It is a common mistake of apologists to set down all general improvements and signs of improvements to the credit of the particular religion or political theory they defend. Every good Liberal knows that bad harvests are due to Tory government. Every good Tory knows that his Party alone is to thank for the glorious certainties that Britannia rules the waves, that an Englishman's house is his castle, and that journeymen tailors earn fourpence an hour more than they were paid in the thirteenth century.
Cobdenites ascribe every known or imagined improvement in commerce, and the condition of the masses, to Free Trade. Things are better than they were fifty years ago: Free Trade was adopted fifty years ago.Ergo—there you are.
There is not a word about the development of railways and steamships, about improved machinery, about telegraphs, the cheap post and telephones; about education and better facilities of travel; about the Factory Acts and Truck Acts; about cheap books and newspapers; and who so base to whisper of Trade Unions, and Agitators, and County Councils?
So it is with the Christian religion. We are more moral, more civilised, more humane, the Christians tell us, than any human beings ever were before us. And we owe this to the Christian religion, and to no other thing under Heaven.
But for Christianity we never should have had the House of Peers, theTimesnewspaper, the Underground Railway, theAdventures of Captain Kettle, the Fabian Society, or Sir Thomas Lipton.
The ancient Greek Philosophers, the Buddhist missionaries, the Northern invaders, the Roman laws and Roman roads, the inventions of printing, of steam, and of railways, the learning of the Arabs, the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Herschel, Hunter, Laplace, Bacon, Descartes, Spencer, Columbus, Karl Marx, Adam Smith; the reforms and heroisms and artistic genius of Wilberforce, Howard, King Asoka, Washington, Stephen Langton, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Thomas More, Rabelais, and Shakespeare; the wars and travels and commerce of eighteen hundred years, the Dutch Republic, the French Revolution, and the Jameson Raid have had nothing to do with the growth of civilisation in Europe and America.
And so to-day: science, invention, education, politics, economic conditions, literature and art, the ancient Greeks and Oriental Wisdom, and the world's Press count for nothing in the moulding of the nations. Everything worth having comes from the pulpit, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and theWar Cry.
It is not to our scientists, our statesmen, our economists, our authors, inventors, and scholars that we must look for counsel and reform: such secular aid is useless, and we shall be wise to rely entirely upon His Holiness the Pope and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In the England of the Middle Ages, when Christianity was paramount, there was a cruel penal code, there was slavery, there were barbarous forest laws, there were ruthless oppression and insolent robbery of the poor, there were black ignorance and a terror of superstition, there were murderous laws against witchcraft, there was savage persecution of the Jews, there were "trial by wager of battle," and "question" of prisoners by torture.
Many of these horrors endured until quite recent times. Why did Christianity with its spiritual and temporal power, permit such things to be?
Did Christianity abolish them? No. Christianity nearly always opposed reform. The Church was the enemy of popular freedom, the enemy of popular education; the friend of superstition and tyranny, and the robber baron.
Those horrors are no more. But Christianity did not abolish them. They were abolished by the gradual spread of humane feelings and the light of knowledge; just as similar iniquities were abolished by the spread of humane doctrines in India, centuries before the birth of Christ.
Organised and authoritative religion the world over makes for ignorance, for poverty and superstition. In Russia, in Italy, in Spain, in Turkey, where the Churches are powerful and the authority is tense, the condition of the people is lamentable. In America, England, and Germany, where the authority of the Church is less rigid and the religion is nearer Rationalism, the people are more prosperous, more intelligent, and less superstitious. So, again, the rule of the English Church seems less beneficial than that of the more rational and free Nonconformist. The worst found and worst taught class in England is that of the agricultural labourers, who have been for centuries left entirely in the hands of the Established Church.
It may be urged that the French, although Catholics, are as intelligent and as prosperous as any nation in the world. But the French are a clever people, and since their Revolution have not taken their religion so seriously. Probably there are more Sceptics and Rationalists in France than in any other country.
My point is that the prosperity and happiness of a nation do not depend upon the form of religion they profess, but upon their native energy and intelligence and the level of freedom and knowledge to which they have attained.
It is because organised and authoritative religion opposes education and liberty that we find the most religious peoples the most backward. And this is a strange commentary upon the claim of the Christians, that their religion is the root from which the civilisation and the refinement of the world have sprung.
Christianity, we are told, inaugurated the religion of humanity and human brotherhood. But the Buddhists taught a religion of humanity and universal brotherhood before the Christian era; and not only taught the religion, but put it into practice, which the Christians never succeeded in doing, and cannot do to-day.
And, moreover, the Buddhists did not spread their religion of humanity and brotherhood by means of the sword, and the rack, and the thumb-screw, and the faggot; and the Buddhists liberated the slave, and extended their loving-kindness to the brute creation.
The Buddhists do not depend for the records of their morality on books. Their testimony is written upon the rocks. No argument can explain away the rock edicts of King Asoka.
King Asoka was one of the greatest Oriental kings. He ruled over a vast and wealthy nation. He was converted to Buddhism, and made it the State religion, as Constantine made Christianity the State religion of Rome. In the year 251 B.C., King Asoka inscribed his earliest rock edict. The other edicts from which I shall quote were all cut more than two centuries before our era. The inscription of the Rupuath Rock has the words: "Two hundred and fifty years have elapsed since the departure of the teacher." Now, Buddha died in the fifth century before Christ.
The Dhauli Edict of King Asoka contains the following:
Much longing after the things [of this life] is a disobedience,I again declare; not less so is the laborious ambition ofdominion by a prince who would be a propitiator of Heaven.Confess and believe in God, who is the worthy object of obedience.
From the Tenth Rock Edict:
Earthly glory brings little profit, but, on the contrary,produces a loss of virtue. To toil for heaven is difficultto peasant and to prince, unless by a supreme effort he givesup all.
This is from the Fourteenth Edict:
Piyadasi, the friend of the Devas, values alone the harvestof the next world. For this alone has this inscription beenchiselled, that our sons and our grandsons should make no newconquests. Let them not think that conquests by the swordmerit the name of conquests. Let them see their ruin, confusion,and violence. True conquests alone are the conquests ofDharma.
Rock Edict No. 1 has:
Formerly in the great refectory and temple of King Piyadasi,the friend of the Devas, many hundred thousand animals weredaily sacrificed for the sake of food meat... but now thejoyful chorus resounds again and again that henceforward nota single animal shall be put to death.
The Second Edict has:
In committing the least possible harm, in doing abundance ofgood, in the practice of pity, love, truth, and likewise purityof life, religion consists.
The Ninth Edict has:
Not superstitious rites, but kindness to slaves and servants,reverence towards venerable persons, self-control with respectto living creatures... these and similar virtuous actionsare the rites which ought indeed to be performed.
The Eighth Edict has:
The acts and the practice of religion, to wit, sympathy,charity, truthfulness, purity, gentleness, kindness.
The Sixth Edict has:
I consider the welfare of all people as something for whichI must work.
The Dhauli Edict has:
If a man is subject to slavery and ill-treatment, from thismoment he shall be delivered by the king from this and othercaptivity. Many men in this country suffer in captivity,therefore the stupa containing the commands of the king hasbeen a great want.
Is it reasonable to suppose that a people possessing so much wisdom, mercy, and purity two centuries before Christ was born could need to borrow from the Christian ethics?
Mr. Lillie says of King Asoka:
He antedates Wilberforce in the matter of slavery. He antedatesHoward in his humanity towards prisoners. He antedates Tolstoyin his desire to turn the sword into a pruning-hook. He antedatesRousseau, St. Martin, Fichte in their wish to make interiorreligion the all in all.
King Asoka abolished slavery, denounced war, taught spiritual religion and purity of life, founded hospitals, forbade blood sacrifices, and inculcated religious toleration, two centuries before the birth of Christ.
Centuries before King Asoka the Buddhists sent out missionaries all over the world.
Which religion was the borrower from the other—Buddhism or Christianity?
Two centuries before Christ, King Asoka had cut upon the rocks these words:
I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ withme in creed, that they, following after my example, may withme attain unto eternal salvation. And whoso doeth this isblessed of the inhabitants of this world; and in the nextworld endless moral merit resulteth from such religious charity—Edict XI.
How many centuries did it take the Christians to rise to that level of wisdom and charity? How many Christians have reached it yet?
But the altruistic idea is very much older than Buddha, for it existed among forms of life very much earlier and lower than the human, and has, indeed, been a powerful factor in evolution.
Speaking of "The Golden Rule" in hisConfessions of Faith of a Man of Science, Haeckel says:
In the human family this maxim has always been accepted asself-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritancederived from our animal ancestors. It had already found aplace among the herds of apes and other social mammals; in asimilar manner, but with wider scope, it was already presentin the most primitive communities and among the hordes of theleast advanced savages. Brotherly love—mutual support,succour, protection, and the like—had already made itsappearance among gregarious animals as a social duty; forwithout it the continued existence of such societies isimpossible. Although at a later period, in the case of man,these moral foundations of society came to be much more highlydeveloped, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown,is to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among thehigher vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as amongthe higher articulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.), also, thedevelopment of social relations and duties is the indispensablecondition of their living together in orderly societies. Suchsocieties have for man also been the most important instrumentof intellectual and moral progress.
It is not to revelation that we owe the ideal of human brotherhood, but to evolution. It is because altruism is better than selfishness that it has survived. It is because love is stronger and sweeter than greed that its influence has deepened and spread. From the love of the animal for its mate, from the love of parents for their young, sprang the ties of kindred and the loyalty of friendship; and these in time developed into tribal, and thence into national patriotism. And these stages of altruistic evolution may be seen among the brutes. It remained for Man to take the grand step of embracing all humanity as one brotherhood and one nation.
But the root idea of fraternity and mutual loyalty was not planted by any priest or prophet. For countless ages universal brotherhood has existed among the bison, the swallow, and the deer, in a perfection to which humanity has not yet attained.
For a fuller account of this animal origin of fraternity I recommend the reader to two excellent books,The Martyrdom of Man, by Winwood Reade (Kegan Paul), andMutual Aid, by Prince Kropotkin (Heinemann).
But the Christian claims that Christ taught a new gospel of love, and mercy, and goodwill to men. That is a great mistake. Christ did not originate one single new ethic.
The Golden Rule was old. The Lord's Prayer was old. The Sermon on the Mount was old. With the latter I will deal briefly. For a fuller statement, please see the R.P.A. sixpenny edition of Huxley'sLectures and Essays, andChristianity and Mythology, by J. M. Robertson.
Shortly stated, Huxley's argument was to the following effect:
That Mark's Gospel is the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, and that Mark's Gospel does not contain, nor even mention, the Sermon on the Mount. That Luke gives no Sermon on the Mount, but gives what may be called a "Sermon on the Plain." That Luke's sermon differs materially from the sermon given by Matthew. That the Matthew version contains one hundred and seven verses, and the Luke version twenty-nine verses.
Huxley's conclusion is as follows:
"Matthew," having acentoof sayings attributed—rightly orwrongly it is impossible to say—to Jesus among his materials,thought they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourseand put them in a place he thought likeliest. Ancient historiansof the highest character saw no harm in composing long speecheswhich never were spoken, and putting them into the mouths ofstatesmen and warriors; and I presume that whoever is representedby "Matthew" would have been grievously astonished to find thatany one objected to his following the example of the best modelsaccessible to him.
But since Huxley wrote those words more evidence has been produced. From the Old Testament, from the Talmud, and from the recently-discoveredTeaching of the Twelve Apostles(a pre-Christian work) the origins of the Sermon on the Mount have been fully traced.
Agnostic criticism now takes an attitude towards this sermon which maybe thus expressed:1. The sermon never was preached at all. It is a written compilation.2. The story of the mount is a myth. The name of the mount is notgiven. It is not reasonable to suppose that Jesus would lead amultitude up a mountain to speak to them for a few minutes. Themountain is an old sun-myth of the Sun God on his hill, and thetwelve apostles are another sun-myth, and represent the signs ofthe Zodiac.3. There is nothing in the alleged sermon that was new at the timeof its alleged utterance.
Of course, it may be claimed that the arrangement of old texts in a new form constitutes a kind of originality; as one might say that he who took flowers from a score of gardens and arranged them into one bouquet produced a new effect of harmony and beauty. But this credit must be given to the compilers of the gospels' version of the Sermon on the Mount.
Let us take a few pre-Christian morals.
Sextus said: "What you wish your neighbours to be to you, such be also to them."
Isocrates said: "Act towards others as you desire others to act towards you."
Lao-tze said: "The good I would meet with goodness, the not-good I would also meet with goodness."
Buddha said: "Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love."
And again: "Let us live happily, not hating those who hate us."
In the Talmud occur the following Jewish anticipations of Christian morals:
Love peace, and seek it at any price.Remember that it is better to be persecuted than persecutor.To whom does God pardon sins?—To him who himself forgives injuries.Those who undergo injuries without returning it, those whohear themselves vilified and do not reply, who have no motivebut love, who accept evils with joy; it is of them that theprophet speaks when he says the friends of God shall shineone day as the sun in all his splendour.It is not the wicked we should hate, but wickedness.Be like God, compassionate, merciful.Judge not your neighbour when you have not been in his place.He who charitably judges his neighbour shall be charitably judgedby God.Do not unto others that which it would be disagreeable to youto suffer yourself, that is the main part of the law; all therest is only commentary.
From the Old Testament come such morals as:
Let him give his cheek to him that smiteth him (Lam. iii. 30).Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Lev. xix. 18).He that is of a lowly spirit shall obtain honour (Prov. xxix. 23)The meek shall inherit the land (Ps. xxxvii 11).
History and ancient literature prove that Christianity did not bring a new moral code, did not inaugurate peace, nor purity, nor universal brotherhood, did not originate the ideal human character: but checked civilisation, resisted all enlightenment, and deluged the earth with innocent blood in the endeavour to compel mankind to drink old moral wine out of new theological bottles.
Three of the greatest blessings men can have are freedom, liberty of conscience, and knowledge. These blessings Christianity has not given, but has opposed.
It is largely to the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the Arabs and the Indians, to patriots, heroes, statesmen, scholars, scientists, travellers, inventors, discoverers, authors, poets, philanthropists, rebels, sceptics, and reformers that the world owes such advance as it has made towards liberty and happiness and universal loving-kindness.
This advance has been made in defiance of Christian envy, hatred, and malice, and in defiance of Christian tyranny and persecution. After fighting fiercely to defeat the advance of humanity, after slaying and cursing the noblest sons and daughters of the ages, the defeated Christians now claim to have conquered the fields they have lost, to have bestowed the benefits they have denied, to have evolved the civilisation they have maimed and damned.
As a Democrat, a Humanist, and a Socialist, I join my voice to the indignant chorus which denies those claims.
We are told that the divine origin and truth of Christianity are proved by the marvellous success of that religion. But it seems to me that the reverse is proved by its failure.
Christianity owed its magnificent opportunities (which it has wasted) to several accidental circumstances. Just as the rise of Buddhism was made possible by the act of King Asoka in adopting it as the State Religion of his vast Indian kingdom, was the rise of Christianity made possible by the act of the Emperor Constantine in adopting it as the State religion of the far-stretched Roman Empire.
Christianity spread rapidly because the Roman Empire was ripe for a new religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling powers. It throve because it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven in one hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The older religions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe or threat to conjure with.
Christianity overcame opposition by murdering or cursing all who resisted its advance. It exterminated scepticism by stifling knowledge, and putting a merciless veto on free thought and free speech, and by rewarding philosophers and discoverers with the faggot and the chain. It held its power for centuries by force of hell-fire, and ignorance, and the sword; and the greatest of these was ignorance.
Nor must it be supposed that the persecution and the slaughter of "Heretics" and "Infidels" was the exception. It was the rule. Motley, the American historian, states that Torquemada, during eighteen years' command of the Inquisition, burnt more than ten thousand people alive, and punished nearly a hundred thousand with infamy, confiscation of property, or perpetual imprisonment.
To be a Jew, a Moslem, a Lutheran, a "wizard," a sceptic, a heretic was to merit death and torture. One order of Philip of Spain condemned to death as "heretics"the entire population of the Netherlands. Wherever the Christian religion was successful the martyrs' fires burned, and the devilish instruments of torture were in use. For some twelve centuries the Holy Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day the term "free thought" is a term of reproach. The shadow of the fanatical priest, that half-demented coward, sneak, and assassin, still blights us. Although that holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous casuistries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and whips of steel, has been defeated by the humanity he scorned and the knowledge he feared, yet he has left a taint behind him. It is still held that it ought to be an unpleasant thing to be an Infidel.
And, yes, there were other factors in the "success" of Christianity. The story of the herald angels, the wise men from the east, the manger, the child God, the cross, and the gospel of mercy and atonement, and of universal brotherhood and peace amongst the earthly children of a Heavenly Father, whose attribute was love—this story, possessed a certain homely beauty and sentimental glamour which won the allegiance of many golden-hearted and sweet-souled men and women. These lovely natures assimilated from the chaotic welter of beauty and ashes called the Christian religion all that was pure, and rejected all that was foul. It was the light of such sovereign souls as Joan of Arc and Francis of Assisi that saved Christianity from darkness and the pit; and how much does that religion owe to the genius of Wyclif and Tyndale, of Milton and Handel, of Mozart and Thomas a Kempis, of Michael Angelo and Rafael, and the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer?
There are good men and good women by millions in the Christian ranks to-day, and it is their virtue, and their zeal, and their illumination of its better qualities, and charitable and loyal shelter of its follies and its crimes, that keep the Christian religion still alive.
Christianity has been for fifteen hundred years the religion of the brilliant, brave, and strenuous races in the world. And what has it accomplished? And how does it stand to-day?
Is Christianity the rule of life in America and Europe? Are the masses of people who accept it peaceful, virtuous, chaste, spiritually minded, prosperous, happy? Are their national laws based on its ethics? Are their international politics guided by the Sermon on the Mount? Are their noblest and most Christlike men and women most revered and honoured? Is the Christian religion loved and respected by those outside its pale? Are London and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, and Rome centres of holiness and of sweetness and light? From Glasgow to Johannesburg, from Bombay to San Francisco is God or Mammon king?
If a tree should be known by its fruit, the Christian religion has small right to boast of its success.
But the Christian will say, "This is not Christianity, but its caricature." Where, then, is the saving grace, the compelling power, of this divine religion, which, planted by God Himself, is found after nineteen centuries to yield nothing but leaves?
After all these sad ages of heroism and crime, of war and massacre, of preaching and praying, of blustering and trimming; after all this prodigal waste of blood and tears, and labour and treasure, and genius and sacrifice, we have nothing better to show for Christianity than European and American Society to-day.
And this ghastly heart-breaking failure proves the Christian religion to be the Divine Revelation of God!
Another alleged proof of the divine verity of the Christian religion is the Prophecies. Hundreds of books—perhaps I might say thousands of books—have been written upon these prophecies. Wonderful books, wonderful prophecies, wonderful religion, wonderful people.
If religious folk did not think by moonlight those books on the prophecies would never have been written. There are the prophecies of Christ's coming which are pointed out in the Old Testament. That the Jews had many prophecies of a Jewish Messiah is certain. But these are indefinite. There is not one of them which unmistakably applies to Jesus Christ; and the Jews, who should surely understand their own prophets and their own Scriptures, deny that Christ was the Messiah whose coming the Scriptures foretold.
Then, we have the explicit prophecy of Christ Himself as to His second coming. That prophecy at least is definite; and that has never been fulfilled.
For Christ declared in the plainest and most solemn manner that He would return from Heaven with power and glory within the lifetime of those to whom He spoke:
Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, tillall these things be fulfilled.
These prophecies by Christ of His return to earth may be read in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. They are distinct, and definite, and solemn, and—untrue.
I could fill many pages with unfulfilled prophecies from the Old and New Testaments. I think the one I give is enough.
Jesus Christ distinctly says that He will come in glory with all His angels before "this generation" all have passed away.
This is the year 1903. Christ uttered His prophecy about the year 31.
Christians declare the religious sentiment to be universal. Even if it were so, that would show a universal spiritual hunger; but would not prove the Christian religion to be its only food.
But the religious sentiment is not universal. I know many young people who have never been taught religion of any kind, who have never read Bible nor Gospel, who never attended any place of worship; and they are virtuous and courteous and compassionate and happy, and feel no more need of spiritual comfort or religious consolation than I do.
They are as gentle, sweet, and merry, and do their duty as faithfully as any Christian, yet to them Heaven and Hell are meaningless abstractions; God and the soul are problems they, with quiet cheerfulness, leave time to solve.
If the craving for religion were universal these young folk would not be free from spiritual hunger. As they are free from spiritual hunger, I conclude that the craving for religion is not born in us, but must be inculcated.
Many good men and women will look blank at such heresy. "What!" they will exclaim, "take away the belief in the Bible, and the service of God? Why, our lives would be empty. What would you give us in exchange?"
To which I answer, "The belief in yourselves, and the belief in your fellow-creatures, and the service of Man."
Such belief and such service will certainly increase the sum of happiness on earth. And as for the Hereafter—no man knoweth.Noman knoweth. IS CHRISTIANITY THE ONLY HOPE?
Christians tell us that their religion is our only refuge, that Christ is our only saviour. From the wild Salvation Army captain, thundering and beseeching under his banner of blood and fire, to the academic Bishop reconciling science and transfiguring crude translations in the dim religious light of a cathedral, all the apostles of the Nazarene carpenter insist that He is the only way. In this the Christian resembles the Hindu, the Parsee, the Buddhist, and the Mohammedan. There is but one true religion, and it is his.
The Rationalist locks on with a rueful smile, and wonders. He sees nothing in any one of these religions to justify its claim to infallibility or pre-eminence. It seems to him unreasonable to assert that any theology or any saviour is indispensable. He realises that a man may be good and happy in any church, or outside any church. He cannot admit that only those who follow Jesus, or Buddha, or Mahomet, or Moses can be "saved," nor that all those who fail to believe in the divine mission of one, or all of these will be lost.
Let us consider the Christian claim. If the Christian claim be valid, men cannot be good, nor happy, cannot be saved, except through Christ. Is this position supported by the facts?
One Christian tells me that "It is in the solemn realities of life that one gets his final evidence that Christianity is true." Another tells me that "In Christ alone is peace"; another, that "Without Christ there is neither health nor holiness."
If these statements mean anything, they mean that none but true Christians can live well, nor die well, nor bear sorrow and pain with fortitude, do their whole duty manfully, nor find happiness here and bliss hereafter.
But I submit that Christianity does not make men lead better lives than others lead who are not Christians, and there are none so abjectly afraid of death as Christians are. The Pagan, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, and the Agnostic do not fear death nearly so much as do the Christians.
The words of many of the greatest Christians are gloomy with the fears of death, of Hell, and of the wrath of God.
The Roman soldier, the Spartan soldier, the Mohammedan soldier did not fear death. The Greek, the Buddhist, the Moslem, the Viking went to death as to a reward, or as to the arms of a bride. Compare the writings of Marcus Aurelius and of Jeremy Taylor, of Epictetus and John Bunyan, and then ask yourself whether the Christian religion makes it easier for men to die.
There are millions of Europeans—not to speak of Buddhists and Jews—there are millions of men and women to-day who are not Christians. Do they live worse or die worse, or bear trouble worse, than those who accept the Christian faith?
Some of us have come through "the solemn realities of life," and havenotrealised that Christianity is true. We do not believe the Bible; we do not believe in the divinity of Christ; we do not pray, nor feel the need of prayer; we do not fear God, nor Hell, nor death. We are as happy as our even Christian; we are as good as our even Christian; we are as benevolent as our even Christian: what has Christianity to offer us?
There are in the world some four hundred and fifty millions of Buddhists. How do they bear themselves in "the solemn realities of life"?
I suggest that consolation, and fortitude, and cheerfulness, and loving-kindness are not in the exclusive gift of the Christian religion, but may be found by good men inallreligions.
As to the effects of Christianity on life. Did Buddha, and King Asoka, and Socrates, and Aristides lead happy, and pure, and useful lives? Were there no virtuous, nor happy, nor noble men and women during all the millions of years before the Crucifixion? Was there neither love, nor honour, nor wisdom, nor valour, nor peace in the world until Paul turned Christian? History tells us no such gloomy story.
Are there no good, nor happy, nor worthy men and women to-day outside the pale of the Christian churches? Amongst the eight hundred millions of human beings who do not know or do not follow Christ, are there none as happy and as worthy as any who follow Him?
Are we Rationalists so wicked, so miserable, so useless in the world, so terrified of the shadow of death? I beg to say we are nothing of the kind. We are quite easy and contented. There is no despair in our hearts. We are not afraid of bogeys, nor do we dread the silence and the dark.
Friend Christian, you are deceived in this matter. When you say that Christ is theonlytrue teacher, that He is theonlyhope of mankind, that He is theonlySaviour, I must answer sharply that I do not believe that, and I do not think you believe it deep down in your heart. For if Christ is the only Saviour, then thousands of millions of Buddhists have died unsaved, and you know you do not believe that.
Jeremy Taylor believed that; but you know better.
Do you notknow, as a matter of fact, that it is as well in this world, and shall be as well hereafter, with a good Buddhist, or Jew, or Agnostic, as with a good Christian?
Do you deny that? If you deny it, tell me what punishment you think will be inflicted, here or hereafter on a good man who does not accept Christianity.
If you do not deny it, then on what grounds do you claim that Christ istheSaviour of all mankind, and that "only in Christ we are made whole"?
You speak of the spiritual value of your religion. What can it give you more than Socrates or Buddha possessed? These men had wisdom, courage, morality, fortitude, love, mercy. Can you find in all the world to-day two men as wise, as good, as gentle, as happy? Yet these men died centuries before Christ was born.
If you believe that none but Christians can be happy or good; or if you believe that none but Christians can escape extinction or punishment, then there is some logic in your belief that Christ is our only Saviour. But that is to believe that there never was a good man before Christ died, and that Socrates and Buddha, and many thousands of millions of men, and women, and children, before Christ and after, have beenlost.
Such a belief is monstrous and absurd.
But I see no escape from the dilemma it places us in. If only Christ can save, about twelve hundred millions of our fellow-creatures will be lost.
If men can be saved without Christ, then Christ is not our only Saviour.
Christianity seems to be a composite religion, made up of fragments of religions of far greater antiquity. It is alleged to have originated some two thousand years ago. It has never been the religion of more than one-third of the human race, and of those professing it only ten per cent at any time have thoroughly understood, or sincerely followed, its teachings. It was not indispensable to the human race during the thousands (I say millions) of years before its advent. It is not now indispensable to some eight hundred millions of human beings. It had no place in the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. It was unknown to Socrates, to Epicurus, to Aristides, to Marcus Aurelius, to King Asoka, and to Buddha. It has opposed science and liberty almost from the first. It has committed the most awful crimes and atrocities. It has upheld the grossest errors and the most fiendish theories as the special revelations of God. It has been defeated in argument and confounded by facts over and over again, and has been steadily driven back and back, abandoning one essential position after another, until there is hardly anything left of its original pretensions. It is losing more and more every day its hold upon the obedience and confidence of the masses, and has only retained the suffrages of a minority of educated minds by accepting as truths the very theories which in the past it punished as deadly sins. Are these the signs of a triumphant and indispensable religion? One would think, to read the Christian apologists, that before the advent of Christianity the world had neither virtue nor wisdom. But the world very old. Civilisation is very old. The Christian religion is but a new thing, is a mere episode in the history of human development, and has passed the zenith of its power.
Christians say that only those who are naturally religious can understand religion, or, as Archdeacon Wilson puts it, "Spiritual truths must be spiritually discerned." This seems to amount to a claim that religious people possess an extra sense or faculty.
When a man talks about "spiritual discernment," he makes a tacit assertion which ought not to be allowed to pass unchallenged. What is that assertion or implication? It is the implication that there is a spiritual discernment which is distinct from mental discernment. What does that mean? It means that man has other means of understanding besides his reason.
This spiritual discernment is a metaphysical myth.
Man feels, sees, and reasons with his brain. His brain may be more emotional or less emotional, more acute or less acute; but to invent a faculty of reason distinct from reason, or to suggest that man can feel or think otherwise than with his brain, is to darken counsel with a multitude of words.
There is no ground for the assertion that a spiritual faculty exists apart from the reason. But the Christian first invents this faculty, and then tells us that by this faculty religion is to be judged.
Spiritual truths are to be spiritually discerned. What is a "spiritual truth"? It is neither more nor less than a mental idea. It is an idea originating in the brain, and it can only be "discerned," or judged, or understood, by an act of reason performed by the brain.
The word "spiritual," as used in this connection, is a mere affectation. It implies that the idea (which Archdeacon Wilson calmly dubs a "truth") is so exalted, or so refined, that the reason is too gross to appreciate it.
John says: "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Thomas asks: "How do you know?" John says: "Because Ifeelit." Thomas answers: "But that is only a rhapsodical expression of a woman's reason: 'I know because Iknow.' You say your religion is true because you feel it is true. I might as well say it is not true because I feel that it is not true."
Then John becomes mystical. He says: "Spiritual truths must be spiritually discerned." Thomas, who believes thatalltruths, and all errors, must be tried by the reason, shrugs his shoulders irreverently, and departs.
Now, this mystical jargon has always been a favourite weapon of theologians, and it is a very effective weapon against weak-minded, or ignorant, or superstitious, or very emotional men.
We must deal with this deception sternly. We must deny that the human reason, which we know to be a fact, is inferior to a postulated "spiritual" faculty which has no existence. We must insist that to make the brain the slave of a brain-created idea is as foolish as to subordinate the substance to the shadow.
John declares that "God is love." Thomas asks him how heknows. John replies that it is a "spiritual truth," which must be "spiritually discerned." Thomas says: "It is not spiritual, and it is not true. It is a mere figment of the brain." John replies: "You are incapable of judging: you are spiritually blind." Thomas says: "My friend, you are incapable of reasoning: you are mentally halt and lame." John says Thomas is a "fellow of no delicacy."
I think there is much to be said in excuse for Thomas. I think it is rather cool of John to invent a faculty of "spiritual discernment," and then to tell Thomas that he (Thomas) does not possess that faculty.
That is how Archdeacon Wilson uses me. In a sermon at Rochdale he is reported to have spoken as follows: