THE mania for Prayer-meetings has lately been largely on the increase, and the continual efforts being made to
"Move the arm that moves the world,"
naturally draw one's attention strongly to the subject of Prayer; to its reasonableness, propriety, and prospect of success. If Prayer to God be reverent as towards the Deity, if it be consistent with his immutability, with his foreknowledge, with his wisdom, and with every kind of trust in his goodness—if it be also, as regards man, permissible by science, and approved by experience, then there can be no doubt at all that it should be sedulously practised, and should be of universal obligation. But if it be at once useless and absurd, if it be forbidden by reason and frowned at by common sense, if it weaken man and be irreverent towards the Being to whom it is said to be addressed, then it will be well for all who practise it to reconsider their position, and at least to endeavour to give some solid reason for persisting in a course which is condemned by the intellect and is unneeded by the heart.
The practice of Prayer is generally founded upon the supposed position held by man—first, as a creature towards his Creator, and secondly, as a child towards his Father in heaven. In its first aspect, it is a simple act of homage from the inferior to the superior, parallel to the courtesy shown by the subject to the monarch; it is an acknowledgment of dependence, and a sign of gratitude for the gifts which are supposed to be freely given by God to man—gifts which man has done nothing to deserve, but which come from the free bounty of the giver. Putting aside the whole question of God as Creator, which is not the point at issue, we might argue that, since he brought us into this world without our request, and even without our consent, he is in duty bound to see that we have all things necessary for our life and happiness in the world in which he has thus placed us. We might argue that the "blessings" said to be bestowed upon us, such as food, clothing, &c, can only be called "given" by a fiction, for that they are won by our own hard toil, and are never "gifts from God" in any real sense at all. Further, we might plead that we find "bestowed" upon us many things which are decidedly the reverse of blessings, and that if gratitude be due to God for some things, the contrary of gratitude is due to him for others; and that if praise be his right for the one, blame must be his desert for the second. We should be thus forced into the logical, but somewhat peculiar, frame of mind of the savage, who caresses his fetish when it hears his prayers, and belabours it heartily when it fails to help him. But, taking the position that Prayer is due from man by reason of his creaturehood, it must surely be clear that it cannot be a proper way of manifesting a sense of inferiority to degrade the Being to whom the homage is offered. Yet Prayer is essentially degrading to God, and the character ascribed to him of "a hearer and answerer of Prayer" is a most lowering conception of Deity. For God to hear and to answer Prayer means that Prayer changes his action, making him do that which he would otherwise have abstained from doing; it means that man is wiser than God, and is able to instruct him in his duty; and it means that God is less loving than he ought to be, and will not bestow upon his creature that which is good for him, unless he be importuned into giving it. We are told that God is immutable, "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever;" "God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent." If this be true—and surely immutability of purpose must be a necessary characteristic of an all-wise and all-good Being—how can Prayer be anything more than a childish fretting against the inevitable? The Changeless One has planned a certain course of action, and is steadily carrying it out; in passionless serenity he goes upon his way; then man breaks in with his feeble cries and petulant upbraidings, and actually turns God from his purpose, and changes the course of his providence. If Prayer does not do this it does nothing at all; either it changes the mind of God or it does not. If it does, God is at the disposal of man's whim; if it does not, it is perfectly useless, and might just as well be left undone. The parable told by Christ about the unjust judge (Luke xviii. 1-8) is a most extraordinary representation of God: "Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.... And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him?" Verily, the picture of the divine justice is not an attractive one! The judge does his duty, not because it is his duty, not because the widow needs his aid, not because her cause is a just one, but "lest by her continual coming she weary" him. There is only one moral to be drawn from this, namely, that God will not care for his "elect," because they are "his own;" that he will not guard them, because it is his duty; but that, if they cry day and night to him, he will attend to them, because the continual cry wearies him, and he desires to silence it. In the same way God the immutable changes at the sound of Prayer, not because the change will be better or wiser, but because man's cry "wearies" him, and he will be quiet if he obtains his petition. Surely the idea is as degrading as it can be; it puts God on a level with the unwise human parent, who allows himself to be governed by the clamour of his children, and gives any favour to the spoilt child, if only the child be tiresome enough in its petulant persistence.
Is Prayer consistent with theforeknowledgeof God? It is one of the attributes ascribed to God that he knows all before it happens, and that the future lies mapped out before him as clearly as does the past. If this be so, is it more reasonable to pray about things in the future than things in the past? No one is so utterly irrational as to pray to God, in so many words, to change the things that are gone, or to alter the record of the past. Yet, is it more rational to ask him to change the things that are coming, and to alter the already-written chart of the future? In reality, man's own eyes being blinded, he deems his God such an one as himself, and where he cannotsee, he can allow himself tohope. But there is no excuse from the inexorable logic which pierces us with one horn or the other of this dilemma, however we may writhe in our efforts to escape them; either God knows the future or he knows it not; if he knows it, it cannot be altered, so it is of no use to pray about it, everything being already fixed; if he knows it not, he is not God, he is no wiser than man. But, then, some Christians argue, he has pre-arranged that he will give this blessing in answer to Prayer, and he foreknows the Prayer as well as its answer. Then, after all, it is pre-determined whether we shall pray or not in any given case, and we have only to follow the course along which we are impelled by an irresistible destiny; so the matter is beyond all discussion, and the power to pray, or not to pray, does not reside in us; if there is a blessing in store for us which needs the arm of Prayer to pluck it from the tree on which it hangs, we shall inevitably pray for it at the right moment, and thus—in his effort to escape from one difficulty—the praying Christian has landed himself in a worse one, for absolute foreknowledge implies complete determinism, and prevents all human responsibility of any kind.
Is Prayer consistent with thewisdomof God? After all, what does Prayer mean, boldly stated? It means that man thinks that he knows better than God, and so he tells God that which ought to happen. Is there any self-conceit so intolerable as that which pretends to bow itself in the dust before him who created and who upholds the infinite worlds which make up the universe, and which then sets itself to correct the ordering of him who traced the orbits of the planets, and who measured the rule of suns? Finite wisdom instructing infinite wisdom; mortal reason laying down the course of immortal reason; low intelligence guiding supreme intelligence; man instructing God. All this is implied in the fact of Prayer, and every man who has prayed, and who believes in God, ought to cast himself down in passionate humiliation before the wisdom he has insulted and impugned, and ask pardon for the insolent presumption which dared to lay hands on the helm of the Supreme, and to dream that man could be more wise than God. At least, those who believe in God might be humble enough to acknowledge his superiority to themselves, and if they demand that homage should be paid to him by their brethren, they should also confess him to be wiser and higher than they are themselves.
Is Prayer consistent withtrust in the goodnessof God? Surely Prayer is a distinct refusal to trust, and is a proclamation that we think that we could do better for ourselves than God will do for us. If God be "good and loving to every man," it is manifest that, without any pressure being put upon him, he will do for each the best thing that can possibly be done. The people of Madagascar are wiser, in this matter than the people who throng our churches and our chapels, for they say, addressing the good Spirit, "We need not pray to thee, for thou, without our prayers, wilt give us all things that be good for us;" and then they turn to the evil Spirit, saying, that they must pray tohimlest, if they do not, he should work them harm, and send troubles in their way. Prayer implies that God judges all good gifts, and will withhold them unless they are wrung from his reluctant hands; it denies that he loves his creatures, and is good to all. In addition to this, it also implies that we will not trust him to judge what is best for us; on the contrary, we prefer to judge for ourselves, and to have our own way. If a trouble comes, it is prayed against, and God is besought "to remove his heavy hand." What does this mean, except that when God sends sorrow, man clamours for joy, and when God deems it best that his child should weep, the child demands cause for smiles? If people trusted God, as they pretend to trust him—if the phrases of the Sunday were the practice of the week—if men believed that God's ways were higher than man's ways, and his thoughts than their thoughts—then no Prayer would ever ascend from earth to the "Throne of grace," and man would welcome joy and sorrow, peace and care, wealth and poverty, as wise men welcome nature's order, when the rain comes down to swell the seed for the harvest, and the sunshine glows down upon earth to burnish the golden grain.
But, say the praying Christians, even if Prayer be not defensible as homage from the creature to the Creator, in that it lowers our idea of God, it must surely yet be natural as the instinctive cry from the child to the Father in heaven; and then follow arguments drawn from the family and the home, and the need of communion between parent and child. As a matter of fact,—taking the analogy, imperfect as it is—do we find much Prayer, as from child to parent, in the best and the happiest homes;is not the amount of asking the exact measure of the imperfection of the relationship?The wiser and the kinder the parent, the less will the child ask for; rather, it learns from experience to trust the older wisdom, and to be contented with the love which is ever giving, unsolicited, all good things. At the most, the simple expression of the child's wish is all that is needed, if the child desire anything of which the parent have not thought; and even this mere statement of a wish is still the result ofimperfection, i e., the want of knowledge on the parent's part of the child's mind and heart In this case there is no pleading, no urging; the single request and single answer suffice; there is nothing which corresponds with the idea of the prophet to pray to God and to "give him no rest" until he grant the petition. In a well-ordered home, the child who persisted in pressing his request would receive a rebuke for his want of trust, and for his conceited self-sufficiency; and yetthisis the analogy on which Prayer to God is built up, and in this fashion "natural instincts" are dragged in, in order to support supernatural and artificial cravings.
Leaving Prayer, as it affects man's relationship to God, let us look at it as it regards man's relationship to things around him, and ask if it be permitted by our scientific knowledge, and approved by experience and by history. The chief lesson of science is that all things work by law, that we dwell in a realm of law, and thatnothinggoes by chance. All science is built up upon this idea; science is not possible unless this primary rule be correct; science is only the codified experience of the race, the observed sequence of to-day marked down for the guidance of to-morrow, the teaching of the past hived up for the improvement of the future. But all this accumulation and correlation of facts becomes useless if laws can be broken—i e., if this observed sequence of phenomena can be suddenly broken by the interposition of an unknown and incalculable force, acting spasmodically and guided by no discoverable order of action. Science is impossible if these "providential occurrences" may take place at any moment. A physician, in writing his prescription, selects the drugs which experience has pointed out as the suitable remedy for the disease under which his patient is labouring. These drugs have a certain effect upon the tissues of the human frame, and the physician calculates on this effect being produced; but if Prayer is to come in as a factor, of what use the physician's science? Here is suddenly introduced—to speak figuratively—a new drug of unknown power, and the effect of medicine plus Prayer can in no way be calculated upon. The prescription is either efficient or non-efficient; if it be efficient, Prayer is unnecessary, as the cure would take place without it; if it be non-efficient, and Prayer makes up the deficiency, then medical science is not needed, for the impotency of the drugs can always be balanced by the potency of the Prayer. This argument may be used as regards every science. Prayer is put up for a ship which goes to sea. The ship is fitted for the perils it encounters, or it is unfit. If fitted, it arrives safely without Prayer; if, though unfit, it arrives, being guarded by Prayer, then Prayer becomes a factor in the shipbuilder's calculations, and sound timbers and strong rivets sink into minor importance. If it be argued that to speak thus is to use Prayer unfairly, because it is our duty to take every proper means to ensure safety, what, is this except to say that, after all, Prayer is only a fiction, and that while we bow our knees to God, and pretend to look tohimfor safety, we are really looking to the strong timbers of the ship-builder, and to the skill of the captain?
Science teaches, also, that all phenomena are the results of preceding phenomena, and that an unbroken sequence of cause and effect stretches back further than our poor thoughts can reach. In stately harmony all Nature moves, evolving link after link of the endless chain, each link bound firmly to its predecessor, and affording, in its turn, the same support to its successor. Prayer is put up in the churches for fair weather; but rain and sunshine do not follow each other by chance, they obey a changeless law. To alter the weather of to-day means to alter the weather of countless yesterdays, which have faded away, one after another, "into the infinite azure of the past." The weather of to-day is the result of all those long-past phases of temperature, and, unless they were altered, no change is pos sible to-day. The Prayer that goes up in English churches should really run:—"O God, we pray thee to change all that thou hast wrought in the past; we, to-day, in this petty corner of thy world, are discontented with thy ordering; we desire of thee, then, that, to pleasure our fancy, thou wilt unroll the record of the past, and change all its order, remoulding its history to suit our convenience here to-day." It is difficult to say which is the worse, the self-conceit which deems its own petty needs worthy of such complaisance of Deity, or the ignorance which forgets the absurdities implied in the request it makes. But, after all, it is the ignorance which is to blame: these Prayers were written when science was scarcely born; in those days God was the immediate cause of each phenomena, sending rain from heaven when it pleased him, thundering from heaven against his enemies, pouring hailstones from heaven to slay his foes, opening and closing the windows of heaven to punish a wicked king or to pleasure an angry prophet. In those days heaven was very close to earth: so near that when it opened, the dying Stephen could see and recognise the form and features of the Son of Man; so near that, lest man should build a tower which should reach it, God had himself to descend and discomfit the builders. All these things were true to the writers whose words are repeated in English churches in the nineteenth century, and they naturally believed that what God wrought in days of old he could work also among themselves. But knowledge has shattered the fairy fabric which fancy had raised up; astronomy built towers—not of Babel—from which men could gauge the heaven, and find that through illimitable ether worlds innumerable rolled, and that where the throne of God should have been seen, suns and planets sped on their ceaseless rounds. Further and further back, the ancient God who dwelt among men was pressed back, till now, at last, no room is found for spasmodic divine solutions, but Nature's mighty order rolls on uninterrupted, in a silence unbroken by voice and undisturbed by miraculous volitions, bound by a golden chain of inviolable law. The most learned and the most thoughtful Christian people now acknowledge that prayer is out of place in dealing with "natural order;" but surely it is time that they should make their voices heard plainly, so as to erase from the Prayer-book these obsolete notions, born of an ignorance which the world has now outgrown. Few reallybelievein the power of Prayer over the weather, but people go on from the sheer force of habit, repeating, parrot-like, phrases which have lost their meaning, because they are too indolent to exert thought, or too fettered by habit to test the Prayer of the Sunday by the standard of the week. When people begin tothinkof what they repeat so glibly, the battle of Free Thought will have been won.
Many earnest people, however, while recognising the fact that Prayer ought not to be used for rain, fine weather, and the like, yet think that it may be rightly employed to obtain "spiritual benefits." Is not this idea also the product of ignorance? When men knew nothing of natural laws they thought they could gain natural benefits by Prayer; now that people know nothing of "spiritual" laws, they think they can gain "spiritual" benefits by Prayer. In each case the Prayer springs from ignorance. Is it really more reasonable to expect to gain miraculous spiritual strength from Prayer, than to expect to give vigour, by Prayer, to arms enfeebled by fever? Growth, slow and steady, is Nature's law; no sudden leaps are possible; and no Prayer will give that spiritual stature which only develops by continual effort, and by "patient continuance in well-doing." The mind—which is probably what is generally meant by the word "spirit"—has its own laws, according to which it grows and strengthens; it is moulded, formed, developed, as the body is, by the play of the circumstances around it, and by the organisation with which it comes into the world, and which it has inherited from a long race of ancestors. Here, too, inexorable law surrounds all, and in mind, as in matter, the "reign of law" Is all-embracing, all-compelling.
Is Prayer approved by experience? It seems necessary here to refer to the experience of some, who say that they have found Prayer strengthen them to meet a trouble which they had dreaded, or to accomplish a duty for which their own ability was insufficient. This appears to be very probable, but the reason is not far to seek, and as the explanation of the increased strength may be purely natural, it seems unnecessary to search for a supernatural cause. Prayer, when earnest and heartfelt, appears to exert a kind of reflex action on the person praying, the petition not piercing heaven, but falling back upon earth. A duty has to be done or a trouble has to be faced; the person affected prays for help, and by the intense concentration of his thoughts, and by the passion of his desire, he naturally gains a strength he had not, when he was less deeply and thoroughly in earnest. Again, the interior conviction that a olivine strength is on his side, nerves his heart and braces his courage: the soldier fights with a tenfold courage when he is sure that endurance will make victory a certainty. But all this is no proof that God hears and answers Prayer; if it were so, it would prove also that the Virgin Mother, and all the saints, and Buddha, and Brahma, and Vishnu were alike hearers and answerers of Prayer. In all cases the sincere worshipper gains strength and comfort, and finds the same "answer" to his Prayer. Yet surely no one will contend that all these are "Prayer-hearing and Prayer-answering" Gods? This fancied answer is not a proof of the truth of the worshipper's belief, but is only a proofof his conviction of its truth; not the soundness of the belief, but the sincerity of the conviction, is proved by the glow and ardour which succeed the act of Prayer. All the dormant energies are aroused; the soul's whole strength is put forth; the worshipper is warmed by the fire struck from his own heart, and is thrilled with the electricity which resides in his own frame. So far, Prayer is found to be answered, just as every strong conviction, however erroneous, is found to confer increased strength and vigour on him who possesses it. But, excepting this, Prayer is not proved to be efficacious when tested by experience. How many Prayers have gone up to the Father in heaven from his children overwhelmed in the sea, and drowning in floods, and encircled by fire? How many passionate appeals of patriots and martyrs, of exiles and of slaves? How many cries of anguish from beside the beds of the dying, and the fresh graves of the newly-dead? In vain the wife's wail for the husband, the mother's pleading for the only child; no voice has answered "Weep not;" no command has replied, "Rise up;" the Prayers have fallen back on the breaking heart, poor white-winged birds that have tried to fly towards heaven, but have only sunk back to earth, their breasts bruised and bleeding from striking against the iron bars of a pitiless and relentless fate. So continually has Prayer failed to win an answer, that, in spite of the clearness and the force of the Bible promises in regard to it, Christians have found themselves obliged to limit their extent, and to say that God judges whether or no it will be beneficial for the worshipper to grant the petition, and if the Prayer be a mistaken one he will, in mercy, withhold the implored-for boon. Of course, this prevents Prayer from being ever tested by experience at all, because whenever a Prayer remains unanswered the reply is ready, that "it was not according to the will of God." This means, that we cannot test the value of Prayer in any way; we must accept its worth wholly as a matter of faith; we must pray because we are bidden to do so, and fulfil an useless form which affords no tangible results. In this melancholy position are we landed by an appeal to experience, by which we are challenged to test the value of Prayer.
The answer of history is even yet more emphatic. The Ages of Prayer are the Dark Ages of the world. When learning was crushed out, and superstition was rampant, when wisdom was called witchcraft, and priests ruled Europe, then Prayer was always rising up to God from the countless monasteries where men dwarfed themselves into monks, and from the convents where women shrivelled up into nuns. The sound of the bell that called to Prayer was never silent, and the time that was needed for work was wasted in Prayer, and in the straining to serve God the service of man was neglected and despised.
There is one obvious fact that throws into bright relief the absurdity of Prayer. Two people pray for exactly opposite things; whose Prayers are to be answered? Two armies ask for victory; which is to be crowned? Amongst ourselves, now, the Church is divided into two opposing camps, and while the Ritualists appeal to God for protection, the Evangelical clamour also for his aid. To which is he to bend his ear? which Prayer is he to answer? Both appeal to his promises; both urge that his honour is pledged to them by the word he has given; yet it is simply impossible that he should grant the Prayer of both, because the Prayer of the one is the direct contradiction of the prayer of the other.
Again, none of the believers in Prayer appear to consider, that, if it were true that Prayer is so powerful a weapon—if it were true that by Prayer man can prevail with God—it would then be madness ever to pray at all. To pray would be as dangerous a thing as to put a cavalry sword into the hands of a child just strong enough to lift it, but unable to control it, or to understand the danger of its blows. Who can tell all the results to himself and to others which might flow from a granted Prayer, a Prayer made in all honesty of purpose, but in ignorance and short-sightedness? If Prayers really brought answers it would be most wickedly reckless ever to pray at all, as wickedly reckless as if a man, to quench a moment's thirst, pierced a hole in a reservoir of water which overhung a town.
But, in spite of all arguments, in spite of all that reason can urge and that logic can prove, it is probable that many will still cling to the practice of Prayer, craving for the relief it gives to the feelings of the heart, however much it may be condemned by the judgment of the intellect. They seem to think that they will lose a great inspiration to work if they give up "communion with God," and that they will miss the glow of ardour which they deem they have caught from Prayer. But surely it may fairly be urged on them that no real good can arise from continuing a practice which it is impossible to defend when it is carefully analysed. Prayer is as the artificial stimulant which excites, but does not strengthen, and lends a factitious brightness, which is followed by deeper depression. Those who have prayed most have often stated that "seasons of special blessing" are generally followed by "special temptations of Satan." The reaction follows on the unreal excitation, and the soul that has been flying in heaven grovels upon earth. To the patient who is weak and depressed from long illness, the bright air of the morning seems chill and cold, and he yearns for the warmth of the artificial stimulants to which he has grown accustomed; yet better for him is it to gain health from the morning breezes, and stimulus from the glad clear sunshine, than to yield to the craving which is a relic of his disease. If they who find in communion with God a sweetness which is lacking when they commune with their brethren—if they who cultivate dependence on God would learn the true dependence of man on man—if they who yearn for the invisible would concentrate their energies on the visible—then they would soon find a sweetness in labour which would compensate for the languor of Prayer, and they would learn to draw from the joy of serving men, and from the serene strength of an earnest life, a warmth of inspiration, a passion of fervour, an exhaustless fount of energy, beside which all Prayer-given ardour would seem dull and nerveless, in the glow of which the fancied warmth of God-communion would seem as the pale cold moonshine in the glory of the rising sun.
IT is a common complaint against the Rationalistic school of thought that they can destroy but cannot construct; that they tear down, but do not build up; that they are armed only with the axe and with the sword, and not with the trowel and the mason's line. "We have had enough of negations," is a common cry; "give us something positive." Much of this feeling is foolish and unreasonable; the negation of error, where error is supreme, is necessary before the assertion of truth can become possible. Before a piece of ground can be sown with wheat, it must be cleared of the weeds which infest it; before a solid house can be built in the place of a crumbling ruin, the ancient rubbish must be carried off, and the rotten walls must be thoroughly pulled down. Destructive criticism is necessary and wholesome; the heavy battering-ram of science must thunder against the walls of the churches; the swift arrows of logic must rain on the black-robed army; the keen lance-points of irony must pierce through the leather jerkin of superstition. But the destruction of orthodox Christianity being accomplished, there remains for the Rationalist much more to do. He has to frame a code which shall rule in the place of the code of Moses and of Jesus; he has to found a morality which shall replace the morality of the Bible; he has to construct an ideal which shall be as attractive as the ideal of the Churches; he has to proclaim laws which shall supersede revelation: in a word, he has to build up the religion of humanity.
As the Rationalist looks abroad over the contending armies of faith and of reason, he gradually recognises the fact that his new religion, if it is to serve as a bond of union, must stand on stable ground, apart from the warring hosts. Round the idea of God rages the hottest din of the battle. The old, popular, and traditional belief is wounded to the death, and is slowly breathing out its life. The philosophical subtleties of the metaphysician are beyond the grasp of folk busied chiefly with common work. The new school of Theists, believers in a "spiritual personal God," stands on a slippery incline, whereon is no firm foothold. It simply spreads over the abysses of thought a sentimental veil of poetical imaginings, and bows down before a beatified and celestial man, whose image it has sculptured out of the thought-marble of its sublimest aspirations. If the idea of God be thus warred over, thus changing, thus uncertain, it is plain that the new religion cannot find its foundation on this shifting and disputed ground. While theologians are wrangling about God, plain men are looking wistfully over the shattered idols to find the ideal to which they can cling. The new religion, then, studying the varying phases of the God-idea, seizes on its one permanent element, its idealised resemblance to man, its embodiment of the highest humanity; and, grasping this thought, it turns to men and says, "In loving God you are only loving your own highest selves; in conforming yourselves to the Divine image you are only conforming yourselves to your own highest ideals; the unknown God whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you; in serving your family, your neighbours, your country, you serve this unknown God; this God is Humanity, the race to which you belong; this is the veiled God whom all generations have worshipped in heaven, while he trod the world around them in every human form; this is the only God, the God who is manifest in the flesh: "—
"There is no God, O son, If thou be none."
The first great constructive effort of the new religion is thus to transform the idea of God, and to turn all men's aspirations, all men's hopes, all men's labours, into this channel of devotion to humanity, that so the practical outcome of the new motive power may be a steady flow of loving and energetic work for man, work that begins in the family, and spreads, in ever-widening circles, over the whole race.
This transformation of the central figure necessarily transforms also the whole idea of religion, which must take its colour from that centre. Revelation from heaven being no longer possible, its place must be supplied by study on earth: revealed laws being no longer attainable, it becomes the duty of the Humanitarian to discover natural laws. This duty is the more cheering from the manifest failure of revealed laws, as exemplified in popular Christianity. "Law," in the mouth of the believer in revelation, means a command issued by God; the "laws of Nature" are the rules laid down by God, in accordance with which all things move; they are the behests of the Creator of Nature, the controlling wires of the mechanism, held by the hand of God. But "law" in the mouth of the Rationalist means nothing more than the observed and registered invariable sequence of events. Thus it is said "a stone falls to the ground in obedience to the law of gravitation." By the "law of gravitation" the Christian would mean that God had ordered that all stonesshouldso fall. The Rationalist would simply mean that all stonesdoso fall, and that invariable sequence he calls the "law of gravitation." Obedience to the laws of Nature replaces, in the religion of Humanity, obedience to the laws of God. As there is no inspired revelation of these laws the student must carefully and patiently ascertain them, either by direct observation, or most often, in the books of those who have devoted their lives to the elucidation of Nature's code. Scientific books will, in fact, replace the Bible, and by the study of the laws of health, both physical, moral, and mental, the Rationalist will ascertain the conditions which surround him to which he must conform himself if he desires to retain physical, moral, and mental vigour. This difference in the authority which is obeyed leads naturally to the difference of morality between the orthodox Christian and the Rationalist. Christian morality consists of obedience to the will of God, as revealed in the Bible. The grand difficulty regarding this obedience is, that the will of Jehovah, as revealed to the Jews at different times, varies so much from age to age that the most zealous Christian must fail to obey all the conflicting behests prefaced by a "Thus saith the Lord." God would, of course, never command any one to do a thing which was directly wrong, yet God distinctly said: "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live;" and God sanctioned Slavery, and God commanded Persecution on account of religious convictions: true, Christians plead that all these laws are obsolete, but what is that but to acknowledge that revealed morality is obsolete,i.e., that it was never revealed by God at all. For a command to persecute must be either right or wrong: if right, it is the duty of Christians to obey it, and to raise once more the stakes of Smithfield for heretics and unbelievers; if wrong, it can never have come from God at all, and must be blasphemously attributed to him. In God, Christians tell us there is no changeableness, neither shadow of turning; then what pleased him in long past ages would please him still, and what he commanded yesterday would be right to-day. Thus fatally does revealed morality fail when tested, and it becomes impossible to know which particular "will of God" he desires that we should obey. Now, once more, the Rationalist experiences the advantages of his new motive-power; he has to serve Humanity, and is unencumbered by the difficulties attendant upon "pleasing God." Not the pleasure of God, but the benefit of man, is the basis of his morality. Revealed morality is as a child's garment, into-which one should try to force the limbs of a full-grown man; it is the morality of the past stereotyped for the use of today, and is clumsy, archaic, half-illegible from age. Rational morality, on the other hand, grows with the growth of those who follow its dictates; its errors are corrected by wider experience, its omissions are filled up by the irrefragable arguments of necessity. It is founded upon the needs of man; his happiness is its sole object; not only his physical happiness, not only the fulfilment of the desires of the body for ease and comfort, but the satisfaction also of all the cravings of his intellectual and moral powers, the love of truth, the love of beauty, the love of justice. A morality founded on this basis can never be overthrown; one sure test it affords whereby to decide on the morality or the immorality of any-given action: "Is it useful to man? does it tend to the promotion of human happiness?" The will of God is doubtful, and is always disputable, and therefore it can never form the foundation of a universal system of morality, a code which shall unite all men in obedience. A code which shall unite all men must needs be founded on those human interests which are common to all men. Such a code is the utilitarian. For man's happiness is on earth, and can be known and understood; the promotion of that happiness is an intelligible aim; the test of morality may be applied by every one; it is a system which everybody can understand, and which the common sense of each must approve, for by it man lives for man, man labours for man, the efforts of each are directed to the good of all, and only in the happiness of the whole can the happiness of each part be perfected and complete.
There is much popular misconception with regard to utilitarianism: "utility" is supposed to include only those material things which are useful to the body, and which tend to increase physical comfort. But utility includes all art; for art cultures the taste and refines the nature. It thus adds a thousand charms to life, deepens, softens, purifies human happiness. Utility includes all study, for study-awakens and trains the intellectual faculties, and therefore increases the sources of happiness possible to man. Utility includes all science; for science is man's true providence, foreseeing the dangers that threaten him, and shielding him against their shock. Science leads man up to those intellectual heights where to stand awhile and breathe in the keen, clear air after dwelling in the turbid atmosphere of daily toils and cares, is as the refreshment of the pure mountain wind to the weary inhabitant of the crowded city streets.. Utility includes all love and search of truth; for the discovery of a truth is the keenest pleasure of which the noblest mind is susceptible. It includes all sublimest virtue; for self-sacrifice and devotion yield the purest forms-of happiness to be found on earth. In a word, utility includes everything which isusefulin building up a grander manhood and womanhood, wiser, purer, truer, tenderer than that we have to-day.
Such is the basis of the morality which is to supersede the supernatural morality of the Churches; a morality which is: for this life and for this world, since we have this life, and are in this world; a morality which seeks to ensure human happiness on this side the grave, instead of dreaming of it on the other side; a morality which endeavours to carve solid heavens here, instead of seeing them in distant cloud-lands, white and soft and beautiful, but still only clouds.
One vast advantage of this humanitarian philosophy is that it endeavours to train men into unselfishness, instead of following the popular Christian plan of making self the central thought. Self is appealed to at every step in the New Testament: if we are bidden to rejoice under persecution, it is because "great is your reward in heaven;" if urged to pray, it is because "thy Father, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly;" if to be charitable, it is because at the judgment it will bring a kingdom as the recompense; if to resign home or wealth, it is because we shall receive "a hundredfold in this present life, and in the world to come life everlasting;" even the giver of a cup of cold water "shall in no wise lose his reward." It is one system of bribes, mingling the thought of personal pain with every effort of human improvement and human happiness, and thereby directly fostering and encouraging selfishness and gilding it over with the name of religion and piety. Humanitarian morality, on the other hand, while utilising the natural and rightful craving for individual happiness as a motive-power, endeavours to accustom each to look to, and to labour for, the happiness of all, making that general happiness the aim of life. Thus it gradually weakens the selfish tendencies and encourages the social, holding up ever the noble ideal by the very contemplation of its beauty transforming its votaries into its likeness. "Vivre pour au-trui," is the motto of the utilitarian code; and in so living the fullest and happiest life for self is really attained; so closely drawn are the bands that bind men together that happiness and unhappiness re-act from one to another, and as the general standard of happiness rises higher and higher, the wheels of social life run more and more easily, with less of friction, less of jar, and therefore with increased comfort to each individual member. While Christianity developes selfishness by its continual cry of "Save thyself," Utilitarianism gradually developes unselfishness by the nobler whisper, "Save others, and in so doing thou shalt thyself be saved." Delivered from every debasing fear of an unknowable and inscrutable power, Utilitarianism works with a single heart and a single eye for the happiness of the race, stamping with the brand of "wrong" every act the general repetition of which would be harmful to society, or the tendency of which is injurious, and sealing as "right" every act which brightens human life, and makes the general happiness more perfect, and more widely spread. As morality rises higher and higher, human judgment will grow keener and purer, and in the times to come probably many an act now approved on all sides will be seen to be harmful, and will therefore become marked as immoral, while, on the other hand, acts that are now considered wrong, because "offensive to God," will be seen to be beneficial to man, and will therefore be accepted by all as moral. Thus Utilitarian morality can never be a bar to progress, for it will become higher and nobler as man mounts upwards. Revealed morality is as a milestone on the road of the world's onward march: it marks how far the world had travelled when its tables of law were first set up in its place: as a milestone, it is useful, interesting, and instructive, and none would desire to destroy it; but if the milestone be removed from its post as a mark of distance, and be laid across the road as a barrier which none must overclimb in days to come, then it becomes necessary for the pioneers of progress to hew it to pieces that men may go on their way unchecked, and this revealed morality now lies across the upward path of the world, and must be broken in pieces with the hammer of logic and the axe of common sense, so that we may press ever higher up the mountain of progress, whose summit is hid in everlasting cloud.
And what has constructive Rationalism to say to us, when we stand face to face with the mighty destroyer of all living things? "Your creed may do well enough to live by," say-objectors, "but is it good to die by?" A creed that is good in life must needs be good in death, and never yet was a hero-life closed by a coward death. What can better smooth the bed of the dying man than the knowledge that the world is the happier for his living, that he leaves it better than he found it, that he has helped to raise and to purify it? What easier pillow to rest the dying head on than the memory of a useful life? The Rationalist has no fear lurking around his death-bed; no lurid gleams from a hell on the other side lighten around him as his breath begins to fail; no angry God frowns on him from the great white throne; no devil stands beside him to drag him down into the bottomless pit; quietly, peacefully, happily, without fear and without dread, he passes out of life. As calmly as the tired child lies down to sleep in its mother's arms, and passes into dreamless unconsciousness, so calmly does the Rationalist lie down in the arms of the mighty mother, and pass into dreamless unconsciousness on her bosom.
To the Rationalist, the future of the race replaces in thought the future of the individual; for that he thinks, for that he plans, for that he labours. A heaven upon earth for those who come after him, such is his inspiration to effort and to self-devotion. He seeks the smile of man instead of the smile of God, and finds in the thought of a happier humanity the spur that Christians seek in the thought of pleasing God. His hopes for the future spread far and wide before him, but it is a future to be inherited by his children in this same world in which he himself lives; freer and fuller life, wider knowledge, deepened and more polished culture—all these are to be the heritage of the generations to come, and it is his to make that heritage the richer by every grander thought and nobler deed that he can do to-day.
Let us place side by side the dogmas of Christianity and the motive power of the Rationalist, and see which of these two is the gladder life-moulder of man. Christianity has a God in heaven, all powerful and all-wise, who in ages gone by made the universe and fore-ordained all that should happen in time to come; who created man and woman with a serpent to tempt them, and made for them the opportunity of falling; who, having made the opportunity, forced them to take it. It is said that Adam and Eve were free agents, but they were nothing of the kind, for the lamb was slain from the foundation of the world: the sacrifice was offered before the sin was committed; and the sacrifice being made, the sin was its necessary consequence. If Adam had been free, he might not have sinned, and then there would have been a slain lamb and no sin for which he could atone; but God, having provided the Saviour, was obliged to provide the sinner, and therefore he made the tree of knowledge and sent the tempter to entrap the parents of mankind. They fell, according to God's predestination, and thus became accursed, and then the waiting Redeemer was revealed, and "the divine scheme" was complete. Accursed for a sin in which they had no part, the children of Adam are born with an evil nature, and being evil they act evilly, and thereby sink lower and lower; at their feet yawns a bottomless pit, and the road to it is broad, easy, and pleasant; above their heads shines a luxurious heaven, and the path is narrow, steep, and rugged. Their nature—God-given to all—drags them downwards; the Holy Ghost—God given to some—drags them upwards: immortality is their inheritance, and "few there be that find" immortal happiness, while "many there be that go in" at the gate of hell to immortal woe; a severance, bitter beyond all earthly bitterness of parting, is in store for all, since, at the great day of judgment, "one shall be taken and the other left," and there will not be a family some of whose members will not be lost for ever. Eternal life, to the vast majority, is to mean eternal torment, and they are to be "salted with fire," burning yet never burnt up, consuming ever but never consumed. Towards the gaining of heaven, towards the avoidance of hell, all human effort must be turned. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" All life must be one striving "to enter in at the strait gate, for many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able;" poverty, oppression, misery, what matters it? the "light affliction which is but for a moment worketh a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Thus this world is forgotten for the sake of another, crushed out of sight beneath the overwhelming grandeur of eternity; the spur to human effort is blunted by the infinitesimal importance of time as compared with eternity; bad government, bad laws, injustice, tyranny, pauperism, misery, all these things need not move us, for "we seek a better country, that is a heavenly;" we are "strangers and pilgrims;" "here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come;" "our citizenship is in heaven," and there also is our home. True, Christians do not carry out into daily life these phrases and thoughts of their creed, but in so much as they do not they are the less Christian, and the more imbued with the spirit of Rationalism. Rationalists they are, the vast majority, six days in the week, and are only Christians on the Sunday. To come out of, these old world dreams into Rationalism is like coming into the open air after a hothouse. Rationalism clears away the terrible God of orthodoxy, the fall, the serpent, the Saviour, the hell, the devil. "Work, toil, struggle," it cries to man; "the ills around you are not the appointment of God, not the effects of his curse; they arise from your own ignorance, and may all be cleared away by your own study, and your own effort. Salvation? Yes, you need saviours, but the saviours must save you from earthly woes and not from the wrath of God; save yourselves, by thought, by wisdom, by earnestness. Redemption? yes, you need redeeming, but the redemption you want is from vice, from ignorance, from poverty, and must be wrought out by human effort. Prayer? yes, you need praying for, but the prayer you want is work compelling the result; not crying out for what you desire, but winning it by labour and by toil. The world stretches wide before you, capable of paying you a thousandfold for all you do for it. Life is in your hands, full of all glorious possibilities; throw away your dreams of heaven, and make heaven here; leave aside visions of the life to come, and make beautiful the life which is."
Full of hope, full of joy, strong to labour, patient to endure, mighty to conquer, goes forth the new glad creed into the sad grey Christian world; at her touch men's faces soften and grow purer, and women's eyes smile instead of weeping; at last, at last, the heir arises to take to himself his own, and the negation of the usurped sovereignty of the popular and traditional God over the world developes into the affirmation of the rightful monarchy of man.