As regards the first axiom, the archdeacon reaffirmed hisdeclaration as to Mr. Blatchford's disqualification for sucha controversy... Whether Mr. Blatchford recognised the factor not, it was true that there was a faculty among men which,in its developed state, was as distinct, as unequally distributed,as mysterious in its origin and in its distribution, as wasthe faculty for pure mathematics, for music, for metaphysics,or for research. They might call it the devotional or religiousfaculty. Just as there were men whose faculties of insightamounted to genius in other regions of mental activity, sothere were spiritual geniuses, geniuses in the region in whichman holds communion with God, and from this region these whohad never developed the faculty were debarred. One who wasnot devotional, not humble, not gentle in his treatment ofthe beliefs of others, one who could lightly ridicule theelementary forms of belief which had corresponded to thelower stages of culture, past and present, was not likelyto do good in a religious controversy.
Here is the tyranny of language, indeed! Here is a farrago of myths and symbols. "There is a faculty—we may call it the devotional or religious faculty—there are geniuses in the region in which man holds communion with God"!
Why the good archdeacon talks of the "region in which man holds communion with God" as if he were talking of the telephone exchange. He talks of God as if he were talking of the Postmaster-General. He postulates a God, and he postulates a region, and he postulates a communication, and then talks about all these postulates as if they were facts. I protest against this mystical, transcendental rhetoric. It is not argument.
Who has seen God? Who has entered that "region"? Who has communicated with God?
There is in most men a desire, in some men a passion, for what is good. In some men this desire is weak, in others it is strong. In some it takes the form of devotion to "God," in others it takes the form of devotion to men. In some it is coloured by imagination, or distorted by a love of the marvellous; in others it is lighted by reason, and directed by love of truth. But whether a man devotes himself to God and to prayer, or devotes himself to man and to politics or science, he is actuated by the same impulse—by the desire for what is good.
John says: "I feel that there is a God, and I worship Him." Thomas says: "I do not know whether or not there is a God, and if there is, He does not need my adoration. But I know there are men in darkness and women in trouble, and children in pain, and I know theydoneed my love and my help. I therefore will not pray; but I will work."
To him says John: "You are a fellow of no delicacy. You lack spiritual discernment. You are disqualified for the expression of any opinion on spiritual truths." This is what John calls "humility," and "gentle treatment of the beliefs of others." But Thomas calls it unconscious humour.
Really, Archdeacon Wilson's claim that only those possessing spiritual discernment can discern spiritual truths means no more than that those who cannot believe in religion do not believe in religion, or that a man whose reason tells him religion is not true is incapable of believing religion is true. But what he means it to mean is that a man whose reason rejects religion is unfit to criticise religion, and that only those who accept religion as true are qualified to express an opinion as to its truth. He might as well claim that the only person qualified to criticise the Tory Party is the person who has the faculty for discerning Tory truth.
My claim is that ideas relating to spiritual things must be weighed by the same faculties as ideas relating to material things. That is to say, man can only judge in religious matters as he judges in all other matters, by his reason.
I do not say that all men have the same kind or quantity of reason. What I say is, that a man with a good intellect is a better judge on religious matters than a man, with an inferior intellect; and that by reason, and by reason alone, can truth of any kind be discerned.
The archdeacon speaks of spiritual geniuses, "geniuses in the region in which man holds communion with God." The Saints, for example. Well, if the Saints were geniuses in matters religious, the Saints ought to have been better judges of spiritual truth than other men. But was it so? The Saints believed in angels, and devils, and witches, and hell-fire and Jonah, and the Flood; in demoniacal possession, in the working of miracles by the bones of dead martyrs; the Saints accepted David and Abraham and Moses as men after God's own heart.
Many of the most spiritually gifted Christians do not believe in these things any longer. The Saints, then, were mistaken. They were mistaken about these spiritual matters in which they are alleged to have been specially gifted.
We do not believe in sorcerers, in witches, in miracle-working relics, in devils, and eternal fire and brimstone. Why? Because science has killed those errors. What is science? It is reason applied to knowledge. The faculty of reason, then, has excelled this boasted faculty of spiritual discernment in its own religious sphere.
It would be easy to multiply examples.
Jeremy Taylor was one of the most brilliant and spiritual of our divines. But his spiritual perception, as evidenced in his works, was fearfully at fault. He believed in hell-fire, and in hell-fire for all outside the pale of the Christian Church. And he was afraid of God, and afraid of death.
Archdeacon Wilson denies to us this faculty of spiritual perception. Very well. But I have enough mental acuteness to see that the religion of Jeremy Taylor was cowardly, and gloomy, and untrue.
Luther and Wesley were spiritual geniuses. They both believed in witchcraft. Luther believed in burning heretics. Wesley said if we gave up belief in witchcraft we must give up belief in the Bible.
Luther and Wesley were mistaken: their spiritual discernment had led them wrong. Their superstition and cruelty were condemned by humanity and common sense.
To me it appears that these men of "spiritual discernment" are really men of abnormally credulous and emotional natures: men too weak to face the facts.
We cannot allow the Christians to hold this position unchallenged. I regard the religious plane as a lower one than our own. I think the Christian idea of God is even now, after two thousand years of evolution, a very mean and weak one.
I cannot love nor revere a "Heavenly Father" whose children have to pray to Him for what they need, or for pardon for their sins. My children do not need to pray to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly father. Yet Christ, who came direct from God—whowasGod—to teach all men God's will, directed us to pray to God for our daily bread, for forgiveness of our trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us into temptation! Imagine a father leading his children into temptation!
What is there so superior or so meritorious in the attitude of a religious man towards God? This good man prays: for what? He prays that something be given to him or forgiven to him. He prays for gain or fear. Is that so lofty and so noble?
But you will say: "It is not all for gain or for fear. He prays for love: because he loves God." But is not this like sending flowers and jewels to the king? The king is so rich already: but there are many poor outside his gates. God is not in need of our love: some of God's children are in need. Truly, these high ideals are very curious.
Mr. Augustine Birrell, in hisMiscellanies, quotes a passage from "Lux Mundi"; and although I cannot find it in that book, it is too good to lose:
If this be the relation of faith to reason, we see the explanationof what seems at first sight to the philosopher to be the mostirritating and hypocritical characteristic of faith. It isalways shifting its intellectual defences. It adopts this orthat fashion of philosophical apology, and then, when this isshattered by some novel scientific generalisation of faith,probably after a passionate struggle to retain the old position,suddenly and gaily abandons it, and takes up the new formula,just as if nothing had happened. It discovers that the newformula is admirably adapted for its purposes, and is, in fact,what it always meant, only it has unfortunately omitted tomention it. So it goes on again and again; and no wonder thatthe philosophers growl at those humbugs, the clergy.
That passage has a rather sinister bearing upon the Christian's claim for spiritual genius.
But, indeed, the claim is not admissible. The Churches have taught many errors. Those errors have been confuted by scepticism and science. It is no thanks to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It is to reason we owe our advance; and what a great advance it is! We have got rid of Hell, we have got rid of the Devil, we have got rid of the Christian championship of slavery, of witch-murder, of martyrdom, persecution, and torture; we have destroyed the claims for the infallibility of the Scriptures, and have taken the fetters of the Church from the limbs of Science and Thought, and before long we shall have demolished the belief in miracles. The Christian religion has defended all these dogmas, and has done inhuman murder in defence of them; and has been wrong in every instance, and has been finally defeated in every instance. Steadily and continually the Church has been driven from its positions. It is still retreating, and we are not to be persuaded to abandon our attack by the cool assurance that we are mentally unfit to judge in spiritual matters. Spiritual Discernment has been beaten by reason in the past, and will be beaten by reason in the future. It is facts and logic we want, not rhetoric.
Christianity, we are told, vastly improved the relations of rich and poor.
How comes it, then, that the treatment of the poor by the rich is better amongst Jews than amongst Christians? How did it fare with the poor all over Europe in the centuries when Christianity was at the zenith of its power? How is it we have twelve millions of Christians on the verge of starvation in England to-day, with a Church rolling in wealth and an aristocracy decadent from luxury and self-indulgence? How is it that the gulf betwixt rich and poor in such Christian capitals as New York, London, and Paris is so wide and deep?
Christianity, we are told, first gave to mankind the gospel of peace. Christianity did not bring peace, but a sword. The Crusades were holy wars. The wars in the Netherlands were holy wars. The Spanish Armada was a holy expedition. Some of these holy wars lasted for centuries and cost millions of human lives. Most of them were remarkable for the barbarities and cruelties of the Christian priests and soldiers.
From the beginning of its power Christianity has been warlike, violent, and ruthless. To-day Europe is an armed camp, and it is not long since the Christian Kaiser ordered his troops to give no quarter to the Chinese.
There has never been a Christian nation as peaceful as the Indians and Burmese under Buddhism. It was King Asoka, and not Jesus Christ or St. Paul, who first taught and first established a reign of national and international peace.
To-day the peace of the world is menaced, not by the Buddhists, the Parsees, the Hindoos, or the Confucians, but by Christian hunger for territory, Christian lust of conquest, Christian avarice for the opening up of "new markets," Christian thirst for military glory, and jealousy, and envy amongst the Christian powers one of another.
Christianity, we are told, originated the Christ-like type of character. The answer stares us in the face. How can we account for King Asoka, how can we account for Buddha?
Christianity, we are told, originated hospitals.
Hospitals were founded two centuries before Christ by King Asoka in India.
Christianity, we are told, first broke down the barrier between Jew and Gentile.
How have Christians treated Jews for fifteen centuries? How are Christians treating Jews to-day in Holy Russia? How long is it since Jews were granted full rights of citizenship in Christian England?
All this, the Christian will say, applies to the false and not to the true Christianity.
Let us look, then, for an instant, at the truest and best form of Christianity, and ask what it is doing. It is preaching about Sin, Sin, Sin. It is praying to God to do for Man what Man ought to do for himself, what Man can do for himself, what Man must do for himself; for God has never done it, and will never do it for him.
And this fault in the Christian—the highest and truest Christian—attitude towards life does not lie in the Christians: it lies in the truest and best form of their religion.
It is the belief in Free Will, in Sin, and in a Heavenly Father, and a future recompense that leads the Christian wrong, and causes him to mistake the shadow for the substance.
"If you take from us our religion," say the Christians, "what have you to offer but counsels of despair?" This seems to me rather a commercial way of putting the case, and not a very moral one. Because a moral man would not say: "If I give up my religion, what will you pay me?" He would say: "I will never give, up my religion unless I am convinced it is nottrue." To a moral man the truth would matter, but the cost would not. To ask what one maygainis to show an absence of all real religious feeling.
The feeling of a truly religious man is the feeling that, cost what it may, he must doright. A religiously-minded mancouldnot profess a religion which he did not believe to be true. To him the vital question would be, not "What will you give me to desert my colours?" but "What is thetruth?"
But, besides being immoral, the demand is unreasonable. If I say that a religion is untrue, the believer has a perfect right to ask me for proofs of my assertion; but he has no right to ask me for a new promise. Suppose I say this thing is not true, and to believe anything which is untrue is useless. Then, the believer may justly demand my reasons. But he has no right to ask me for a new dream in place of the old one. I am not a prophet, with promises of crowns and glories in my gift.
But yet I will answer this queer question as fully as I can.
I do not say there is no God. I do not say there is no "Heaven," nor that the soul is not immortal. There is not enough evidence to justify me in making such assertions.
I only say, on those subjects, that I do notknow.
I do not know about those things. There may be a God, there may be a "Heaven," there may be an immortal soul. And a man might accept all I say about religion without giving up any hope his faith may bid him hold as to a future life.
As to those "counsels of despair" the question puzzles me. Despair of what?
Let me put the matter as I see it. I think sometimes, in a dubious way, that perhaps there may be a life beyond the grave. And that is interesting. But I think my stronger, and deeper, and more permanent feeling is that when we die we die finally, and for us there is no more life at all. That is, I suppose, my real belief—or supposition. But do I despair? Why should I? The idea of immortality does not elate me very much. As I said just now, it is interesting. But I am not excited about it. If there is another innings, we will go in and play our best; and we hope we shall be very much better and kinder than we have been. But if it is sleep: well, sleep is rest, and as I feel that I have had a really good time, on the whole, I should consider it greedy to cry because I could not have it all over again. That is how I feel about it. Despair? I am one of the happiest old fogeys in all London. I have found life agreeable and amusing, and I'm glad I came. But I am not so infatuated with life that I should care to go back and begin it all again. And though a new start, in a new world, would be—yes, interesting—I am not going to howl because old Daddy Death says it is bed-time. I think somebody, or something, has been very good to allow me to come in and see the fun, and stay so long, especially as I came in, so to speak "on my face." But to beg for another invitation would be cheeky. Some of you want such a lot for nothing.
"But," you may say, "the poor, the failures, the wretched—what of them?" And I answer: "Ah! that is one of the weak points ofyourreligion, not of mine." Consider these unhappy ones, what do you offer them? You offer them an everlasting bliss, not because they were starved or outraged here—not at all. For your religion admits the probability that those who came into this world worst equipped, who have here been most unfortunate, and to whom God and man have behaved most unjustly, will stand a far greater chance of a future of woe than of happiness.
No. According to your religion, those of the poor or the weak who get to Heaven will get there, not because they have been wronged and must be righted, but because they believe that Jesus Christ can save them.
Now, contrast that awful muddle of unreason and injustice with what you call my "counsels of despair." I say there may be a future life and there may not be a future life. If there is a future life, a man will deserve it no less, and enjoy it no less, for having been happy here. If there is no future life, he who has been unhappy here will have lost both earthly happiness and heavenly hope.
Therefore, I say, it is our duty to see that all our fellow-creatures are as happy here as we can make them.
Therefore I say to my fellow-creatures, "Do not consent to suffer, and to be wronged in this world, for it is immoral and weak so to submit; but hold up your heads, and demand your rights, here and now, and leave the rest to God, or to Fate."
You see, I am not trying to rob any man of his hope of Heaven; I am only trying to inspire his hope on earth.
But I have been asked whether I think it right and wise to "shake the faith of the poor working man—the faith that has helped him so long."
What has this faith helped him to do? To bear the ills and the wrongs of this life more patiently, in the hope of a future reward? Is that the idea? But I do not want the working man to endure patiently the ills and wrongs of this life. I want him, for his own sake, his wife's sake, his children's sake, and for the sake of right and progress, to demand justice, and to help in the work of amending the conditions of life on earth.
No, I do not want to rob the working-man of his faith: I want to awaken his faith—in himself.
Religion promises us a future Heaven, where we shall meet once more those "whom we have loved long since and lost awhile," and that is the most potent lure that could be offered to poor humanity.
How much of the so-called "universal instinct of belief" arises from that pathetic human yearning for reunion with dear friends, sweet wives, or pretty children "lost awhile"? It is human love and natural longing for the dead darlings, whose wish is father to the thought of Heaven. Before that passionate sentiment reason itself would almost stand abashed: were reason antagonistic to the "larger hope"—which none can prove.
Few of us can keep our emotions from overflowing the bounds of reason in such a case. The poor, tearful desire lays a pale hand on reason's lips and gazes wistfully into the mysterious abyss of the Great Silence.
So I say of that "larger hope," cherish it if you can, and if you feel it necessary to your peace of mind. But do not mistake a hope for a certainty. No priest, nor pope, nor prophet can tell you more about that mystery than you know. It is a riddle, and your guess or mine may be as near as that of a genius. We can only guess. We do not know.
Is it wise, then, to sell even a fraction of your liberty of thought or deed for a paper promise which the Bank of Futurity may fail to honour? Is it wise, is it needful, to abandon a single right, to abate one just demand, to neglect one possibility of happiness here and now, in order to fulfil the conditions laid down for the attainment of that promised Heaven by a crowd of contradictory theologians who know no more about God or about the future than we know ourselves?
Death has dropped a curtain of mystery between us and those we love. No theologian knows, nor ever did know, what is hidden behind that veil.
Let us, then, do our duty here, try to be happy here, try to make others happy here, and when the curtain lifts for us—we shall see.
I have been asked why I have "gone out of my way to attack religion," why I do not "confine myself to my own sphere and work for Socialism, and what good I expect to do by pulling down without building up."
In reply I beg to say:1. That I have not "gone out of my way" to attack religion. It wasbecause I found religioninmy way that I attacked it.2. That I am working for Socialism when I attack a religion which ishindering Socialism.3. That we must pull down before we can build up, and that I hope todo a little building, if only on the foundation.
But these questions arose from a misconception of my position and purpose.
I have been called an "Infidel," a Socialist, and a Fatalist. Now, I am an Agnostic, or Rationalist, and I am a Determinist, and I am a Socialist. But if I were asked to describe myself in a single word, I should call myself a Humanist.
Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism are factors in the sum; and the sum is Humanism.
Briefly, my religion is to do the best I can for humanity. I am a Socialist, a Determinist, and a Rationalist because I believe that Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism will be beneficial to mankind.
I oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian religion is beneficial to mankind, and because I think it is an obstacle in the way of Humanism.
I am rather surprised that men to whom my past work is well known should suspect me of making a wanton and purposeless attack upon religion. My attack is not wanton, but deliberate; not purposeless, but very purposeful and serious. I am not acting irreligiously, but religiously. I do not oppose Christianity because it is good, but because it is not good enough.
There are two radical differences between Humanism and Christianity.
Christianity concerns itself with God and Man, putting God first and Man last.
Humanism concerns itself solely with Man, so that Man is its first and last care. That is one radical difference.
Then, Christianity accepts the doctrine of Free Will, with its consequent rewards and punishments; while Humanism embraces Determinist doctrines, with their consequent theories of brotherhood and prevention. And that is another radical difference.
Because the Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and the drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the Humanist regards them as men and women who have been wronged.
The Christian remedy is to punish crime and to preach repentance and salvation to "sinners." The Humanist remedy is to remove the causes which lead or drive men into crime, and so to prevent the manufacture of "sinners."
Let us consider the first difference. Christianity concerns itself with the relations of Man to God, as well as with the relations between man and man. It concerns itself with the future life as well as with the present life.
Now, he who serves two causes cannot serve each or both of them as well as he could serve either of them alone.
He who serves God and Man will not serve Man as effectually as he who gives himself wholly to the service of Man.
As the religion of Humanism concerns itself solely with the good of humanity, I claim that it is more beneficial to humanity than is the Christian religion, which divides its service and love between Man and God.
Moreover, this division is unequal. For Christians give a great deal more attention to God than to Man.
And on that point I have to object, first, that although theybelievethere is a God, they do notknowthere is a God, nor what He is like. Whereas they do know very well that there are men, and what they are like. And, secondly, that if there be a God, that God does not need their love nor their service; whereas their fellow-creatures do need their love and their service very sorely.
And, as I remarked before, if there is a Father in Heaven, He is likely to be better pleased by our loving and serving our fellow-creatures (His children) than by our singing and praying to Him, while our brothers and sisters (His children) are ignorant, or brutalised, or hungry, or in trouble.
I speak as a father myself when I say that I should not like to think that one of my children would be so foolish and so unfeeling as to erect a marble tomb to my memory while the others needed a friend or a meal. And I speak in the same spirit when I add that to build a cathedral, and to spend our tears and pity upon a Saviour who was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, while women and men and little children are being crucified in our midst, without pity and without help, is cant, and sentimentality, and a mockery of God.
Please note the words I use. I have selected them deliberately and calmly, because I believe that they are true and that they are needed.
Christians are very eloquent about Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Our Father which is in Heaven. I know nothing about gods and heavens. But I know a good deal about Manchester and London, and about men and women; and if I did not feel the real shames and wrongs of the world more keenly, and if I did not try more earnestly and strenuously to rescue my fellow-creatures from ignorance, and sorrow, and injustice than most Christians do, I should blush to look death in the face or call myself a man.
I choose my words deliberately again when I say that to me the most besotted and degraded outcast tramp or harlot matters more than all the gods and angels that humanity ever conjured up out of its imagination.
The Rev. R. F. Horton, in his answer to my question as to the need of Christ as a Saviour, uttered the following remarkable words:
But there is a holiness so transcendent that the angels veiltheir faces in the presence of God. I have known a good manymen who have rejected Christ, and men who are living withoutHim, and, though God forbid that I should judge them, I do notknow one of them whom I would venture to take as my example ifI wished to appear in the presence of the holy God. They donot tremble for themselves, but I tremble for myself if myholiness is not to exceed that of such Scribes and Pharisees.Oh, my brothers, where Christ is talking of holiness He istalking of such a goodness, such a purity, such a transcendentand miraculous likeness of God in human form, that I believeit is true to say that there is but one name, as there is butone way, by which a man can be holy and come into the presenceof God; and I look, therefore, upon this word of Christ notonly as the way of salvation, but as the revelation of theholiness which God demands.I close these answers to the questions with a practical wordto everyone that is here. It is my belief that you may begood enough to pass through the grave and to wander in thedark spaces of the world which is still earthly and sensual,and you may be good enough to escape, as it were, the tormentsof the hell which result from a life of debauchery and crueltyand selfishness; but if you are to stand in the presence of God,if you are ever to be pure, complete, and glad, "all rapturethrough and through in God's most holy sight," you must believein the name and in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, theonly begotten son of God, who came into the world to savesinners, and than whose no other name is given in heaven orearth whereby we may be saved.
Such talk as that makes me feel ill. Here is a cultured, educated, earnest man rhapsodising about holiness and the glory of a God no mortal eye has ever seen, and of whom no word has ever reached us across the gulf of death. And while he rhapsodised, with a congregation of honest bread-and-butter citizens under him, trying hard with their blinkered eyes and blunted souls, to glimpse that imaginary glamour of ecstatic "holiness," there surged and rolled around them the stunted, poisoned, and emaciated life of London.
Holiness!—Holiness in the Strand, in Piccadilly, in Houndsditch, in Whitechapel, in Park Lane, in Somerstown, and the Mint.
Holiness!—In Westminster, and in Fleet Street, and on 'Change.
Holiness!—In a world given over to robbery, to conquest, to vanity, to ignorance, to humbug, to the worship of the golden calf.
Holiness!—With twelve millions of our workers on the verge of famine, with rich fools and richer rogues lording it over nations of untaught and half-fed dupes and drudges.
Holiness!—With a recognised establishment of manufactured paupers, cripples, criminals, idlers, dunces, and harlots.
Holiness!—In a garden of weeds, a hotbed of lies, where hypnotised saints sing psalms and worship ghosts, while dogs and horses are pampered and groomed, and children are left to rot, to hunger, and to sink into crime, or shame, or the grave.
Holiness! For shame. The word is obnoxious. It has stood so long for craven fear, for exotistical inebriation, for selfish retirement from the trials and buffets and dirty work of the world.
What have we to do with such dreamy, self-centred, emotional holiness, here and now in London?
What we want is citizenship, human sympathy, public spirit, daring agitators, stern reformers, drains, houses, schoolmasters, clean water, truth-speaking, soap—and Socialism.
Holiness! The people are being robbed. The people are being cheated. The people are being lied to. The people are being despised and neglected and ruined body and soul.
Yes. And you will find some of the greatest rascals and most impudent liars in the "Synagogues and High Places" of the cities.
Holiness! Give us common sense, and common honesty, and a "steady supply of men and women who can be trusted with small sums."
Your Christians talk of saving sinners. But our duty is not to save sinners; but to prevent their regular manufacture: their systematic manufacture in the interests of holy and respectable and successful and superior persons.
Holiness! Cant, rant, and fustian! The nations are rotten with dirty pride, and dirty greed, and mean lying, and petty ambitions, and sickly sentimentality. Holiness! I should be ashamed to show my face at Heaven's gates and say I came from such a contemptible planet.
Holiness! Your religion does not make it—its ethics are too weak, its theories too unsound, its transcendentalism is too thin.
Take as an example this much-admired passage from St. James:
Pure religion and undefiled is this before God and the Father,to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, andto keep oneself unspotted from the world.
The widows and the fatherless are our brothers and sisters and our flesh and blood, and should be at home in our hearts and on our hearths. And who that is a man will work to keep himself unspotted from the world if the service of the world needs him to expose his flesh and his soul to risk?
I can fancy a Reverend Gentleman going to Heaven, unspotted from the world, to face the awful eyes of a Heavenly Father whose gaze has been on London.
A good man mixes with the world in the rough-and-tumble, and takes his share of the dangers, and the falls, and the temptations. His duty is to work and to help, and not to shirk and keep his hands white. His business is not to be holy, but to be useful.
In such a world as this, friend Christian, a man has no business reading the Bible, singing hymns, and attending divine worship. He has nottime. All the strength and pluck and wit he possesses are needed in the work of real religion, of real salvation. The rest is all "dreams out of the ivory gate, and visions before midnight."
There ought to be no such thing as poverty in the world. The earth is bounteous: the ingenuity of man is great. He who defends the claims of the individual, or of a class, against the rights of the human race is a criminal.
A hungry man, an idle man, an ignorant man, a destitute or degraded woman, a beggar or pauper child is a reproach to Society and a witness against existing religion and civilisation.
War is a crime and a horror. No man is doing his duty when he is not trying his best to abolish war.
I have been asked why I "interfered in things beyond my sphere," and why I made "an unprovoked attack" upon religion. I am trying to explain. My position is as follows:
Rightly or wrongly, I am a Democrat. Rightly or wrongly, I am for the rights of the masses as against the privileges of the classes. Rightly or wrongly, I am opposed to Godship, Kingship, Lordship, Priestship. Rightly or wrongly, I am opposed to Imperialism, Militarism, and Conquest. Rightly or wrongly, I am for universal brotherhood and universal freedom. Rightly or wrongly, I am for union against disunion, for collective ownership against private ownership. Rightly or wrongly, I am for reason against dogma, for evolution against revelation; for humanity always; for earth, not Heaven; for the holiest Trinity of all—the Trinity of Man, Woman, and Child.
The greatest curse of humanity is ignorance. The only remedy is knowledge.
Religion, being based on fixed authority, is naturally opposed to knowledge.
A man may have a university education and be ignorant. A man may be a genius, like Plato, or Shakespeare, or Darwin, and lack more knowledge. The humblest of unlettered peasants can teach the highest genius something useful. The greatest scientific and philosophical achievements of the most brilliant age are imperfect, and can be added to and improved by future generations.
There is no such thing as human infallibility. There is no finality in human knowledge and human progress. Fixed authority in matters of knowledge or belief is an insult to humanity.
Christianity degrades and restrains humanity with the shackles of "original sin." Man is not born in sin. There is no such thing as sin. Man is innately more prone to good than to evil; and the path of his destiny is upward.
I should be inclined to call him who denies the innate goodness of mankind an "Infidel."
Heredity breeds different kinds of men. But all are men whom it breeds. And all men are capable of good, and of yet more good. Environment can move mountains. There is a limit to its power for good and for evil, but that power is almost unimaginably great.
The object of life is to improve ourselves and our fellow-creatures, and to leave the world better and happier than we found it.
The great cause of crime and failure is ignorance. The great cause of unhappiness is selfishness. No man can be happy who loves or values himself too much.
As all men are what heredity and environment have made them, no man deserves punishment nor reward. As the sun shines alike upon the evil and the good, so in the eyes of justice the saint and the sinner are as one. No man has a just excuse for pride, or anger, or scorn.
Spiritual pride, intellectual pride, pride of pedigree, of caste, of race are all contemptible and mean.
The superior person who wraps himself in a cloak of solemn affectations should be laughed at until he learns to be honest.
The masterful man who puts on airs of command and leadership insults his fellow-creatures, and should be gently but firmly lifted down many pegs.
Genius should not be regarded as a weapon, but as a tool. A man of genius should not be allowed to command, but only to serve. The human race would do well to watch jealously and restrain firmly all superior persons. Most kings, jockeys, generals, prize-fighters, priests, ladies'-maids, millionaires, lords, tenor singers, authors, lion-comiques, artists, beauties, statesmen, and actors are spoiled children who sadly need to be taught their place. They should be treated kindly, but not allowed too many toys and sweetmeats, nor too much flattery. Such superior persons are like the clever minstrels, jesters, clerks, upholsterers, storytellers, horse-breakers, huntsmen, stewards, and officers about a court. They should be fed and praised when they deserve it, but they cannot be too often reminded that they are retainers and servants, and that their Sovereign and Master is—
The People.
In a really humane and civilised nation:
There should be and need be no such thing as poverty.
There should be and need be no such thing as ignorance.
There should be and need be no such thing as crime.
There should be and need be no such thing as idleness.
There should be and need be no such thing as war.
There should be and need be no such thing as slavery.
There should be and need be no such thing as hate.
There should be and need be no such thing as envy.
There should be and need be no such thing as pride.
There should be and need be no such thing as greed.
There should be and need be no such thing as gluttony.
There should be and need be no such thing as vice.
But this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts Christianity as its religion.
These are my reasons for opposing Christianity. If I have said anything to give pain to any Christian, I am sorry, and ask to be forgiven. I have tried to maintain "towards all creatures a bounteous friendly feeling."
As to what I said about holiness, I cannot take back a word. Dr. Horton said that without that form of holiness which only a belief in Christ can give we shall only be good enough to barely escape Hell, and, "after passing through the grave, to wander in the dark spaces of the world, which is still earthly and sensual."
I say earnestly and deliberately that if I can only attain to Heaven and to holiness as one of a few, if I am to go to Heaven and leave millions of my brothers and sisters to ignorance and misery and crime, I will hope to be sent instead into those "dark spaces of the world which is still earthly and sensual" and there to be permitted to fight with all my strength against pain and error and injustice and human sorrow. I know I shall be happier so. I think I was made for that kind of work, and I fervently wish that I may be allowed to do my duty as long as ever there is a wrong in the world that I can help to right, a grief I can help to soothe, a truth I can help to tell.
Let the Holy have their Heaven. I am a man, and an Infidel. And this is my Apology.
Besides, gentlemen, Christianity is nottrue.