no need of a devil.
Is there a Christian in the wide world who does not wish
that God, from the thunder and lightning of Sinai, had said :
“ You shall not enslave your fellow-man ” ? But they feay
God did the best he could; that the Jews were so bad that
he had to come up kind of slow. If he had told them sud
denly they must not murder and steal, they would not hare
paid any respect to the Ten Commandments. Suppose you
go to the Cannibal Islands to prevent the gentlemen there
from eating missionaries, and you find they ate them rav.
The first move is to induce them to cook them. After you
get them to eat cooked missionaries, you will then, without
their knowing it, occasionally slip in a little mutton. You
will go on gradually decreasing missionaries and increasing
mutton, until finally the Islanders will be so cultivated tha,
they will prefer the sheep to the priest. I think the mis
sionaries would object to that mode, of course.
I know this book was written by the Jews themselves.
If they were to write it to-day it would be different. They
are a civilized people. I do not wish it understood that a
word I say to-night touches the slightest prejudice in any
man’s mind against the Jewish people. They are as good a/
people as live to-day. I will say right here, they ne ver had
any luck until Jehovah abandoned them.
Now we come to the New Testament. Theologians clain
that is better than the Old. I say it is worse. The gres'
objection to the Old Testament is that it is cruel, but in th
Old Testament the revenge of God stopped with the portgs
of the tomb. He never threatened punishment after death
He never threatened one thing beyond the grave. It
reserved for the New Testament to make known the doctine
of eternal punishment.
Is the New Testament inspired ? I have not time to ive
many reasons, but I will give some. In the first placet is
argued, that the very fact the witnesses disagree in nhor
matters shows that they have not conspired to tell the time
story. Good. And I say in every lawsuit where if or
five witnesses testify, or endeavour to testify, to the same ting,
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it is natural that they should differ on minor points. Why '?
Because no two occupy exactly the same position; no two see
exactly alike ; no two remember precisely the same, and their
disagreement is due to and accounted for by the imperfection
of human nature, and the fact that they did not all have an
equal opportunity to know. But if you admit or say that the
four witnesses were inspired by an infinite being who did see
it all, then they should remember all the same, because inspi
ration does not depend on memory.
That brings me to another point. Why were there four
gospels 1 What is the use of more than one correct account
of any thing ? If you want to spread it send copies. No
human being has got the ingenuity to tell me why there were
four gospels when one correct gospel would have been enough.
Why should there not have been four original multiplication
tables ? One is enough, and if anybody has got any use for
it he can copy that one. The very fact that we have got four
gospels shows that the book is not inspired.
The next point is that according to the New Testament the
salvation of the world depends upon the atonement. Only
one of the books in the New Testament says anything about
that, and that is John. The Church followed John, and
it ought to follow John, because the Church wrote that book
called John. According to that the whole world was to
be damned on account of the sins of one man; and that
absurdity was the father and mother of another absurdity,
that the whole world could be saved on account of the virtue
of another man. I deny both propositions. No man can
sin for me; no man can be virtuous for me; I must reap
what 1 sow. But they say the law must be satisfied. What
kind of a law is it that would demand punishment of the
innocent ? Just think of it. Here is a man about to be
hanged, and another comes up and says : “ That man has
got a family, and I have not; that man is in good health,
and I am not well, and I will be hung in his place.’’ And
the Governor says, “ All right. There has a murder been
committed, and we have got to have a hanging,—we don’t
care who.” Under the Mosaic dispensation there was no
remission of sins without the shedding of blood. If a man
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committed a murder he brought a pair of doves or a sheep to
the priest, and the priest laid his hands on the animal, and
the sins of the man were transferred to the animal. You see
how that could be done easy enough. Then they killed the
animal, and sprinkled its blood on the altar.
That let the
man off. And why did God demand the sacrifice of a sheep ?
I will tell you: because priests love mutton. To make the
innocent suffer is the greatest crime. I don’t wish to go to
heaven on the virtues of somebody else. If I can’t settle by
the books and go, I don’t wish to go. I don’t want to feel as
if I was there on sufferance,—that I was in the poorhouse of
the universe, supported by the town.
We are told Judas betrayed Christ. Well, if Christ had
not been betrayed no atonement would have been made,
and then every human soul, according to the dispensation,
would have been damned, and heaven would have been to
let. Supposing that Judas knew the Christian system, then
perhaps he thought that by betraying Christ he could get
forgiven not only for the sins that he had already committed,
but for the sin of betrayal, and if, on the way to Calvary, and
later, some brave, heroic soul had rescued Christ from the
mob, he would have made his own damnation sure. It won’t
do. There is no logic in that. They say God tried to civi
lize the Jews. If he had succeeded, according to the Christian
system, we all would have been damned, because if the Jews
had been civilized they would not have crucified Christ.
They would have believed in freedom of speech, and as a
result the world would have been lost for 2000 years. The
Christian world has been trying to explain the atonement,
and they have always ended by failing to explain it.
Now I come to the second objection, which is that a certain
belief is necessary to salvation. I will believe according to
the evidence. In my mind are certain scales which weigh
everything, and my integrity stands there and knows which
side goes up and which side goes down. If I am an honest man.
I will report the weights like an honest man. They say I must
believe a certain thing or I will be eternally damned. They
tell me that to believe is the safer way. I deny it. The safest
thing you can do is to be honest. No man, when the shadows
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of the last hours were gathering around him, ever wished
that he had lived the life of a hypocrite. If I find at the
day of judgment that I have been mistaken, I will say so like
a man. If God tells me then that he is the author of the Old
Testament, I will admit that he is worse than I thought he
was, and when he comes to pronounce sentence upon me I
will say to him : do unto others as you would that others
should do unto you. I have a right to think, I cannot con
trol my belief; my brain is my castle, and if I don’t defend
it, my soul becomes a slave and a serf. If you throw away
your reason, your soul is not worth saving. Salvation depends
not upon belief, but upon deed—upon kindness, upon justice,
upon mercy. Your own deeds are your saviour, and you
can be saved in no other way. I am told in this Testament
to love my enemies. I cannot; I will not. I don’t hate
enemies ; I don’t wish to injure enemies, but I don’t care
about seeing them. I don’t like them. I love my friends,
and the man who loves enemies and friends loves me. The
doctrine of non-resistance is born of weakness. The man
that first said it, said it because it was the best he could do
under the circumstances. While the Church said love your
enemies, in her sacred vestments gleamed the daggers of
assassination. With her cunning hand she placed the crown
upon the brow of crime. For more than 1000 years larceny
held the scales of justice and hypocrisy wore the mitre, and
the tiara of Christ. He knew of the future, he knew what
crimes and horrors would be committed in his sacred name.
He knew the fires of persecution would climb around the
limbs of countless martyrs, that brave men and women would
languish in dungeons and darkness, that the Church would
use instruments of torture, that in his name his followers
would trade in human flesh, that cradles would be robbed
and women’s breasts unbabed for gold, and yet he died with
voiceless lips. If Christ was God, why did he not tell his
disciples, and through them the world, man shall not per
secute his fellow-man? Why didn’t he say, “lam God”?
why didn’t he explain the doctrine of the Trinity ? why didn’t
he tell what manner of baptism was pleasing to him ? why
didn’t he say the Old Testament is true? why didn’t he
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write his Testament himself ? why did he leave his words
to accident, to ignorance, to malice, and to chance 1 Why
didn’t he say something positive, definite, satisfactory about
another world ? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope
of immortality to the glad knowledge of another life ? Why
did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery
and to doubt ? Because he was a man.
I care not for salvation hereafter. I contend that no God
has a right to create a man who has to be eternally damned.
Infinite wisdom has no right to make a failure, and a man
that is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success.
Infinite wisdom has no right to make an instrument that will
not finally pay a dividend. No God has a right to add to the
agony of this universe, and yet around the angels of immor
tality Christianity has coiled this serpent of eternal pain.
Upon love’s breast the Church has placed that asp, and yet
talks to me about the consolations of religion.
A few days ago the bark Tiger foundered upon the wide
sea 126 days from Liverpool. For nine days not a mouthful
of food or a drop of water was to be had. There were on
board the captain, mate, and eleven men. When they had
been out 117 days they killed the captain’s dog.
Nine days more—no food, no water. Capt. Kruger stood
upon the deck in the presence of his starving crew, with a
revolver in his hand; he put it upon his temple, and said,
“ Boys, this can’t last much longer; I am willing to die to
save the rest of you.” The mate grasped the revolver, and said,
wait; and the next day upon the horizon of despair rose the
smoke of the ship which rescued them. Do you tell me
to-night if Capt. Kruger was not a Christian and he had sent
that ball crashing through his generous brain that there was
an Almighty waiting to clutch his naked soul that he might
damn him for ever 1
The fact is we have civilized God. We make our own God,
and we make him better day by day. Some honest people
really believe that in some wonderful way we are indebted to
Moses for geology, to Joshua for astronomy and military
tactics, to Samson for weapons of war, to Daniel for holy
curses, to Solomon for the art of cross-examination, to Jonah
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for the science of navigation, to St Paul for steamships and
locomotives, to the four Gospels for telegraphs, and sewingmachines, to the Apocalypse for looms, saw-mills, and tele
phones ; and that to the Sermon on the Mount we are indebted
for mortars and Krupp guns. We are told that no nation
has ever been civilized without a Bible. The Jews had one,
and yet they crucified a perfectly innocent man. They
couldn’t have done much worse without a Bible.
Take from the Bible the barbarities, the absurdities,
the miracles, and I admit that the good passages are true. If
they are true they don’t need to be inspired. Miracles are
the children of mendacity. Nothing can be more miraculous
than the majestic, sublime, and eternal march of cause and
effect. Reason must be the final arbiter. An inspired book
cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. Is a man to be
rewarded eternally for believing without evidence or against
evidence ? Do you tell me that the less brain a man has the
better chance he has for heaven? Think of a heaven filled
with men who never thought. Better that all that is should
cease to be ; better that God had never been ; better that all
the springs and seeds of things should fall and wither in great
Nature’s realm; better that causes and effects should lose
relation; better that every life should change to breathless
death and voiceless blank, and every star to blind oblivion
and moveless naught, than that this religion should be true.
The religion of the future is humanity. The religion of the
future will say to every man, you have the right to think and
investigate for yourself. Liberty is my religion. Everything
that is true, every good thought, every beautiful thing, every
self-denying action—all these make my Bible. Every bubble,
every star, are passages in my Bible. A constellation is a
chapter. Every shining world is a part of it. You cannot
interpolate it; you cannot change it. It is the same for
ever. My Bible is all that speaks to man. Every violet,
every blade of grass, every tree, every mountain crowned with
snow, every star that shines, every throb of love, every honest
act, all that is good and true combined, make my Bible, and
upon that book I stand.
Somebody asked Confucius about another world, and his
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reply was, “ How should I, who know so little about this,
know anything about another?” For my part, I know
nothing of any other state of existence, either before or after
this, and I have never become personally acquainted with
anybody that did. There may be another life, and if there
is, the . best, way to prepare for it is by making somebody
happy in this. God certainly cannot afford to put a man in
hell who has made a little heaven m this world, f propose
simply to take my chance with the rest of the folks, and
prepare to go where the people I am best acquainted with will
probably settle. I can’t afford to leave the great ship and
sneak off to shore in some orthodox canoe. I hope there is
another life, for I would like to see how things come out in
this world when I am dead. There are some people I would
like to see again, and hope there are some who would not
object to seeing me; but if there is no other life I shall never
know it. I don’t remember the time when I did not exist;
and if, when I die, that is the end, I shall not know, because
the last thing I will know is that I am alive, and if nothing
is left, nothing will be left to know that I am dead; so that,
so far as I am concerned, I am immortal; that is to say, I
can’t recollect when I did not exist, and there never will be
a time when I will remember that I do not exist. Our hope
of immortality does not come from any religion, but nearly all
religions come from that hope. The Old Testament, instead
of telling us that we are immortal, tells us how we lost
immortality. You will recollect that if Adam and Eve could
have gotten to the tree of life, they would have eaten of its
fruit and would have lived for ever; but for the purpose of
preventing immortality God turned them out of the Garden
of Eden, and put certain angels with swords or sabres at the
gate to keep them from getting back. The Old Testament
proves, if it proves anything, which I do not think it does,
that there is no life after this; and the New Testament is
not very specific on the subject.
Since hanging has got to be a means of grace, I would
prefer hell. I had a thousand times rather associate with the
Pagan philosophers than with the inquisitors of the Middle
Ages. I certainly should prefer the worst man in Greek or
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Roman History to John Calvin; and I can imagine no men
in the world that I would not rather sit on the same bench
with than the Puritan fathers and the founders of orthodox
churches. I would trade off my harp any minute for a seat
in the other country. All the poets will be in perdition, and
the greatest thinkers, and, I should think, most of the women
whose society would tend to increase the happiness of man;
nearly all the painters, nearly all the sculptors, nearly all the
writers of plays, nearly all the great actors, most of the best
musicians, and nearly all the good fellows—the persons who
know stories, who can sing songs, or who will loan a friend a
dollar. They will mostly all be in that country, and if I did
not live there permanently, I certainly would want it so I
could spend my winter months there. But, after all, what I
really want to do is to destroy the idea of eternal punishment.
That doctrine subverts all ideas of justice. That doctrine
fills hell with honest men, and heaven with intellectual and
moral paupers. That doctrine allows people to sin on a credit.
That doctrine allows the basest to be eternally happy, and
the most honourable to suffer eternal pain. I think of all
doctrines it is the most infinitely infamous, and would dis
grace the lowest savage ; and any man who believes it, and
has imagination enough to understand it, has the heart of a
serpent and the conscience of a hyena.
I am afraid that the old hell is cooling off, and that
many Christians are slowly giving up the consolations
naturally springing from the old belief. Another terrible
blow to the old infamy is the fact that in the revised New
Testament the consoling word “ hell ” has been left out. I am
informed that in the revised New Testament the word Hades
has been substituted. As nobody knows exactly what
Hades means, it will not be quite so easy to frighten people
at revivals by threatening them with something that they
don’t clearly understand. After this, when the impas
sioned orator cries out that all the unconverted will be sent
to Hades, the poor sinners, instead of getting frightened, will
begin to ask each other what and where that is. It will
take many years of preaching to clothe that word in all the
terrors and horrors, pains and penalties, and pangs of hell.
�t6
Salvation : Here and Hereafter.
Hades is a compromise. It is concession to the philosophy
of our day. It is a graceful acknowledgment to the growing
spirit of investigation that hell, after all, is a barbaric mis
take. Hades is the death of revivals. It cannot be used in
song. It won’t rhyme with anything with the same force
that hell does. It is altogether more shadowy than hot. It
is not associated with brimstone and flame. It sounds some
what indistinct, somewhat lonesome,—a little desolate, but
not altogether uncomfortable. For revival purposes, Hades
is simply useless, and few conversions will be made in the
old way under the revised Testament.
It is said a negation is a poor thing to die by. I would just
as lief die by that as the opposite. The murderer dies with
courage and firmness in many instances, but that does not make
me think that it sanctifies his crime; in fact, it makes no
impression upon me one way or the other. When a man
through old age or infirmity approaches death the intellectual
faculties are dimmed, his senses become less active, and as
he loses these he goes back to his old superstition. Old age
brings back the memories of childhood. And the great bard
gave even in the corrupt and besotted Falstaff—who prattled
of babbling brooks and green fields—an instance of the retrac
ing steps taken by the memory at the last gasp. It has been
said that the Bible was sanctified by our mothers. Every
superstition in the world, from the beginning of all time, has
had such a sanctification. The Turk dying on the Russian
battle-field pressing the Koran to his bosom, breathes his last
thinking of the loving adjuration of his mother to guard it.
Every superstition has been rendered sacred by the love of a
mother. I know what it has cost the noble and the brave to
throw to the winds these superstitions.
But I perceive the intimations of the dawn of Freedom in
the morning sky; and the “ free man thinks of nothing so
little as of death.”
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Salvation here and hereafter : a lecture, delivered to immense audiences in the United States
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: Manchester; London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 p.
Notes: Stamp on front cover: Freethought Publishing Co., Printing Office, 68 Fleet Street, E.C., A. Bonner, manager. "Discourses by Robert G. Ingersoll' listed inside front cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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John Heywood, Ridgefield
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[n.d.]
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N393
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Salvation
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOC^?,pV
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY'S EDITION.
wt to to to to Stoto?
BY
COL R. G. INGERSOLL,
PART I.
«
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1884.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
�z
LesDow:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLABGH,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
--------- 4---------
“ TWe Nuremberg Man was operated by a combination of pipes and
levers, and though he could breathe and digest perfectly, and even
reason as well as most theologians, was made of nothing but wood
and leather."
--------- 4---------
The whole world has been filled with fear. Ignorance has been
the refuge of the soul. For thousands of years the intellectual
ocean was ravaged by the buccaneers of reason. Pious souls
clung to the shore and looked at the lighthouse. The seas were
filled with monsters and the islands with sirens. The people
were driven in the middle of a narrow road while priests went
before, beating the hedges on either side to frighten the robbers
from their lairs. The poor followers, seeing no robbers, thanked
their brave leaders with all their hearts. Huddled in folds they
listened with wide eyes while the shepherds told of ravening
wolves. With great gladness they exchanged their fleeces for
security. Shorn and shivering, they had the happiness of seeing
their protectors comfortable and warm. Through all the years,
those who ploughed divided with those who prayed. Wicked in
dustry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral,
and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for
hypocrisy. Fear is the dungeon of the mind, and superstition is
a dagger with which hypocrisy assassinates tho soul. Courage
is liberty. I am in favor of absolute freedom of thought. In
the realm of mind, every one is monarch; every one is robed,
sceptred, and crowned, and every one wears the . purple of
authority. I belong to the republic of intellectual liberty, and
only those are good citizens of that republic who depend upon
reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who
resort to brute force.
Now, I beg of you all to forget just for a few moments that
you are Methodists or Baptists or Catholics or Presbyterians,
and let us for an hour or two remember only that we are men
�196
and women. And allow me to say “man” and “woman” are
the highest titles that can be bestowed upon humanity. Let us,
if possible, banish all fear from the mind. Do not imagine that
there is some being in the infinite expanse who is not willing
that every man and woman should think for himself and herself.
Do not imagine that there is any being who would give to his
children the holy torch of reason, and then damn them for
following that sacred light. Let us have courage. Priests have
invented a crime called “ blasphemy,” and behind that crime
hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. There is but one
blasphemy, and that is injustice. There is but one worship, and
that is justice. You need not fear the anger of a god that you
cannot injure. Rather fear to injure your fellow-men. Do not
be afraid of a crime you cannot commit. The reason that you
cannot injure God is that the Infinite is conditionless. You
cannot increase or diminish the happiness of any being without
changing that being’s condition. If God is conditionless, you
can neither injure nor benefit him.
There was a Jewish gentleman went into a restaurant to get
his dinner, and the devil of temptation whispered in his ear:
“ Eat some bacon.” He knew if there was anything in the
universe calculated to excite the wrath of an infinite being, who
made every shining star, it was to see a gentleman eating bacon.
He knew it, and he knew the infinite being was looking, that he
was the eternal eavesdropper of the universe. But his appetite
got the better of his conscience, as it often has with us all, and
he ate that bacon. He knew it was wrong, and his conscience
felt the blood of shame in its cheek. When he went into that
restaurant the weather was delightful, the sky was as blue as
June, and when he came out the sky was covered with angry
clouds, the lightning leaping from one to the other, and the
earth shaking beneath the voice of the thunder. He went back
into that restaurant with a face as white as milk, and he said to
one of the keepers: “My God, did you ever hear such a fuss
about a little piece of bacon ? ” As long as we harbor such
opinions of infinity; as long as we imagine the heavens to be
filled with such tyranny, just so long the sons of men will be
cringing, intellectual cowards. Let us think, and let us honestly
express our thought.
Do not imagine for a moment that I think people who disagree
with me are bad people. I admit, and I cheerfully admit, that a
very large proportion of mankind, and a very large majority, a
vast number are reasonably honest. I believe that most Chris
tians believe what they teach; that most ministers are endea
voring to make this world better. I do not pretend to be better
than they are. It is an intellectual question. It is a question,
first, of intellectual liberty, and after that, a question to be
settled at the bar of human reason. I do not pretend to be
�197
better than they are. Probably I am a good deal worse than
many of them, bat that is not the question. The question is :
“ Bad as I am, have I the right to think?” And I think I have
for two reasons : First, I cannot help it. And secondly, I like
it. The whole question is right at a point. If I have not a
right to express my thoughts, who has? “ Oh,” they say, “we
will allow you to think, we will not burn you.” “All right;
why won’t you burn me?” “Because we think a decent man
will allow another to think and to express his thought.” “ Then
the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is that you
believe it would be infamous in you ?” “ Yes.” “ And yet you
worship a God who will, as you declare, punish me for ever ?”
Surely an infinite God ought to be as just as man. Surely no
God can have the right to punish his children for being honest.
He should not reward hypocrisy with heaven, and punish candor
with eternal pain.
The next question then is : Can I commit a sin against God
by thinking? If God did not intend I should think, why did he
give me a thinker? For one, I am convinced, not only that I
have the right to think, but that it is my duty to express my
honest thoughts. Whatever the Gods may say we must be true
to ourselves. We have got what they call the Christian system
of religion, and thousands of people wonder how I can be
wicked enough to attack that system. There are many good
things about it, and I shall never attack anything that I believe
to be good! I shall never fear to attack anything I honestly
believe to be wrong! We have what they call the Christian
religion, and I find, just in proportion that nations have been
religious, just in the proportion they have clung to the religion
of their founders, they have gone back to barbarism. I find
that Spain, Portugal, Italy, are the three worst nations in Europe.
I find that the nation nearest infi lei is the most prosperous—•
France. And so I say there can be no danger in the exercise
of absolute intellectual freedom. I find among ourselves the
men who think are at least is good as those who do
not. We have I say, a Christian system, and that
system is founded upon what they are pleased to
call the “ New Testament.” Who wrote the New Testament ?
I do not know. Who does know? Nobody. We have found
many manuscripts containing portions of the New Testament.
Some of these manuscripts leave out five or six books—many of
them. Others more; others less. No two of these manuscripts
agree. Nobody knows who wrote these manuscripts. They are
all written in Greek The disciples of Christ, so far as we know,
knew only Hebrew. Nobody ever saw, so far as we know,
one of the original Hebrew manuscripts. Nobody ever saw any
body who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had
ever seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original Hebrew
�198
manuscripts. No doubt the clergy of your city have told you
these facts thousands of times, and they will be obliged to me
for having repeated them once more. These manuscripts are
written in what are called capital Greek letters. They are called
Uncial manuscripts, and the New Testament was not divided
into chapters and verses, even until the year of grace 1551. In
the original the manuscripts and gospels are signed by nobody.
The epistles are addressed to nobody ; and they are signed by the
same person. All the addresses, all the pretended ear-marks
showing to whom they were written, and by whom they
were written, are simply interpolations, and everybody who
has studied the subject knows it. It is further admitted
that even these manuscripts have not been properly trans
lated, and they have a syndicate now making a new transla
tion ; and I suppose that I can not tell whether I really believe
the New Testament or not until I see that new translation. You
must remember, also, one other thing. Christ never wrote a
solitary word of the New Testament—not one word. There is
an account that he once stooped and wrote something in the
sand, but that has not been preserved. He never told anybody
to write a word. He never said: “Matthew, remember this.
Mark, do not forget to put that down. Luke, be sure that in
your gospel you have this. John, do not forget it.” Notone
word. And it has always seemed to me that a being coming from
another world, with a message of infinite importance to mankind,
should at least have verified that message by his own signature.
Is it not wonderful that not one word was written by Christ?
Is it not strange that he gave no orders to have his words pre
served—words upon which hung the salvation of a world ? Why
was nothing written ? I will tell you. In my judgment they ex
pected the end of the world in a few days. That generation was
not to pass away until the heavens should be rolled up as a scroll,
and until the earth should melt with fervent heat. That was their
belief. They believed that the world was to be destroyed, and that
the saints were then to govern the earth. And they even went so far
among the apostles, as we frequently do now before election, as to
divide out the offices in advance. This Testament, as it now is,
was not written for hundreds of years after the apostles were
dust. Many of the pretended facts lived in the open mouth of
credulity. They were in the waste-baskets of forgetfulness.
They depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for centuries
these doctrines and stories were blown about by the inconstant
winds. And when reduced to writing, some gentleman would
write by the side of the passage his idea of it, and the next copy
ist would put that in as a part of the text. And, when it was
mostly written and the church got into trouble, and wanted a
passage to help it out, one was interpolated to order. So that
now it is among the easiest things in the world to pick out at
�199
s
/•
»
least one hn-ndred interpolations in the Testament. And I will
pick some of them out before I get through.
And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I
have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that the place
where man has died for man is holy ground. And let me say,
once for all, that to that great and serene man I gladly pay the
tribute of my admiration and my tears. He was a reformer
in his day. He was an infidel in his time. He was re
garded as a blasphemer, and his life was destroyed by hypo
crites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample
freedom and manhood out of the human mind. Had I lived at
that time I would have been his friend, and should he come
again he will not find a better friend than I will be. That is for
the man. For the theological creation I have a different feeling.
If he was in fact, God, he knew there was no such thing as death.
He knew that what we called death was but the eternal opening
of the golden gates of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to
face a death that was eternal life. But when a man, when a poor
boy sixteen years of age, goes upon the field of battle to keep
his flag in heaven, not knowing but that death ends all; not
knowing but that when the shadows creep over him, the darkness
will be eternal, there is heroism. For the man who, in the
darkness, said: “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”—for
that man 1 have nothing but respect, admiration, and love. Back
of the theological shreds, rags, and patches, hiding the real
Christ, I see a genuine man.
A while ago I made up my mind to find out what was neces
sary for me to do in order to be saved. If I have got a soul, I
want it saved. I do not wish to lose anything that is of value.
For thousands of years the world has been asking that question:
“ What must we do to be saved?” Saved from poverty? No.
Saved from crime? No. Tyranny? No. But “ What must
we do to be saved from the eternal wrath of the God who made
us all ?” If God made us, he will not destroy us. Infinite wis
dom never made a poor investment. Upon all the works of an
infinite God, a dividend must finally be declared. Why should
God make failures? Why should he waste material? Why
should he not correct his mistakes, instead of damning them ?
The pulpit has cast a shadow over even the cradle. The doc
trine of endless punishment has covered the cheeks of this world
with tears. I despise it, and I defy it. I made up my mind, I
say, to see what I had to do in order to save my soul according
to the Testament, and thereupon I read it. I read the gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and found that the church had
been deceiving me. I found that the clergy did not understand
their own book: that they had been building upon passages that
had been interpolated; upon passages that were entirely untrue,
and I will tell you why I think so.
�200
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW.
According to the church, the first gospel was written by
Matthew. As a matter of fact he never wrote a word of it—
never saw it, never heard of it, and probably never will. But
for the purposes of this lecture I admit that he wrote it. I will
admit that he was with Christ for three years; that he was his
constant companion; that he shared his sorrows and his triumphs;
that he heard his words by the lonely lakes, the barren hills, in
synagogue and street, and that he knew his heart and became
acquainted with his thoughts and aims.
Now let us see what Matthew says we must do in order to be
saved. And I take it that, if this is true, Matthew is as good
authority as any minister in the world. The first thing 1 find
upon the subject of salvation is in the fifth chapter of Matthew,
and is embraced in what is commonly known as the Sermon on
the Mount. It is as follows:—“ Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Good ! “ Blessed are
the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Good! Whether
they belonged to any church or not; whether they believed the
Bible or not. “ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.” Good. “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called
the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness sake (that’s me, a little!) for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.” Good!
In the same sermon he says : “ Think not that I am come to
destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but
to fulfil.” And then he makes use of this remarkable language,
almost as applicable to-day as it was then : “ For I say unto you
that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the king
dom of heaven.” Good! In the sixth chapter I find the follow
ing, and it comes directly after the prayer known as the Lord’s
prayer; “ For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” I
accept the condition. There is an offer; I accept it. If you
will forgive men that trespass against you, God will forgive your
trespasses against him. I accept the terms, and I never will ask
any God to treat me better than I treat my fellow-men. There
is a square promise. There is a contract. If you will forgive
others God will forgive you. And it does not say you must
believe in the Old Testament, or be baptised, or join the church,
or keep Sunday; that you must count beads, or pray, or become
a nun, or a priest; that you must preach sermons or hear them,
build churches or fill them. Not one word is said about eating
�201
or fasting, denying or believing. It simply says, if you*forgive
others God will forgive you ; and it must of necessity be true.
No God could afford to damn a forgiving man. Suppose God
should damn to everlasting fire a man so great and good, that he,
looking from the abyss of hell, would forgive God—how would
a God feel then ?
Now let me make myself plain upon one subject, perfectly
plain. For instance, I hate Presbyterianism, but I know hun
dreds of splendid Presbyterians. Understand me. I hate
Methodism, and yet I know hundreds of splendid Methodists.
I hate Catholicism, and like Catholics. I hate insanity, but not
the insane.
I do not war against men. I do not war against persons. I
war against certain doctrines that I believe to be wrong. But I
give to every other human being every right that 1 claim for
myself.
The next thing that I find is in the seventh chapter and the
second verse: “For with what judgment ye judge, ye Bhall be
judged ; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to
you again.” Good! That suits me. And in the twelfth chapter
of Matthew: “ For whosoever shall do the will of my Father
that is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.
For the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his
angels, and then he shall reward every man according----- .” To
the church he belongs to? No. To the manner in which he
was baptised? No. According to his creed? No. “ Then he
shall reward every man according to his works.” Good 1 I
subscribe to that doctrine.
And in the sixteenth chapter: “And Jesus called a little
child to him and stood him in the midst; and said ‘ Verily I say
unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ ” I do not
wonder that in his day, surrounded by scribes and Pharisees, he
turned lovingly to little children. And yet, see what children
the little children of God have been. What an interesting dim
pled darling John Calvin was. Think of that prattling babe,
Jonathan Edwards 1 Think of the infants that founded the in
quisition, that invented instruments of torture to tear human
flesh. They were the ones who had become as little children.
They were the children of faith.
So I find in the nineteenth chapter : “ And behold, one came
and said unto him: ‘ Good master, what good thing shall I do
that I may have eternal life ? ’ and he said unto him, ‘ Why
call’st thou me good ? There is none good but one, and that is
God, but if thou will enter into eternal life, keep the command
ments ; ’ and he said unto him ‘ Which ? ’ ” Now, there is a fair
issue. Here is a child of God askkg God what is necessary for
him to do in order to inherit eternal life. And God said to
�202
him :• “ Keep the commandments.” And the child said to the
Almighty : “ Which? ” Now, if there ever has been an oppor
tunity given to the Almighty to furnish a man of an inquiring
mind with the necessary information upon that subject, here
was the opportunity. “ He said unto him, ‘ Which ? ’ And
Jesus said: ‘ Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit
adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; honor thy father and mother; and thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself.’ ” He did not say to him: “You must
believe in me—that I am the only begotten son of the living
God.” He did not say: “You must be born again.” He did
not say: “You must believe the Bible.” He did not, say:
“ You must remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. He
simply said: “ Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not com
mit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false
witness. Honor thy father and thy mother; and thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.” And thereupon the young man, who
I think was mistaken, said unto him: “All these things have I
kept from my youth up.” What right has the church to add
conditions of salvation ? Why should we suppose that Christ
failed to tell the young man all that was necessary for him to
do ? Is it possible that he left out some important thiDg simply
to mislead? Will some minister tell us why he thinks that
Christ kept back the “ scheme ” ?
,
Now comes an interpolation. In the old times when the
church got a little scarce of money, they always put in a passage
praising poverty. So they had this young man ask: ‘ What
lack I yet ? ” And Jesus said unto him : “ If thou wilt be per
fect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasures in heaven.” The church has always been
willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down. And
when the next verse was written the church must have been
nearly bankrupt. “And again I say unto you, it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God.” Did you ever know a wealthy
disciple to unload on account of that verse
And then comes
another verse, which I believe is an interpolation: “ And every
one that has forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or fat er or
mother, or wife or children, or lands, for my name s sake, s „
receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting 1 e.
Christ never said it. Never. “ Whosoever shall forsake father
and mother ! ” Why he said to this man that asked him: “ W at
shall I do to inherit eternal life ? ” among other things, he sai :
“Honor thy father and thy mother.” And we turn over t e
page and he says again: “If you will desert your father an
mother you shall have everlasting life.” It will not do. If you
will desert your wife and your little children, or your lands—-the
idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife and chil-
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dren! Think of that! I do not accept the terms. I
never
desert the one I love for the promise of any God. It is far more
important to love your wife than to love God, and I willdell y
why. You cannot help him, but you can help her.. You can
fiU her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more
important that you love your children then that you lov®jJ68"®
Christ. And why ? If he is God you cannot help him, but you
can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the
child, from the cradle until you die in that child s arms. Let
me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than
to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a
home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide
world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and
the sweet babes. There was a time when people believed the
infamy commanded in this frightful passage. Ihere was a time
when they did desert fathers and mothers and wives and chil
dren. St. Augustine says to the devotee: “ Fly to the desert,
and though your wife put her arms around your neck, tear her
hands away; she is a temptation of the devil. Though your
father and mother throw their bodies athwart your threshold,
step over them; and though your children pursue, and with
weeping eyes beseech you to return, listefi not. It is the temp
tation of the evil one. Fly to the desert and save your soul.
Think of such a soul being worth saving. While I live 1 pro
pose to stand by the ones I love.
.
There is another condition of salvation. I find it m the
twenty-fifth chapter: “Then shall the King say unto them on
his right hand, 1 Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye
gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; I was
naked and ye clothed me; and I was sick and ye visited me;
and I was in prison and ye came unto me.’ ” Good 1 I tell you
to-nigkt that God will not punish with eternal thirst the man
wh.0 lias put the cup of cold water to the lips of his neighbor.
God will not leave in the eternal nakedness of pain the man who
has clothed his fellow-men. For instance, here is a shipwreck,
and here is some brave sailor who stands aside and allows a
woman whom he never saw before to take his place in the boat,
And he stands there, grand and serene as the wide sea, and he
goes down. Do you tell me that there is any God who will
push the life-boat from the shore of eternal life, when that man
wishes to step in ? Do you tell me that God can be unpitying
to the pitiful, that he can be unforgiving to the forgiving? I
deny it; and from the aspersions of the pulpit I seek to rescue
the reputation of the Deity. Now I have read you substantially
everything in Matthew on the subject of salvation. That is all
there is. Not one word about believing anything. It is the
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gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel of self-denial;
anc* i onty that gospel had been preached, persecution never
would have shed one drop of blood. Not one. According to
the testimony,. Matthew was well acquainted with Christ. Accord
ing to the testimony, he had been with him, and his companion for
years, and if it was necessary to believe anything in order to get
to heaven, Matthew should have told us. But he forgot it, or
he did not believe it, or he never heard of it. You can take
your choice. In Matthew, we find that heaven is promised, first,
to the poor in spirit. Second, to the merciful. Third, to the
pure in heart. Fourth, to the peacemakers. Fifth, to those
who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Sixth, to those who
keep and teach the commandments. Seventh, to those who
forgive men that trespass against them. Eighth, that we will
be judged as we judge others. Ninth, that they who receive
prophets and righteous men shall receive a prophet’s reward.
Tenth, to those who do the will of God. Eleventh, that every
man shall be rewarded according to his works. Twelfth, to
those who become as little children. Thirteenth, to those who
forgive the trespasses of others. Fourteenth, to the perfect:
they who sell all that they have and give to the poor. Fifteenth,
to them who forsake houses, and brethren, and sisters, and
father, and .mother, and wife, and children, and lands for the
sake of. Christ’s name. Sixteenth, to those who feed the hungry,
give drink to the thirsty, shelter to the stranger, clothes to the
naked, comfort to the sick, and who visit the prisoner. Nothing
else is said with regard to salvation in the Gospel according to
St. Matthew. Not one word about believing the Old Testament
to have been inspired; not one word about being baptized or
joining a church ; not one word about believing in any miracle ;
not even a hint that it was necessary to believe that Christ was
the son of God, or that he did any wonderful or miraculous
things, or that he was born of a virgin, or that his coming had
been foretold by the Jewish prophets. Not one word about
believing in the Trinity, or in foreordination or predestina
tion. Matthew had not understood from Christ that any such
things were necessary to ensure the salvation of the soul. ’
According to the testimony, Matthew had been in the com
pany of Christ, some say three years and some say one, but at
least he had been with him long enough to find out some of his
ideas upon this great subject. And yet Matthew never got the
impression that it was necessary to believe something in order
to get to heaven. He supposed that if a man forgave others
God would forgive him ; he believed that G6d would show
mercy to the merciful; that he would not allow those who fed
the hungry to starve; that he would not put in the flames of
hell those who had given cold water to the thirsty; that he
would not cast into the eternal dungeon of his wrath those who
j
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had visited the imprisoned; and that he would not damn men
who forgave others. Matthew had it in his mind that God would
treat us very much as we treated other people; and that
in the next world he would treat with kindness those who had
been loving and gentle in their lives. It may be the apostle was
mistaken; but evidently that was his opinion.
THE GOSPEL OF MARK.
Let us now see what Mark thought it necessary for a man. to do
to save his soul. In the fourth chapter, after Jesus had given to
the multitude by the sea the parable of the sower, his disciples,
when they were again alone, asked him the meaning of the parable.
Jesus replied : “ Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the
kingdom of God ; but unto them that are without, all these things
are done in parables : That seeing, they may see, and not perceive;
and hearing they may hear, and not. understand: lest at any
time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven
them.” It is a little hard to understand why he should have
preached to people that he did not intend should know his mean
ing. Neither is it quite clear why he objected to their being
converted. This, I suppose, is one of the mysteries that we
should simply believe without endeavoring to comprehend.
With the above exception, and one other that I will mention
hereafter, Mark substantially agrees with Matthew, and says that
God will be merciful to the merciful, that he will be kind to the
kind, that he will pity the pitying, and love the loving. Mark
upholds the religion of Matthew until we come to the sixteenth
verse of the sixteenth chapter, and then I strike an interpolation
put in by hypocrisy, put in by priest who longed to grasp with
bloody hands the sceptre of universal power. Let me read it to
you. It is the most infamous passage in the Bible. Christ never
said it. No sensible man ever said it.
“ And He said unto them (that is unto his disciples), go ye
into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth
not shall be damned.” That passage was written so that fear
would give alms to hypocrisy. Now, I propose to you that this
is an interpolation. How will I do it ? In the first place, not
one word is said about belief in Matthew. In the next place, not
one word about belief in Mark until I come to that verse, and
where is that said to have been spoken? According to Mark, it
is a part of that last conversation of Jesus Christ—just before,
according to the account, he ascended bodily before their eyes.
If there ever was any important thing happened in this world that
was it. If there is any conversation that people would be apt to
recollect, it would be the last conversation with a God before he
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rose visibly through the air and seated himself upon the throne
of the infinite. We have in this Testament five accounts of the
last conversation happening between Jesus Christ and his
apostles. Matthew gives it, and yet Matthew does not state that
in that conversation Christ said: “ Whoso believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned.”
And if he did say those words they were the most important
that ever fell from lips. Matthew did not hear it, or did not
believe it, or forgot it. Then I turn to Luke, and he gives an
account of this last conversation, and not one word does he say
upon that subject. Luke does not pretend that Christ said that
whoso believeth not shall be damned. Luke certainly did not
hear it. Maybe he forgot it. Perhaps he did not think it
worth recording. Now, it is the most important thing, if Christ
said it, that he ever said. Then I turn to John, and he gives
an account of the last conversation, but not one solitary word on
the subject of belief or unbelief. Not one solitary word on the
subject of damnation. Not one. John might not have been lis
tening.
Then I turn to the first chapter of the Acts, and there I find an
account of the last conversation ; and in that conversation there
is not one word upon this subject. This is a demonstration that
the passage in Mark is an interpolation. What other reason
have I got ? There is not one particle of sense in it. Why ?
No man can control his belief. You hear evidence for and against,
and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which
side rises and which side falls. You can not believe as you wish.
You must believe as you must. And he might as well have said :
“ Go into the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever has
red hair shall be saved, and whosoever hath not shall be damned.”
I have another reason. I am much obliged to the gentleman who
interpolated these passages. I am much obliged to him that he
putin some more—two more. Now hear: “And these signs
shall follow them that believe.” Good! “In my name shall
they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues, and
take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not
hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall
recover.” Bring on your believer! Let him cast out a devil. I
do not ask for a large one. Just a little one for a cent. Let
him take up serpents. “ And if he drink any deadly thing it
shall not hurt him.” Let me mix up a dose for the believer, and
if it does not hurt him I will join a church. Oh! but, they say,
those things only lasted through the Apostolic age. Let us see.
“ Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and these signs shall
follow them that believe.” How long ? I think at least until
they had gone into all the world. Certainly those signs should
follow until all the world has been visited. And yet if that
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declaration waa in the mouth of Christ, h. then knew that onehalf of the world was unknown, and that he would be dead four
teen hundred and fifty-nine years before
all
that there was another continent. And yet he said . Go into all
the world and preach the gospel,” and he knew then that it would
he fourteen hundred and fifty-nine years before anybody could
go Well, if it was worth while to have signs follow believers
in the Old World, surely it was worth while to have signs follow
believers in the New. And the very reason that signs should
follow would be to convince the unbeliever, and there are ai
many unbelievers now as ever, and the signs are as necessary to
day as they ever were. 1 would like a few myself. This frightful
declaration : “ He that believeth and is baptizedi shall be saved,
but he that believeth not shall be damned, has filled the world
with agony and crime. Every letter of this passage has been
Bword and faggot; every word has been dungeon and chain. That
passage made the sword of persecution drip with innocent blood
through centuries of agony and crime. That passage made the
horizon of a thousand years lurid with the faggot s flames. That
passage contradicts the sermon on the mount; travesties . the
Lord’s prayer: turns the splendid religion of deed and duty into
the superstition of creed and cruelty. I deny it. It is infamous.
Christ never said it!
THE GOSPEL OF LUKE.
It is sufficient to say that Luke agrees substantially with Matthew
and Mark. “ Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is also
merciful.” Good! “ Judge not and ye shall not be judged.
Condemn not and ye shall not be condemned; forgive and ye
shall be forgiven.” Good! “Give and it shall be given unto
you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over..
Good! I like it. “ For the same measure that ye mete withal it
shall be measured to you again.”
He agrees substantially with Mark; he agrees substantially
• with Matthew ; and I come at last to the nineteenth chapter.
“ And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord, ‘.Behold, Lord,
the one-half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken
anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four
fold.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘ This day is salvation come to
thia house.’ ” That is good doctrine. He did not ask Zaccheus
what he believed. He did not ask him, “ Do you believe in the
Bible ? Do you believe in the five points ? Have you ever
been baptised—sprinkled, or immersed? ” “ Half of my goods I
give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by
false accusation, I restore him four-fold. And Christ said, this
day is salvation come to this house.” Good! I read also in Luke
�208
that Christ when upon the cross forgave his murderers, and that
is considered the shining gem in the crown of his mercy. He
forgave his murderers. He forgave the men who drove the nails
in his hands, in his feet, that plunged a spear in his side ; the
soldier that in the hour of death offered him in mockery the
bitterness to drink. He forgave them all freely, and yet, although
he would forgive them, he will in the nineteenth century, as we
are told by the orthodox Church, damn to eternal fire a noble
man for the expression of his honest thoughts. That will not
do. . I find, too, in Luke, an account of two thieves that were
crucified at the same time. The other gospels speak of them.
One says they Loth railed upon him. Another says nothing
about it. In Luke we are told that one railed upon him, but
one of the thieves looked and pitied Christ, and Christ said to
that thief : “ To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Why
difi he say that ? Because the thief pitied him. God cannot
afford to trample beneath the feet of his infinite wrath the
smallest blossom of pity that ever shed its perfume in the human
heart!
Who was this thief ? To what Church did he belong ? I do
not know. The fact that he was a thief throws no light on that
question. Who was he ? What did he believe ? I do not know.
Did he believe in the Old Testament? In the miracles? I do
not know. Did he believe that Christ was God? I do not
know. Why then was the promise made to him that he should
meet Christ in paradise ? Simply because he pitied suffering
innocence upon the cross. God cannot afford to damn any man
who is capable of pitying anybody.
(Continued in Part H.)
�
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
FREETH0 UGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY'S EDITION.
toe to to to Stoeto’
BY
COL R. G. INGERSOLL.
PART II.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1884.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
�WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.
And now we come to John, and that is where the trouble com
mences. The other gospels teach that God will be merciful to
the merciful, forgiving to the forgiving, kind to the kind, loving
to the loving, just to the just, merciful to the good. Now we
come to John, and here is another doctrine. And allow me to
say that John was not written until long after the others. John
was mostly written by the Church. “And Jesus answered and
said unto him .- Furthermore I say unto thee, that except a man
be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Why did he
not tell Matthew that ? Why did he not tell Luke that? Why
did he not tell Mark that? They never heard of it, or forgot it,
or they did not believe it. “ Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Why ? “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
‘ Ye must be born again.’ That which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit,” and he might
have added, that which is born of water is water. “ Marvel not
that I said unto thee, ‘ Ye must be born again.’ ” And then the
reason is given, and I admit I did not understand it myself until
I read the reason, and when you hear the reason you will under
stand it as well as I do; and here it is: “The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, a&id canst
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.”
So, I find in the book of John the idea of the Real Presence.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
must the Son of man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be saved. He that be
lieveth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of
the only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the Son
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.
hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, shall
not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come
into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God : and they that hear
shall live, And shall come forth ; they that have done good unto
the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the
resurrection of damnation. And this is the will of him that sent
me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on him,
may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last
day. No man can come to me, except my Father, which hath
sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath ever
lasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat
manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which
cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not
die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If
any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever; and the bread
that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of man and drink his
blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at
the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is
drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent
me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from
heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead ; he
that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. And he said, there
fore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it
were given unto him of my Father. Jesus said unto her, I am
the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and be
lieveth in me shall never die. He that loveth his life shall lose
it, and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto
life eternal.” So I find in the book of John, that in order to be
saved we must not only believe in Jesus Christ, but we must eat
of the flesh and drink of the blood of Jesus Christ. If that
gospel is true, the Catholic Church is right. But it is not true.
I cannot believe it, and yet for all that it may be true. But I do
not believe it.. Neither do I believe there is any God in the
universe who will damn a man simply for expressing his belief.
“Why,” they say to me, “suppose all this should turn out to
be true, and you should come to the day of judgment and fiod
all these things to be true. What would you do then?” I
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would walk up like a man and say, I was mistaken. “ And sup
pose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you
say ? ” I would say to him : “ Do unto others as you would that
others should do unto you.” Why not? I am told that I must
render “good for evil.” I am told that “if smitten on one
cheek” I must “ turn the other.” I am told that I must “over
come evil with good.” I am told that I must “ love my enemies
and will it do for this God who tells me to “ love my enemies ”
to damn his ? No, it will not do—it will not do. In the book
of John all these doctrines of regeneration—that it is necessary
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; that salvation depends upon
belief—in this book of John all these doctrines find their war
rant ; nowhere else. Read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then
read John, and you will agree with me that the three first gospels
teach that if we are kind and forgiving to our fellows, God will
be kind and forgiving to us. In John we are told that another
man can be good for us, or bad for us, and that the only way to
get to heaven is to believe something that we know is not so.
All these passages about believing in Christ, drinking his blood
and eating his flesh, are afterthoughts. They were written by
the theologians, and in a few years they will be discovered as
unworthy of the lips of Christ.
THE CATHOLICS.
Now upon these gospels that I have read the churches rest; and
out of these things, mistakes and interpolations, they have made
their creeds. And the first church to make a creed, so far as I
know, was the Catholic. It was the first church that had any
power. That is the church that has preserved all these miracles
for us. That is the church that preserved the manuscripts for
us. That is the church whose word we have to take. That
church is the first witness that Protestantism brought to the bar
of history to prove miracles that took place eighteen hundred
years ago; and while the witness is there Protestantism takes
pains to say : “You cannot believe one word that witness says,
now.'’’ That church is the only one that keeps up a constant
communication with heaven through the instrumentality of a
large number of decayed saints. That church has an agent of
God on earth, has a person who stands in the place of deity; - /
and that church is infallible. That church has persecuted to the
exact extent of her power—and always will. In Spain that
church stands erect, and is arrogant. In the United States that
church crawls ; but the object in both countries is the same—
and that is the destruction of intellectual liberty. That church
teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable our
selves ; that a nun is holier in the sight of God than a loving
mother with her child in her thrilled and thrilling arms ; that a
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„■ '*■
priest is better than a father ; that celibacy is better than that
passion of love that has made everything of beauty in this world.
That church tells the girl of sixteen or eighteen years of age,
with eyes like dew and light—that girl with the red of health in
the white of her beautiful cheeks—tells that girl: “Put on the
veil, woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you will
please God.” I tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed
to take the veil and renounce the joys and beauties of this life.
Iam opposed to allowing these spider-like priests to weave webs
to catch the loving maidens of the world. There ought to be a
law appointing commissioners to visit such places twice a year,
and release every person who expresses a desire to be released.
I do not believe in keeping the penitentiaries of God. No
doubt they are honest about it. That is not the question.
These ignorant superstitions fill millions of lives with weariness
and pain, with agony and tears. This church, after a few cen
turies of thought, made a creed, and that creed is the founda
tion of the orthodox religion. Let me read it to you :—“ Who
soever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold
the Catholic faith ; which faith except every one do keep entire
and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish.”
Now the faith is this : “ That we worship one God in trinity and
trinity in unity.” Of course you understand how that is done,
and there is no need of my explaining it. “ Neither confounding
the persons nor dividing the substance.” You see what a predi
cament that would leave the deity in if you divided the substance.
“ For one is the persdn of the Father, another of the Son, and
another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one ”—you know what
I mean by Godhead—“in glory equal, and in majesty coeternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost
uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehen
sible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.” And that is the reason
we know so much about the thing. “The Father is eternal, the
Son eternal, the Holy’Ghost eternal, and yet there are not three
eternals, only one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated,
nor three incomprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible.” “In like manner, the Father is almighty, the Son
almighty, the Holy Ghost almighty. Yet there are not three
almighties, only one, almighty. So the Father is God, the Son
God, the Holy Ghost God, and yet not three Gods; and so,
likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is
Lord, yet there are not three Lords, for as we are compelled by
the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to
be God and Lord, so we are all forbidden by the Catholic religion
to say there are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is
made of no one; not created or begotten. The Son is from the
�214
Father alone, not made, not created, but begotten. The Holy
Ghost is from the Father and the Son, not made, nor begotten,
but proceeding.” You know what proceeding is. “ So there is
one Father, not three Fathers.” Why should there be three
Fathers, and only one Son ? “ One Son, and not three Sons;
one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts; and in this Trinity
there is nothing before or afterward, nothing greater or less, but
the whole three persons are coeternal with one another and
coequal, so that in ’all things the Unity is to be worshipped in
Trinity, and the Trinity is to be worshipped in Unity. Those
who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. Furthermore,
it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly
the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right of
this thing is this: That we believe and confess that our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. He is God
of the substance of his Father begotten before the world was.”
That was a good while before his mother lived. “ And he is
man of the substance of his mother, born in this world, perfect
God and perfect man, and the rational soul in human flesh sub
sisting, equal to the Father according to his Godhead, but less
than the Father according to his manhood, who being both God
and man is not two but one, one not by conversion of God into
flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into God.” You see
that is a great deal easier than the other way would be. “ One
altogether, not by a confusion of substance but by unity of per
son, for as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God
and man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended
into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into
heaven, and he sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father
Almighty, and he shall come to judge the living and the dead.”
In order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. What a
blessing that we do not have to understand it. And in order to
compel the human intellect to get upon its knees before that
infinite absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies ;
thousands and thousands have perished in dungeons and in fire ;
and if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic church
could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the
pyramids would rise, in the presence of which the eyes even of
priests would be wet with tears. That church covered Europe
with cathedrals and dungeons, and robbed men of the jewel of
the soul-. That church had ignorance upon its knees. That
church went in partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and
between those two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart
of man was devoured. Of course I have met, and cheerfully
admit that there are thousands of good Catholics; but Catholi
cism is contrary to human liberty. Catholicism bases salvation
upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason
under foot. And for that reason it is wrong. Thousands of
�215
volumes could not contain the crimes of the Catholic church.
They could not contain even the names of her victims. With
sword and fire, with rack and chain, with dungeon and whip she
endeavored to convert the world. In weakness a beggar—in
power a highwayman—alms dish or dagger—tramp or tyrant.
THE EPISCOPALIANS.
The next church I wish to speak of is the Episcopalian. That
was founded by Henry VIII., now in heaven. He cast off .Queen
Catherine and Catholicism together, and he accepted Episcopalianism and Anne Boleyn at the same time. That church, if it
had a few more ceremonies, would be Catholic. If it had a few
less, nothing. We have an Episcopalian church in this country,
and it has all the imperfections of a poor relation. It is always
boasting of its rich relative. In England the creed is made by
law, the same as we pass statutes here. And when a gentleman
dies in England, in order to determine whether he shall be
saved or not, it is necessary for the power of heaven to read the
acts of parliament. It becomes a question of law, and sometimes
a man is damned on a very nice point. Lost on demurrer. A
few years ago a gentleman by the name of Seabury, Samuel
Seabury, was sent over to England to get some apostolic succes
sion. We had not a drop in the house. It was necessary for
the bishops of the English church to put their hands upon his
head. They refused. There was no act of parliament justifying
it. He had then to go to the Scotch bishops; and, had the
Scotch bishops refused, we never would have had any apostolic
succession in the New World, and God would have been driven
out of half the earth, and the true church never could have been
founded upon this continent. But the Scotch bishops put their
hands on his head, and now we have an unbroken succession of
heads and hands from St. Paul to the last bishop. In this
country the Episcopalians have done some good, and I want to
thank that church. Having on an average less religion than the
others—on an average you have done more good to mankind.
You preserved some of the humanities. You did not hate
music ; you did not absolutely despise painting and you did not
altogether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted that it
was no worse to keep time with your feet than with your hands.
And some went so far as to say that people, could play cards,
and that God would overlook it, or would look the other way.
For all these things accept my thanks. When I was a boy, the
other churches looked upon dancing as probably the mysterious
sin against the Holy Ghost; and they used to teach that when
four boys got in a hay-mow, playing at seven-up, that the eternal
God stood whetting the sword of his eternal wrath waiting to
strike them down to the lowest hell. That Church has done
..z
z
�216
some good. The Episcopal creed is substantially like the
Catholic, containing a few additional absurdities. The Epis
copalians teach that it is easier to get forgiveness for sin after
you have been baptised. They seem to think that the moment
you are baptised you become a member of the firm, and as such
are entitled to wickedness at cost. This church is utterly unsuited to a free people. Its government is tyrannical, supercihous and absurd. Bishops talk as though they were responsible
for the soulsi in their charge. They wear vests that button on
one side. Nothing is so essential to the clergy of this denomi
nation as a good voice. Tbe Episcopalians have persecuted just
to the extent of their power. Their treatment of the Irish has
Deen a crime—a crime lasting for three hundred years. That
church persecuted the Puritans of England and the Presbyterians
of bcotland. In England the altar is the mistress of the throne,
and this mistress has always looked at honest wives with scorn.
THE METHODISTS.
About a hundred and fifty years ago, two men', John Wesley and
George Whitfield, said : “If everybody is going to hell, someoughtmention it.” The Episcopal clergy said ; “ Keep
df,tear your gown-” Wesley and Whitfield said :
lais frightful truth ought to be proclaimed from the housetop
of every opportunity, from the highway of every occasion.” They
were good, honest men. They believed their doctrine. And
they said: “If there is a hell, and a Niagara of souls pouring
over an eternal precipice of ignorance, somebody ought to say
something; They were right; somebody ought, if such a thing
is true. Wesley was a believer in the Bible. He believed in
the actual presence of the Almighty. God used to do miracles
tor him ; used to put off a rain several days to give his meeting
* ° G?ce.’ ,USed to cure
horse of lameness; used to cure
Mr. Wesley s headaches. And Mr. Wesley also believed in the
actual existence of the devil. He believed that devils had posSeT?In °! P.e°Ple- He taIked t0 the devil when he was in folks,
and the devil told him that he was going to leave ; and that he
was going into another person. That he would be there at a
certain time ; and Wesley went to that other person, and there
e devil was, prompt to the minute. He regarded every con
version as warfare between God and this devil for the possession
of that human soul, and that in the warfare God had gained the
victory. Honest, no doubt. Mr. Wesley did not believe in
i rty" honest, no doubt. Was opposed to the liberty
°
j ° m1?168' Honestly so. Mr. Wesley preached a sermon
entitled ‘The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes,” in which he
took the ground that earthquakes were caused by sin ; and the
only way to stop them was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
/
�217
No doubt an honest man. Wesley and Whitfield fell out on the
question of predestination. Wesley insisted that God invited
everybody to the feast. Whitfield said he did not invite those
he knew would not come. Wesley said he did. Whitfield said:
“Well, he did not put plates for them, anyway.” Wesley said
he did. So that, when they were in hell he could show them
that there was a seat left for them. The Church that they
founded is still active. And probably no Church in the world
has done so much preaching for as little money as the Method
ists. Whitfield believed in slavery, and advocated the slave
trade. And it was of Whitfield that Whittier made the two
lines:—
He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast,
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost.
We have lately had a meeting of the Methodists, and I find,
by their statistics, that they believe that they have converted
130,000 folks in a year. That, in order to do this, they have
26,000 preachers, 226,000 Sunday-school scholars, and about
100,000,000 dollars invested in church property. I find, in
looking over the history of the world, that there are 40,000 000
or 50,000.000 of people born a year, and if they are saved at the
rate of 130,000 a year, about how long will it take that doctrine
to save this world ? Good, honest people; but they are mistaken. In old times they were very simple. Churches used to
be like barns. They used to have them divided—men on that
side, women on this. A little barbarous. We have advanced
since then, and we now find as a fact, demonstrated by experi
ence, that a man sitting by the woman he loves can thank God
as heartily as though sitting between two men that he has never
been introduced to.
There is another thing the Methodists should remember,
and that is that the Episcopalians were the greatest enemies they
ever had. And they should remember that the Freethinkers
have always treated them kindly and well. There is one thing
about the Methodist Church in the North that I like. But I find
that it is not Methodism that does that. I find that the Methodist
Church in the South is as much opposed to liberty as the Me
thodist Church North is in favor of liberty. So it is not
Methodism that is in favor of liberty or slavery. They differ a
little in their creed from the rest. They do not believe that
God does everything. They believe that he does his part, and
that you must do the fest, and that getting to heaven is a part
nership business. The Methodist Church is adapted to new
countries—its ministers are generally uncultured, and with them
zeal takes the place of knowledge. They convert people with
noise. In the silence that follows most of the converts back
slide. In a little while a struggle will commence between the
few who are growing and the orthodox many. The few will be
�218
driven out, and the Church will be governed by those who be
lieve without understanding.
THE PRESBYTERIANS.
The next Church is the Presbyterian, and in my judgment the
worst of all, as far as creed is concerned. This Church was
founded by John Calvin, a murderer! John Calvin, having
power in Geneva, inaugurated human torture. Voltaire abolished
torture in France. The man who abolished torture, if the Chris
tian religion be true, God is now torturing in hell; and the man
who inaugurated torture is now a glorified angel in heaven. It
will not do. John Kdox started this doctrine in Scotland, and
there is this peculiarity about Presbyterianism—it grows best
where the soil is poorest. I read the other day an account of a
meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine, a
dialogue between a pestilence and a famine ! Imagine a conver
sation between a block and an axe ! As I read, their conversa
tion it seemed to me as though John Knox and John Calvin were
made for each other ; that they fitted each other like the upper
and lower jaws of a wild beast. They believed happiness was a
crime ; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy ; and they did
all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the
mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal death.
They taught the doctrine that God had a right to damn us be
cause he made us. That is just the reason that he has not a
right to damn us. There is some dust. Unconscious dust!
What right has God to change that unconscious dust into a
human being, when he knows that human being will Bin ; when
he knows that human being will suffer eternal agony ? Why not
leave him in the unconscious dust ? What right has an infinite
God to add to the sum of human agony ? Suppose I knew that
I could change that piece of furniture into a living, sentient
human being, and I knew that that being would suffer untold
agony for ever. If I did it, I would be a fiend. I would leave
that being in the unconscious dust. And yet we are told that
we must believe such a doctrine or we are to be eternally
damned ! It will not do. In 1839 there was a division in this
Church, and they had a law suit to see which was the Church of
God. And they tried it by a judge and jury, and the jury de
cided that the new school was the Church of God; and then
they got a new trial, and the next jury decided that the old
school was the Church of God, and that settled it. That Church
teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for me ! I do not
want it. I do not wish to go to heaven unless I can settle by
the books, and go there because I ought to go there. I have
said, and I say again, I do not wish to be a charity angel. I have
no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies. The other
�219
day a young gentleman, a Presbyterian who had just been con
verted, came to me and he gave me a tract, and he told me he
was perfectly happy. Said I: “ Do you think a great many
people are going to hell?” “Oh, yes.” “ And you are per
fectly happy ? ” “ Well, he did not know as he was, quite.”
“ Would you not be happier if they were all going to heaven ? ”
“ Oh, yes.” “ Well, then, you are not perfectly happy ? ” “ No,
he did not think he was.” “ When you get to heaven, then you
will be perfectly happy ? ” “ Oh, yes.” “ Now, when we are
only going to hell, you are not quite happy ; but when we are
in hell, and you in heaven, then you will be perfectly happy ?
You will not be as decent when you get to be angel as you are
now, will you ?” ' “Well,” he said, “that was not exactly it.”
Said I: “ Suppose your mother were in hell, would you be happy
in heaven then?” “Well,” he says, “I suppose God would
know the best place for mother.” And I thought to myself,
then, if I was a woman, I would like to have five or six boys
like that. It will not do. Heaven is where those are we love,
and those who love us. And I wish to go to no world unless I
can be accompanied by those who love me here. Talk about the
consolations of this infamous doctrine ! The consolations of a
doctrine that makes a father say: “ I can be happy, with my
daughter in hell; ” that makes a mother say: “I can be happy,
with my generous, brave boy in hell ; ” that makes a boy say:
“ I can enjoy the glory of heaven, with the woman who bore me,
the woman who would have died for me, in eternal agony ” ! And
they call that tidings of great joy 1 No Church has done more
to fill the world with gloom than the Presbyterian. Its creed is
frightful, hideous, and hellish. The Presbyterian God is the
monster of monsters. He is. an eternal executioner, jailer and
turnkey. He will enjoy for ever the shrieks of the lost—the
wails of the damned. Hell is the festival of the Presbyterian
God.
THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.
I have not time to speak of the Baptists,—that Jeremy Taylor
said were as much to be rooted out as anything that is the great
est pest and nuisance on the earth. He hated the Baptists be
cause they represented, in some little degree, the liberty of
thought. Nor have I time to speak of the Quakers, the best of
all, and abused by all. I cannot forget that John Fox, in the
year of grace 1640, was put in the pillory and whipped from
town to town, scarred, put in a dungeon, beaten, trampled upon,
and what for? Simply because he preached the doctrine:
“Thou shalt not resist evil with evil.” “ Thou shalt love thy
enemies.” . Think of what the church must have been that
day to scar the flesh of that loving man! Just think of it! I
say I have not time to speak of all these sects—the varieties of
�220
dXXf’th118 and pamP,b^ites- There are hundreds and hundiffprin J eS1 Se-Ct% aH founded uPon this creed that I read,
am fl kf- 81mP y in degree. Ah! but they say to me : “ You
rpi
1DF sornething that is dead. Nobody believes this now.
Th! Prea?h®rs do DOt believe what they preach in the pulpit.
A nd P£°P e ln ,the Pews do not believe what they hear preached.”
This i«?nSayf ° “e : “ ?°U are fightinS something that is dead,
world w 3 • °rTu We
not believe a solitary creed in the
a j
s,gn,them and swear that we believe them, but we do
admit t*hat°<-ke °V1S d°’ ^ndallthe ministers they say in private,
whXr th- •67 d° nOt believe U’ not ^e.” I do not know
nrp?Jh ?!8 i1S t° 7 n0t7 1 take ifc that they believe what they
P ®a*rL JJke \hat when the? “eet and solemnly agree to a
c eed that they are honest and really believe in that creed. But let
us see it lam waging a war against the ideas of the dead. Let
us see it 1 am simply storming a cemetery. The Evangelical
Alliance, made up of all orthodox denominations of the world,
met only a few years ago, and here is their creed : They believe
in the divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the holy
^Pture-s; the right and duty of private judgment in the interp a ion o the holy scriptures, but if you interpret wrong you
are damned. They believe in the unity of the godhead and the
trinity of the persons therein. They believe in the utter de
pravity of human nature. There can be no more infamous doc
trine than that. They look upon a little child as a lump of
depravity. I look upon it as a bud of humanity, that will, in the
mr and light of love and joy, blossom into rich and glorious life.
1 otal depravity of human nature1 Here is a woman whose husDand has been lost at sea ; the news comes that he has been
drowned by the ever-hungry waves, and she waits. There is
something in her heart that tells her he is alive. And she waits.
And years afterwards as she looks down toward the little gate
she sees him ; he has been given back by the sea, and she rushes
to his arms, and covers his face with kisses and with tears. And
it that infamous doctrine is true, every tear is a crime, and every
kiss a blasphemy. It will not do. According to that doctrine,
it a man steals and repents, and takes back the property, the re
pentance and the taking back of the property are two other
crimes. It is an infamy. What else do they believe? “The
justification of a sinner by faith alone,” without works—just
taith. Believing something that you do not understand. Of
course God can not afford to reward a man for believing anything
that is reasonable. God rewards only for believing something
that is unreasonable. If you believe something that is im
probable and unreasonable, you are a Christian; but if you
believe something that you know is not so, then—you are a
saint.
J
They believe in the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and
•I
�221
in the eternal punishment of the wicked. Tidings of great joy !
They are so good that they will not associate with Universalists.
They will not associate with Unitarians; they will not associate
with scientists ; they will only associate with those who believe
that God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn
the most of us. The Evangelical Alliance reiterates the absurdi
ties of the Dark Ages—repeats the five points of Calvin—re
plenishes the fires.of hell—certifies to the mistakes and miracles
of the Bible—maligns the human race, and kneels to a God who
accepted the agony of the innocent as an atonement for the
guilty.
WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE ?
Then they say to me : “ What do you propose ? You have torn
this down, what do you propose to give us in place of it ? ” I
have net torn the good down. I have only endeavored to trample
out the ignorant, cruel fires of hell. I do not tear away the
passage: “ God will be merciful to the merciful.” I do not
destroy the promise : “If you will forgive others, God will for
give you.” I would not for anything blot out the faintest star
that shines in the horizon of human despair, nor in the sky of
human hope; but I will do what I can to get that infinite
shadow out of the heart of man.
“ What do you propose in place of this? ”
Well, in the first place, I propose good fellowship—good
friends all around. No matter what we believe, shake hands
and let it go. That is your opinion; this is mine; let us be
friends. Science makes friends; religion, superstition, makes
enemies. They say : Belief is important. I say : No, actions
are important. Judge by deed, not by creed. Good fellowship
—good friends—sincere men and women—mutual forbearance,
born of mutual respect. We have had too many of these solemn
people. Whenever I see an exceedingly solemn man, I know he
is an exceedingly stupid man. No man of any humor ever
founded a religion—never. Humor sees both sides. While rea
son is the holy light, humor carries the lantern, and the man
with a keen sense of humor is preserved from the solemn stu
pidities of superstition. I like a man who has got good feeling
for everybody; good fellowship. One man said to another:
“ Will you take a glass of wine? ” “I do not drink.” “ Will
you smoke a cigar ?” “I do not smoke.” “Maybe you will
chew something? ” “I do not chew.” “ Let us eat some hay.”
“I tell you I do not eat hay.” “ Well, then, good-by, for you
are no company for man or beast.” I believe in the gospel of
Cheerfulness, the gospel of Good Nature; the gospel of Good
Health. Let us pay some attention to our bodies. Take care of
our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves. Good
health! And I believe the time will come when the public
�222
thought will be so great and grand that gt will be looked
upon as infamous to perpetuate disease. I believe the time
will come when man will not fill the future with consumptmn and insanity. I believe the time will come when we
will study ourselves, and understand the laws of health
and then we will say: We are under the obligation to
put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children. Even
if I got to heaven, and had a harp, I would hate to look back
upon my children and grandchildren and see them diseased,
deformed, crazed—all suffering the penalties of crimes I had
committed. I believe in the gospel of Good Living. You
cannot make any God happy by fasting. Let us have good food,
and let us have it well cooked—and it is a thousand times
better to know how to cook than it is to understand any theology
in the world. I believe in the gospel of good clothes ; I believe
in the gospel of good houses ; in the gospel of water and soap.
1 believe in the gospel of intelligence ; in the gospel of educa
tion. The school-house is my cathedral. The universe is my
Bible. I believe in that gospel of justice, that we must reap
what we sow. I do not believe in forgiveness as it is preached
by the church. We do not need the forgiveness of God but of
each other and of ourselves. If I rob Mr. Smith and God
forgive me, how does that help Smith? If I, by slander cover
some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she
withers away like a blighted flower, and afterward I get the
forgiveness of God, how does that help her ? If there is another
world, we have got to settle with the people we have wronged
in this No bankrupt court there. Every cent must be paid,
lhe Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you com
mitted a crime you had to kill a sheep, now they say “ charge
it.
Put it on the slate. It will not do. For every crime
you commit you must answer to yourself, and to the one you
injure. And if you have ever clothed another with woe, as with
a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though
you had. not done that thing. No forgiveness by the Gods.
Eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice, so far as Nature is con
cerned. You must reap the result of your acts. Even when
forgiven by the one you have injured, it is not as though the in
jury had not been done. That is what I believe in. And if it
goes hard with me, I will stand it, and I will cling to my logic
and I will bear it like a man. And I believe, too, in the gospel
of Liberty, in giving to others what we claim for ourselves. I
believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more
liberty you give away, the more you will have. In liberty ex
travagance is economy. Let us be just. Let us be generous to
each other. I believe in the gospel of Intelligence. That is the
only lever capable of raising mankind. Intelligence must be the
savior of this world. Humanity is the grand religion, and no
�223
God can put a m£n in hell in another world, who has made a
little heaven in this. God cannot make a man miserable it that
man has made somebody else happy. God cannot hate anybody
who is capable of loving anybody. Humanity—that word
embraces all there is. So I believe in this great gospel of Hu
manity. “Ah! but,” they say, “it will not do. You must
believe ” I say, No. My gospel of health will bring life. My
gospel of intelligence, my gospel of good living, my gospel of
good-fellowship will cover the world with happy homes. My
doctrine will put carpets upon your floors, pictures upon your
walls. My doctrine will put books upon your shelves, ideas m
your minds. My doctrine will rid the world of the abnormal
monsters born of ignorance and superstition. My doctrine will
give us health, wealth and happiness. That is what 1 want.
That is what I believe in. Give us intelligence. In a little
while a man will find that he cannot steal without robbing him
self He will find that he cannot murder without assassinating
his own joy. He will find that every crime is a mistake. He
will find that only that man carries the cross who does wrong,
and that upon the man who does right the cross turns to wings
that will bear him upward for ever. He will find that even in
telligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all the human
'
ia<“ Oh,” but they say to me “ you take away immortality.” I do
not. If we are immortal it is a . fact in nature, and we are not
indebted to priests for it, nor to Bibles for it, and it cannot be
destroyed by unbelief. As long as we love we will hope to live,
and when the one dies that we love we say : “ Oh, that we could
meet again,” and whether we do or not it will not be the work of
theology. It will be a fact in nature. I would not for my life
destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a
poor woman rocks a cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled
darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine
chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell. One
world at a time is my doctrine. It is said in this Testament:
“ Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; ” and I say: Suffi
cient unto each world is the evil thereof. And suppose after all
that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being for ever
with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is
to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to
eternal life is eternal sleep. Upon the shadowy shore of death
the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained
by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch
of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again
the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The
dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping
sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering
fear. I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as
�224
nf
d t,°,earTfch’ a8 having become a part of the elemental
wealth of the world-I would rather think of them as unconscious
dust, I would rather dream of them as gurgling in the stream
floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the
shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as the lost visions
uhan
have even the faintest fear that
their naked souls had been clutched by an orthodox God. But
tor me, 1 will leave the dead where nature leaves them. Whatever
h-T SprJng • "P?n my heart 1 wil1 o^ish, I will give it
breath of sighs and ram of tears. But I cannot believe that there
is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for
al Pam. 1 would rather that every God would destroy him
self I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to
black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer
eternal agony.
1 kave made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be
merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand.—That he will
not torture the forgiving. Upon that rock I stand.—That every •
man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no
star, in which honesty is a crime. Upon that rock I stand.—The
honest man, the good, kind, sweet woman, the happy child, have
nothing to fear, neither in this world nor the world to come.
Upon that rock I Btand.
London:
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh
63, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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What must we do to be saved? [Parts I and II]
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 2 v. ([195]-224 p.) ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. At head of title: 'Freethought Publishing Company's edition'. No. 90c in Stein checklist.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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1884
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N410
N411
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Christianity
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Salvation
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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What must I do to be saved?
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 3rd ed.
Place of publication: Leek
Collation: 88 p. ; 13 cm.
Series title: Bijou reprints
Series number: No. 1
Notes: Extensively annotated in pencil and ink.
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Ingersoll, Robert Green
Publisher
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John Barrs
Michael Wright
Philip Wright
W. Larner Sugden
Josiah Gimson
Date
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1881
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G5774
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Religion
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (What must I do to be saved?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Salvation
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Text
WHAT MUST WE DO
TO BE SAVED?
BY
Colonel Ingersoll.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
*
LONDON :
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,' '
2
Newcastle-street, Farringdon-street, E.Cj
1902.
�WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
■---------- ♦------------
“ The Nuremberg Man was operated by a combination of
pifes and levers, and though he could breathe and digest
perfectly, and even reason as well as most theologians, was
made of nothing but wood and leather.”
The whole world has been filled with fear. Ignorance
has been the refuge of the soul. For thousands of years
the intellectual ocean was ravaged by the buccaneers of
reason. Pious souls clung to the shore and looked at
the lighthouse. The seas were filled with monsters, and
the islands with sirens. The people were driven in the
middle of a narrow road while priests went before,
beating the hedges on either side to frighten the robbers
from their lairs. The poor followers, seeing no robbers,
thanked their brave leaders with all their hearts.
Huddled in folds, they listened with wide eyes while the
shepherds told of ravening wolves. With great gladness
they exchanged their fleeces for security. Shorn and'
shivering, they had the happiness of seeing their pro
tectors comfortable and warm. Through all the years,
those who ploughed divided with those who prayed.’
Wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave
to the cathedral, and frightened poverty gave even its
rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy. Fear is the dungagn
of the mind, and superstition is a dagger with which
hypocrisy assassinates the soul. Courage is liberty. I
am in favor of absolute freedom of thought. In the
realm of mind everyone is monarch; everyone is robed,
sceptred, and crowned, and everyone wears the purple of
authority. I belong to the republic of intellectual liberty,
and only those are good citizens of that republic who
depend, upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those
are traitors who resort to brute force.
�IW
3
%
’
•
, %
I
Now, I beg of you all to forget just for a few moments
that you are Methodists or Baptists or Catholics or
Presbyterians, and let us for an hour or two remember
only that we are men and women. And allow me to say
“ man ” and “ woman ” are the highest titles that can be
bestowed upon humanity. Let us, if possible, banish
all fear from the mind. Do not imagine that there is
some being in the infinite expanse who is not willing
that every man and woman should think for himself and
herself. Do not imagine that there is any being who
would give to his children the holy torch of reason, and
then damn them for following that sacred light. Let us
have courage. Priests have invented a crime called
“ blasphemy,” and behind that crime hypocrisy has
crouched for thousands of years. There is but one
blasphemy, and that is injustice. There is but one
worship, and that is justice. You need not fear the
anger of a God that you cannot injure. Rather fear to
injure your fellow-men. Do not be afraid of a crime
you cannot commit. The reason that you cannot injure
God is that the Infinite .is conditionless. You cannot
increase or diminish the happiness of any being without
changing that being’s condition. If God is condition
less, you can neither injure nor benefit him.
There was a Jewish gentlemen went into a restaurant
to get his dinner, and the devil of temptation whispered
in his ear: “ Eat some bacon.” He knew if there was
anything in the universe calculated to excite the wrath
of an Infinite Being, who made every shining star, it was
to see a gentleman eating bacon. He knew it, and he
knot?- the infinite being was looking—that he was the
eternal eavesdropper of the universe. But his appetite
got the better of his conscience, as it often has with us
all, and he ate that bacon. He knew it was wrong, and
his conscience felt the blood of shame in its cheek.
When he went into that restaurant the weather was
delightful, the sky was as blue as June, and when he
came out the sky was covered with angry clouds, the
lightning leaping from one to the other, and the earth
shaking beneath the voice of the thunder. He went
�4
back into that restaurant with a face as white as milk,
and he said to one of the keepers : “ My God, did you
ever hear such a fuss about a little piece of bacon ?” As
long as we harbor such opinions of infinity, as long as
we imagine the heavens to be filled with such tyranny,
just so long the sons of men will be cringing, intellectual
cowards. Let us think, and let us honestly express our
thought.
Do not imagine for a moment that I think people who
disagree with me are bad people. I admit, and I cheer
fully admit, that a very large proportion of mankind, and
a very large majority, a vast number, are reasonably
honest. I believe that most Christians believe what
they teach; that most ministers are endeavoring to
make this world better. I do not pretend to be better
than they are. It is an intellectual question. It is a
question, first, of intellectual liberty, and after that a
question to be settled at the bar of human reason. I do
not pretend to be better than they are. Probably I am
a good deal worse than many of them, but that is not
the question. The question is : “ Bad as I am, have I
the right to think ? ”
And I think I have for two
reasons : First, I cannot help it. And secondly, I like
it. The whole question is right at a point. If I have
not a right to express my thoughts, who has ? “ Oh,”
they say, “ we will allow you to think, we will not burn
you.” “ All right; why won’t you burn me ? ” “ Because
we think a decent man will allow another to think and to
express his thought.” “Then the reason you do not
persecute me for my thought is that you believe it would
be infamous in you ? ” “ Yes.” “ And yet you worship
a God who will, as you declare, punish me for ever ? ”
Surely an infinite God ought to be as just as man.
Surely no God can have the right to punish his children
for being honest. He should not reward hypocrisy with
heaven, and punish candor with eternal pain.
The next question then is: Can I commit a sin
against God by thinking ? If God did not intend I
should think, why did he give me a thinker ?
For one,
I am convinced, not only that I have the right to think,
�5
but that it is my duty to express my honest thoughts.
Whatever the Gods may say we must be true to. our
selves. We have got what they call the Christian
system of religion, and thousands of people wonder how
I can be wicked enough to attack that system. There
are many good things about it, and I shall never attack
anything that I believe to be good ! I shall never fear
to attack anything I honestly believe to be wrong ! We
have what they call the Christian religion, and I find,
just in proportion that nations have been religious, just
in the proportion they have clung to the religion of their
founders, they have gone back to barbarism. I find
that Spain, Portugal, Italy, are the three worst nations
in Europe. I find that the nation nearest infidel is the
most prosperous—France. And so I say there can be
no danger in the exercise of absolute intellectual freedom.
I find among ourselves the men who think are, at least,
as good as those who do not. We have, I say, a
Christian system, and that system is founded upon what
they are pleased to call the “ New Testament.” Who
wrote the New Testament ? I do not know. Who does
know? Nobody. We have found many manuscripts
containing portions of the New Testament, some of these
manuscripts leave out five or six books—many of them.
Others more ; others less. No two of these manuscripts
agree. Nobody knows who wrote these manuscripts.
They are all written in Greek. The disciples of Christ,
as far as we know, knew only Hebrew. Nobody ever
saw, so far as we know, one of the original Hebrew
manuscripts.
Nobody ever saw anybody who had
seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had
ever seen anybody that had ever seen one of the
original Hebrew manuscripts. No doubt the clergy
of your city have told you these facts thousands
of times, and they will be obliged to me for having
repeated them once more. These manuscripts are
written in what are called capital Greek letters. They
are called Uncial manuscripts, and the New Testament
was not divided into chapters and verses, even until the
year of grace 1551. In the original the manuscripts
�6
and gospels are signed by nobody.
The epistles are
addressed to nobody ; and they are signed by the same
person. All the addresses, all the pretended ear marks
showing to whom they were written, and by whom they
were written, are simply interpolations, and everybody
who has studied the subject- knows it. It is further
admitted that even these manuscripts have not been
properly translated; and they have a syndicate now
making a new translation ; and I suppose that I cannot
tell whether I really believe the New Testament or not
until I see that new translation. You must remember,
also, one other thing. Christ never wrote a solitary
word of the New Testament—not one word. There is
an account that he once stooped and wrote something in
the sand, but that has not been preserved. He never
told anybody to write a word. He never said : “ Matthew,
remember this. Mark, do not forget to put that down.
Luke, be sure that in your gospel you have this. John,
do not forget it.” Not one word. And it has always
seemed to me that a being coming from another world,
with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should
at least have verified that message by his own signa
ture. Is it not wonderful that not one word was
written by Christ ? Is it not strange that he gave no
orders to have his words preserved—words upon which
hung the salvation of a world ? Why was nothing
written ?
I will tell you.
In my judgment they
expected the end of the world in a few days.
That
generation was not to pass away until the heavens should
be rolled up as a scroll, and until the earth should melt
with fervent heat. That was their belief. They believed
that the world was to be destroyed, and that the saints
were then to govern the earth. And they even went so
far among the apostles, as we frequently do now before
election, as to divide out the offices in advance. This
Testament, as it now is, was not written for hundreds of
years after the apostles were dust. Many of the pre
tended facts lived in the open mouth of credulity. They
were in the waste-baskets of forgetfulness.
They
depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for cen-
�7
turies those doctrines and stories were blown about by
the inconstant winds. And when reduced}to writing,
some gentleman would write by the side of the passage
his idea of it, and the next copyist would put that in
as a part of the text. And, when it was mostly written,
and the Church got into trouble, and wanted a passage
to help it out, one was interpolated to order. So that
now it is among the easiest things in the world to pick
out at least one hundred interpolations in the Testament.
And I will pick some of them out before I get through.
And let me say here, once for all, that for th e man
Christ I have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all,
that the place where man has died for man is holy
ground. And let me say, once for all, that to that great
and serene man I gladly pay the tribute of my admira
tion and my tears. He was a reformer in his day. He
was an infidel in his time. He was regarded as a
blasphemer, and his life was destroyed by hypocrites,
who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample
freedom and manhood out of the human mind. Had I
lived at that time I would have been his friend; and,
should he come again he will not find a better friend
than I will be. That is for the man. For the theo
logical creation I have a different feeling. If he was, in
fact, God, he knew there was no such thing as death.
He knew that what we called death was but the eternal
opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy ; and it
took no heroism to face a death that was eternal life.
But when a man, when a poor boy sixteen years of age,
goes upon the field of battle to keep his flag in heaven,
not knowing but that death ends all; not knowing but
that when the shadows creep over him, the darkness
will be eternal, there is heroism. For the man who, in
the darkness, said : “ My God, why hast thou forsaken
me ?”—for that man I have nothing but respect, admira
tion, and love. Back of the theological shreds, rags,
and patches, hiding the real Christ, I see a genuine man.
A while ago I made up my mind to find out what was
necessary for me to do in order to be saved. If I have
got a soul, I want it saved. I do not wish to lose
�8
anything that is of value. For thousands of years the
world has been asking that question : “ What must we
do to be saved”? Saved from poverty ? No. Saved
from crime ? No. Tyranny? No. But “ What must
we do to be saved from the eternal wrath of the God
who made us all ?” If God made us, he will not destroy
us. Infinite wisdom never made a poor investment.
Upon all the works of an infinite God, a dividend must
finally be declared. Why should God make failures ?
Why should he waste material ?. Why should he not
correct his mistakes, instead of damning them ? The
pulpit has cast a shadow over even the cradle. The
doctrine of endless punishment has covered the cheeks
of this world with tears. I despise it, and I defy it. I
made up my mind, I say, to see what I had to do in
order to save my soul according to the Testament, and
thereupon I read it. I read the gospels, Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, and found that the Church had been
deceiving me. I found that the clergy did not under
stand their own book: that they had been building upon
passages that had been interpolated; upon passages
that were entirely untrue, and I will tell you why I
think so.
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW.
According to the Church, the first gospel was written
by Matthew. As a matter of fact he never wrote a
word of it—never saw it, never heard of it, and probably
never will. But for the purposes of this lecture I admit
that he wrote it. I will admit that he was with Christ
for three years; that he was his constant companion ;
that he shared his sorrows and his triumphs; that he
heard his words by the lonely lakes, the barren hills, in
synagogue and street, and that he knew his heart and
became acquainted with his thoughts and aims.
Now let us see what Matthew says we must do in
order to be saved. And I talke it that, if this is true,
Matthew fe as good authority as any minister in the
�9
world. The first thing I find upon the subject of salva
tion is in the fifth chapter of Matthew, and is embraced
in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the
Mount. It is as follows: “ Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Good!
“ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
Good ! Whether they belonged to any church or not;
whether they believed the Bible or not. “ Blessed are
the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Good!
“ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the
children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness sake, (that’s me, a little !) for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.” Good !
In the same sermon he says : “ Think not that I am
come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfil.” And then he makes use
of this remarkable language, almost as applicable to
day as it was then: “For I say unto you that except
your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the
kingdom of heaven.” Good ! In the sixth chapter I
find the following, and it comes directly after the prayer
known as the Lord’s Prayer: “ For if ye forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither
will your Father forgive your trespasses.” I accept the
condition. There is an offer ; I accept it. If you will
forgive men that trespass against you, God will forgive
your trespasses against him. I accept the terms, and I
never will ask any god to treat me better than I treat
my fellow-men. There is a square promise. There is a
contract. If you will forgive others God will forgive
you. And it does not say you must believe in the Old
Testament, or be baptised, or join the Church, or keep
Sunday; that you must count beads, or pray, or
become a nun, or a priest; that you must preach
sermons or hear them, build churches or fill them. Not
one word is said about eating or fasting, denying or
believing.
It simply says, if you forgive others, God
B
�IO
will forgive you; and it must of necessity be true. No
god could afford to damn a forgiving man. Suppose
God should damn to everlasting fire a man so great and
good, that he, looking from the abyss of hell, would
forgive God—how would a god feel then ?
Now let me make myself plain upon one subject, per
fectly plain. For instance, I hate Presbyterianism, but
I know hundreds of splendid Presbyterians. Under
stand me. I hate Methodism, and yet I know hundreds
of splendid Methodists. I hate Catholicism, and like
Catholics. I hate insanity, but not the insane.
I do not war against men. I do not war against
persons. I war against certain doctrines that I believe
to be wrong. But I give to every other human being
every right that I claim for myself.
The next thing that I find is in the seventh chapter
and the second verse : “For with what judgment ye
judge, ye shall be judged ; and with what measure ye
mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Good ! That
suits me. And in the twelfth chapter of Matthew.:
“ For whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is
in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and
mother. For the son of man shall come in the glory of
his father with his angels, and then he shall reward
every man according------ .” To the Church he belongs
to? No. To the manner in which he was baptised?
No. According to his creed? No. “Then he shall
reward every man according to his works.” Good ! I
subscribe to that doctrine.
And in the sixteenth chapter: “And Jesus called a
little child to him and stood him in the midst; and said,
‘Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the
kingdom of heaven.’ ” I do not wonder that in his day,
surrounded by Scribes and Pharisees, he turned lovingly
to little children. And yet, see what children—the little
children—of God have been. What an interesting
dimpled darling John Calvin was. Think of that
prattling babe, Jonathan Edwards ! Think of the infants
that founded the Inquisition, that invented instruments
�II
of torture to tear human flesh. They were the ones
who had become as little children. They were the
children of faith.
So I find in the nineteenth chapter : “ And behold,
one came and said unto him : ‘ Good master, what good
thing shall I do that I may have eternal life ?’ And he
said unto him : ‘ Why call’st thou me good ? There is
none good but one, and that is God; but if thou will
enter into eternal life, keep the Commandments and he
said unto him, ‘ Which ?’ ” Now, there is a fair issue.
Here is a child of God asking God what is necessary for
him to do in order to inherit eternal life. And God said
to him : “ Keep the Commandments.” And the child
said to the Almighty: “Which?” Now, if there ever
has been an opportunity given to the Almighty to furnish
a man of an inquiring mind with the necessary informa
tion upon that subject, here was the opportunity. “ He
saith unto him, ‘ Which ?’ And Jesus said : ‘ Thou shalt
do no murder ; thou shalt not commit adultery ; thou
shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness ; honor
thy father and mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself.’ ” He did not say to him : “You must believe
in me—that I am the only begotten son of the living
God.” He did not say: “You must be born again.”
He did not say : “You must believe the Bible.” He
did not say: “You must remember the Sabbath day, to
keep it holy.” He simply said:. “Thou shalt do no
murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt
not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor
thy father and thy mother; and thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself.” And thereupon the young man—
who, I think, was mistaken—said unto him : “ All these
things have I kept from my youth up.” What right has
the Church to add conditions of salvation ? Why should
we suppose that Christ failed to tell the young man all
that was necessary for him to do ? Is it possible that he
left out some important thing simply to mislead ? Will
some minister tell us why he thinks that Christ kept
back the “ scheme ” ?
Now comes an interpolation. In the old times, when
�12
the Church got a little scarce of money, they always put
in a passage praising poverty. So they had this young
man ask: “ What lack I yet ?” And Jesus said unto
him : “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast
and give t® the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in
heaven.” The Church has always been willing to swap
off treasures in heaven for cash down. And when the
next verse was written the Church must have been
nearly bankrupt. “And again I say unto you, it is
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Did
you ever know a wealthy disciple to unload on account
of that verse ? And then comes another verse, which I
believe is an interpolation : “ And everyone that has for
saken houses, or brethren or sisters, or father or mother,
or wife or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall
receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting
life.” Christ never said it. Never. “ Whosoever shall
forsake father and mother ?” Why, he said to this man
that asked him: “ What shall I do to inherit eternal
life?” among other things, he said : “ Honor thy father
and thy mother.” And we turn over the page and he
says again : “If you will desert your father and mother
you shall have everlasting life.” It will not do. If you
will desert your wife and your little children, or your
lands—the idea of putting a house and lot on equality
with wife and children. Think of that! I do not accept
the terms. I will never desert the one I love for the
promise of any god. It is far more important to love
your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why.
You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can
fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far
more important that you love your children than that you
love Jesus Christ. And why ? If he is God you cannot
help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness
in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you
die in that child’s arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far
more important to build a home than to erect a church.
The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love
has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is
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the fireside around which gather father and mother and
the sweet babes. There was a time when people believed
the infamy commanded in this frightful passage. There
was a time when they did desert fathers and mothers and
wives and children. St. Augustine says to the devotee :
“ Fly to the desert; and, though your wife put her arms
around your neck, tear her hands away; she is a tempta
tion of the Devil. Though your father and mother
throw their bodies athwart your threshold, step over
them; and though your children pursue, and with
weeping eyes beseech you to return, listen not. It is
the temptation of the Evil One. Fly to the desert and
save your soul.” Think of such a soul being worth
saving. While I live I propose to stand by the ones I
love.
There is another condition of salvation. I find it in
the twenty-fifth chapter : “ Then shall the King say unto
them on his right hand : 1 Come, ye blessed of My Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. For I was hungered, and ye gave me
meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a
stranger, and ye took me in ; I was naked, and ye clothed
me; and I was sick, and ye visited me; and I was in
prison, and ye came unto me.’ ” Good ! I tell you to
night that God will not punish with eternal thirst the
man who has put the cup of cold water to the lips of his
neighbor. God will not leave in the eternal nakedness
of pain the man who has clothed his fellow-men. For
instance, here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave
sailor who stands aside and allows a woman whom he
never saw before to take his place in the boat, and he
stands there, grand and serene as the wide sea, and
he goes down. Do you tell me that there is any god
who will push the lifeboat from the shore of eternal life
when that man wishes to step in ? Do you tell me that
God can be unpitying to the pitiful, that he can be
unforgiving to the forgiving ? I deny it; and from the
aspersions of- the pulpit I seek to rescue the reputation
of the Deity. Now I have read you substantially every
thing in Matthew on the subject of salvation. That_is
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all there is. Not one word about believing anything.
It is the gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel
of self-denial; and, if only that gospel had been preached,
persecution never would have shed one drop of blood,
Not one. According to the testimony, Matthew was
well acquainted with Christ. According to the testimony
he had been with him, and his companion for years, and
if it was necessary to believe anything in order to get
to heaven, Matthew should have told us. But he forgot
it, or he did not believe it, or he never heard of it. You
can take your choice. In Matthew, we find that heaven
is promised, first, to the poor in spirit. Second, to the
merciful. Third, to the pure in heart. Fourth, to the
peacemakers. Fifth, to those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake. Sixth, to those who keep and teach
the Commandments. Seventh, to those who forgive men
that trespass against them. Eighth, that we will be
judged as we judge others.
Ninth, that they who
receive prophets and righteous men shall receive a
prophet’s reward. Tenth, to those who do the will of
God. Eleventh, that every man shall be rewarded
according to his works. Twelfth, to those who become
as little children. Thirteenth, to those who forgive the
trespasses of others. Fourteenth, to the perfect: they
who sell all that they have and give to the poor. Fif
teenth, to them who forsake houses, and brethren, and
sisters, and father, and mother, and wife, and children,
and lands for the sake of Christ’s name. Sixteenth, to
those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty,
shelter to the stranger, clothes to the naked, comfort to
the sick, and who visit the prisoner. Nothing else is
said with regard to salvation in the Gospel according to
St. Matthew. Not one word about believing the Old
Testament to have been inspired ; not one word about
being baptised or joining a church ; not one word about
believing in any miracle; not even a hint that it was
necessary to believe that Christ was the son of God, or
that he did any wonderful or miraculous things, or that
he was born of a virgin, or that his coming had been
foretold by the Jewish prophets. Not one word about
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believing in the Trinity, or in fore-ordination or pre
destination. Matthew had not understood from Christ
that any such things were necessary to ensure the sal
vation of the soul.
According to the testimony, Matthew had been in the
company of Christ, some say three years and some say
one, but at least he had been with him long enough to
find out some of his ideas upon this great subject. And
yet Matthew never got the impression that it was
necessary to believe something in order to get to heaven.
He supposed that if a man forgave others God would
forgive him ; he believed that God would show mercy to
the merciful; that he would not allow those who fed the
hungry to starve ; that he would not put in the flames
of hell those who had given cold water to the thirsty ;
that he would not cast into the eternal dungeon of his
wrath those who had visited the imprisoned ; and that
he would not damn men who forgave others. Matthew
had it in his mind that God would treat us very much
as we treated other people; and that in the next world
he would treat with kindness those who had been loving
and gentle in their lives. It may be the apostle was
mistaken, but evidently that was his opinion.
THE GOSPEL OF MARK.
Let us now see what Mark thought it necessary for a
man to do to save his soul. In the fourth chapter, after
Jesus had given to the multitude by the sea the parable
of the sower, his disciples, when they were again alone,
asked him the meaning of the parable. Jesus replied:
“ Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the king
dom of God ; but unto them that are without, all these
things are done in parables : That seeing, they may see,
and not perceive ; and hearing they may hear, and not
understand, lest at any time they should be converted,
and their sins should be forgiven them.” It is a little
hard to understand why he should have preached to
people that he did not intend should know his meaning.
�i6
Neither is it quite clear why he objected to their being
converted. . This, I suppose, is one of the mysteries that
we should simply believe without endeavoring to com
prehend. With the above exception, and one other that
I will mention hereafter, Mark substantially agrees with
Matthew, and says that God will be merciful to the
merciful, and that he will be kind to the kind, that he
will pity the pitying, and love the loving. Mark upholds
the religion of Matthew until we come to the sixteenth
verse of the sixteenth chapter, and then I strike an inter
polation put in by hypocrisy, put in by priest who longed
to grasp with bloody hands the sceptre of universal
power. .Let me read it to you. It is the most infamous
passage in the Bible. Christ never said it. No sensible
man ever said it.
“ And He said unto them (that is, unto his disciples),
go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”
That passage was written so that fear would give alms
to hypocrisy. Now, I propose to show you that this is an
interpolation. How will I do it ? In the first place,
not one word is said about belief in Matthew. In the
next place, not one word about belief in Mark until I
come to that verse, and where is that said to have been
spoken ? . According to Mark, it is a part of that last
conversation of Jesus Christ—just before, according to
the account, he ascended bodily before their eyes. If
there ever was any important thing happened in this
world that was it. If there is any conversation that
people would be apt to recollect, it would be the last
conversation with a god before he rose visibly through
the air and seated himself upon the throne of the infinite.
We have in this Testament five accounts of the last
conversation happening between Jesus Christ and his
apostles. Matthew gives it, and yet Matthew does not
state that in that conversation Christ said : “ Whoso
believeth and is baptised shall be saved, and whoso
believeth not shall be damned.” And if he did say those
words they were the most important that ever fell from
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lips. Matthew did not hear it, or did not believe it, or
forgot it. Then I turn to Luke, and he gives an account
of this last conversation, and not one word does he say
upon that subject. Luke does not pretend that Christ
said that whoso believeth not shall be damned. Luke
certainly did not hear it.
Maybe he forgot it. Per
haps he did not think it worth recording.
Now, it
is the most important thing, if Christ said it, that he
ever said.
Then I turn to John, and he gives an
account of the last conversation, but not one solitary
word on the subject of belief or unbelief. Not one
solitary word on the subject of damnation. Not one.
John might not have been listening.
Then I turn to the first chapter of the Acts, and there
I find an account of the last conversation ; and in that
conversation there is not one word upon this subject.
This is a demonstration that the passage in Mark is an
interpolation. What other reason have I got ? There
is not one particle of sense in it. Why ? No man can
control his belief. You hear evidence for and against,
and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells
which side rises and which side falls. You cannot believe
as you wish. You must believe as you must. And he
might as well have said: “ Go into the world and preach
the Gospel, and whosoever has red hair shall be saved,
and whosoever hath not shall be damned.” I have
another reason. I am much obliged to the gentleman
who interpolated these passages. I am much obliged to
him that he put in some more—two more. Now hear :
“ And these signs shall follow them that believe.” Good !
“ In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall
speak with new tongues, and take up serpents, and if
they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. They
shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Bring on your believer! Let him cast out a devil. I
do not ask for a large one. Just a little one for a cent.
Let him take up serpents. “ And if he drink any deadly
thing it shall not hurt him.” Let me mix up a dose for
the believer, and if it does not hurt him I will join a
church.
“ Oh! but,” they say, “ those things only
B
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lasted through the Apostolic age.” Let us see. “ Go
into all the world and preach the Gospel, and whosoever
believeth and is baptised shall be saved; and these signs
shall follow them that believe.” How long ? I think at
least until they had gone into all the world. Certainly
those signs should follow until all the world has been
visited. And yet, if that declaration was in the mouth
of Christ, he then knew that one-half of the world was
unknown, and that he would be dead fourteen hundred
and fifty-nine years before his disciples would know that
there was another continent. And yet he said : “ Go
into the world and preach the Gospel,” and he knew then
that it would be fourteen hundred and fifty-nine years
before anybody could go. Well, if it was worth while to
have signs follow believers in the Old World, surely it
was worth while to have signs follow believers in the
New. And the very reason that signs should follow
would be to convince the unbeliever ; and there are as
many unbelievers now as ever, and the signs are as
necessary to-day as they ever were. I would like a few
myself. This frightful declaration : “ He that believeth
and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not
shall be damned,” has filled the world with agony and
crime. Every letter of this passage has been sword and
faggot; every word has been dungeon and chain. That
passage made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with
the faggot’s flames. That passage contradicts the Sermon
on the Mount, travesties the Lord’s Prayer, turns the
splendid religion of deed and duty into the superstition
of creed and cruelty. I deny it. It is infamous. Christ
never said it!
THE GOSPEL OF LUKE.
It is sufficient to say that Luke agrees substantially
with Matthew and Mark. “ Be ye therefore merciful, as
your Father is also merciful.” Good ! “ Judge not, and
ye shall not be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not
be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”
Good! “ Give, and it shall be given unto you good
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measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”
Good! I like it. “For the same measure that ye mete
withal it shall be measured to you again.”
He agrees substantially with Mark ; he agrees sub
stantially with Matthew; and I come at last to the nine
teenth chapter. “ And Zaccheus stood, and said unto
the Lord: ‘ Behold, Lord, the one-half of my goods I
give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any
man by false accusation I restore him fourfold.’ And
Jesus said unto him : ‘ This day is salvation come to this
house.’ ” That is good doctrine. He did not ask
Zaccheus what he believed. He did not ask him : “ Do
you believe in the Bible ? Do you believe in the five
points ? Have you ever been baptised—sprinkled, or
immersed ?” “ Half of my goods I give to the poor, and
if I have taken anything from any man by false accusa
tion I restore him fourfold. And Christ said : ‘ This day
is salvation come to this house.’ ” Good ! I read also
in Luke that Christ, when upon the cross, forgave his
murderers ; and that is considered the shining gem in
the crown of his mercy. He forgave his murderers.
He forgave the men who drove the nails in his hands, in
his feet—that plunged a spear in his side; the soldier
that, in the hour of death, offered him in mockery the
bitterness to drink. He forgave them all freely ; and
yet, although he would forgive them, he will, in the nine
teenth century—as we are told by the orthodox Church
-—damn to eternal fire a noble man for the expression of
his honest thoughts. That will not do. I find, too, in
Luke an account of two thieves that were crucified at
the same time. The other Gospels speak of them. One
says they both railed upon him. Another says nothing
about it. In Luke we are told that one railed upon him ;
but one of the thieves looked, and pitied Christ; and
Christ said to that thief : “ To-day shalt thou be with me
in Paradise.” Why did he say that ? Because the
thief pitied him. God cannot afford to trample beneath
the feet of his infinite wrath the smallest blossom of pity
that ever shed its perfume in the human heart!
Who was this thief ? To what Church did he belong ?
�20
I do’not know. The fact that he was a thief throws no
light on that question. Who was he ? What did he
believe ? I do not know. Did he believe in the Old
Testament ? In the miracles ? I do not know. Did
he believe that Christ was God ? I do not know.
Why, then, was the promise made to him that he
should meet Christ in Paradise ? Simply because he
pitied suffering innocence upon the cross. God cannot
afford to damn any man who is capable of pitying
anybody.
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.
And now we come to John, and that is where the
trouble commences. The other Gospels teach that God
will be merciful to the merciful, forgiving to the for
giving, kind to the kind, loving to the loving, just to the
just, merciful to the good. Now we come to John, and
here is another doctrine. And allow me to say that John
was not written until long after the others. John was
mostly written by the Church. “ And Jesus answered,
and said unto him : ‘ Furthermore, I say unto thee, that
except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom
of God.’ ” Why did he not tell Matthew that ? Why
did he not tell Luke that ? Why did he not tell Mark
that ? They never heard of it, or forgot it, or they did
not believe it. “ Except a man be born of water and
of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Why ? “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel
not that I said unto thee, ‘ Ye must be born again.’
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the spirit is spirit; and, he might
have added, “ That which is born of water is water.
“Marvel not that I say unto thee, ‘Ye must be born
again.’ ” And then the reason is given—and I admit
I did not understand it myself until I read the
reason, and when you hear the reason you will under
stand it as well as I do—and here it is: “ The wind
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bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, and canst not tell whence it cometh and whither
it goeth.”
So, I find in the book of John the idea of the Real
Presence. 11 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
That whomsoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have eternal life. For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish but have ever
lasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world
through him might be saved. He that believeth on him
is not condemned ; but he that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on
him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my
word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed
from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the
hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear shall
live, and shall come forth ; they that have done good
unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done
evil unto the resurrection of damnation. And this is
the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth
the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life ;
and I will raise him up at the last day. No man can
come to me except my Father, which hath sent me, draw
him; and I will raise him up at the last day. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath
everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers
did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is
the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man
may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread
which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this
bread he shall live for ever ; and the bread that I will
give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
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world. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life;
and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me,
and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I
live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall
live by me. This is that bread which came down from
heaven ; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead ;
he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” “ And he
said. Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come
unto me except it were given unto him of my Father.’ ”
“ Jesus said unto her : I am the resurrection and the life ;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall
he live.. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die.” “ He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal.” So I find in the book of John that, in order
to be saved, we must not only believe in Jesus Christ,
but we must eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of
Jesus Christ. If that Gospel is true, the Catholic Church
is right. But it is not true. I cannot believe it; and
yet for all that it may be true. But I do not believe it.
Neither do I believe there is any God in the universe
who will damn a man simply for expressing his belief.
“ Why,” they say to me, “ suppose all this should turn
out to be true, and you should come to the Day of
Judgment, and find all these things to be true. What
would you do then ?” I would walk up like a man, and
say I was mistaken. “ And suppose God was about to
pass judgment upon you; what would you say?” I
would say to him : “Do unto others as you would that
others should do unto you.” Why not ? I am told that
I must render “good for evil.” I am told that, “if
smitten on one cheek,” I must “ turn the other.” I am
told that I must “ overcome evil with good.” I am told
that I must “ love my enemies and will it do for this
God who tells me to “love my enemies” to damn his ?
�23
No, it will not do—it will not do. In the book of John
all these doctrines of regeneration—that it is necessary
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; that salvation
depends upon belief—in this book of John all these
doctrines find their warrant ; nowhere else. Read
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then read John, and you
will agree with me that the first three Gospels teach
that, if we are kind and forgiving to our fellows, God
will be kind and forgiving to us. In John we are told
that another man can be good for us, or bad for us, and
that the only way to get to heaven is to believe some
thing that we know is not so. All these passages about
believing in Christ, drinking his blood, and eating his
flesh are afterthoughts. They were written by the theo
logians, and in a few years they will be discovered as
unworthy of the lips of Christ.
THE CATHOLICS.
N ow upon these gospels that I have read the Churches
rest; and out of these things, mistakes and interpola
tions, they have made their creeds. And the first Church
to make a creed, so far as I know, was the Catholic.
It was the first Church that had any power. That is
the Church that has preserved all these miracles for us.
That is the Church that preserved the manuscripts for
us. That is the Church whose word we have to take.
That Church is the first witness that Protestantism
brought to the bar of history to prove miracles that
took place eighteen hundred years ago; and while the
witness is there Protestantism takes pains to say : “ You
cannot believe one word that witness says, now.” That
Church is the only one that keeps up a constant com
munication with heaven through the instrumentality of
a large number of decayed saints. That Church has an
agent of God on earth, has a person who stands in the
place of deity; and that Church is infallible. That
Church has persecuted to the exact extent of her power
—and always will. In Spain that Church stands
�24
erect, and is arrogant.
In the United States that
Church crawls, but the object in both countries is the
same—and that is the destruction of intellectual liberty.
That Church teaches us that we can make God happy
by being miserable ourselves ; that a nun is holier in the
sight of God than a loving mother with her child in her
thrilled and thrilling arms; that a priest is better than
a father ; that celibacy is better than that passion of love
that has made everything of beauty in this world.
That Church tells the girl of sixteen or eighteen years
of age, with eyes like dew and light—that girl with the
red of. health in the white of her beautiful cheeks—tells
that girl: “ Put on the veil, woven of death and night,
kneel upon stones, and you will please God.” I tell you
that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil
and renounce the joys and beauties of this life. I am
opposed to allowing these spider-like priests to weave
webs to catch the loving maidens of the world. There
ought to be a law appointing commissioners to visit such
places twice a year, and release every person who
expresses a desire to be released. I do not believe in
keeping the penitentiaries of God. No doubt they are
honest about it.
That is not the question.
These
ignorant superstitions fill millions of lives with weariness
and pain, with agony and tears. This Church, after a
.few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that creed
is the foundation of the orthodox religion.
Let me
read it to you: “ Whosoever will be saved, before all
things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith;
which faith, except everyone do keep entire and inviolate,
without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish.” Now the
faith is this : “ That we worship one God in trinity and
trinity in unity.” Of course, you understand how that
is done, and there is no need of my explaining it.
“ Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the sub
stance.” You see what a predicament that would leave
the deity in if you divided the substance. “For one is
the person of the Father, another of the Son, and
another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all
�25
one”—you know what I mean by Godhead—“ in glory
equal, and in maj esty co-eternal. ' Such as the Father
is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost. The Father
is uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost un
created. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incom
prehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.” And
that is the reason we know so much about the thing.
“ The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy
Ghost eternal, and yet there are not three eternals, only
one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated, nor
three incomprehensibles, only one uncreated,-one incom
prehensible.” “In like manner, the Father is almighty,
the Son almighty, the Holy Ghost almighty. Yet there
are not three almighties, only one almighty. So the
Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, and
yet not three Gods ; and so, likewise, the Father is
Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord, yet
there are not three Lords, for as we are compelled by
the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by him
self to be God and Lord, so we are all forbidden by the
Catholic religion to say there are three Gods, or three
Lords. The Father is made of no one ; not created or
begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made,
not created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the
Father and the Son, not made, nor begotten, but pro
ceeding.” You know what proceeding is. “ So there is
one Father, not three Fathers.” Why should there be
three Fathers, and only one Son ? “ One Son, and not
three Sons ; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts;
and in this trinity there is nothing before or afterward,
nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are
co-eternal with one another and co-equal, so that in all
things the Unity is to be worshipped in Trinity, and the
Trinity is to be worshipped in Unity. Those who will
be saved must thus think of the Trinity. Furthermore,
it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe
rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now
the right of this thing is this : That we believe and con
fess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both
God and man. He is God of the substance of his Father
�26
begotten before the world was.” That was a good while
before his mother lived. “ And he is a man of the sub
stance of his mother, born in this world, perfect God and
perfect man, and the rational soul in human flesh sub
sisting, equal to the Father according to his Godhead,
but less than the Father according to his manhood, who
being both God and man is not two but one, one not by
conversion of God into flesh, but by the taking of the
manhood into God.” You see that is a great deal easier
than the other way would be. “ One altogether, not by
a confusion of substance but by unity of person, for as
the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and
man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation,
descended into hell, rose again the third day from the
dead, ascended into heaven, and he sitteth at the right
hand of God, the Father Almighty, and he shall come to
judge the living and the dead.”
In order to be saved it is necessary to believe this.
What a blessing that we do not have to understand it.
And in order to compel the human intellect to get upon
its knees before that infinite absurdity, thousands and
millions have suffered agonies : thousands and thousands
have perished in dungeons and in fire; and if all the
bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be
gathered together, a monument higher than all the
pyramids would rise, in the presence of which the eyes
even of priests would be wet with tears. That Church
covered Europe with cathedrals and dungeons, and
robbed men of the jewel of the soul. That Church had
ignorance upon its knees. That Church went into
partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and between
those two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of
man was devoured. Of course I have met, and cheer
fully admit that there are thousands of, good Catholics ;
but Catholicism is contrary to human liberty. Catho
licism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches
man to trample his reason under foot. And for that
reason it is wrong. Thousands of volumes could not
contain the crimes of the Catholic Church. They could
not contain even the names of her victims. With sword
�27
and fire, with rack and chain, with dungeon and whip,
she endeavored to convert the world. In weakness a
beggar—in power a highwayman—alms-dish or dagger
—tramp or tyrant.
THE EPISCOPALIANS.
The next Church I wish to speak of is the Episcopalian. That was founded by Henry VIII., now in
heaven. He cast off Queen Catherine and Catholicism
together, and he accepted Episcopalianism and Anne
Boleyn at the same time. That Church, if it had a few
more ceremonies, would be Catholic. If it had a few
less, nothing. We have an Episcopalian Church in this
country, and it has all the imperfections of a poor rela
tion. It is always boasting of its rich relative.
In
England the creed is made by law, the same as we pass
statutes here. And when a gentleman dies in England,
in order to determine whether he shall be saved or not,
it is necessary for the power of heaven to read the Acts
of Parliament.
It becomes a question of law, and
sometimes a man is damned on a very nice point.
Lost on demurrer. A few years ago a gentleman by the
name of Seabury—Samuel Seabury—was sent over to
England to get some apostolic succession. We had not
a drop in the house. It was necessary for the bishops of
the English Church to put their hands upon his head.
They refused. There was no Act of Parliament justify
ing it. He had then to go to the Scotch bishops; and,
had the Scotch bishops refused, we never would have
had any apostolic succession in the New World, and
God would have been driven out of half the earth, and
the true Church never could have been founded upon
this continent. But the Scotch bishops put their hands
on his head, and now we have an unbroken succession of
heads and hands from St. Paul to the last bishop. In
this country the Episcopalians have done some good,
and I want to thank that Church. Having on an
average less religion than the others—on an average you
a
�28
haye done more good to mankind. You preserved some
o the humanities. .You did not hate music ; you did
not absolutely despise painting, and you did not alto
gether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted
that it was no worse to keep time with your feet than
with your hands. And some went so far as to say that
people could play cards, and that God would overlook it,
or would look the other way. For all these things
accept my thanks. When I was a boy, the other
Churches looked upon dancing as probably the mysterious
sm against the Holy Ghost; and they used to teach that
when four boys got in a hay-mow, playing at seven-up, that
the eternal .God stood whetting the sword of his eternal
wrath waiting to strike them down to the lowest hell.
That Church has done some good. The Episcopal creed
is substantially, like the Catholic, containing a few addi
tional absurdities.. The Episcopalians teach that it is
easier to get forgiveness for sin after you have been
baptised. They seem to think that the moment you are
baptised, you become a member of the firm, and as such
are entitled . to wickedness at cost. This Church is
utterly, unsuited to a free people. Its government is
tyrannical, supercilious, and absurd. Bishops talk as
though they were responsible for the souls in their
charge. . They wear vests that button on one side.
Nothing is so essential to the clergy of this denomina
tion as a good voice. The Episcopalians have persecuted
just to. the extent of their power. Their treatment of
the Irish has been a crime—a crime lasting for three
hundred years. That Church persecuted the Puritans
of England and the Presbyterians of Scotland. In
England the altar is the mistress of the throne, and this
mistress has always looked at honest wives with scorn.
THE METHODISTS.
About a hundred and fifty years ago two men, John
Wesley and George Whitfield, said: “ If everybody is
going to hell somebody ought to mention it.” The
�29
Episcopal clergy said: “ Keep still; do not tear your
gown.” Wesley and Whitfield said : “This frightful
truth ought to be proclaimed from the housetop of every
opportunity; from the highway of every occasion.”
They were good, honest men.
They believed their
doctrine. And they said : “ If there is a hell, and a
Niagara of souls pouring over an eternal precipice of
ignorance, somebody ought to say something.” They
were right; somebody ought, if such a thing is true.
Wesley was a believer in the Bible. He believed in the
actual presence of the Almighty.
God used to do
miracles for him ; used to put off a rain several days to
give his meeting a chance; used to cure his horse of
lameness; used to cure Mr. Wesley’s headaches. And
Mr. Wesley also believed in the actual existence of the
Devil. He believed that devils had possession of people.
He talked to the Devil when he was in folks, and the
Devil told him that he was going to leave, and that he
was going into another person—that he would be there
at a certain time ; and Wesley went to that other person,
and there the Devil was, prompt to the minute. He
regarded every conversion as warfare between God and
this Devil for the possession of that human soul, and that
in the warfare God had gained the victory. Honest, no
doubt. Mr. Wesley did not believe in human liberty.
Honest, no doubt. Was opposed to the liberty of the
Colonies. Honestly so. Mr. Wesley preached a sermon,
entitled “ The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes,” in which
he took the ground that earthquakes were caused by sin,
and the only way to stop them was to believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. No doubt an honest man. Wesley
and Whitfield fell out on the question of predestination.
Wesley insisted that God invited everybody to the feast.
Whitfield said he did not invite those he knew would not
come. Wesley said he did. Whitfield said : “ Well, he
did not put plates for them, anyway.” Wesley said he
did ; so that, when they were in hell, he could show them
that there was a seat left for them. The Church that
they founded is still active ; and probably no Church has
done so much preaching for as little money as the
�3°
Methodists. Whitfield believed in slavery, and advocated
the slave trade ; and it was of Whitfield that Whittier
made the two lines :—
He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast,
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost.
We have lately had a meeting of the Methodists, and
I find by their statistics that they believe that they have
converted 130,300 folks in a year; that, in order to do
this, they have 26,000 preachers, 226,000 Sunday-school
scholars, and about $100,000,000 invested in church
property. I find, in looking over the history of the
world,that there are 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 of people
born in a year, and if they are saved at the rate of
130,000 a.year, about how long will it take that doctrine
to save this world ? Good, honest people ; but they are
mistaken. In old times they were very simple. Churches
used to be like barns. They used to have them divided
—men on that side, women on this. A little barbarous.
We have advanced since then; and we now find, as a
fact demonstrated by experience, that a man sitting by
the woman he loves can thank God as heartily as though
sitting between two men that he has never been intro
duced to.
There is another thing the Methodists should remember,
and that is that the Episcopalians were the greatest
enemies they ever had. And they should remember
that the Freethinkers have always treated them kindly
and well. There is one thing about the Methodist
Church in the North that I like. But I find that it is
not Methodism that does that. I find that the Methodist
Church in the South is as much opposed to liberty as the
Methodist Church North is in favor of liberty. So it is
not Methodism that is in favor of liberty or slavery.
They differ a little in their creed from the rest. They do
not believe that God does everything. They believe
that he does his part, and that you must do the rest, and
that getting to heaven is a partnership business. The
Methodist Church is adapted e to new countries—its
ministers are generally uncultured, and with them zeal
�31
takes the place of knowledge. They convert people
with noise. In the silence that follows most of the
converts backslide. In a little while a struggle will
commence between the few who are growing and the
orthodox many. The few will be driven out, and the
Church will be governed by those who believe without
understanding.
THE PRESBYTERIANS.
The next Church is the Presbyterian, and in my
judgment the worst of all, as far as creed is concerned.
This Church was founded by John Calvin, a murderer !
John Calvin, having power in Geneva, inaugurated
human torture. Voltaire abolished torture m France.
The man who abolished torture, if the Christian religion
be true, God is now torturing in hell; and the man who
inaugurated torture is now a glorified angel in heaven.
It will not do. John Knox started this doctrine in
Scotland, and there is this peculiarity. about Pres
byterianism—it grows best where the soil is. poorest. I
read the other day an account of a meeting between
John Knox and John Calvin.
Imagine a dialogue
between a pestilence and a famine!
Imagine a con
versation between a block and an axe ! As I read their
conversation it seemed to me as though John Knox and
John Calvin were made for each other; that they fitted
each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild beast.
They believed happiness was a crime; they looked upon
laughter as blasphemy ; and they did all they could , to
destroy every human feeling, and to fill the mind with
the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal death.
They taught the doctrine that God had a right to damn
us, because he made us. That is just the reason that
he has not a right to damn us. There is some dust.
Unconscious dust! What right has God to change that
unconscious dust into a human being, when he knows
that human being will sin : when he knows that human
being will suffer eternal agony ? Why not leave him in
�32
the unconscious dust ? What right has an infinite God
to add to the sum of human agony ? Suppose I knew
that ! could change that piece of furniture into a living,
sentient human being, and I knew that that bein^
would suffer untold agony for ever. If I did it, I would
be a fiend. I would leave that being in the unconscious
dust.. And yet we are told that we must believe such a
doctrine or we are to be eternally damned ! It will not
do. In 1839 there was a division in this Church, and
they had a law suit to see which was the Church of God.
And they tried it by a judge and jury, and the jury
decided that the new school was the Church of God ;
and then they got a new trial, and the next jury decided
that the old school was the Church of God, and that
settled it. That Church teaches that infinite innocence
was sacrificed for me ! I do not want it. I do not wish
to go to heaven unless I can settle by the books, and go
there because I ought to go there. I have said, and I
say again, I do not wish to be a charity angel. I have
no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies.
The other day a young gentleman, a Presbyterian who
had just been converted, came to me and he gave me a
tract, and he told me he was perfectly happy. Said I :
“ Do you think a great many people are going to hell ?”
“ Oh, yes.” “ And you are perfectly happy ?” “ Well,
he did not know as he was, quite.” “ Would you not
be happier if they were all going to heaven ?” “ Oh,
yes.
“ Well, then, you are not perfectly happy ?”
No, he did not think he was.” “ When you get to
heaven, then you will be perfectly happy ?” “ Oh, yes.”
“ Now, when we are only going to hell, you are not
quite happy; but when we are in hell, and you in
heaven, then you will be perfectly happy ? You will not
be as decent when you get to be an angel as you are
now, will, you?’’ “Well,” he said, “that was not
exactly it.” Said I : “ Suppose your mother were in
hell, would you be happy in heaven then ?” “ Well,”
he says, “ I suppose God would know the best place for
mother.” And I thought to myself, then, if I was a
woman, I would like to have five or six boys like that.
�33
It will not do. Heaven is where those are we love,
and those who love us. And I wish to go to no world
unless I can be accompanied by those who love me
here. Talk about the consolations of this infamous
doctrine ! The consolations of a doctrine that makes a
father say: “I can be happy, with my daughter.in
hellthat makes a mother say : “I can be happy, with
my generous, brave boy in hell that makes a boy say :
“ I can enjoy the glory of heaven, with the woman who
bore me, the woman who would have died for me, in eternal
agony ”! And they call that tidings of great joy! ’ No
Church has done more to fill the world with gloom than
the Presbyterian. Its creed is frightful, hideous, and
hellish. The Presbyterian God is the monster of
monsters. He is an eternal executioner, jailer, and
turnkey. He will enjoy for ever the shrieks of the lost
—the wails of the damned. Hell is the festival of the
Presbyterian God.
THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.
I have not time to speak of the Baptists—that
Jeremy Taylor said were as much to be rooted out as
anything that is the greatest pest and nuisance on the
earth. He hated the Baptists because they represented,
in some little degree, the liberty of thought. Nor have
I time to speak of the Quakers, the best of all, and
abused by all. I cannot forget that John Fox, in the
year of grace 1640, was put in the pillory and whipped
from town to town, scarred, put in a dungeon, beaten,
trampled upon, and what for ? Simply because he
preached the doctrine : “ Thou shalt not resist evil with
evil.” “ Thou shalt love thy enemies.” Think of what
the Church must have been that day to scar the flesh
of that loving man! Just think of it! I say I have
not time to speak of all these sects—the varieties of
Presbyterians and Campbellites. There are hundreds
and hundreds of these sects, all founded upon this creed
that I read, differing simply in degree. Ah ! but they
say to me : “You are fighting something that is dead.
�34
Nobody believes this now.
The preachers do not
believe what they preach in the pulpit. The people in
the pews do not believe what they hear preached.”
And they say to me : “ You are fighting something that
is dead.” This is all a form, we do not believe a
solitary creed in the world. We sign them and swear
that we believe them, but we do not. And none of us
do. And all the ministers they say in private, admit
that they do not believe it, not quite. I do not know
whether this is so or not. I take it that they believe what
they, preach.
I take it that when they meet and
solemnly agree to a creed that they are honest, and
really believe in that creed. But let us see if I am.
waging a war against the ideas of the dead. Let us
see. if I am simply storming a cemetery. The Evan
gelical Alliance, made up of all orthodox denomina
tions of the world, met only a few years ago, and
here is their creed : They believe in the divine inspira
tion, authority, and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures,
the right and duty of private judgment in the inter
pretation of the Holy Scriptures, but if you interpret
wrong you are damned. They believe in the unity of
the godhead and the trinity of the persons therein.
They believe in the utter depravity of human nature.
There can be no more infamous doctrine than that.
They look upon a little child as a lump of depravity.
I. look upon it as a bud of humanity, that will, in the
air and light of love and joy, blossom into rich and
glorious life. Total depravity of human nature ! Here
is a woman whose husband has been lost at sea ; the
news comes that he has been drowned by the everhungry waves, and she waits. There is something in
her heart that tells her he is alive. And she waits.
And years afterwards as she looks down toward the
little gate she sees him ; he has been given back by
the sea, and she rushes to his arms, and covers his
face with kisses and with tears. And if that infamous
doctrine is true, every tear is a crime, and every kiss
a blasphemy. It will not do. According to that
doctrine, if a man steals and repents, and takes back
�35
the property, the repentance and the taking back”of
the property are two other crimes. It is an infamy.
What else do they believe ? “ The justification of a
sinner by faith alone,’ ’ without works—just faith. Believing
something that you do not understand. Of course
God cannot afford to reward a man for believing any
thing that is reasonable.
God rewards only for
believing something that is unreasonable.
If you
believe something that is improbable and unreasonable,
you are a Christian ; but if you believe something that
you know is not so, then—you are a saint.
They believe in the eternal blessedness of the righteous,
and in the eternal punishment of the wicked. Tidings
of great joy ! They are so good that they will not
associate with Universalists. They will not associate
with Unitarians ; they will not associate with scientists ;
they will only associate with those who believe that God
so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn
the most of us. The Evangelical Alliance reiterates the
absurdities of the Dark Ages—repeats the five points
of Calvin—replenishes the fires of hell—certifies to the
mistakes and miracles of the Bible—maligns the human
race, and kneels to a God who accepted the agony of the
innocent as an atonement for the guilty.
WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE ?
Then they say to me : “ What do you propose ? You
have torn this down; what do you propose to give us in
place of it ?” I have not torn the good down. I have
only endeavored to trample out the ignorant, cruel fires
of hell. I do not tear away the passage : “ God will be
merciful to the merciful.” I do not destroy the promise :
“ If you will forgive others, God will forgive you.” I
would not for anything blot out the faintest star that
shines in the horizon of human despair, nor in the sky of
human hope ; but I will do what I can to get that infinite
shadow out of the heart of man.
“ What do you propose in place of this ?”
Well, in the first place, I propose good fellowship—
�36
good friends all around. No matter what we believe,
shake hands and let it go. That is your opinion—this is
mine ; let us be friends. Science makes friends ; religion,
superstition, makes enemies. They say: Belief is im
portant. Isay: No; actions are important. Judge by
deed, not by creed. Good fellowship, good friends,
sincere men and women; mutual forbearance, born of
mutual respect. We have had too many of these solemn
people. Whenever I see an exceedingly solemn man I
know he is an exceedingly stupid man. No man of any
humor ever founded a religion—never. Humor sees
both sides. While reason is the holy light, Humor
carries the lantern ; and the man with a keen sense of
humor is preserved from the solemn stupidities of super
stition. I like a man who has got good feeling for every
body—good fellowship. One man said to another : “ Will
you take a glass of wine ?” “ I do not drink.” “ Will
you smoke a cigar ?” “ I do not smoke.” “ Maybe you
will chew something ?” “ I do not chew.” “ Let us
eat some hay.” “ I tell you I do not eat hay.” “ Well,
then, good-bye; for you are no company for man or
beast.” I believe in the Gospel of Cheerfulness, the
Gospel of Good Nature, the Gospel of Good Health,
Let us pay some attention to our bodies. Take care of
our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves.
Good health! And I believe the time will come
when the public thought will be so great and grand
that it will be looked, upon as infamous to perpetuate
disease. I believe the time will come when man will
not fill the future with consumption and insanity. I
believe the time will come when we will study ourselves
and understand the laws of health, and then we will say :
We are under the obligation to put the flags of health in
the cheeks of our children. Even if I got to heaven,
and had a harp, I would hate to look back upon my
children and grandchildren, and see them diseased,
deformed, crazed—all suffering the penalties of crimes I
had committed. I believe in the Gospel of Good Living.
You cannot make any god happy by fasting. Let us
have good food, and let us have it well cooked—and it is
a thousand times better to know how to cook than it is
�37
to understand any theology in the world. I believe in
the Gospel of Good Clothes ; I believe in the Gospel of
Good Houses ; in the Gospel of Water and Soap. I
believe in the Gospel of Intelligence—in the Gospel of
Education. The school-house is my cathedral. The
universe is my Bible.
I believe in that Gospel of
Justice, that we must reap what we sow. I do not
believe in forgiveness as it is preached by the Church.
We do not need the forgiveness of God, but of each
other and of ourselves. If I rob Mr. Smith, and God
forgive me, how does that help Smith ? If I, by slander,
cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed
crime, and she withers away like a blighted flower, and
afterward I get the forgiveness of God, how does that
help her ? If there is another world, we have, got to
settle with the people we have wronged in this. No
Bankrupt Court there. Every cent must be paid. The
Christians say that, among the ancient Jews, if you com
mitted a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say :
“ Charge it
“ Put it on the slate.” It will not do.
For every crime you commit you must answer to your
self, and to the One you injure. And if you have ever
clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you
will never be quite as happy as though you had not done
that thing.
No forgiveness by the gods.
Eternal,
inexorable, everlasting justice, so far as nature is con
cerned. You must reap the result of your acts. Even
when forgiven by the one you have injured, it is not as
though the injury had not been done. This is what I
believe in. And if it goes hard with me I will stand it,
and I will cling to my logic, and I will bear it like a
man. And I believe, too, in the Gospel of Liberty—in
giving to others what we claim for ourselves. I believe
there is room everywhere for thought, and the more
liberty you give away the more you will have. In
liberty extravagance is economy. Let us be just. Let
us be generous to each other. I believe in the Gospel of
Intelligence. That is the only lever capable of raising
mankind. Intelligence must be the savior of this world.
Humanity is the grand religion; and no god can put a
man in hell in another world who has made a littel
�38
heaven in this. God cannot make a man miserable if
that man has made somebody else happy. God cannot
hate anybody who is capable of loving anybody.
Humanity—-that word embraces all there is. So I
believe in this great Gospel of Humanity. “ Ah 1 but,”
they say, “ it will not do. You must believe.” I say,
No. My Gospel of Health will bring life. My Gospel
of Intelligence, my Gospel of Good, Living, my Gospel
of Good-fellowship, will cover the world with happy
homes. My doctrine will put carpets upon your floors,
pictures upon your walls. . My doctrine will put books
upon your shelves, ideas in your minds. My doctrine
will rid the world of the abnormal monsters born of
ignorance and superstition. My doctrine will give us
health, wealth, and happiness. That is what I want.
That is what I believe in. Give us intelligence. In a
little, while a man will find that he cannot steal without
robbing himself. He will find that he cannot murder
without assassinating his own joy. He will find that
every crime is a mistake. He will find that only that
man carries the cross who does wrong, and that upon
the man who does right the cross turns to wings that
will bear him upward for ever. He will find that even
intelligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all
the human race.
Oh> but they say to me “ you take away immor
tality.” I do not. If we are immortal it is a fact in
nature, and.we are not indebted to priests for it, nor to
Bibles for it, and it cannot be destroyed by unbelief.
As long as we love we will hope to live, and when the
one. dies that we love we say : “ Oh, that we could meet
again,” and whether we do or not it will not be the work
of theology. It will be a fact in nature. I would not
for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want
it so that when a poor woman rocks a cradle and sings a
lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled
to. believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is
raising kindling wood for hell. One world at a time is
my doctrine. It is said in this Testament: “ Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof; ” and I say: Sufficient
unto each world is the evil thereof. And suppose after
�39
all that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to
being for ever with those we love and those who have
loved us, next to that is to be wrapt in the dreamless
drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal
sleep. Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of
trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained
by the everlasting dark, will never know again the
burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence
will never speak again the broken words of grief.
Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep.
Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and
in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear. I
had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as
having returned to earth, as having become a part of the
elemental wealth of the world—I would rather think of
them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of them
as gurgling in the stream, floating in the clouds, burst
ing in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I
would rather think of them as the lost visions of a for
gotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that
their naked souls had been clutched by an orthodox God.
But for me I will leave the dead where nature leaves
them.
Whatever flower of hope springs up in my
heart, I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and
rain of tears. But I cannot believe that there is any
being in this universe who has created a human soul for
eternal pain. I would rather that every God would
destroy himself ! I would rather that we all should go to
eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just
one soul should suffer eternal agony.
I have made up my mind that if there is a God he
will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I
stand. That he will not torture the forgiving. Upon
that rock I stand. That every man should be true to
himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which
honesty is a crime. Upon that rock I stand. The
honest man, the good, kind, sweet woman, the happy
child, have nothing to fear, neither in this world nor the
world to come. Upon that rock I stand.
Printed and Published by the Freethought Publishing Company,
2 Newcastle-street, Farringdon street, London, E.C.
�WORKS BY
The Late R. G. INGERSOLL
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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What must we do to be saved?
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: London
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1902
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Salvation
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Salvation
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Wilson, Thomas
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Place of publication: Glasgow
Collation: 16 p. (irregularly paged) ; 20 cm.
Series title: Tracts for the times
Series number: No. 7
Notes: Text apparently complete but with pages in wrong order, i.e. [1], 6, 7, 4, 5, 2, 3, 8, 9, 14, 15, 12, 13, 10, 11, 16. Date of publication (approximate) from WorldCat. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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John Robertson
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[185-]
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Salvation
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Text
WILL CHRIST
SAVE US?
AN EXAMINATION OF
THE CLAIMS OF JESUS CHRIST TO BE CONSIDERED
THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.
BY
G. W. FOOTE.
Price Sixpence.
LONDON :
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1893.
��M17I
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
WILL
CHRIST SAVE US?
G. W. FOOTE.
LONDON:
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.O.
1892
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE,
28
STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�Will Christ Save Us?
----------♦----------
Christian Churches are big firms in the soul-saving business.
The principal of all these firms is a person who is said
to have established the trade nearly nineteen hundred years
ago. Some sceptics have doubted his very existence, but
they are generally held to be obstinately blind or wilfully
captious. Yet in any case it is indisputable that if Jesus
Christ ever lived he died, and though he is declared to
have risen from the dead, he is also said to have ascended
into heaven. He is no longer on earth, except in a theological
or mystical sense. The salvation business is carried on
by his agents, real or fictitious, appointed or self-appointed.
They charge various rates, and issue diverse prospectuses.
It seems impossible that the founder of the business can
authorise such contradictory advertisements or such various
price-lists; nevertheless the many different firms, who all
pretend to be branches of the original house, and sometimes
to be the original house itself, are all busy, and some do
a roaring,, profitable trade.
Soul-saving, as we have said, is the business of all these
Christian establishments or branches. Many people, however,
are doubtful whether they have souls to save, and they are
not the least moral and intelligent members of the human
species. Science is leaving little room for souls in our
economy. Evolution shows a gradual line of development
from the lowest to the highest orders of life, and it is more
and more difficult to see where the soul comes in. The very
Churches, indeed, are beginning to appreciate the growing
indifference on this subject, and are issuing manifestoes
about their intention to save men’s bodies as well as their
�4
Will Christ Save Us?
souls. General Booth himself was obliged to follow this
line when he wanted to raise £100,000 for the promotion
of his scheme of Salvation.
All these Christian establishments or branches profess
to be powerless in themselves. Their strength and efficacy
are derived. They do all things through Christ. It is he
who works in them. They vend salvation medicine, but he
is the patentee. We may therefore set them aside, and deal
with him, his recipe, its virtues, and its testimonials.
We will consider, first, the disease for which he offers
a remedy. He is to save us, but what is it he is to save us
from? We are told it is from sin, and its consequences.
What then is sin ?
If sin is offence against our fellow men, inflicting misery
upon them for our own interest or gratification, or with
holding assistance when we might render it without greater
injury to ourselves, it is hard to see how Christ can save
us from it. Preaching appears to be of little avail. Didactic
morality has always been barren. Many a boy has written
“honesty is the best policy” all down the length of his
copybook, and gone to the playground and sneaked another
boy’s marbles. Have all the billions of sermons fiom the
pulpit had any appreciable effect on the morale of human
society? But culture, wise conditions of life, examples of
actual heroism, flashing utterances from the brooding depths
of genius, an arresting picture, a pregnant poem, a story
of love stronger than death, of virtue stronger than doom;
these have improved and elevated men, and quickened
the springs of goodness in millions of hearts.
Selfishness is the root of much evil. In the natural sense
of the word it is the only sin. But how will Christ save us
from selfishness ? We are told that he gave his life for us
and this should make us kind to our fellows, out of mere
gratitude. He did not die for us, however; every man
has to die for himself. If it be meant that he gave his
�Will Christ Save Us?
5
life as an atonement to God, we reply that such a transaction
is unintelligible. Jurisprudence does not allow one person
to atone for another ; and how can the suffering of innocence
diminish the selfishness of guilt ? Supposing Jesus Christ
to be merely a man, he could n ot bear the sins of the world
upon his own shoulders. Supposing him to be God, does
it not seem farcical for God to atone to himself, satisfy
himself, pay himself, and discharge himself?
Sin, in the form of selfishness, vitiates our nature ;
its consequences afflict our fellow men; and neither the
interior mischief noi’ the exterior evil can be remedied by
theological hocus-pocus.
Setting aside the huge improbabilities of the Crucifixion
story, and treating it as substantially true, it is impossible to
regard Jesus Christ as a real martyr. He died for no prin
ciple. He was not called upon to renounce his convictions.
The slightest exercise of common sense would have saved his
life. His end was rather a suicide than a martyrdom. His
trial and execution are an incomparable tragic picture, which
has made the fortune of Christianity; but if we allow reason
to operate in the midst of terror and compassion, we cannot
fail to perceive that the tragedy involves no ethical lesson or
heroic example.
We are equally disappointed if we turn to the teaching of
Jesus Christ. Nearly all his ethics have a selfish sanction.
Future reward and punishment, the lowest motives to right
conduct, are systematically proffered. Those who forsook
family and property for his sake were to receive a hundred
fold in this life, and a still greater profit in the next life.
“ Great is your reward in heaven ” Was his highest incentive,
except in occasional moments when he was truer to the
natural instincts of sympathy and benevolence. Not in such
teaching is the cure for selfishness, but rather its intensifica
tion. A finer spirit breathed in the Pagan maxim that
“ Virtue is its own reward.”
�6
Will Christ Save Us ?
Christ cannot save us from selfishness, because he appeals
to selfish motives. Still less, if possible, can he save us from
the consequences of selfishness. No man or god can do thatWhat is said is said, what is done is done. The lie, the
slander, the innuendo; the harsh word, the malicious smile,
the savage frown; the fraud, the curse, the blow; these have
passed from effects into causes, and produce misery in ever
widening circles, as the stone dropped into a still lake pro
duces an extending circle of ripple, whose vibrations continue
when lost to the perception of human eyes.
Even if we admit the blamelessness of Christ’s life, for the
sake of argument, without laying stress on many high
qualities that were lacking in his nature, it is impossible to
regard him as our “ great exemplar,” and in that sense as
our Savior. Regarded as God, he is beyond our imitation.
We have not his means, he had not our weakness. If he was
“ tempted as we are, yet without sin,” he was not tempted as
we are. The external solicitation is powerless without the
internal proclivity. Public-houses are the same to drunkards
as teetotallers, yet they alternately attract and repel. On
the other hand, if we regard Jesus as a man, how are we to
imitate him then ? Most of his life-story is miraculous. We
cannot cure the sick, give sight to the blind, hearing to the
deaf, speech to the dumb, or restore dead sons and brothers
to their mothers and sisters. Our powers and duties are
more prosaic. VTe want incentive and guidance as husbands
and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends
and citizens: and here the example of Jesus fails us as utteily
as his teaching.
Let us first look at the example and the teaching of Jesus
from the domestic standpoint, which is of incalculable impor
tance.
The unit of the human race is neither the man nor the
woman; it is the family. Here the supplementary natures
of men and women find free scope, as husband and wife, and
�Will Christ Save Us?
7
as parents, whose various functions, alike on the physical
and on the moral side, are equally necessary to the nurture
and education of their offspring. The family, indeed, is the
ark of civilisation, containing the sacred elements of
humanity, and preserving the germ of all social organisation
amidst the worst disasters that flow from the folly and
wickedness of nations or their rulers.
In this respect the example of Jesus is worthless. He
was certainly not remarkable for filial devotion. Of his
relations with his brothers and sisters we know next to
nothing. He was not married, * and was therefore unac
quainted with the duties of a husband and a father. What
ever else his example may be worth, it is entirely valueless
in regard to domestic obligations. Men, and even gods, can
only be an example to us so far as they have been in our
position. Without this qualification their very advice is
apt to provoke laughter or impatience; a truth which is
reflected in the proverb that bachelor’s children are always
well brought up.
The teaching of Jesus, on this point, is as barren as his
example. It is a singular fact, which rarely attracts the
attention of believers, that the domestic ethics of Christianity
are not to be found in the Gospels, but in the epistles of
Saint Paul. Jesus does occasionally condescend to touch the
question of sexuality, which lies at the basis of all our social
life; but on such occasions he is either enigmatic or repulsive.
He appears to have regarded sexual relations in the spirit of
an Essenean. One of his sayings went still farther; it
prompted the great Origen to emasculate himself as a candi
date for the kingdom of heaven. Another fervent disciple
of Jesus in our own age, the great Russian writer, Count
Tolstoi, argues that no true Christian can enter into the
marriage relation. He quotes a number of the sayings of
Jesus in support of his argument. And what is the answer
of the Churches ? Their only answer is silence. They dare
�8
Will Christ Save Us ?
not meet him on this ground. They trust his article will bo
forgotten, and they act on the maxim “ the least said the
soonest mended.”
In a certain sense the virtue of industry is a part of
domestic morality. Although every worker may be regarded
as a cell of the entire social organism, it is not for society
that he primarily labors, but for his own subsistence and
the maintenance of his family. Now Jesus never taught
the virtue of industry. “How could he,” asks Professor
Newman, “ when he kept twelve religious mendicants around
him?” Here again it is to Saint Paul that we must go
for ethical teaching. So far as Jesus can be understood,
he taught a doctrine of special providence which cuts at
the roots of thrift and foresight. “ Take no thought for
the morrow,” and similar maxims, would, if acted upon,
reduce civilised communities to the condition of the lowest
savages, who live from hand to mouth, and feast to-day
and starve to-morrow.
The only escape from this difficulty is to treat such
maxims as mystical, hyperbolic, or allegorical. It is difficult,
however, to regard them in this light, when we remember
the whole drift of Christ’s teaching. We have not a few
isolated texts to deal with, but a whole body of inculcations,
culminating in the advice to a rich young man to sell all
he possessed and give the proceeds to the poor; advice,
indeed, which was universally acted upon by the primitive
Church, if we may trust the narrative in the Acts of the
Apostles.
We may further remark that if Jusus did not mean
precisely what he said in these numerous instances, the
Churches are bound to tell us two things; first, what he
did mean; secondly, why he spoke in a misleading or
perplexing manner. Was it worth while to cloud the path
of salvation with dark sayings ? And if a writer or speaker
does not mean what he says, is it really possible for anyone
�Will Christ Save Us ?
9
to be certain what he does mean ? Unless language is used
with its ordinary significance, every man will interpret it
according to his fancy, and the conception of its meaning
will vary with taste and temperament.
So much for Christ’s example and teaching with respect
to domestic morality. We will now, before examining his
other teaching, briefly consider his claim as “the great
exemplar ” in the more general sense of the words.
Not only is it impossible for us to imitate his miracles;
not only does he afford us no practical example in the
ordinary duties of life; his example in all other respects
is perfectly useless. As a god, we cannot imitate him;
as a man we cannot imitate him either, since it is impossible
to ascertain his real character; and the very fact that he
has been worshipped as a god precludes his serving as a
human model.
Let us elaborate these propositions a little. When a king
is dethroned it is undignified for him to take part in public
affairs. He should retire into private life. In the same way, as
Professor Bain observes, a dethroned God should not set up
as a great man, but retire into the region of poetry and
mythology. “ He who has once been deified,” says Strauss,
“ has irretrievably lost his manhood.” This is the reason
why Unitarianism, despite wealth, learning, and ability
achieves no success amongst the people. It is also the reason
why Christian panegyrists of the character of Jesus indulge
in such hectic eloquence. They must maintain a certain
feverishness; a lapse into cool reason would betray the
hollowness of their cause.
Jesus as a man is one of the most shadowy figures in
history, and his outlines perpetually shift as we read the
gospel narratives. It was this confusing fact which prompted
the following objection of Strauss to regarding the Prophet
of Nazareth as a human model:—
�10
Will Christ Save Us ?
“ I must have a distinct, definite conception of him in whom I am to
believe, whom I am to imitate as an exemplar of moral excellence. A
being of which I can only catch fitful glimpses, which remains obscure to
me in essential respects, may, it is true, interest me as a problem for
scientific investigation, but it must remain ineffectual as regards practical
influence on my life. But a being with distinct features, capable of
affording a definite conception, is only to be found in the Christ of faith,
of legend, and there, of course, only by the votary who is willing to take
into the bargain all the impossibilities, all the contradictions contained in
the picture; the Jesus of history, of science, is only a problem; but a
problem cannot be an object of worship or a pattern'¡by which to shape
our lives.”
Thus the “great exemplar” vanishes in the light of
rationalism; it can only exist in the twilight of faith.
There is, however, a more subtle and plausible aspect of
this “ great exemplar ” fallacy, which imposes on some who
are entirely free from orthodox superstition. It imposed
even on John Stuart Mill. That great man’s essay on Theism
was published after his death by Miss Helen Taylor, who
confesses that it had “ never undergone the repeated exa
mination which it certainly would have passed through
before he would himself have given it to the world,” and that
even its style is “ less polished than that of any other of his
published works.” At the close of this unfortunate essay
there occurs the famous panegyric on Christ. It is an
unusually rhetorical piece of writing for Mill; its statements
betray a great want of information on the subject, and its
reasoning is remarkably loose and inconsequent. Neverthe
less it has been eagerly seized upon by Christian apologists ;
and, as Professor Bain remarks, the inch of concession to the
existing Theology has been stretched into an ell. Mill dis
misses contemptuously the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, and
declares that the Prophet of Nazareth “ would probably have
thought such a pretension as blasphemous.” Yet he treats
it as “ a possibility ” that Christ was “ a man charged with a
special, express, and unique commission from God to lead
mankind to truth and virtue.” “ Religion,” he says—meaning
of course Christianity—“ cannot be said to have made a bad
�Will Christ Save Us?
11
choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative
and guide of humanity.” And he adds that even the un
believer would have difficulty in finding “ a better translation
of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete,
than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our
life.”
“ My dear sir,” might the unbeliever reply to Mill, “ your
illustration and argument are alike arbitrary and fantastic.
Profound scholars like Strauss, and patient, well-informed
thinkers like George Eliot, plainly declare (and who can
seriously dispute it?) that the materials for a biography of
Jesus Christ do not exist. The ideal Christ is a creation of
centuries ; nay, the process still continues, each generation of
Christians. adding to, subtracting from, or in some way
modifying the never-finished portrait. The real Christ, if he
ever existed, is lost beyond all hope of recovery; he is buried
under impenetrable mountains of dogma, legend, and
mythology. In vain will you search the New Testament for
any coherent conception of his personality. The protean
figure is ever passing into fresh shapes; a hundred contra
dictory aspects flash upon your baffled vision. The total
impression upon the beholder is, as it were, a composite
photograph, representing types and qualities, but no individu
ality. To make it one’s ideal is only self-delusion. Even if
this objection be waived, and the intelligible personality of
Christ be conceded for the sake of argument, why should a
rational, self-respecting man bind himself to the perpetual
study and emulation of one type of character ? The seeker
for moral beauty, like the seeker for intellectual truth, should
gather honey from every flower that blooms in the garden of
the world. And why should Christ be made the ideal critic
of our actions ? Many a man devotedly loves his mother, or
cherishes her memory. Would it not be a safe rule for him
to act so that the dear dead or living parent would approve
his conduct ? But even this rule, in the wisest and loftiest
�12
Will Christ Save Us ?
estimate, is too personal and limited. It would be better to
act so that every honest man would approve our conduct;
better still, to act so as to secure our own approval. Let
men be true to themselves, let them broaden and deepen
their intellectual light, let them gain what help they can
from the example of great and beautiful lives, let them con
sider the consequences of their deeds; and having acted, let
them practise the benign art of self-reflection, bringing
their conduct before the inner tribunal of a sensitive con
science, whose judgment, if sometimes mistaken, will always
be pure and nearly always decisive. For every man who
takes the trouble to think (and without thinking what avails?)
will always know himself better than he can be known by
others; and thus the verdict of his own conscience is not only
superior to the brawling judgment of the ignorant world
outside him, but even superior to the judgment of the wisest
and best, who can never know exactly his motives, his powers,
and his necessities, or the myriad circumstances of his
position.”
Having seen that Christ is no real exemplar, and that fie
cannot save us from sin in the form of selfishness^ let us now
consider his power to save us from sin in its theological
significance.
The Christian theory is delightfully simple, and at the
same time brutally crude. It is not entirely derived from
the Gospels, but the Epistles are an integral part of the
Christian revelation, and a successful attempt to discard the
inspired authority of Saint Paul would eventually wreck the
entire structure of Christianity.
We must start with Adam, in whom all men sinned, as in
Christ all men are saved, who will be saved. The grand old
gardener, as Tennyson calls this mythical personage, was
created as the father of the human race. He was placed in
the Garden of Eden, and allowed to eat of the fruit of every
�Will Ghrist Save Us
13
tree except one, which was strictly forbidden. He was also
given a wife, who was made from one of his ribs, extracted
while he lay in a deep sleep. These two were the only
inhabitants of the garden, but there came a visitor, called
Satan, a powerful rival of the creator. This subtle and wily
adversary tempted the woman to taste the forbidden fruit;
she yielded, and induced her husband to taste it also. For
this act of disobedience they were expelled from the garden;
they were cursed by -their offended God, and the curse fell
upon all their posterity. Sin had vitiated their once pure
natures, and this vitiation was necessarily transmitted to their
offspring. Thus the whole human race is corrupt; in other
words, full of original sin.
This original sin puts enmity between God and his
creatures. God hates sin and must punish it. Every
sinner, therefore—and all men are sinners—owes God an
infinite debt, not because his sin is infinite, but because he
sins against an infinite being. But finite men can never
pay an infinite debt; therefore they are doomed to eternal
imprisonment in Hell, where the God of infinite justice
and mercy immures and tortures his wicked children.
This theory is set forth by hundreds of Christian divines,
in thousands of treatises, but no one puts it more cleaily
than the once-famous Rev. Charles Simeon in Nine Ser
mons on 1 he Sorrows of the Son of God, preached before
the University of Cambridge.
“ We, by sin, had incurred a debt, which not all' the men on earth, or
angels in heaven, were able to discharge. In consequence of this, we
must all have been consigned over to everlasting perdition if, Jesus had
not engaged on our behalf to satisfy every demand of law and justice.
.... Jesus having thus become our surety, our debt ‘ was exacted of
him, and he was made answerable ’ for it. . . . Hence, when the time
was come, in which Jesus was to fulfil the obligations he had contracted,
he was required to pay the debt of all for whom he had engaged ; and to
pay it to the very utmost farthing. It was by his sufferings that he dis
charged this debt.”
The suffering of Jesus was but for a time, but as an infinite
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Will Christ Save Us?
being he suffered infinitely, and hence his death was “ a full,
perfect, and sufiicient propitiation for the sins of the whole
world.
Such is the metaphysical juggling of Christian
dogmatists!
Now if this orthodox scheme of salvation be closely
examined, it will be found to be rotten to its foundation.
Adam never fell, and we are not inheritors of his vitiated
nature, nor participators in his curse. No such persons as
Adam and Eve ever existed. Their very names are not per
sonal but generical. Only modern ignorance or ancient
mythology speaks of the “ first parents ” of mankind. Evolu
tion does not admit the conception of a first man and woman.
The simian progenitors of the human race did not suddenly
develop into the genus homo. They did not wake up one
morning and find themselves men. Their progress was slow
and gradual, precisely like the psychical progress of humanity
since it virtually became such. Nature does not advance by
leaps and bounds, but by infinitesimal changes which only
amount to decisive alterations in vast periods of time. This
is the teaching of modern science, and in the age of Darwinism
the old story of the special creation of man falls into its proper
place, beside the other guesses of ancient ignorance.
If Adam did not fall, because he never existed, there is an
end to the Christian doctrine of original sin. The just and
merciful God, of whom we hear so much, did not curse his
children in the Garden of Eden for violating a prohibition
which had no moral significance; nor did he involve in the
curse the whole of their unborn posterity. The idea is only
mythological. Yet it adumbrates a certain truth. We now
perceive the great law of heredity, which applies in the
mental and moral as well as in the physical world. Children
do inherit something from their parents; not sin, for that is
an act, but tendency, disposition, or whatever name it passes
under. And in all of us there are passions inherited from
our far-off brute ancestors, that do war against our highest
�Will Christ Save Us ?
15
interests. But these passions are not in themselves a curse.
The evil is one of excess, or want of equilibrium, which it is
the business of social and individual culture to rectify. Take
away our passions, volcanic and insurgent as they sometimes
are, and you would reduce us to nonentity. Passion is our
motive power. Let the intellect and conscience employ this
natural force, directing it to the permanent good of each and
all, which in the long run are identical.
The new truth supplants the old error, at the same time
preserving whatever grain of verity it concealed. Only the
most docile and degraded slaves of superstition now believe
the hideous doctrine of original sin as it was preached by our
Puritan forefathers, and is still set forth in the creeds of the
Churches. Generous natures always revolted against it.
Loving mothers, bending over their little ones, never thought
them reeking masses of spiritual corruption. The answering
love in the child’s eye, the clasp of its little fingers, its
appealing helplessness, and its boundless trust, nursed the
holy flame in the mother’s heart, until it grew into a fire of
affection that consumed the evil dogma of birth-sin with
which the priest sought to over-lay her natural instinct.
Stern old Jonathan Edwards, that consummate logician of a
devilish creed, was not deflected from “ God’s truth ” by the
smiles of his children; but it is said that he never quite
convinced their loving mother. The logic of her heart was
better than the logic of his head.
Obliged to dismiss, as we are, the story of the Fall and the
doctrine of Original Sin, what becomes of the Atonement ?
Must it not go with them? Every student of religion
perceives that the doctrine of the Atonement is a last subli
mation of the old theory of Sacrifice. Men were once
slaughtered to appease the wrath of the gods; animals were
substituted for men as civilisation progressed; finally a
compromise was effected in the death of a man-god, whose
blood was a universal atonement.
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Will Christ Save Us ?
The savage origin of this central dogma of Christian
theology is betrayed in its nomenclature. “ Without shedding
of blood there is no remission.” “The blood of Christ
cleanseth from all sin.” “ Washed in the blood of the Lamb.”
Such are the flowers of speech in the garden of the Atone
ment. And who that has ever heard it fails to remember the
famous hymn ?—
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged within that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
This language of the shambles would never be adopted by
civilised people. It comes down to us from ages of barbarism.
We lisp the words before we comprehend their meaning, and
familiarity in after years deadens our sense of horror and
disgust. Only when we break through the mesh of custom
do we realise the shocking nature of the “ holy ” language of
our hereditary faith.
Having once begun to reflect upon it, we soon perceive the
absurdity of the doctrine it expresses. We see it is false,
immoral, and foolish. Punishment is justifiable only as it
aims at the protection of society or the reformation of the
criminal. Having satisfaction out of somebody is simply
vengeance. Jesus Christ, therefore, could not be “ a propitia
tion ” for our sins, unless God were a brutal tyrant, who went
upon the principle of “ so much sin, so much suffering,”
regardless upon whom it was inflicted. Nor could the suffer
ings of Jesus Christ, borne for our sins, even if they appeased
our angry God, either remove the consequences of our illdoing in human society or prevent the inevitable deterioration
of our characters. And when we consider that God the Son,
who makes expiation, is “ of the same substance ” with God the
Father, who exacts it; and that the discharge of this “ debt ”
is like robbing Peter to pay Paul; we lose all control of our
risible muscles, and drown the demented dogma in floods of
laughter.
�Will Christ Save Us?
17
What honest man would be saved by the loss of another ?
It were noble for a friend to offer to die for me; it were base
for me to accept the sacrifice. He who hopes for heaven
through the sufferings of an innocent substitute, is not worth
saving, and scarcely worth damning. People are growing
ashamed of the advice to “ lay it all upon Jesus.” Selfrespecting men and women prefer to bear their own respon
sibilities. It is disreputable to sneak into heaven in the
shadow of Jesus Christ.
According to orthodoxy, Jesus saves us from the wrath of
God, who seems to be in a permanent passion with his
children. To speak plainly, he saves us from hell. But the
belief in future torment is dying out in the light of civilisa
tion and humanity. Men have advanced, and their god must
advance with them. Hell is being recogniseds^as “ the dark
delusion of a dream ” by the most educated, thoughtful, and
humane of our species ; and the progress of this emancipation
may be measured by the desperate efforts of the more astute
clergy to “ limit the eternity of hell’s hot jurisdiction,” or to
explain away a literal hell altogether as a false interpretation
of metaphorical teaching.
Salvation from hell in another fifty or a hundred years will
be universally laughed at, if not forgotten, in all civilised
countries. And the fate of the Devil is no less certain.
“ Deliver us from the evil one ”—as the Lord’s Prayer now
reads in the Revised Version—will only be a monument of
old superstition. The great bogie of the priest is going the
way of the . bogies of the nursery. We do not need to be
saved from Old Nick. Our real peril is in quite another
direction. The suggestions of evil do not come from Satan,
but from our own faulty and ill-regulated natures. Stupidity,
ignorance, sensuality, egotism, and cowardice; these are the
devils against which we must carry on an incessant warfare.
It may of course be plausibly argued that Christ was (and
is) God; that, being so, his ability to save us, here and hereB
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Will Christ Save Us?
after, is unquestionable; that, having the power to save us,
he may be presumed to have the desire; that he is the Son
of “ our Father which art in heaven,” and that we may—and
indeed ought to—rely upon his mercy and generosity for our
salvation.
Now there are two fatal defects in this argument. In the
first place, it is not clear that Christ was God; in the second
place, it is not clear that, if he was, he will certainly save us.
The deity of Christ has always been rejected by a more or
less numerous section of professed Christians. Learned
books have been written to prove that the doctrine is incon
sistent with the teaching of Christ and the utterances of the
primitive Church. Even an outsider, who studies Christianity
as he studies Buddhism or Brahminism, sees that the doctrine
of the deity of Christ—or the dogma of God the Son—was
slowly developed as primitive Christianity made its way
among the Gentiles. It required centuries to reach its per
fection in the metaphysical subtleties of the great Creeds,
which are accepted alike by Protestant and Catholic. Peter,
in the Acts of the Apostles, speaks to his countrymen of “ the
man ” Jesus whom they had slain; the god Christ was an
after construction of the Grasco-Oriental mind.
We do not propose, however, to trouble the reader with
laborious proofs of this position. We prefer to leave the
historical ground—at least in the present inquiry—and to
tread the ground of common knowledge and common sense.
Apart from history and metaphysics, for which the popular
mind has neither leisure nor inclination, and in which it is
often as easy for a skilled intelligence to go wrong as to go
right—there are only two ways in which the belief in Christ’s
divinity can be supported. It may be argued that he was not
born, and that he did not live or die, like a mere human
being; and that his supernatural career proves his deity. Or
it may be argued that he taught the world what it did not
know, and could never have discovered for itself.
�Will Christ Save Us?
,19
We will take the second argument first; and in reply w©
have simply to observe that a very slight acquaintance with
the teachings of antiquity will convince us of the truth of
Buckle’s statement, that whoever asserts that Christianity
revealed to mankind truths with which they were previously
unacquainted is guilty either of gross ignorance or of wilful
fraud. The note of absolute originality is lacking in the
utterances of Christ; what he said had been said in other
words before him; and it is inconceivable that God should
come upon earth, and go through all the painful and un
dignified stages of human life, merely to inform his creatures
of what they had already discovered.
Let us now take the first argument—the supernatural career
of Christ. We are told that he was born without a father;
but whoever will read the Gospels critically, without the
slightest reference to any other authority, will see that they
do not contain the first-hand testimony of any valid witness.
If the Gospels were written in the second century (as they
were) they are no evidence at all. If they were written
by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they are still no
evidence of the miraculous birth of Jesus; for neither of
those writers was in a position to know the facts. The
only persons who could know anything about the matter
were Joseph and Mary. Joseph himself could only know
he was not the father of Jesus; he could not know who
was, Mary, indeed, knew if there was anything uncommon ;
but she does not appear to have informed any one; in fact,
she is said to have kept all these things hidden in her heart.
How then did the Gospel writers—or rather two of them, for
Mark and John were ignorant or silent—how, we ask, did
they discover the minute details of the annunciation and
miraculous conception ? Joseph and Mary appear to have
kept the secret, if there was one to keep; and during all the
public life of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, not a whisper
transpired of his supernatural birth ; on the contrary, he is
�20
TPzZZ Christ Save Us ?
unsuspectingly referred to as “ the carpenter’s son ” by his
neighbors and fellow citizens.
Were such “ evidence ” as this tendered in a court of law,
it would damnify the case for which it was adduced; and
Catholics are sagacious in reminding the Protestants that the
witness of the Bible is insufficient without the living wit
ness of the Church.
A miraculous birth is necessarily suspicious. The advent
of a Cod should be entirely supernatural. It is not enough
to dispense with a father; he should also dispense with a
mother. Both are alike easy in physiology. But when there
is a mother in the case, it is natural to suppose that there is
a father somewhere.
With regard to the miracles of Christ’s life, however they are
acceptable to faith, they are not acceptable to reason. There
is an utter lack of evidence in their favor—at least of such
evidence as would be admitted in a legal investigation. It
is this fact, indeed, which induces advocates like Cardinal
Newman to lay stress upon the “ antecedent probability ” of
the New Testament miracles; which is only supplying the
deficiency of evidence by the force of prepossession. Even
the Resurrection is unattested. There is no first-hand evi
dence, and the narrative is full of self-contradiction. This is
perceived by Christian apologists, who have abandoned the
old-fashioned argument. They say as little as possible about
the Gospel witnesses. They stake almost everything on Paul,
who is not mentioned in the Gospels, who never saw Jesus in
the flesh, who only saw him in a vision several years after the
Ascension, and whose testimony (if it may be called such)
would be laughed at by any committee of inquiry. They
also argue, in a supplemental way, that the early Christians
believed in the resurrection of Christ. Yes, and they believed
in all the miracles of Paganism. But in any case belief is not
evidence; it is only, at best, a reason for investigation. The
resurrection was a fact or it was not a fact, and the disincli-
�Will Christ Save Us ?
21
nation of Christian writers to face this plain alternative is an
indication of their own misgivings. A counsel does not resort
to subtleties when he has a good case upon the record.
The deity of Christ, therefore, is very far from proved; it
is even far from probable. Faith may cry “ He was God,”
but Reason declares “He was man.” Even, however, if he
were God, it does not follow that he will save us. What he
may do behind the curtain of death is only a conjecture. In
this world it is patent that God only helps those who help
themselves; he also helps them as far as they help them
selves ; that is, he does not help them at all. Prayer is no
longer a hearty request for divine assistance. Christians ask
on Sunday, but they do not expect to receive on Monday.
Their supplication is formal and perfunctory. They know
that it will not deflect the lightning from its path, or turn
the course of the avalanche, or divert the lava’s stream, or
change the line of an explosion, or banish a pestilence, or
bring rain in drought, or draw sunshine for the crops, or
quicken the growth of a single blade of grass, or diminish
by one iota the statistics of human crime.
It is, of course, impossible to prove that Jesus Christ did
not work miracles; nor is it incumbent upon the unbeliever
to attempt such an undertaking. He who asserts must
prove; other persons have only to try his arguments and
weigh his evidence. Is not every prisoner in the dock
presumed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty? And
should not the career of every being in the form of humanity
be presumed to be natural until it is proved to be super
natural ?'
This much, however, may be safely asserted by the
unbeliever—that whatever miracles were wrought by Jesus
Christ were only useful to his contemporaries; that he does
not posthumously save their successors from pain and
hunger, and disease and death; and that he certainly has
not through the Religion he came to promulgate, and the
7
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Will Christ Save Us ?
Church he came to establish—in the least degree succeeded
in saving the world, or any part of it, from evil and mianry
Let us expatiate a little upon each of these assertions; so
that, if they are disputed, they may first be understood.
There is no suggestion in the Gospels, or elsewhere in the
New Testament, that Jesus wrought any miracle on an
extensive scale, except the feeding of some thousands of
people at a religious picnic, by supernaturally multiplying a
few leaves and fishes, so that they served as an ample repast
for the hungry multitude. This was very convenient—for
that particular assembly. But of what service was it after
wards to the rest of mankind ? Has it ever filled out the
pinched cheek of want, put fresh blood in the blue lips of
famine, or new fire in the dull eyes of despair ? Babes have
died at the drained and flaccid breasts of their mothers, and
strong men have withered into shadows, for whom a little of
the miraculous food of Christ would have meant a real and
blessed salvation.
The other alleged miracles of Jesus Christ were entirely
personal. A blind man has his sight restored and a deaf
person his hearing; a dumb man is made to speak, who
might, perhaps, as usefully have remained silent; a cripple
is enabled to walk, a diseased person is healed, a widow’s
dead son and a sister’s dead brother are restored to their
loving embraces. All this was very interesting—at the time;
though it seems to have had a marvellously feeble effect upon
the Jews. But of what interest is it now ? Jesus did, indeed,
promise that his faithful disciples should work miracles
even greater than his own, and for a while they are said to
have done so; but their powers in this direction very
curiously declined as they came into contact with the educated
classes, and except in the most ignorant parts of Catholic
countries it is impossible to find a trace of the miraculous
virtue that was to be the “ sign of them that believed.”
Accordingly, the apologists of Christianity seek refuge in
�Will Christ Save Us 7
23
an arbitrary assertion, and a vague, unsustainable, and irre
futable argument. The arbitrary sssertionis (not in Catholic,
but in Protestant countries) that the miraculous powers of
the disciples of Christ ceased at some time aftei* his Ascen
sion. They do not say when; and it is easy to prove that
the miracles of the Church since the days of Constantine (for
instance) are better substantiated than the miracles of the
primitive ages. Still more extravagant, if possible, is the
argument that, whatever may be said as to individual cases
of miracle, the establishment of Christianity and its perpetual
maintainance is a miracle of miracles, a colossal and perma
nent proof of the ceaseless care of Christ for the salvation
of mankind. Logic, indeed, is powerless against the
assumption of something supernatural behind the Christian
Church—proof and disproof being alike impossible; but so
far as its history can be traced, its growth and progress are
entirely natural, like the growth and progress of Buddhism,
Mohammedanism, or any othei’ system that has arisen within
the historic period.
In any case the Christian Church has not saved the world.
Christianity lives upon the falsification of history in the past,
and irredeemable promises in the future. Its apologists
have systematically blackened the ancient civilisations; they
have taken credit for such improvement in human society as
was inevitable in the progress of two thousand years; and
against the objection that the world is still in a very wretched
condition, they have replied that Christianity has not had
time enough to produce all its beneficial fruits. Give it
another two thousand years, and it will turn the wilderness
into a paradise, and make the desert bloom with roses!
Now no one can give Christianity another two thousand
years; and if prophecy is easy, it is also unprofitable. What
will be will be, at the end of two thousand years as to-morrow,
but none of us will live to see it. Let us, therefore, take a
more practical course. We will take a few broad character
�24
Will Christ Save Us ?
istics of progress, and see what has been the effect of
Christianity upon European civilisation. In other words,
we shall ask whether Christ has saved the world; and the
result will help us to answer—as far as it can be answered—
the further question whether he will save the world.
There is one indispensable condition of all progress—
Liberty of Thought. Truth is the highest interest of man
kind ; it cannot be found unless we are free to search for it,
and even if it were found we could nevei- be sure of it without
examination. And it is impossible to say which of us will
find the next truth that may revolutionise the belief and
practice of society. Wise man was he, wrote Carlyle, who
said that thought should be free at every point of the com
pass. The wider the area of selection the greater the
variety; and he who seems one of the most insignificant of
men may link his name with a great discovery, a splendid
invention, or sublime principle. You cannot tell where your
Arkwright, Watt, or Stephenson will come from; your
Edison may be a street-arab selling newspapers; your
Shakespeare and Burns are born in unknown poor men’s
houses; your philosopher of the century may be unknown,
or half contemptible, until he flashes his truth upon the
minds of the few, who become his apostles to the many;
your social regenerator may live and die despised, or perish
in the prison or on the scaffold, and only earn fame and
gratitude when his ashes cannot be gathered from the
general dust of death.
Let thought be free then; free as the air, free as the
sunshine. Set it no limits. Let its only limit be its power
and opportunity. Let genius contribute its wealth, and
mediocrity its mite, to the treasure-house of humanity.
This priceless freedom of thought has always been hated
by Christianity. No religion has ever equalled it in steady,
relentless oppression. In every age, and in every nation, it
has called unbelief a crime. It has punished honest thinkers
�Will Christ Save Us?
25
with imprisonment, torture, and death; and threatened
them with everlasting hell when beyond the reach of its
malice. It has blessed ignorant faith and damned earnest
inquiry ; it has prejudiced the child and terrorised the man;
it has protected its dogmas with penal laws after usurping
authority in the schools; it has excluded Freethinkers from
universities, parliament, and public offices, when it could
not murder them; and even in the most civilised countries
it still clings to enactments against blasphemy and heresy.
It has fought Science, trampled upon Freethought, and
opposed every step of Progress in the name of God.
Christianity has always lent itself to the arts of pi'iestcraft.
All its ethical teaching—which is scattered, various, and
sometimes self-contradictory—has been overshadowed by its
supernatural elements. There have ever been some, it is
true, who have made a faith for themselves out of the finer
maxims of the Hew Testament, and held it up as the real
Christianity. But these have been only as a few loose stones
lying about a mighty edifice. The great mass of Christians,
in every age, have been under the dominion of priests; a
body of men who, except in very low states of barbarism,
where superstition comes to the aid of such culture as is then
possible, are always in a common conspiracy against the
progress of mankind. Strife for precedence and authority
took place at a very early period in the primitive Church, and
continued until Christendom was a vast hierarchy. Popes,
cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, have lorded it over the
common herd. Even in our own age, when the spirit of
democracy is abroad, the most successful novelty in Christian
organisation—namely, the Salvation Army—is a sheer
tyranny; a fact which shows that Christianity, despite a few
convenient texts paraded by “ advanced ” Christians, is in
natural harmony with the principles of despotism.
It is idle to cite particular texts against this perennial
tendency. We must judge a system by its general spirit»
�26
Will Christ Save Us ?
and its general spirit by its prevalent practice. Even if we
were to admit, for the sake of argument, that there is no
obvious connection between the doctrines of Christianity and
the existence of priestcraft, it would still remain a fact that
the religion of Jesus Christ has been manipulated by priests
for their own advantage, and the robbery and oppression of
the people; and surely a religion which, during eighteen
centuries, has not been able to save itself from this disgrace,
is never likely, either in the immediate or in the remote
future, to effect our salvation.
Everywhere in Europe, America, and Australia, at the
present moment, Priestcraft, in some form or other, directs
the energies of the Christian faith. If they were ever
separate, the two things are now in absolute alliance. Prac
tically, they are one and the same; they stand or fall
together. Do we not see that those who break away from
Churches, swim or drift down the stream of Rationalism ?
Quakerism itself, after two centuries of sturdy protest against
priestcraft, is now dwindling. Christianity arose quite
naturally in a superstitious age, when the old national
religions of the Roman Empire had fallen into discredit, and
the populace was ready to embrace a more universal religion;
but it never could have been upheld in subsequent ages with
out the combined arts of political and ecclesiastical despotism •
the altar supporting the throne, and the throne the altar; and
both exploiting the ignorance and credulity of the people.
Had freedom prevailed, and free scope been allowed to
inquiry, the Church would long ago have perished, with the
whole system of Christian supernaturalism.
After Liberty of Thought comes Education. The one is
necessary to make the other fruitful. And Christianity has
never been a true friend of education. We are often pointed
to the colleges it established in the dark ages; but it made
the darkness of those ages, and it did not establish the
colleges. It simply took possession of them, and made all
�Will Christ Save Us ?
27
permitted learning its subject. Even the study of ancient
literature, which followed the Reformation, was a sheer
accident, at least in religious circles. In order to maintain
their challenge of Rome, the Reformers had to appeal to
antiquity; and thus, as Bacon observed, the “ ancient authors,
both in divinity and humanity, which had long time slept m
libraries, began generally to be read and revolved.” Those
sleeping authors were only roused for the purpose of contention, not from any desire to extract their wisdom for the
welfare of mankind.
Why, indeed, were those ancient authors allowed to sleep
so long in libraries ? Why was the dust of so many centuries
allowed to accumulate upon them P The proper answer to
this question is to be found in an appeal to Christian
Gibbon remarks that the primitive Christians “ despised
all knowledge that was not useful to salvation.” Some of
their leaders, in the second century, were obliged to study
“human wisdom” inorder to reply to their Pagan adversaries; but a great majority were opposed to this policy.
They wished, as Mosheim observes, to “ banish all reasoning
and philosophy out of the confines of the Church.” After
the triumph of Christianity under Constantine it became
unnecessary to oppose the advocates of Paganism by any
other weapons than proscription and imprisonment. From
that moment the darkness crept over the face of Europe.
The Council of Carthage, in the following century, forbade
the reading of Pagan books. “ The bishops,” says Jortin,
“ soon began to relish this advice, and not to trouble their
heads with literature.” Some of the Byzantine emperors,
less bigoted than the Church dignitaries, tried to cherish
learning; but they were defeated by the ecclesiastics, who,
as Mosheim tells us, “ considered all learning, and especially
philosophic learning, as injurious and even destructive to
true piety and godliness.” What wonder that in the fifth
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�28
Will Christ Save Us?
century “learning was almost extinct” and “only a faint
shadow of it remained ” ?
After a dismal lapse of hundreds of years the clouds of
intellectual darkness began to lift from the face of Europe.
Mohammedan learning slowly spread through Christendom.
All the knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, medicine
and philosophy, propagated in Europe from the tenth cen
tury onward,” says Mosheim, “was derived principally
from the schools and books of the Arabians in Italy and
Spain.”
After the Reformation the Jesuits carried on the work of
education among Catholics. Their object was simply to train
promising young men for the service of the Church. And
the same policy obtained in Protestant seminaries. The
clergy and the privileged classes, as far as possible, mono
polised the extant learning. The wealthier middle-class
gradually gained a share of it, but the common people were
left m the outer darkness. Even in the early part of the
present century they were still excluded. The student of
history is aware that the Christian Churches steadily opposed
popular education. English bishops, in the House of Lords,
voted against the first Education Acts; a famous Bishop of
Exeter remarking in debate that the education of the lower
classes would render them proud and discontented, and
unwilling to work for their superiors.
When it was seen that popular education was bound to
come, the Churches resolved to take time by the forelock.
To prevent Secular education they set up schools for Christian
education. And this is still the secret of their interest in
the working of the present Education Acts. Their real
anxiety is about their own dogmas; they care not for educa
tion, but for theology. Church and Dissent fight each other
at School Board elections. The real issue between them is
what sort of religion shall be taught to the children. Were
religion banished from public schools; were State education
�Will Christ Save Us ?
29
made purely secular; parsons and ministers would cease to
display any interest in the matter.
With respect to education, as in the case of every other
element of progress, we shall of course be met with the
hackneyed objection that Christ has not opposed it. The
crim A will be laid to the charge of the Christian priesthood.
Be it so. We must then ask if there is anything in the
teaching of Christ in favor of education. Where is it to
found, even by the fondest partiality? Jesus himself,
in all probability, was but poorly instructed. His disciples
belonged to the ignorant and unlettered classes. Nor is
it likely that he ever conceived the value of any other
education than the reading of the Jewish Scriptures. The
curriculum of the great schools of Greece and Rome would
have astonished him; he might even have regarded it
as a waste of time, or a wicked self-assertion of the human
intellect.
Cardinal Newman has said that Christianity was always a
learned religion. In a certain sense this is true, though
purely accidental. A kind of learning was needed by
Jerome, who translated the Old Testament into Latin;
a higher learning was required when the Greek of the New
Testament became practically a dead tongue; and a still
higher learning when the Bible and the Fathers were
minutely discussed by the opposed schools of Protestant and
Catholic divinity. Giants of such learning arose in this
mighty contest. But it must be admitted that their learning
was entirely subsidiary to theological disputes. We have
already observed that it was confined to the clergy; we
must now add that it was not very profitable, except in
quite an indirect way, to the general civilisation of Europe.
The vital spring of modern civilisation is science; the
study of nature and of human nature. Shakespeare was as
much a scientist as Newton. We must never narrow science
down to the investigation of physical phenomena. Psycho
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logy and sociology are as noble and fruitful as astromony
and chemistry. It must be admitted, however, that the
study of physical science gives power and precision to our
study of mental science; accuracy in objective investigation
must, in the main, precede accuracy in subjective investi
gation; and as physics precede biology, so biology must
precede sociology.
The methods and conclusions of physical science are there
fore indispensable, apart altogether from their practical value
in providing the material basis of civilisation. Let us inquire
then, what is the relation of Christianity to this requisite of
all real and durable progress.
We shall pass by the fatuous argument that Christianity is
a friend to science because many eminent men of science have
been Christians. Suffice it to say that they were not pro
duced by Christianity. They were born and reared in
Christian countries, and hence they became Christians. Men
of genius have arisen in all civilisations. They were the
gift of Nature to the human race. Scientists, artists, poets,
historians, and philosophers, were born with genius; they were
taught to be Christians, Mohammedans, Jews, Brahmans, or
Buddhists. Genius belongs to no creed; it belongs to
Humanity.
Should it be argued that the fact of men of science having
been professed Christians shows that there is no real opposi
tion between science and Christianity, we should reply that
this is taking a very narrow view of the situation. The real
questions to be considered are these; first, is there anything
in Christianity calculated to make it hostile to science ;
secondly, has it displayed hostility to science through its
chief teachers and great organisations ?
There is something in Christianity calculated to make it
hostile to science. Its sacred books are defaced by a puerile
cosmogony, and a vast number of physical absurdities ; while
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its whole atmosphere, in the New as well as in the Old
Testament, is in the highest degree unscientific.
The Bible gives a false account of the origin of the world ;
a foolish account of the origin of man; a ridiculous account
of the origin of languages. It tells us of a universal flood
which never happened. And all these falsities are bound up
with essential doctrines, such as the fall of man and the
atonement of Christ; withimportant moral teachings andsocial
regulations. It was therefore inevitable that the Church,
deeming itself the divinely appointed guardian of Revelation,
should oppose such sciences as astronomy, geology, and
biology, which could not add to the authority of the
Scripture, but might very easily weaken it. Falsehood
was in possession, and truth was an exile or a prisoner.
Even the science of medicine was hated and oppressed.
It was seen to be in opposition to the New Testament
theory that disease is spirit ual—which is still the current
theory among savages. Medical men saw that disease
is material. Hence the proverb “Among three Doctors
two Atheists.”
Christianity has been called by Cardinal Newman “a
religion supernatural, and almost scenic.” It is miraculous
from beginning to end. Setting aside the extravagances
of the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Acts of the
Apostles are replete with prodigies. Scarcely anything
is natural. Not only is the career of Jesus entirely
superhuman; his very disciples suspend the laws of nature
at their pleasure; they miraculously heal the sick and
raise the very dead.
A history so marvellous fed the superstition of the multi
tude, confirmed their credulous habit of mind, and prejudiced
them against a more scientific conception of nature. It also
compelled the Church to oppose the spread of rational inves
tigation. The spirit of science and the spirit of Christianity
were mutually antagonistic. A conflict between them was
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inevitable. The natural and the miraculous could not dwell
together in peace. The conquests of the one were necessarily
at the expense of the other. This was instinctively felt by
the Church, which could not help acting as the bitter enemy
of Science.
Accordingly we find that the splendid remains of ancient
science were speedily destroyed. The work of demolition
was almost completed within a century after the conversion
of Constantine. Hypatia was murdered by Christian monks
at Alexandria. The magnificent Museum of that city was
also reduced to ruins, and its superb Library was
burnt to ashes or scattered to the winds. Astronomy,
physics, geography, optics, physiology, botany, and
mechanics were annihilated. Before another century had
elapsed they were utterly forgotten. Oosmas Indicopleustes,
a Christian topographer, gravely taught that the earth was
not round, but a quadrangular plane, enclosed by mountains
on which the sky rests; that night was caused by a northern
mountain intercepting the rays of the sun; that the earth
leans towards the south, so that the Euphrates and Tigris,
which run southward, have a rapid current, while the Nile
has a slow current because it runs uphill!
Science simply ceased to exist in Christendom, and it did
not revive for hundreds of years; not, in fact, until Christian
torches were lit at Mohammedan fire. The light of Alexan
drian science was followed by the long darkness of Christian
superstition. “ Looking at the history of science,” says Dr.
Tylor, “ for eighteen hundred years after this flourishing
time, though some progress was made, it was not what might
have been expected, and on the whole things went wrong.”
Things went wrong. Yes, and Christianity was the principal
cause of the mischief. There is no clearer fact in the course
of human history. And it is equally clear that when Science
reappeared in Europe, after an absence of a thousand years,
the Church once more attacked it with tiger-like ferocity.
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Astronomy was the first object of the Church’s wrath. It
gave the lie to the Bible theory of the earth being the
centre of the universe; the sun, moon, and stars merely
existing to give it illumination, or to decorate the sky. It
opened up vistas of time and space in which the Christian
ideas of the universe were lost like drops of water in the ocean.
Farther, by diminishing the relative importance of this
world, it tended to discredit the notion that God was chiefly
occupied with the sins, the repentances, and the destiny of
mankind.
Astronomy came to Christendom from the Mohammedans.
Like other sciences it was unknown in Europe after the
triumph of Christianity, during “the long dead time when
so much was forgotten ”—to use the forcible language of Dr.
Tylor. “ Physical science,” the same writer says, “ might
almost have disappeared [from the world, that is] if it had not
been that while the ancient treasure of knowledge was lost
to Christendom, the Mohammedan philosophers were its
guardians, and even added to its store.” Galileo invented
the pendulum three hundred years ago ; but Dr. Tylor tells
us that “ as a matter of fact, it appears that six centuries
earlier Ebn Yunis and other Moorish astronomers were
already using the pendulum as a time-measurer in their
observations.” According to Professor Draper, the Moham
medan astronomers made catalogues and maps of the stars,
ascertained the size of the earth, determined the obliquity of
the elliptic, published tables of the sun and moon, fixed the
length of the year, and verified the procession of the
equinoxes. “ Meanwhile,” says Draper, “ such waB the
benighted condition of Christendom, such its deplorable
ignorance, that it cared nothing about the matter. Its atten
tion was engrossed by image-worship, transubstantiation, the
merits of the saints, miracles, shrine-cures.”
This indifference lasted till the end of the fifteenth century,
when it was broken by the great navigators, like Columbus
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De Gama, and Magellan, who settled the true shape of the
earth, practically demonstrated its rotundity, and struck a
death-blow at the old teaching of the Church. Then came
the great astronomers, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, who
completed the work of destruction by restoring the true
theory of the universe.
The treatment of these great men shows us the real spirit
of Christianity. Copernicus was called “ an old fool ” i»y
Martin Luther. His great work On the Revolutions of the
Heavenly Bodies, kept back from publication for thirty-six
years through fear of the consequences, was condemned as
heretical by the Inquisition, and put upon the Index of
prohibited books, his system being denounced as “that
false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy
Scriptures.”
Galileo invented the telescope, and with it perceived the
phases of Mercury and "Venus, the mountains and valleys of
the moon, and the spots on the sun. He demonstrated the
earth’s orbit and the sun’s revolution on its own axis. A
terrible blow was given to the cosmogony of the Church and
the book of Genesis. Galileo was accused of heresy, blas
phemy, and Atheism. The Inquisition told him his teaching
was “ utterly contrary to the Scriptures.” He was required
to pledge himself to desist from his wickedness. Tor sixteen
years he obeyed. But in 1632—only 260 yearB ago—he
ventured to publish his System of the World. He was again
brought before the Inquisition, and compelled to fall upon his
kneeR and recant the truth of the earth’s movement round
the sun. Then he was thrown into prison, and treated with
great severity. When he died, after ten years of martyrdom,
the Church denied him burial in consecrated ground.
Giordann Bruno, the poet-prophet of the new astronomy,
was imprisoned for seven years, mercilessly tortured, and at
last burnt to ashes on the Field of Flowers at Borne.
It will be said that these persecutions were the work of
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Catholics. But were the Protestants more friendly to science ?
Martin Luther railed at Copernicus, and John Calvin hunted
Servetus to a fiery death at the stake.
Christianity has now lost its power of opposing science.
But even in the present century it has barked where it cou d
not bite. It was Christian bigotry which made the author of
the Vestiges of Creation conceal his identity; it was orthodox
prepossession which so long prevented Sir Charles Lyell from
admitting the truth of evolution; it was Biblical teaching
which inspired all the pulpit diatribes against Charles Darwin.
Evolution has practically triumphed, but where its evidences
are still imperfect the clergy continue to trade upon the con
jectures of ancient ignorance.
The effect of Christian doctrine upon the lay mind, even in
a high state of development, may be seen in Mr. Gladstone’s
defence of the Bible. His labored absurdities, and unscru
pulous special pleading, show a deep distrust, not only of the
teachings, but of the very spirit of Science.
There is, indeed, an essential opposition between Science
and Christianity. The whole atmosphere of the Bible is
miraculous. Nor is the New Testament any improvement in
this respect upon the Old Testament. It incorporates the
savage theory of disease as the work of evil spirits. Its
stories of demoniacal possession belong to the ages when
madness was treated as a spiritual disorder. The narrative
of Jesus casting devils out of men and sending them into pigs
is an aspect of the same superstition which inspired the
terrible text “ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” And
the healing of disease by Paul with magic handkerchiefs, or
by Peter with his Bhadow, goes down to the lowest depths of
credulity.
Net a single sentence is to be found in the New Testament
showing the slightest appreciation of science or philosophy.
It is clear that the writers of those books looked for the
speedy second coming of Christ. Nothing therefore was of
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any importance in their eyes except an earnest preparation
for “ the great and terrible day of the Lord.”
This superstition of the Second Advent is not yet extinct
in Christendom. It still retains a hold upon millions of the
most stupid and illiterate; and its strength, after so many
centuries, and amid such hostile influences, enables us to
realise its tremendous power in the early ages of Christianity.
The great majority of Christians are, of course, emanci’
pated from this superstition. They take it for granted that
the earth and the human race will exist for thousands and
perhaps millions of years. They are reconciled to the idea of
mental, moral, and material progress in this world. Never
theless, their inherited instincts, the teaching of their religious
instructors, and the reading of their sacred scriptures, make
the most pious and zealous among them look askance at
Science, even while they are ready to enjoy her benefactions.
They feel that she is the natural enemy of their faith.
The clergy themselves treat science in precisely the same
spirit, only their hatred is sometimes tempered by discretion.
The more ignorant and presumptuous still denounce “ science
falsely so called,” preach against Darwinism, and dread every
new scientific discovery. They share the feeling (in their
small way) of Leibniz, who declared that “ Newton had robbed
the Deity of some of his most excellent attributes, and had
sapped the foundation of natural religion.” They also share
the feeling of those who asserted that the use of chloroform
in cases of confinement was an impious interference with
God’s curse on the daughters of Eve. The better instructed
and more cautious clergy profess a certain respect for science.
But it is a respect of fear. You may tell by their faces, tones,
and gestures, that they detest it while they sing its praises.
They are unable to disguise their real sentiments. When
they are most successful they merely treat Science as the
prodigal son, who has too strong a taste for husks and swine
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and is to be coaxed into renting a pew and taking the com
munion.
Let us pause for a moment to see how Science, having
grown to manhood in spite of the murderous hostility of the
Church, has completely subverted the ideas that were the
very foundation of Christianity. The notion that God was
solely concerned with the salvation or perdition of the inhabi
tants of this little planet was connected with, and supported
by, the belief that this world is the centre of the universe,
and that all the other heavenly bodies existed for its
advantage. That belief is for ever annihilated, and with it
the religious conception it countenanced and cherished. The
notion of the world’s antiquity, based upon the Bible
genealogies from Adam to Christ, is dwarfed and made
ridiculous by the discovery that the world has existed for
myriads of ages, and man himself for a period immensely
greater than the orthodox chronology of six thousand years.
But the most terrible blow at the Genesaic theory has been
struck by Darwinism. It is now certain that Adam was not
the first man; nay, that there never was a first man. Man
is not a special creation, but the highest product of a long
process of evolution. The story of the Ball, therefore, is
only a piece of ancient mythology. Man is not a fallen
creature, but a risen organism. He did not degenerate from
a paradisaical condition; he was not cursed by God; he did
not need an atonement. Thus the historic doctrine of Chris
tian salvation is deprived of its basis and meaning. Man did
not die in Adam, and cannot live again in Christ. The
salvation which was proffered to the world was founded upon
a complete misunderstanding of its history, its nature, and
its necessities.
Seeing, then, how fantastic is the religious salvation of
Christianity, let us pursue our inquiry into the character of
its natural salvation. Let us see, that is, in what respect it
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has aided or hindered the political and social progress of
Europe.
It has already been shown that Christianity opposed
liberty of thought and the advance of science, and did not
befriend the education of the masses of the people. We shall
now see that its political and social influence has always been
conservative, and never progressive.
Misty-minded sentimentalists affect to regard Jesus Christ
as the most illustrious of democrats. It is difficult, however»
to find the slightest justification of this view. He himself
paid tribute to the Roman tax-gatherer, and taught “ Render
unto Caasar the things which are Csesar’s.” His language to
his disciples was that of a would-be tyrant, as the word was
understood in the vocabulary of the free people of Greece.
He promised them that when he came into his kingdom they
should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. It was a promise as magnificent, and as empty, as
Don Quixote’s promise of a governorship to Sancho PanzaNevertheless, as we may presume it was made in good faith,
it must be held to indicate something very different from a
republican sentiment.
Simon Peter enjoins us to “ Pear God and honor the King ”
— quite irrespective of his deserts. “ Let every soul,” says
Paul, “ be subject unto the higher powers : for there is no
powei’ but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.”
He adds that whoever resists any established authority “ shall
receive unto themselves damnation.” According to tradition
this was uttered in the reign of the cruel and detestable
Nero, who would have been a greater scourge than he was if
the Romans had not acted on other maxims than Paul’s, and
forcibly terminated his sanguinary career.
Professor Sewell, who once filled the chair of Moral Philo
sopher at Oxford, in a work of considerable ability, entitled
Christian Politics, quotes many other texts from the New
Testament in corroboration of Paul’s teaching. He then
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declares that 41 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 proclaimed the
duty of passive obedience.”
There is no disputing Professor Sewell’s dictum on this
point. He spoke as a Churchman, not as a sceptic; he knew
the history of Christianity, and was competent to pronounce
an authoritative judgment.
Gibbon had previously remarked, in his sarcastic way, that
it was this feature of Christianity which attracted the
admiration of Constantine. “ The throne of the emperors,
he wrote, “ would be established on a fixed and permanent
basis if all their subjects, embracing the Christian religion,
should learn to suffer and obey.”
The doctrine of passive obedience is strongly enforced in
the sermon “ Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion ” at
the end of the Book of Homilies, which, according to the
thirty-fifth Article of the Church of England, is full of “ a
godly and wholesome doctrine,” and is therein appointed “ to
be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and dis
tinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.”
The first rebel, according to this Homily, was Satan him
self, who was expelled from heaven. “We shall find,” it
says, “ in very many and almost infinite places, as well of the
Old Testament as of the New, that kings and princes, as well
the evil as the good, do reign by God’s ordinance, and that
subjects are bounden to obey them.” “ A rebel,” it declares,
“ is worse than the worst prince, and rebellion worse than
the worst government.” And in proof of this doctrine it
cites many passages of scripture, and many illustrations from
Bible history.
The universality of Christian teaching on this subject is
strikingly exhibited in the History of Passive Obedience
Since the lieformation, dated Amsterdam, 1689. It is a rare
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and curious book, written with energy and great learning.
The author ransacks the theological literature of two cen
turies, and shows that the doctors of all schools, including
the Puritans, upheld the doctrine of passive obedience, and
the absolute unlawfulness, nay, the heinous sin, of rebelling
against any prince, however weak, vicious, cruel, or
despotic.
Christians who have rebelled against tyranny have violated
the teaching of the New Testament. They have acted on the
impulses of their own nature. Oliver Cromwell disobeyed
the injunctions of Peter, Paul and Jesus. John Hampden
was more of a Jew than a Christian, and more of a Roman
than either, when he drew his sword against his king.
Mazzini, Garibaldi, Victor Hugo, and Kossuth, if the Chris
tian scriptures be true, were guilty of insurrection against
the ordinance of God.
George Pox and the Quakers were consistent Christians.
They obeyed the order of Jesus to “ resist not evil.” If they
were smitten on one cheek they turned the other to the
smiter. Count Tolstoi preaches, and as far as possible prac
tises, the same doctrine. Every form of violence, he says, is
inconsistent with the teaching of Christ. Not only the
soldier, but the policeman, is in opposition to the Sermon on
the Mount. Count Tolstoi believes it would be an un
Christian act to kill or injure the wretch he might find
ravishing his wife or slaying his child. Active resistance to
evil must never be offered; passive resistance is all that is
permitted; and the rest must be left to Providence.
To certain minds of a soft, peaceful, and humane disposi
tion this doctrine is attractive. But it would never quell
the world’s tyrannies. Wolves do not care for the pious
bleating of sheep.
Inquiry shows us that political freedom has been systemati
cally opposed by the Christian Church, and always won in
spite of it. The English bishop who once declared in the
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House of Lords that “ all the people had t>o do with the laws
was to obey them,” voiced the real spirit of Christianity.
Political freedom is, indeed, a very recent phenomenon in
modern society. A hundred years ago it was as unknown
in other parts of Europe as it is to-day in Russia. Czars,
emperors, kings, and aristocracies held the multitude in sub
jection. The people were outside the pale of such constitu
tions as existed. Prussia and Austria were sheer autocracies.
Spain and Italy had less civil freedom than a province of the
Roman Empire. France had no constitution before 1789.
England had a parliament, but the House of Commons was
filled with nominees of the House of Lords. The suffrage
was confined to a handful of citizens. For this reason Shelley
described the House of Commons as a place
Where thieves are sent
Similar thieves to represent.
“ Infidels ” won political liberty for France. Rousseau
was a Deist; Mirabeau, Danton, and many other leading
spirits of the Revolution were Atheists. Christianity is still
on the side of reaction in the land of Voltaire, while Republi
can and Freethinker are almost convertible terms.
“ Infidels ” were the chief fighters for political freedom in
England. Thomas Paine, who wrote the Age of Reason,
was found guilty of treason for penning the Rights of Man.
Bentham was a Freethinker, and probably an Atheist.
James and John Mill were Freethinkers. Shelley, Byron,
Leigh Hunt, Landor, and most of the Chartist leaders were
all tainted with “ infidelity.” Christian leaders were gene
rally on the side of wealth and privilege, while Freethought
leaders were always on the side of the people.
Ebenezer Eliot, the Corn-Law rhymer, exclaimed—
When wilt thou save the People,
0 God of mercies, when ?
Not thrones, 0 Lord, but peoples,
Not kings, 0 God, but men !
This exclamation was uttered eighteen hundred years after
the death of Jesus Christ, in a land which boasted of being
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the most Christian on earth. This is itself a proof that
Christ had not saved the people. Their salvation since has
been due to other causes ; chiefly, it must be said, to the
progress of science, which is the great equaliser. Was it not
Buckle who declared that “ the hall of science is the temple
of democracy ” ?
One of the most significant facts in recent history was the
the attempt of the German Emperor to strengthen his power
over his subjects. Feeling that the democratic movement
was threatening his throne, he introduced a Bill in the
Reichstag by his ministers, providing that Christian instruc
tion should be given in the public schools, even when scholars
were children of Freethinkers. Happily the Bill was defeated.
King-deluded ” as Germany is, she has outgrown such
illiberalism. Yet the very fact that the Emperor sought
to Christianise the young more completely, in order that
they might grow up his very obedient slaves, is a striking
proof of the essential antagonism between Christianity and
political freedom.
Christian apologists are often obliged to confess that their
faith has cherished, or certainly countenanced, the super
stition of the divine right of kings ; a superstition that is
even now Btamped on our English coinage, although in a
dead language which makes it less obstrusive. Nor can they
deny that the maxims of free government are rather found
in the writings of the philosophers and historians of Greece
and Rome than in the pages of the New Testament. They
sometimes contend, however, that it is not the object of
Christianity to meddle with political polities ; that its prin
ciples and sentiments enter as a leaven into human life; and
that its influence is to be traced in the gradual improvement
of human society. In other words, Christ saves us individually
and socially, and the outcome of this in the sphere of politics
is left to the ordinary course of things.
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Now it is plain to every candid student of history that
Christ has not saved the world from social evils, and equally
plain to the student of philosophy that he is incapable of
doing so. The Civilisation of modern Europe is not the
creation of Christianity, nor has it conformed to Christian
methods. Comparatively speaking, it is a thing of yesterday.
It came in with the dawn of modern Science. We have little
in common with our Christian forefathers of the Middle
Ages, still less with our Christian forefathers of the Dark
Ages. The Grgeco-Roman world, as Mr. Cotter Morison
observes, went down into an abyss after the days of Con
stantine. “ The revival of learning and the Renaissance,” he
says, “ 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 regenerated 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 scholasticism and theology.” This truth
was in Shelley’s mind when he wondered how much better
off we might have been if the Christian interregnum had not
occurred, and civilisation had been carried on continuously
from the point reached by the Pagan world.
What a picture is drawn by Professor Draper of the
squalid life of our ancestors only a few hundred years ago.
In Paris and London the houses were of wood daubed with
clay, and thatched with straw or reeds. They had no
windows and few wooden floors. There were no chimneys,
the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. Drainage
was unknown. A bag of straw served as a bed, and a wooden
log as a pillow. No one washed himself; the very arch
bishops swarmed with vermin, and the stench was drowned
with perfumes. The citizens wore leather garments which
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lasted for many years. It was a luxury to eat fresh meat
once a week. The streets had neither sewers, pavements,
nor lamps. Slops were emptied out of the chamber shutters
after nightfall, Hlneas Sylvus, afterwards Pope Pius II.,
visited England about 1430. He describes the houses of the
peasantry as built of stones without mortar: the roofs were
of turf, and a stiffened bull’s-hide served for a door. Coarse
vegetable products, including the bark of trees, were the
staple food; bread was quite unknown in some places. Is it
any wonder that famine and pestilence raged periodically ?
In the famine of 1030 human flesh was cooked and sold; in
that of 1258, fifteen thousand people died of hunger in London;
in the plague of 1348 all Europe suffered, and one-third of the
population of France was destroyed. Nor was the moral
prospect a whit superior. “ Men, women, and children,” says
Draper, “ slept in the same apartment; not unfrequently,
domestic animals were their companions; in such a confusion
of the family, it was impossible that modesty or morality
could be maintained.” Sexual licentiousness was so universal
that, on the introduction of the dreadful disease of syphilis
from America, it spread with wonderful rapidity, and infected
all ranks and classes, from the Holy Father Pope Leo X. to
the beggar by the wayside.
For this wretched state of things the only remedy was
knowledge. Science was necessary to alter the environment,
and produce the conditions of a happier and purer life.
Christianity had nothing to offer but charity. This is an
admirable virtue in its proper sphere, but a poor substitute
for independence and self-respect. Charity will go to a
plague-stricken city; it will tend the sick and comfort the
dying. Science will guard the city and drive the plague
from its gates.
Christ has not, therefore, been our social savior any more
than our political savior. The modern (in fact, very recent)
improvement in the general condition of the people, is solely
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owing to the conquests of Science. Were our vast accumula
tion of scientific knowledge and appliances to be lost, it is
easy to see that Christianity could not save us from falling
back into a state of barbarism.
It is frequently alleged that Christ has saved the Western
world from the curse of Slavery. This is a most ridiculous
assertion. Slavery has nearly always been under a religious
sanction. There is no instance in the history of the world of
religion having abolished the ownership of men and women
and the traffic in human flesh and blood. The great causes
of emancipation have been economic and material.
His
tory,” says Mr. Finlay, the great historian, “affords its
testimony that neither the doctrines of Christianity, nor the
sentiments of humanity, have ever yet succeeded in extin
guishing slavery, where the soil could be cultivated with
profit by slave-labor. No Christian community of slave
holders has yet voluntarily abolished slavery.” Mr. Finlay’s
assertion is profoundly true, though the fact is disguised to
superficial observers. Slavery was abolished in the West
Indies by England, who compensated the slave-owners. True,
but not until England had completely outgrown her own
slavery of the feudal system. In the United States, also, the
Confederate party of the South tried to maintain slavery,
with the sanction and blessing of the ministers of religion.
The Federalists of the North were against slavery, and they
put it down within the Union, because they had reached a
higher stage of industrial development.
So much for the fact, and now for the theory. What right
has anyone to say that Slavery could be abolished by Chris
tianity ? Christ himself never uttered a word against the
institution. His object was personal piety, and not social
reformation. Not a single Apostle so much as hinted a
dislike of Slavery, though it was condemned by the leading
Stoics as unjust and inhuman. St. Paul sent a runaway slave
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Will Christ Save Us ?
back to his master, with words of kindness, bat without one
word against Slavery itself. All the great Christian writers,
from Basil to Bossuet, through a period of thirteen hundred
years, taught that Slavery was a divine institution. It was
defended as such by Christian jurisprudists in the eighteenth
century. Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in America, said that the
Church was notoriously in favor of Slavery. “ Statesmen on
both sides of the question,” she said, “ have laid that down
as a settled fact.” Theodore Parker showed that 80,000
slaves were owned by Presbyterians, 225,000 by Baptists, and
250,000 by Methodists. He declared that if the whole
American Church had “ dropped through the continent and
disappeared altogether, the anti-Slavery cause would have
been further on.” Professor Moses Stuart, the greatest
American divine since Jonathan Edwards, announced that
“ The precepts of the New Testament respecting the demeanor
of slaves and their masters, beyond all question recognise
the existence of slavery.” Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in her Key to
Uncle Tom's Cabin, prints a great number of resolutions in
favor of Slavery as a Bible Christian institution, passed by
all sorts of Churches in the Southern States. One sample of
these precious documents may suffice ; it emanated from the
Harmony Presbytery of South Carolina—
“ Resolved, That slavery has existed from the days of those good old
slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who are now in
the kingdom of heaven), to the time when the apostle Paul sent a runa
way home to his master Philemon, with a Christian and fraternal letter
to this slaveholder, which we find still stands in the canon of the
Scriptures ; and that slavery has existed ever since the days of the
apostle, and does now exist.
“ Resolved, That as the relative duties of master and slave are taught
in the Scriptures, in the same manner as those of parent and child, and
husband and wife, the existence of slavery is not opposed to thé will of
G»d ; and whosoever has a conscience too tender to recognise this
relation as lawful, is ‘righteous over much,' is ‘wise above what is
written,’ and has submitted his neck to the yoke cf men, sacrificed his
Christian liberty of conscience, and leaves the infallible word of God for
the fancies and doctrines of men.”
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47
Equally striking facts are cited in the series of Anti
Slavery Tracts, edited by Wilson Armistead, of Leeds, in
1853, and apparently published for the English Quakers.
Pronouncements in favoi’ of Slavery are given from a host of
American ministers. Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, for
instance, was asked, “ What effect had the Bible in doing
away with slavery ?” He replied, “ None whatever.” Mis
sionary, Tract, and Bible Societies, were all abettors of
Slavery. Fred Douglass, the runaway slave, cried out thus
in one of his eloquent speeches: “ They have men-stealers
for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle
plunderers for church-members. The man who wields the
blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on
Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly
Jesus. . . . We have men sold to build churches, women
sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles
for the poor heathen! . . . The slave auctioneer’s bell and
the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter
cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious
shouts of his pious master. . . . The dealer gives his blood
stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return,
covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity.”
Enough has been said to show that the Bible has been used
as the slaveholder’s manual, that Christianity did not abolish
Slavery, that the institution flourished for centuries under
the sanction of the Christian Church, that Christian divines
blesBed it and approved it with a text wherever it was
possible and profitable, and that it only disappeared in very
recent times under the influence of a higher type of
material civilisation. It Bhould be added, however, that
Slavery has always found an enemy in Freethought. It was
the sceptical Montaigne who first denounced the villainies of
the Spanish Conquest of America; it was the sceptical
Montesquieu who first branded negro slavery as wicked; it
was the sceptical Voltaire who took up the same attitude in
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Will Christ Save Us ?
•a later generation; and the first pen couched against Slavery
in America was wielded by the sceptical Thomas Paine. Let
it also be remembered that Christian England was not the
first emancipator of slaves. “The first public act against
slavery,” says Professor Newman, “ came from Republican
France, in the madness of atheistic enthusi&sm.”
Christ has been no savior of the world in respect to the
condition of woman, which is one of the best criteria of
civilisation. The ordinary Christian, seeing polygamy prevail
beyond the borders of Christendom, and monogamy within
them, imagines the difference is due to Christianity; and his
clerical guides, who know better, confirm him in the delusion.
Here again it is obvious that religion only consecrates the
established social order. It sanctions polygamy in the East
and monogamy in the West. Christianity found monogamy
existing, and did not create it. Greeks, Romans, and even
Jews, in spite of the Mosaic law, had become monogamists
by a natural evolution. Polygamy was illegal in the Roman
Empire at the advent of Jesus Christ. Nor did any dis
turbing influence arise from the conversion of the Northern
barbarians, for monogamy existed among the Teutonic tribes,
who held women in high honor and esteem, and allowed them
to participate in the public councils.
Had monogamy not prevailed before the triumph of Chris
tianity, it is difficult to see in what way the new faith would
have established it. There is not a word against polygamy,
as a general custom, from Genesis to Revelation. Jehovah’s
favorites were all polygamists, neither did Christ command
the marriage of one man with one woman. The Mormons
justify polygamy from the Bible, and the United States
government answers them, not by argument, but by penal
legislation. Concubinage is also justified from the Bible.
The more a man is steeped in the Christian Scriptures, his
sexii.,1 and domestic views become the more patriarchal.
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49
Christianity, indeed, has been woman’s enemy, and not her
friend. Christ’s own teaching on sexual matters is much
disputed. His language is very largely veiled and enigmatic,
but it gives a strong plausibility to the opinion of Count
Tolstoi, that sexual intercourse is always more or less sinful,
and that no one who desires to be Christlike can think of
marrying. St. Paul’s language is more precise. He plainly
bids men and women to live single; only, if they cannot do
so without fornication, he allows of marriage as a concession
to the weakness of the flesh. Essentially, therefore, he
places the union of men and women on the same ground as
the coupling of beasts. Further, he orders wives to obey
their husbands as absolutely as the Church obeys Christ;
coating the pill with the nauseous reminder that the man
was not made for the woman, but the woman for the man.
Following Christ and Paul, as they understood them, the
Christian fathers lauded virginity to the skies, emphasised
woman’s dependence on man, and treated her with every
conceivable indignity. Their language is often too foul to
transcribe. Let it suffice to say that they were intensely
scriptural in thought and expression. Taking the story of
the Fall as true, they regarded woman as the door of sin and
damnation. Logically, also, they saw in the birth of Christ
from a virgin, a stigma on natural motherhood. Under the
old Jewish law, every woman who brought forth the fruit of
love was “ unclean.” This sentiment survived in the Chris
tian Church. It was deepened by the miraculous birth of
Christ, and strengthened by contact with the great oriental
doctrine of the opposition between matter and spirit; a
doctrine which lies at the root of all asceticism, and is the
key to the sexual morbidity of all the creeds.
These are debateable matters, and it is easy for Christian
rhetoricians to find ways of escape by subtle methods of
interpretation. The Bible becomes in their hands “ a nose
of wax,” as Erasmus said, to be twisted into any shape or
D
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direction. Plain matters of fact, however, are not so easily
perverted; and an appeal to history will show that Chris
tianity lowered, instead of raising, the whole status of women.
Principal Donaldson (and it is well to take a clerical
authority) is the author of an important article in the Con
temporary Review for September, 1889, on “ The Position of
Women among the Early Christians.” It is very unflattering
to Christian vanity, and it has been answered by silence.
“ It is a prevalent opinion,” says Principal Donaldson, “ that
woman owes her present high position to Christianity, and
the influences of the Teutonic mind. I used to ¿believe this
opinion, but in the first three centuries I have not been able
to see that Christianity had any favorable effect on the
position of women, but, on the contrary, that it tended to
lower their character and contract the range of their
activity.” He points out that at the dawn of Christianity
women had attained great freedom, power, and influence in
the Homan Empire. “They dined in the company of
men,” he says, “they studied literature and philosophy,
they took part in political movements, they were allowed
to defend their own law cases if they liked, and
they helped their husbands in the government of pro
vinces and the writing of books.” All this was stopped
by Christianity. “ The highest post to which she rose ”
in the Christian Church “ was to be a door-keeper and
a message-woman.” A woman bold enough to teach was in
the eyes of Tertullian a “ wanton.” The duties of a wife were
simple—“ She had to obey her husband, for he was her head,
her lord, and superior; she was to fear him, reverence him,
and please him alone; she had to cultivate silence; she had
to spin and take care of the house, and she ought to stay at
home and attend to her children.”
Sir Henry Maine had previously observed, in his remark
able Ancient Law, that Christianity tended from the first to
narrow the rights and liberties of women. Not Homan juris
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51
prudence, but the Canon Law, was responsible for the dis
abilities on married women that obtained in Europe down
to the present century. The personal liberty conferred on
married women by the middle Roman law, in Sir Henry
Maine’s opinion, was not likely to be restored to them by a
society which preserved “ any tincture of Christian institu
tion.” Married women, however, in every civilised country
are now rising into a position of legal independence; and this
is but a revival of the best Roman law, which prevailed before
the triumph of Christianity.
It must be a remarkable fact, to any thoughtful Christian
who is interested in the great problem of woman’s emancipa
tion, that the most strenuous advocates of her rights during
the past century have belonged to the sceptical camp. The
first striking essay on the subject was written by Condorcet.
It was Mary Wollstonecraft, the wife of William Godwin,
and the mother of Mrs. Shelley, who wrote the first important essay on the subject in England. Shelley himself
was an ardent champion of sexual equality. His poignant
cry, “ Can man be free if woman be a slave ?” expresses the
very essence of the question. Jeremy Bentham, Robert
Owen, and John Stuart Mill, are a few of the names in the
subsequent muster-roll of custodians of the high tradition;
indeed, it is hardly too much to say that Mill’s great essay
on The Subjection of Women marks an epoch in the history
of social progress. Let it be added that the Ereethought
party has steadily upheld the banner of common rights, making
absolutely mo distinction in position or service between men
and women. The Christians are but slowly and timidly
following in the wake of a party they affect to despise.
Descending from the mothers of the race to its criminal
members, who are still a large section of the community, let
us see what Christ or Christianity has done for them; or
rather for the society which they curse and disgrace. The
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Christian method of reform is preaching. Sublime, pathetic»
or ridiculous, as you happen to regard it, is the Christian
belief in exhortation. It is a legacy from the pre-scientific
ages. A clergyman mountB a pulpit, informs people that
they ought to be good, tells them that in view of a future
life and a day of judgment honesty is the best policy, and
imagines that he has done a good stroke of work for the
moral elevation of society. How profoundly is he mistaken!
It is not thus that human beings are really acted upon. The
way to empty gaols, said John Ruskin, is to fill schools; and,
although this is a partial and exaggerated statement, as
epigrams are wont to be, it expresses truth enough to show
the utter futility of the common “ spiritual ” recipes for
human salvation.
Let our yearning for social improvement be ever so intense,
it is only by scientific methods that we can do any lasting
good. Social diseases must be studied like bodily diseases,
and the proper remedies discovered and applied. To preach
at sinners, either by the way of promises or threats, is in the
long run, and in a general way, as idle as to preach at
persons who suffer from fever or rheumatics.
“Man,” said D’Holbach, “will always be a mystery for
those who insist on regarding him with the prejudiced eyes
of theology.” “ The dogma of the spirituality of the soul,”
he added, “ has turned morality into a conjectural science,
which does not in the least help us to understand the true
way of acting on men’s motives.” Accordingly, it was not
until the Christian view had largely given place to the
scientific view, in ethics and in jurisprudence, that any
radical reform was possible m the treatment of crime; which
is, by the way, a very different thing from the amelioration
ppisons, with which we associate the name of John Howard.
Criminology is an impossible science while we are under the
dominion of Christian ideas. The criminal is merely endowed
with an extra quantity of original sin, which must be
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53
counteracted by spiritual agencies; indeed, it is still set
forth, in the language of indictments, that the prisoner in
the dock was instigated by the Devil. Madness itself, while
Christianity was dominant, was “ an intolerable exaggeration
of this perversity.” “ It is certainly true as an historical
fact,” says Mr. John Morley, whose words we have jusi
quoted, “ that the rational treatment of insane persons, and
the rational view of certain kinds of crime, were due to men
like Pinel, trained in the materialistic school of the eighteenth
century. And it waB clearly impossible that the great and
humane reforms in this field could have taken place before
the decisive decay of theology.”
Science is indeed far more humane than Christianity. It
does not boast so much about its “ great heart,” but it keeps
its eye upon the problem to be solved. At the present
moment the science of Criminology is almost exclusively in
the hands of materialists, who smile at the notion of “ sin ”
and scorn the idea of “punishment”; regarding crime as
moral insanity, and aiming at its treatment by scientific
methods, without cruelty to the criminal, but rather with
the same constant firmness and gentle skill which we have
learnt to apply to the victims of mental insanity.
The jurisprudence of Christian ages was savage and
scandalous. When madmen were beaten to drive the Devil
out of them, it is no wonder that criminals were treated with
monstrous severity. Torture, for instance, was common and
systematic; it was not only applied to accused persons, but
even to witnesses. “ It is curious to observe, says Mr.
Henry C. Lea, “that Christian communities, where the
truths of the gospel were received with unquestioning
veneration, systematised the administration of torture with
a cold-blooded ferocity unknown to the legislation of the
heathen nations whence they derived it. The careful restric
tions and safeguards, with which the Roman jurisprudence
sought to protect the interests of the accused, contrast
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Will Christ Save Vs?
strangely with the reckless disregard of every principle of
justice which sullies the criminal procedure of Europe from
the thirteenth to the nineteenth century.” The death
penalty was inflicted with shocking frequency in every part
of Christendom. Until the early years of the present cen
tury it was common, in England, to see men and women
hung in batches, some of them for petty o fiences, such as
stealing goods to the value of five shillings; and when the
great Romilly attempted to reform this ferocious law, he
was opposed by the whole bench of bishops in the House of
Lords. Since then we have witnessed a vast improvement;
not in consequence of Christ’s teaching, or the spirit of
Christianity, but in consequence of the general spread of
science, education, mental liberty, and democracy; or, in
other words, the progress of secular civilisation.
Coincidently with this movement there has been a diminu
tion in the statistics of crime. What could not be effected
by pulpit anathemas and penal cruelty, has been effected by
wiser and nobler agencies. In England, for instance, since
the passing of the Education Act of 1870, the number of
convicted prisoners has largely decreased, despite the con
siderable growth of population; and it is worthy of special
notice that the principal decrease is among the youthful
offenders.
Christian nations are fond of boasting their superior
virtue, yet it is among Christian nations that we find the
worst developments of th& three great vices of gambling,
drink and prostitution. The present Archbishop of Canterbury,
in a volume entitled Christ and His Times, confesses that
“ Intemperance is in far greater rage and ravage ” in England
than it was “ among those Gentiles ” denounced by St. Peter.
His Grace confesses, also, that England is debauching whole
populations of “heathen.” “The earth’s long-sealed dark
continent, stored with her grandest products,” he declares,
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55
“ is being developed for the wealth of the world through the
application of intoxication to its innumerable tribes by
civilised traders and Christian merchants.” With regard to
prostitution His Grace admits that we are in a sorry plight.
“ The streets of London,” the Archbishop says, “ fling temp
tation broadcast before youth and inexperience,” and “ Our
medical authorities speak of a river of poison flowing into the
blood of this nation.”
These are shameful words to come from the highest
dignitary of the richest Church in the world. And the
shame lies in their truth. After eighteen hundred years of
Christianity, it is very questionable, if allowance be made
for mere differences of manners as distinguished from morals,
whether the Christian nations do in practice exhibit a higher
level of morality than many of the “ heathen ” nations. The
general practice of Christian apologists is to single out some
particular virtues in which we have an advantage, to the
neglect of other virtues in which we are distinctly inferior;
and then to bid us plume ourselves on our superiority. But
this special pleading is abashed by such admissions as those
of Archbishop Benson. Christian nations are the greatest
gamblers and drunkards. Christian nations have. almost
a monopoly of prostitution. The vice of Christian cities is as
bad as any recorded of the worst imperial cities of antiquity.
Perhaps the corruption is not so widespread, and it is
covered with a thicker veil of decorum. Some improvement
has no doubt taken place, especially amongst the middle and
upper-lower classes; but some improvement might be
expected in the course of two thousand years. What there
is of it is not enough to establish any great ethical claim on
behalf of Christianity. It has not reformed the world, as a
divine revelation should do ; in other words, Christ has not
saved us morally ; and what he has not done in such a long
past, he is not likely to do in any possible future.
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Will Christ Save Us?
Poverty is another curse of Christian countries. From the
point of view of material comfort, there are myriads of our
pauper and semi-pauper population who are far worse off
than the slaves of ancient Greece and Rome. St. Peter
spoke of a suffering population. “ We know of one,” says
Archbishop Benson, “ which can only just exist, hanging on
a sharp edge of illness, hunger, uncleanness physical and
moral, incapacity mental and bodily, in full sight of abund
ance, luxury, and waste.”
Christianity promises many fine blessings to the poor, but
they are only realisable in heaven. Poverty is represented as
a blessing in itself. Jesus seems to have regarded it as a
permanent characteristic of human society, and the Church
has been ready to do everything for poverty except to remove
it. But its abolition is the chief object of modern reform.
Poverty is not a blessing; it is a curse. It is “ an imprison
ment of the mind, a vexation of every worthy spirit,” wrote
Sir Walter Raleigh; nay more, it “provokes a man to do
infamous and detested deeds.” Poverty is one of the chief
secrets of popular abasement. Even in the sphere of
economics, strange as it may sound to the superficial, it is
not low wages that are the cause of poverty, but poverty
that is the cause of low wages. Yes, it is absolutely
indispensable to a civilisation worthy of the name, that
poverty—the want of the necessaries and decencies of lifeshould be exterminated. But there is nothing in the teaching
of Christ, or in the traditions of Christianity, to be helpful
in the accomplishment of this great object; indeed, it would
appear from a study of Christian writings that the poor are
providentially kept in that position as whetstones for the
rich man’s benevolence. The Gospel of Giving has been
preached with incredible vigor and unction, and even now
it is the pride of Churches to act as rich men’s almoners.
But giving, if excellent in crises, is bad as a policy; it pre
supposes folly or injustice, or perhaps both, and it perpetuates
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57
and intensifies the evil it affects to mitigate. The true,
deep, and lasting charity is justice ; and for that the world
has looked to Christianity in vain. It will be a glorious
moment when the poor despise the “ charity” which wealth
flings to them as conscience-money or ransom, when they
acorn the eleemosynary cant of the Churches, when they cry
“ Keep your bounty, and give us our rights.”
Meanwhile it is well to observe the industry with which
the apostles of Christ shun the “blessings” of poverty.
They do not take it themselves, they recommend it to others;
it is good for foreign export, bad for domestic consumption.
Blessed be ye poor ” is the text. The clergy never say
«< Blessed are we poor.” They preach with their tongues in
their cheeks, and an Archbishop is the greatest harlequin of
all. How Christ has saved the world from poverty may be
seen in the fact that, nearly two thousand years after his
advent, an Archbishop is paid £15,000 a year to preach
“ Blessed be ye poor.”
There is nothing in the teaching ascribed to Christ which
indicates that he understood poverty to be a curse, or that he
had the slightest appreciation of its causes or its remedies*
He was a preacher and a pietist, with the usual knowledge of
secular affairs possessed by that description of persons. Wellmeaning he may have been; there is no reason whatever to
dispute it; but good intentions will never, by themselves,
■effect the salvation of mankind.
On one occasion the Prophet of Nazareth gave a counsel of
perfection to a wealthy young man. It was to sell his
property and give the proceeds to the poor. Can anyone
conceive a greater economical absurdity? Most assuredly
we want a better distribution of wealth, but this is not the
method to bring it about. It would simply plunge all who
have anything into the slough of poverty. Such advice is a
counsel of ignorance or despair : of ignorance, if the teacher
thinks it would help the poor; of despair, if he regards
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poverty as irremediable, and aims at nothing but an equality
>
of misery.
Christ’s teaching as to poverty, if reduced to practice,
would pauperise and ruin society. Of course it may be
contended—it has been contended—that the advice to sell
out for the benefit of the poor, was solely meant for the
individual to whom it was tendered. But this is inconsistent
with the practice of Christ’s disciples, who must surely have
been in the most favorable position to understand his meaning.
They held all things in common, and those who had posses
sions sold them and paid the price into the common exchequer.
Here again, however, the later disciples of Christ find a
convenient explanation. According to Archbishop Benson,
for example, it was “ no instance of Communism,” but “ au
extraordinary effect to meet a sudden emergency.” Such
are the devices by which it is sought to escape from a
palpable difficulty ! Whenever the plain meaning of Scrip
ture is unpleasant, it is always nullified by artful interpreta
tions. But the slippery exegetes, in this particular instance,
overlook the fact that they are explaining away the only
practical bit of Christ’s teaching with respect to poverty.
They remove a difficulty and leave a blank. And there we
will leave them.
So great is the practical failure of Christianity to save
mankind in this world—so great its failure to save us
from the evils that too often make a hell on earth—that
two distinct lines of apology are pursued by its advocates.
According to the first, it was not the object of Christ to save
us from mere worldly evils; according to the second, we
might have been saved in this very sense of salvation, but we
have obstinately rejected our Redeemer.
As a representative of the first line of apology we select Mr.
Coventry Patmore, who is a Roman Catholic, and a poet of
some distinction. “ Some,” he remarks, “ who do not consider
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59'
that Christianity has proved a failure, do, nevertheless, hold
that it is open to question whether the race, as a race, has been,
much affected by it, and whether the external and visible
evil and good which have come of it do not pretty nearly
balance one another.” Mr. Patmore denies that it was the
main purpose of Christ, or any part of his purpose, that
“ everybody should have plenty to eat and drink, comfortable
houses, and not too much to do.” Neither material nor
moral amelioration was to be expected: on the contrary,
Christ was so far from prophesying “ that the world would
get better and happier for his life, death, and teaching, that
he actually prophesied “ it would become intolerably worse.
“ He tells us,” says Mr. Patmore, “ that the poor will be
always with us, and does not hint disapproval of the institu
tion even of slavery, though he counsels the slave to be
content with his status.” Christ came to save those who.
would, could, or should be saved from their sins, and fitted
for the Kingdom of Heaven. “ It was practically for those
few only that he lived and died,” and, shocking as it may
seem, it is the teaching of the New Testament.
This is clear, emphatic, and straightforward. With such a
defender of Christianity as Mr. Patmore even an Atheist can
have no quarrel. They may salute each other respectfully
across an impassable chasm.
It is not so easy to select a representative of the second
line of apology. The name of such is now Legion. They
tell us that Christ has been blindly misunderstood or wilfully
misrepresented. He was the great, the sublime preacher,
they say, of the doctrine of human brotherhood, which, if
reduced to practice, would make earth a heaven. His Sermon
on the Mount, they add, is the charter of our secular
redemption.
Now if Christ has been misunderstood, or even misrepre
sented, for two thousand years, some at least of the blame
must surely attach to himself. Why did he not expiess
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himself with the clearness of a Confucius. a Cicero, a Seneca,
a Marcus Aurelius? We are told that he used oriental
metaphors; true, and metaphors are good adornments, but
bad foundations. Something plain, solid, and satisfying
should form the basis of every structure.
As for the doctrine of human brotherhood, it was taught
before Christ, and after him by moralists who owed nothing
to his influence. Besides, such a doctrine is but a poor
truism or a barren platitude unless it takes a practical shape
in government and society. Louis the Fourteenth would
have allowed that the meanest peasant in France was his
brother in Christ. Such a broad generalisation means any
thing or nothing, according to individual circumstances.
What is wanted is something more precise, something
addressed to the intellect as well as the emotions. What is
the real value of a doctrine of brotherhood which saw nothing
wrong in slavery? What is the worth of it when the agri
cultural laborer and the landlord sit and listen to it in the
same church, and go their several ways afterwards with no
sense of incongruity, the one to slave for a bare pittance, and
the other to live in comparative idleness on the fruits of his
“ brother’s ” labor ?
With regard to the Sermon on the Mount—which, of
course, is no sermon, but a disorderly collection of maxims—
it has well been described as a series of “ pathetic exaggera
tions.” The moment it is discussed as a basis of action,
nearly every sentence has to be explained, qualified, or hedged
in with reservations. “ Resist not evil ” means, resist evil,
but resist it passively. “ Take no thought for the morrow ”
means, take as much thought as is necessary. “ Blessed are
the poor in spirit ” means, blessed are the rich who do not
keep their noses too high in the air. “ Blessed are the
meek ” works out as, blessed are those who stand up for their
rights. The way in which Christian Socialists turn and
twiBt, amplify and contract, explain and obscure this Sermon
�Will Christ Save Us?
61
on the Mount, is a fine illustration of how men will trim and
decorate their gods sooner than discard them altogether,
Morally, it may be “ touching.” Intellectually, it is contemp
tible. In any other cause it would be treated as downright
dishonesty. We are bound to tell these Christian Socialists
—or Social Christians, as some of the species would prefer to
be designated—that they are lacking in subtlety. Archbishop
Magee knew what he was about in declaring that any society
which tried to base itself upon the Sermon on the Mount
would go to ruin in a week. This he knew was indisputable,
except by softs, cranks, or lunatics. But he did not there
fore abandon the Sermon on the Mount. He sheltered it
behind a pretty, convenient theory; namely, that its injunc
tions are meant for the Church, not for the State—for the
individual, not for society—for Christians, not for citizens.
Jeremy Taylor also knew what he was about in declaring
that the clauses of the Sermon on the Mount are not com
mands, but counsels of perfection. Intellectually, this is not
contemptible; it is very clever—whatever else we may think
of it; whereas our Christian Socialists, or Social Christians,
play the confidence trick too clumsily, being as open as a hat
through the whole performance.
From any rational point of view, it is impossible to regard
Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. For a god, his
failure is egregious. His apostles were to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature; according to the
last chapter of Mark, those who believed were to be saved, and
those who disbelieved were to be damned. Eighteen centuries
have rolled by, and little more than a quarter of the world’s
inhabitants even profess Christianity. Missionaries are still
laboring to convert the “ heathen,” but the proselytes they
make are not a tithe of those who are lost to the Churches
at home through scepticism or mere indifference. Further,
the “ revelation ” through Christ is so obscure, so compli-
�«2
cated, or so self-contradictory, that Christendom is split up
into a multitude of sects, each declaring itself the only true
custodian of “ the faith once delivered unto the saints.” The
only points on which they are universally agreed, are the
cardinal doctrines of pre-Christians religion. To imagine
such a poor, confused result as the work of a deity, is to sink
gods below the level of men. To bid us regard it as the work
of a being at once omnipotent and omniscient, is to insult
the very meanest intelligence.
Christ is a failure also as a man; though, perhaps, it is
less his fault than his misfortune. The true story of his
life—if, indeed, he ever lived at all—has been buried under
a monstrous mass of myths and legends. The sayings
ascribed to him have given rise to endless disputes and
bitter quarrels, in the course of which blood has flowed like
water and tears have fallen like rain. His very name has
been an instrument of terror and oppression. Priests and
kings, age after age, and century after century, have used it
to delude and despoil the people. The nails of his hands and
feet have been driven into the brains of honest thinkers; the
blood from his wounds has been turned into a poison for the
veins of society. Could he see all the frauds and crimes done
in his name, he would wish it to perish in oblivion.
In no sense has this Galilean saved the world. As a simple
man, and no god, how could he possibly do so ? The world’s
salvation is far too huge a task for any man, let him be ever
so wise and great. It is a task for the soldiers of liberty,
truth, and progress in every age and every land. Why
should millions of men be constantly bending over the tomb
of a single dead young Jew ? Is not the whole world a
sepulchre of poets, artists, philosophers, statesmen, and
heroes? Do not the stars shine like night-lamps over the
slumbers of our mighty dead ? And why confine ourselves
to one little country, one petty nation, and one type of cha
racter ? Kot in Palestine, not in Jewry, not in Christ, shall
�. TP7ZZ Christ Save Us?
63
we find all the elements of human greatness and nobility.
Let us be more catholic than our forefathers. They were
narrowed by a creed; we will be as broad as humanity. It is
a poor, cowardly spirit that dreads the cry of “Lo here!” or
“ Lo there!” The wise, brave man will be curious and eclectic.
He will store the honey of truth, beauty, and goodness from
every flower that blooms in the garden of the world.
�TT
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�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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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
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Will Christ save us?
Creator
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 63 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Cover subtitle: An examination of the claims of Jesus Christ to be considered the savior of the world. Publisher's series list on back page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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R. Forder
Date
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1893
Identifier
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N271
Subject
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Christianity
Jesus Christ
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Will Christ save us?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Jesus Christ
NSS
Salvation