* Delivered before the Congress of the American SecularUnion, at Chickering Hall, New York, Nov. 14, 1885.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the greatest tragedy that has ever been written by man—in the fourth scene of the third act—is the best prayer that I have ever read; and when I say "the greatest tragedy," everybody familiar with Shakespeare will know that I refer to "King Lear." After he has been on the heath, touched with insanity, coming suddenly to the place of shelter, he says:
"I'll pray, and then I'll sleep."
And this prayer is my text:
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,How shall your unhoused heads, your unfed sides,Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend youFrom seasons such as these?Oh, I have ta'enToo little care of this.Take physic, pomp;Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,And show the heavens more just."
That is one of the noblest prayers that ever fell from human lips. If nobody has too much, everybody will have enough!
I propose to say a few words upon subjects that are near to us all, and in which every human being ought to be interested—and if he is not, it may be that his wife will be, it may be that his orphans will be; and I would like to see this world, at last, so that a man could die and not feel that he left his wife and children a prey to the greed, the avarice, or the cruelties of mankind. There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong, when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. I cannot do much, but I can at least sympathize with those who suffer. There is one thing that we should remember at the start, and if I can only teach you that, to-night—unless you know it already—I shall consider the few words I may have to say a wonderful success.
I want you to remember that everybody is as hemustbe. I want you to get out of your minds the old nonsense of "free moral agency;" and then you will have charity for the whole human race. When you know that they are not responsible for their dispositions, any more than for their height; not responsible for their acts, any more than for their dreams; when you finally understand the philosophy that everything exists as the result of an efficient cause, and that the lightest fancy that ever fluttered its painted wings in the horizon of hope was as necessarily produced as the planet that in its orbit wheels about the sun—when you understand this, I believe you will have charity for all mankind—including even yourself.
Wealth is not a crime; poverty is not a virtue—although the virtuous have generally been poor. There is only one good, and that is human happiness; and he only is a wise man who makes himself and others happy.
I have heard all my life about self-denial. There never was anything more idiotic than that. No man who does right practices self-denial. To do right is the bud and blossom and fruit of wisdom. To do right should always be dictated by the highest possible selfishness and the most perfect generosity. No man practices self-denial unless he does wrong. To inflict an injury upon yourself is an act of self-denial. He who denies justice to another denies it to himself. To plant seeds that will forever bear the fruit of joy, is not an act of self-denial. So this idea of doing good to others only for their sake is absurd. You want to do it, not simply for their sake, but for your own; because a perfectly civilized man can never be perfectly happy while there is one unhappy being in this universe.
Let us take another step. The barbaric world was to be rewarded in some other world for acting sensibly in this. They were promised rewards in another world, if they would only have self-denial enough to be virtuous in this. If they would forego the pleasures of larceny and murder; if they would forego the thrill and bliss of meanness here, they would be rewarded hereafter for that self-denial. I have exactly the opposite idea. Do right, not to deny yourself, but because you love yourself and because you love others. Be generous, because it is better for you. Be just, because any other course is the suicide of the soul. Whoever does wrong plagues himself, and when he reaps that harvest, he will find that he was not practicing self-denial when he did right.
If you want to be happy yourself, if you are truly civilized, you want others to be happy. Every man ought, to the extent of his ability, to increase the happiness of mankind, for the reason that that will increase his own. No one can be really prosperous unless those with whom he lives share the sunshine and the joy.
The first thing a man wants to know and be sure of is when he has got enough. Most people imagine that the rich are in heaven, but, as a rule, it is only a gilded hell. There is not a man in the city of New York with genius enough, with brains enough, to own five millions of dollars. Why? The money will own him. He becomes the key to a safe. That money will get him up at daylight; that money will separate him from his friends; that money will fill his heart with fear; that money will rob his days of sunshine and his nights of pleasant dreams. He cannot own it. He becomes the property of that money. And he goes right on making more. What for? He does not know. It becomes a kind of insanity. No one is happier in a palace than in a cabin. I love to see a log house. It is associated in my mind always with pure, unalloyed happiness. It is the only house in the world that looks as though it had no mortgage on it. It looks as if you could spend there long, tranquil autumn days; the air filled with serenity; no trouble, no thoughts about notes, about interest—nothing of the kind; just breathing free air, watching the hollyhocks, listening to the birds and to the music of the spring that comes like a poem from the earth.
It is an insanity to get more than you want. Imagine a man in this city, an intelligent man, say with two or three millions of coats, eight or ten millions of hats, vast warehouses full of shoes, billions of neckties, and imagine that man getting up at four o'clock in the morning, in the rain and snow and sleet, working like a dog all day to get another necktie! Is not that exactly what the man of twenty or thirty millions, or of five millions, does to-day? Wearing his life out that somebody may say, "How rich he is!" What can he do with the surplus? Nothing. Can he eat it? No. Make friends? No. Purchase flattery and lies? Yes. Make all his poor relations hate him? Yes. And then, what worry! Annoyed, nervous, tormented, until his poor little brain becomes inflamed, and you see in the morning paper, "Died of apoplexy." This man finally began to worry for fear he would not have enough neckties to last him through.
So we ought to teach our children that great wealth is a curse. Great wealth is the mother of crime. On the other hand are the abject poor. And let me ask, to-night: Is the world forever to remain as it was when Lear made his prayer? Is it ever to remain as it is now? I hope not. Are there always to be millions whose lips are white with famine? Is the withered palm to be always extended, imploring from the stony heart of respectable charity, alms? Must every man who sits down to a decent dinner always think of the starving? Must every one sitting by the fireside think of some poor mother, with a child strained to her breast, shivering in the storm? I hope not. Are the rich always to be divided from the poor,—not only in fact, but in feeling? And that division is growing more and more every day The gulf between Lazarus and Dives widens year by year, only their positions are changed—Lazarus is in hell, and he thinks Dives is in the bosom of Abraham.
And there is one thing that helps to widen this gulf. In nearly every city of the United States you will find the fashionable part, and the poor part. The poor know nothing of the fashionable part, except the outside splendor; and as they go by the palaces, that poison plant called envy, springs and grows in their poor hearts. The rich know nothing of the poor, except the squalor and rags and wretchedness, and what they read in the police records, and they say, "Thank God, we are not like those people!" Their hearts are filled with scorn and contempt, and the hearts of the others with envy and hatred. There must be some way devised for the rich and poor to get acquainted. The poor do not know how many well-dressed people sympathize with them, and the rich do not know how many noble hearts beat beneath the rags. If we can ever get the loving poor acquainted with the sympathizing rich, this question will be nearly solved.
In a hundred other ways they are divided. If anything should bring mankind together it ought to be a common belief. In Catholic countries, that does have a softening influence upon the rich and upon the poor. They believe the same. So in Mohammedan countries they can kneel in the same mosque, and pray to the same God. But how is it with us? The church is not free. There is no welcome in the velvet for the velveteen. Poverty does not feel at home there, and the consequence is, the rich and poor are kept apart, even by their religion. I am not saying anything against religion. I am not on that question; but I would think more of any religion, provided that even for one day in the week, or for one hour in the year, it allowed wealth to clasp the hand of poverty and to have, for one moment even, the thrill of genuine friendship.
In the olden times, in barbaric life, it was a simple' thing to get a living. A little hunting, a little fishing, pulling a little fruit, and digging for roots—all simple; and they were nearly all on an equality, and comparatively there were fewer failures. Living has at last become complex. All the avenues are filled with men struggling for the accomplishment of the same thing:
"For emulation hath a thousand sonsThat one by one pursue: if you give way,Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,Like to an entered tide, they all rush by,And leave you hindmost;—Or, like a gallant horse, fallen in first rank,Lie there for pavement to the abject rear."
The struggle is so hard. And just exactly as we have risen in the scale of being, the per cent, of failures has increased. It is so that all men are not capable of getting a living. They have not cunning enough, intellect enough, muscle enough—they are not strong enough. They are too generous, or they are too negligent; and then some people seem to have what is called "bad luck"—that is to say, when anything falls, they are under it; when anything bad happens, it happens to them.
And now there is another trouble. Just as life becomes complex and as everyone is trying to accomplish certain objects, all the ingenuity of the brain is at work to get there by a shorter way, and, in consequence, this has become an age of invention. Myriads of machines have been invented—every one of them to save labor. If these machines helped the laborer, what a blessing they would be!
But the laborer does not own the machine; the machine owns him. That is the trouble. In the olden time, when I was a boy, even, you know how it was in the little towns. There was a shoemaker—two of them—a tailor or two, a blacksmith, a wheelwright. I remember just how the shops used to look. I used to go to the blacksmith shop at night, get up on the forge, and hear them talk about turning horse-shoes. Many a night have I seen the sparks fly and heard the stories that were told. There was a great deal of human nature in those days! Everybody was known. If times got hard, the poor little shoemakers made a living mending, half-soling, straightening up the heels. The same with the blacksmith; the same with the tailor. They could get credit—they did not have to pay till the next January, and if they could not pay then, they took another year, and they were happy enough. Now one man is not a shoemaker. There is a great building—several hundred thousand dollars' worth of machinery, three or four thousand people—not a single mechanic in the whole building. One sews on straps, another greases the machines, cuts out soles, waxes threads. And what is the result? When the machines stop, three thousand men are out of employment. Credit goes. Then come want and famine, and if they happen to have a little child die, it would take them years to save enough of their earnings to pay the expense of putting away that little sacred piece of flesh. And yet, by this machinery we can produce enough to flood the world. By the inventions in agricultural machinery the United States can feed all the mouths upon the earth. There is not a thing that man uses that can not instantly be over-produced to such an extent as to become almost worthless; and yet, with all this production, with all this power to create, there are millions and millions in abject want. Granaries bursting, and famine looking into the doors of the poor! Millions of everything, and yet millions wanting everything and having substantially nothing!
Now, there is something wrong there. We have got into that contest between machines-and men, and if extravagance does not keep pace with ingenuity, it is going to be the most terrible question that man has ever settled. I tell you, to-night, that these things are worth thinking about. Nothing that touches the future of our race, nothing that touches the happiness of ourselves or our children, should be beneath our notice. We should think of these things—must think of them—and we should endeavor to see that justice is finally done between man and man.
My sympathies are with the poor. My sympathies are with the workingmen of the United States. Understand me distinctly. I am not an Anarchist. Anarchy is the reaction from tyranny. I am not a Socialist. I am not a Communist. I am an Individualist. I do not believe in tyranny of government, but I do believe in justice as between man and man.
What is the remedy? Or, what can we think of—for do not imagine that I think I know. It is an immense, an almost infinite, question, and all we can do is to guess. You have heard a great deal lately upon the land subject. Let me say a word or two upon that. In the first place I do not want to take, and I would not take, an inch of land from any human being that belonged to him. If we ever take it, we must pay for it—condemn it and take it—do not rob anybody. Whenever any man advocates justice, and robbery as the means, I suspect him.
No man should be allowed to own any land that he does not use. Everybody knows that—I do not care whether he has thousands or millions. I have owned a great deal of land, but I know just as well as I know I am living that I should not be allowed to have it unless I use it. And why? Don't you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? Don't you know that there would be an American Air-bottling Association? And don't you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is. Now, the land belongs to the children of Nature. Nature invites into this world every babe that is born. And what would you think of me, for instance, to-night, if I had invited you here—nobody had charged you anything, but you had been invited—and when you got here you had found one man pretending to occupy a hundred seats, another fifty, and another seventy-five, and thereupon you were compelled to stand up—what would you think of the invitation? It seems to me that every child of Nature is entitled to his share of the land, and that he should not be compelled to beg the privilege to work the soil, of a babe that happened to be born before him. And why do I say this? Because it is not to our interest to have a few landlords and millions of tenants.
The tenement house is the enemy of modesty, the enemy of virtue, the enemy of patriotism.
Home is where the virtues grow. I would like to see the law so that every home, to a small amount, should be free not only from sale for debts, but should be absolutely free from taxation, so that every man could have a home. Then we will have a nation of patriots.
Now, suppose that every man were to have all the land he is able to buy. The Vanderbilts could buy to-day all the land that is in farms in the State of Ohio—every foot of it. Would it be for the best interest of that State to have a few landlords and four or five millions of serfs? So, I am in favor of a law finally to be carried out—not by robbery, but by compensation, under the right, as the lawyers call it, of eminent domain—so that no person would be allowed to own more land than he uses. I am not blaming these rich men for being rich. I pity the most of them. I had rather be poor, with a little sympathy in my heart, than to be rich as all the mines of earth and not have that little flower of pity in my breast. I do not see how a man can have hundreds of millions and pass every day people that have not enough to eat. I do not understand it. I might be just the same way myself. There is something in money that dries up the sources of affection, and the probability is, it is this: the moment a man gets money, so many men are trying to get it away from him that in a little while he regards the whole human race as his enemy, and he generally thinks that they could be rich, too, if they would only attend to business as he has. Understand, I am not blaming these people. There is a good deal of human nature in us all. You remember the story of the man who made a speech at a Socialist meeting, and closed it by saying, "Thank God, I am no monopolist," but as he sank to his seat said, "But I wish to the Lord I was!" We must remember that these rich men are naturally produced. Do not blame them. Blame the system!
Certain privileges have been granted to the few by the Government, ostensibly for the benefit of the many; and whenever that grant is not for the good of the many, it should be taken from the few—not by force, not by robbery, but by estimating fairly the value of that property, and paying to them its value; because everything should be done according to law and order.
What remedy, then, is there? First, the great weapon in this country is the ballot. Each voter is a sovereign. There the poorest is the equal of the richest. His vote will count just as many as though the hand that cast it controlled millions. The poor are in the majority in this country. If there is any law that oppresses them, it is their fault. They have followed the fife and drum of some party. They have been misled by others. No man should go an inch with a party—no matter if that party is half the world and has in it the greatest intellects of the earth—unless that party is going his way. No honest man should ever turn round to join anything. If it overtakes him, good. If he has to hurry up a little to get to it, good. But do not go with anything that is not going your way; no matter whether they call it Republican, or Democrat, or Progressive Democracy—do not go with it unless it goes your way.
The ballot is the power. The law should settle many of these questions between capital and labor. But I expect the greatest good to come from civilization, from the growth of a sense of justice; for I tell you to-night, a civilized man will never want anything for less than it is worth—a civilized man, when he sells a thing, will never want more than it is worth—a really and truly civilized man, would rather be cheated than to cheat. And yet, in the United States, good as we are, nearly everybody wants to get everything for a little less than it is worth, and the man that sells it to him wants to get a little more than it is worth? and this breeds rascality on both sides. That ought to be done away with. There is one step toward it that we will take: we will finally say that human flesh, human labor, shall not depend entirely on "supply and demand." That is infinitely cruel. Every man should give to another according to his ability to give—and enough that he may make his living and lay something by for the winter of old age.
Go to England. Civilized country they call it. It is not. It never was. I am afraid it never will be. Go to London, the greatest city of this world, where there is the most wealth—the greatest glittering piles of gold. And yet, one out of every six in that city dies in a hospital, a workhouse or a prison. Is that the best that we are ever to know? Is that the last word that civilization has to say? Look at the women in this town sewing for a living, making cloaks for less than forty-five cents, that sell for $45! Right here—here, amid all the palaces, amid the thousands of millions of property—here! Is that all that civilization can do? Must a poor woman support herself, or her child, or her children, by that kind of labor, and with such pay—and do we call ourselves civilized?
Did you ever read that wonderful poem about the sewing woman? Let me tell you the last verse:
"Winds that have sainted her, tell ye the storyOf the young life by the needle that bled,Making a bridge over death's soundless watersOut of a swaying, and soul-cutting thread—Over it going, all the world knowingThat thousands have trod it, foot-bleeding, before:God protect all of us! God pity all of us,Should she look back from the opposite shore!"
I cannot call this civilization. There must be something nearer a fairer division in this world.
You can never get it by strikes. Never. The first strike that is a great success will be the last, because the people who believe in law and order will put the strikers down. The strike is no remedy. Boycotting is no remedy. Brute force is no remedy. These questions have to be settled by reason, by candor, by intelligence, by kindness; and nothing is permanently settled in this world that has not for its corner-stone justice, and is not protected by the profound conviction of the human mind.
This is no country for Anarchy, no country for Communism, no country for the Socialist. Why? Because the political power is equally divided. What other reason? Speech is free. What other? The press is untrammeled. And that is all that the right should ever ask—a free press, free speech, and the protection of person. That is enough. That is all I ask. In a country like Russia, where every mouth is a bastile and every tongue a convict, there may be some excuse. Where the noblest and the best are driven to Siberia, there may be a reason for the Nihilist. In a country where no man is allowed to petition for redress, there is a reason, but not here. This—say what you will against it—this is the best Government ever founded by the human race! Say what you will of parties, say what you will of dishonesty, the holiest flag that ever kissed the air is ours!
Only a few years ago morally we were a low people—before we abolished slavery—but now, when there is no chain except that of custom, when every man has an opportunity, this is the grandest Government of the earth. There is hardly a man in the United States to-day, of any importance, whose voice anybody cares to hear, who was not nursed at the loving breast of poverty. Look at the children of the rich. My God, what a punishment for being rich! So, whatever happens, let every man say that this Government, and this form of government, shall stand.
"But," say some, "these workingmen are dangerous." I deny it. We are all in their power. They run all the cars. Our lives are in their hands almost every day. They are working in all our homes. They do the labor of this world. We are all at their mercy, and yet they do not commit more crimes, according to number, than the rich. Remember that. I am not afraid of them. Neither am I afraid of the monopolists, because, under our institutions, when they become hurtful to the general good, the people will stand it just to a certain point, and then comes the end—not in anger, not in hate, but from a love of liberty and justice.
Now, we have in this country another class. We call them "criminals." Let me take another step:
"'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,But to support him after."
Recollect what I said in the first place—that every man is as he must be. Every crime is a necessary product. The seeds were all sown, the land thoroughly plowed, the crop well attended to, and carefully harvested. Every crime is born of necessity. If you want less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty makes crime. Want, rags, crusts, failure, misfortune—all these awake the wild beast in man, and finally he takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal. And what do you do with him? You punish him. Why not punish a man for having the consumption? The time will come when you will see that that is just as logical. What do you do with the criminal? You send him to the penitentiary. Is he made better? Worse. The first thing you do is to try to trample out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You mark him. You put him in stripes. At night you put him in darkness. His feeling for revenge grows. You make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that place branded in body and soul, and then you won't let him reform if he wants to. You put on airs above him, because he has been in the penitentiary. The next time you look with scorn upon a convict, let me beg of you to do one thing. Maybe you are not as bad as I am, but do one thing: think of all the crimes you have wanted to commit; think of all the crimes you would have committed if you had had the opportunity; think of all the temptations to which you would have yielded had nobody been looking; and then put your hand on your heart and say whether you can justly look with contempt even upon a convict.
None but the noblest should inflict punishment, even on the basest.
Society has no right to punish any man in revenge—no right to punish any man except for two objects—one, the prevention of crime; the other, the reformation of the criminal. How can you reform him? Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows. Let it be understood by these men that there is no revenge; let it be understood, too, that they can reform. Only a little while ago I read of a case of a young man who had been in a penitentiary and came out. He kept it a secret, and went to work for a farmer. He got in love with the daughter, and wanted to marry her. He had nobility enough to tell the truth—he told the father that he had been in the penitentiary. The father said, "You cannot have my daughter, because it would stain her life." The young man said, "Yes, it would stain her life, therefore I will not marry her." He went out. In a few moments afterward they heard the report of a pistol, and he was dead. He left just a little note saying: "I am through. There is no need of my living longer, when I stain with my life the one I love." And yet we call our society civilized. There is a mistake.
I want that question thought of. I want all my fellow-citizens to think of it. I want you to do what you can to do away with all cruelty. There are, of course, some cases that have to be treated with what might be called almost cruelty; but if there is the smallest seed of good in any human heart, let kindness fall upon it until it grows, and in that way I know, and so do you, that the world will get better and better day by day.
Let us, above all things, get acquainted with each other. Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable. Let us say to our children: It is your business to see that you never become a burden on others. Your first duty is to take care of yourselves, and if there is a surplus, with that surplus help your fellow-man. You owe it to yourself above all things not to be a burden upon others. Teach your son that it is his duty not only, but his highest joy, to become a home-builder, a home-owner. Teach your children that the fireside is the happiest place in this world. Teach them that whoever is an idler, whoever lives upon the labor of others, whether he is a pirate or a king, is a dishonorable person. Teach them that no civilized man wants anything for nothing, or for less than it is worth; that he wants to go through this world paying his way as he goes, and if he gets a little ahead, an extra joy, it should be divided with another, if that other is doing something for himself. Help others help themselves.
And let us teach that great wealth is not great happiness; that money will not purchase love; it never did and never can purchase respect; it never did and never can purchase the highest happiness. I believe with Robert Burns:
"If happiness have not her seatAnd center in the breast,We may be wise, or rich, or great,But never can be blest."
We must teach this, and let our fellow-citizens know that we give them every right that we claim for ourselves. We must discuss these questions and have charity—and we will have it whenever we have the philosophy that all men are as they must be, and that intelligence and kindness are the only levers capable of raising mankind.
Then there is another thing. Let each one be true to himself. No matter what his class, no matter what his circumstances, let him tell his thought. Don't let his class bribe him. Don't let him talk like a banker because he is a banker. Don't let him talk like the rest of the merchants because he is a merchant. Let him be true to the human race instead of to his little business—be true to the ideal in his heart and brain, instead of to his little present and apparent selfishness—let him have a larger and more intelligent selfishness—a generous philosophy, that includes not only others but himself.
So far as I am concerned, I have made up my mind that no organization, secular or religious, shall be my master. I have made up my mind that no necessity of bread, or roof, or raiment shall ever put a padlock on my lips. I have made up my mind that no hope of preferment, no honor, no wealth, shall ever make me for one moment swerve from what I really believe, no matter whether it is to my immediate interest, as one would think, or not. And while I live, I am going to do what little I can to help my fellow-men who have not been as fortunate as I have been. I shall talk on their side, I shall vote on their side, and do what little I can to convince men that happiness does not lie in the direction of great wealth, but in the direction of achievement for the good of themselves and for the good of their fellow-men. I shall do what little I can to hasten the day when this earth shall be covered with homes, and when by countless firesides shall sit the happy and the loving families of the world.
I. THE OLD TESTAMENT.
ONE of the foundation stones of our faith is the Old Testament. If that book is not true, if its authors were unaided men, if it contains blunders and falsehoods, then that stone crumbles to dust.
The geologists demonstrated that the author of Genesis was mistaken as to the age of the world, and that the story of the universe having been created in six days, about six thousand years ago could not be true.
The theologians then took the ground that the "days" spoken of in Genesis were periods of time, epochs, six "long whiles," and that the work of creation might have been commenced millions of years ago.
The change of days into epochs was considered by the believers of the Bible as a great triumph over the hosts of infidelity. The fact that Jehovah had ordered the Jews to keep the Sabbath, giving as a reason that he had made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, did not interfere with the acceptance of the "epoch" theory.
But there is still another question. How long has man been upon the earth?
According to the Bible, Adam was certainly the first man, and in his case the epoch theory cannot change the account. The Bible gives the age at which Adam died, and gives the generations to the flood—then to Abraham and so on, and shows that from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ it was about four thousand and four years.
According to the sacred Scriptures man has been on this earth five thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine years and no more.
Is this true?
Geologists have divided a few years of the worlds history into periods, reaching from the azoic rocks to the soil of our time. With most of these periods they associate certain forms of life, so that it is known that the lowest forms of life belonged with the earliest periods, and the higher with the more recent. It is also known that certain forms of life existed in Europe many ages ago, and that many thousands of years ago these forms disappeared.
For instance, it is well established that at one time there lived in Europe, and in the British Islands some of the most gigantic mammals, the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the Irish elk, elephants and other forms that have in those countries become extinct. Geologists say that many thousands of years have passed since these animals ceased to inhabit those countries.
It was during the Drift Period that these forms of life existed in Europe and England, and that must have been hundreds of thousands of years ago.
In caves, once inhabited by men, have been found implements of flint and the bones of these extinct animals. With the flint tools man had split the bones of these beasts that he might secure the marrow for food.
Many such caves and hundreds of such tools, and of such bones have been found. And we now know that in the Drift Period man was the companion of these extinct monsters.
It is therefore certain that many, many thousands of years before Adam lived, men, women and children inhabited the earth.
It is certain that the account in the Bible of the creation of the first man is a mistake. It is certain that the inspired writers knew nothing about the origin of man.
Let me give you another fact:
The Egyptians were astronomers. A few years ago representations of the stars were found on the walls of an old temple, and it was discovered by calculating backward that the stars did occupy the exact positions as represented about seven hundred and fifty years before Christ. Afterward another representation of the stars was found, and by calculating in the same way, it was found that the stars did occupy the exact positions represented about three thousand eight hundred years before Christ.
According to the Bible the first man was created four thousand and four years before Christ If this is true then Egypt was founded, its language formed, its arts cultivated, its astronomical discoveries made and recorded about two hundred years after the creation of the first man.
In other words, Adam was two or three hundred years old when the Egyptian astronomers made these representations.
Nothing can be more absurd.
Again I say that the writers of the Bible were mistaken.
How do I know?
According to that same Bible there was a flood some fifteen or sixteen hundred years after Adam was created that destroyed the entire human race with the exception of eight persons, and according to the Bible the Egyptians descended from one of the sons of Noah. How then did the Egyptians represent the stars in the position they occupied twelve hundred years before the flood?
No one pretends that Egypt existed as a nation before the flood. Yet the astronomical representations found, must have been made more than a thousand years before the world was drowned.
There is another mistake in the Bible.
According to that book the sun was made after the earth was created.
Is this true?
Did the earth exist before the sun?
The men of science are believers in the exact opposite. They believe that the earth is a child of the sun—that the earth, as well as the other planets belonging to our constellation, came from the sun.
The writers of the Bible were mistaken.
There is another point:
According to the Bible, Jehovah made the world in six days, and the work done each day is described. What did Jehovah do on the second day?
This is the record:
"And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so, and God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
The writer of this believed in a solid firmament—the floor of Jehovah's house. He believed that the waters had been divided, and that the rain came from above the firmament. He did not understand the fact of evaporation—did not know that the rain came from the water on the earth.
Now we know that there is no firmament, and we know that the waters are not divided by a firmament. Consequently we know that, according to the Bible, Jehovah did nothing on the second day. He must have rested on Tuesday. This being so, we ought to have two Sundays a week.
Can we rely on the historical parts of the Bible?
Seventy souls went down into Egypt, and in two hundred and fifteen years increased to three millions. They could not have doubled more than four times a century. Say nine times in two hundred and fifteen years.
This makes thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty, (35,840.) instead of three millions.
Can we believe the accounts of the battles?
Take one instance:
Jereboam had an army of eight hundred thousand men, Abijah of four hundred thousand. They fought. The Lord was on Abijah's side, and he killed five hundred thousand of Jereboam's men.
All these soldiers were Jews—all lived in Palestine, a poor miserable little country about one-quarter as large as the State of New York. Yet one million two hundred thousand soldiers were put in the field. This required a population in the country of ten or twelve millions. Of course this is absurd. Palestine in its palmiest days could not have supported two millions of people.
The soil is poor.
If the Bible is inspired, is it true?
We are told by this inspired book of the gold and silver collected by King David for the temple—the temple afterward completed by the virtuous Solomon.
According to the blessed Bible, David collected about two thousand million dollars in silver, and five thousand million dollars in gold, making a total of seven thousand million dollars.
Is this true?
There is in the bank of France at the present time (1895) nearly six hundred million dollars, and so far as we know, it is the greatest amount that was ever gathered together. All the gold now known, coined and in bullion, does not amount to much more than the sum collected by David.
Seven thousand millions. Where did David get this gold? The Jews had no commerce. They owned no ships. They had no great factories, they produced nothing for other countries. There were no gold or silver mines in Palestine. Where then was this gold, this silver found? I will tell you: In the imagination of a writer who had more patriotism than intelligence, and who wrote, not for the sake of truth, but for the glory of the Jews.
Is it possible that David collected nearly eight thousand tons of gold—that he by economy got together about sixty thousand tons of silver, making a total of gold and silver of sixty-eight thousand tons?
The average freight car carries about fifteen tons—David's gold and silver would load about four thousand five hundred and thirty-three cars, making a train about thirty-two miles in length. And all this for the temple at Jerusalem, a building ninety feet long and forty-five feet high and thirty wide, to which was attached a porch thirty feet wide, ninety feet long and one hundred and eighty feet high.
Probably the architect was inspired.
Is there a sensible man in the world who believes that David collected seven thousand million dollars worth of gold or silver?
There is hardly five thousand million dollars of gold now used as money in the whole world. Think of the millions taken from the mines of California, Australia and Africa during the present century and yet the total scarcely exceeds the amount collected by King David more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ. Evidently the inspired historian made a mistake.
It required a little imagination and a few ciphers to change seven million dollars or seven hundred thousand dollars into seven thousand million dollars. Drop four ciphers and the story becomes fairly reasonable.
The Old Testament must be thrown aside. It is no longer a foundation. It has crumbled.
II. THE NEW TESTAMENT
BUT we have the New Testament, the sequel of the Old, in which Christians find the fulfillment of prophecies made by inspired Jews.
The New Testament vouches for the truth, the inspiration, of the Old, and if the old is false, the New cannot be true.
In the New Testament we find all that we know about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
It is claimed that the writers were divinely inspired, and that all they wrote is true.
Let us see if these writers agree.
Certainly there should be no difference about the birth of Christ. From the Christian's point of view, nothing could have been of greater importance than that event.
Matthew says: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.
"Saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him."
Matthew does not tell us who these wise men were, from what country they came, to what race they belonged. He did not even know their names.
We are also informed that when Herod heard these things he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him; that he gathered the chief priests and asked of them where Christ should be born and they told him that he was to be born in Bethlehem.
Then Herod called the wise men and asked them when the star appeared, and told them to go to Bethlehem and report to him.
When they left Herod, the star again appeared and went before them until it stood over the place where the child was.
When they came to the child they worshiped him,—gave him gifts, and being warned by God in a dream, they went back to their own country without calling on Herod.
Then the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take Mary and the child into Egypt for fear of Herod.
So Joseph took Mary and the child to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.
Then Herod, finding that he was mocked by the wise men, "sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof from two years old and under."
After the death of Herod an angel again appeared in a dream to Joseph and told him to take mother and child and go back to Palestine.
So he went back and dwelt in Nazareth.
Is this story true? Must we believe in the star and the wise men? Who were these wise men? From what country did they come? What interest had they in the birth of the King of the Jews? What became of them and their star?
Of course I know that the Holy Catholic Church has in her keeping the three skulls that belonged to these wise men, but I do not know where the church obtained these relics, nor exactly how their genuineness has been established.
Must we believe that Herod murdered the babes of Bethlehem?
Is it not wonderful that the enemies of Herod did not charge him with this horror? Is it not marvelous that Mark and Luke and John forgot to mention this most heartless of massacres?
Luke also gives an account of the birth of Christ. He says that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed; that this was when Cyrenius was governor of Syria; that in accordance with this decree, Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to be taxed; that at that place Christ was born and laid in a manger. He also says that shepherds, in the neighborhood, were told of the birth by an angel, with whom was a multitude of the heavenly host; that these shepherds visited Mary and the child, and told others what they had seen and heard.
He tells us that after eight days the child was named, Jesus; that forty days after his birth he was taken by Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem, and that after they had performed all things according to the law they returned to Nazareth. Luke also says that the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and that his parents went every year to Jerusalem.
Do the accounts in Matthew and Luke agree? Can both accounts be true?
Luke never heard of the star, and Matthew knew nothing of the heavenly host. Luke never heard of the wise men, nor Matthew of the shepherds. Luke knew nothing of the hatred of Herod, the murder of the babes or the flight into Egypt. According to Matthew, Joseph, warned by an angel, took Mary and the child and fled into Egypt. According to Luke they all went to Jerusalem, and from there back to Nazareth.
Both of these accounts cannot be true. Will some Christian scholar tell us which to believe?
When was Christ born?
Luke says that it took place when Cyrenius was governor. Here is another mistake. Cyrenius was not appointed governor until after the death of Herod, and the taxing could not have taken place until ten years after the alleged birth of Christ.
According to Luke, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, and for the purpose of getting them to Bethlehem, so that the child could be born in the right place, the taxing under Cyrenius was used, but the writer, being "inspired" made a mistake of about ten years as to the time of the taxing and of the birth.
Matthew says nothing about the date of the birth, except that he was born when Herod was king. It is now known that Herod had been dead ten years before the taxing under Cyrenius. So, if Luke tells the truth, Joseph, being warned by an angel, fled from the hatred of Herod ten years after Herod was dead. If Matthew and Luke are both right Christ was taken to Egypt ten years before he was born, and Herod killed the babes ten years after he was dead.
Will some Christian scholar have the goodness to harmonize these "inspired" accounts?
There is another thing.
Matthew and Luke both try to show that Christ was of the blood of David, that he was a descendant of that virtuous king.
As both of these writers were inspired and as both received their information from God, they ought to agree.
According to Matthew there was between David and Jesus twenty-seven generations, and he gives all the names.
According to Luke there were between David and Jesus forty-two generations, and he gives all the names.
In these genealogies—both inspired—there is a difference between David and Jesus, a difference of some fourteen or fifteen generations.
Besides, the names of all the ancestors are different, with two exceptions.
Matthew says that Joseph's father was Jacob. Luke says that Heli was Joseph's father.
Both of these genealogies cannot be true, and the probability is that both are false.
There is not in all the pulpits ingenuity enough to harmonize these ignorant and stupid contradictions.
There are many curious mistakes in the words attributed to Christ.
We are told in Matthew, chapter xxiii, verse 35, that Christ said:
"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar."
It is certain that these words were not spoken by Christ. He could not by any possibility have known that the blood of Zacharias had been shed. As a matter of fact, Zacharias was killed by the Jews, during the seige of Jerusalem by Titus, and this seige took place seventy-one years after the birth of Christ, thirty-eight years after he was dead.
There is still another mistake.
Zacharias was not the son of Barachias—no such
Zacharias was killed. The Zacharias that was slain was the son of Baruch.
But we must not expect the "inspired" to be accurate.
Matthew says that at the time of the crucifixion—"the graves were opened and that many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of their gravesafterhis resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many."
According to this the graves were opened at the time of the crucifixion, but the dead did not arise and come out until after the resurrection of Christ.
They were polite enough to sit in their open graves and wait for Christ to rise first.
To whom did these saints appear? What became of them? Did they slip back into their graves and commit suicide?
Is it not wonderful that Mark, Luke and John never heard of these saints?
What kind of saints were they? Certainly they were not Christian saints.
So, the inspired writers do not agree in regard to Judas.
Certainly the inspired writers ought to have known what happened to Judas, the betrayer. Matthew being duly "inspired" says that when Judas saw that Jesus had been condemned, he repented and took back the money to the chief priests and elders, saying that he had sinned in betraying the innocent blood. They said to him: "What is that to us? See thou to that." Then Judas threw down the pieces of silver and went and hanged himself.
The chief priests then took the pieces of silver and bought the potter's field to bury strangers in, and it is called the field of blood.
We are told in Acts of the apostles that Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said: "Now this man, (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of iniquity—and falling headlong he burst asunder and all his bowels gushed out—that field is called the field of blood."
Matthew says Judas repented and gave back the money.
Peter says that he bought a field with the money.
Matthew says that Judas hanged himself. Peter says that he fell down and burst asunder. Which of these accounts is true?
Besides, it is hard to see why Christians hate, loathe and despise Judas. According to their scheme of salvation, it was absolutely necessary that Christ should be killed—necessary that he should be betrayed, and had it not been for Judas, all the world, including Christ's mother, and the part of Christ that was human, would have gone to hell.
Yet, according to the New Testament, Christ did not know that one of his disciples was to betray him.
Jesus, when on his way to Jerusalem, for the last time, said, speaking to the twelve disciples, Judas being present, that they, the disciples should thereafter sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Yet, more than a year before this journey, John says that Christ said, speaking to the twelve disciples: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil." And John adds: "He spake of Judas Iscariot, for it was he that should betray him."
Why did Christ a year afterward, tell Judas that he should sit on a throne and judge one of the tribes of Israel?
There is still another trouble.
Paul says that Jesus after his resurrection appeared to the twelve disciples. According to Paul, Jesus appeared to Judas with the rest.
Certainly Paul had not heard the story of the betrayal.
Why did Christ select Judas as one of his disciples, knowing that he would betray him? Did he desire to be betrayed? Was it his intention to be put to death?
Why did he fail to defend himself before Pilate?
According to the accounts, Pilate wanted to save him. Did Christ wish to be convicted?
The Christians are compelled to say that Christ intended to be sacrificed—that he selected Judas with that end in view, and that he refused to defend himself because he desired to be crucified. All this is in accordance with the horrible idea that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
III. JEHOVAH.
GOD the Father.
The Jehovah of the Old Testament is the God of the Christians.
He it was who created the Universe, who made all substance, all force, all life, from nothing. He it is who has governed and still governs the world. He has established and destroyed empires and kingdoms, despotisms and republics. He has enslaved and liberated the sons of men. He has caused the sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and his rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
This shows his goodness.
He has caused his volcanoes to devour the good and the bad, his cyclones to wreck and rend the generous and the cruel, his floods to drown the loving and the hateful, his lightning to kill the virtuous and the vicious, his famines to starve the innocent and criminal and his plagues to destroy the wise and good, the ignorant and wicked. He has allowed his enemies to imprison, to torture and to kill his friends. He has permitted blasphemers to flay his worshipers alive, to dislocate their joints upon racks, and to burn them at the stake. He has allowed men to enslave their brothers and to sell babes from the breasts of mothers.
This shows his impartiality.
The pious negro who commenced his prayer: "O thou great and unscrupulous God," was nearer right than he knew.
Ministers ask: Is it possible for God to forgive man?
And when I think of what has been suffered—of the centuries of agony and tears, I ask: Is it possible for man to forgive God?
How do Christians prove the existence of their God? Is it possible to think of an infinite being? Does the word God correspond with any image in the mind? Does the word God stand for what we know or for what we do not know?
Is not this unthinkable God a guess, an inference?
Can we think of a being without form, without body, without parts, without passions? Why should we speak of a being without body as of the masculine gender?
Why should the Bible speak of this God as a man?—of his walking in the garden in the cool of the evening—of his talking, hearing and smelling? If he has no passions why is he spoken of as jealous, revengeful, angry, pleased and loving?
In the Bible God is spoken of as a person in the form of man, journeying from place to place, as having a home and occupying a throne. These ideas have been abandoned, and now the Christian's God is the infinite, the incomprehensible, the formless, bodiless and passionless.
Of the existence of such a being there can be, in the nature of things, no evidence.
Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars, with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and destiny of all, replies: "I do not know. These questions are beyond the powers of my mind." The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He clings to facts. Beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. He does not mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. He is honest. He neither deceives himself nor others.
The theologian arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and he calls this God. The scientist arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and calls it the Unknown.
The theologian insists that his inconceivable governs the world, that it, or he, or they, can be influenced by prayers and ceremonies, that it, or he, or they, punishes and rewards, that it, or he, or they, has priests and temples.
The scientist insist that the Unknown is not changed so far as he knows by prayers of people or priests. He admits that he does not know whether the Unknown is good or bad—whether he, or it, wants or whether he, or it, is worthy of worship. He does not say that the Unknown is God, that it created substance and force, life and thought. He simply says that of the Unknown he knows nothing.
Why should Christians insist that a God of infinite wisdom, goodness and power governs the world?
Why did he allow millions of his children to be enslaved? Why did he allow millions of mothers to be robbed of their babes? Why has he allowed injustice to triumph? Why has he permitted the innocent to be imprisoned and the good to be burned? Why has he withheld his rain and starved millions of the children of men? Why has he allowed the volcanoes to destroy, the earthquakes to devour, and the tempest to wreck and rend?
IV. THE TRINITY
THE New Testament informs us that Christ was the son of Joseph and the son of God, and that Mary was his mother.
How is it established that Christ was the son of God?
It is said that Joseph was told so in a dream by an angel.
But Joseph wrote nothing on that subject—said nothing so far as we know. Mary wrote nothing, said nothing. The angel that appeared to Joseph or that informed Joseph said nothing to anybody else. Neither has the Holy Ghost, the supposed father, ever said or written one word. We have received no information from the parties who could have known anything on the subject. We get all our facts from those who could not have known.
How is it possible to prove that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ?
Who knows that such a being as the Holy Ghost ever existed?
How was it possible for Mary to know anything about the Holy Ghost?
How could Joseph know that he had been visited by an angel in a dream?
Could he know that the visitor was an angel? It all occurred in a dream and poor Joseph was asleep. What is the testimony of one who was asleep worth?
All the evidence we have is that somebody who wrote part of the New Testament says that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ, and that somebody who wrote another part of the New Testament says that Joseph was the father of Christ.
Matthew and Luke give the genealogy and both show that Christ was the son of Joseph.
The "Incarnation" has to be believed without evidence. There is no way in which it can be established. It is beyond the reach and realm of reason. It defies observation and is independent of experience.
It is claimed not only that Christ was the Son of God, but that he was, and is, God.
Was he God before he was born? Was the body of Mary the dwelling place of God?
What evidence have we that Christ was God?
Somebody has said that Christ claimed that God was his father and that he and his father were one. We do not know who this somebody was and do not know from whom he received his information.
Somebody who was "inspired" has said that Christ was of the blood of David through his father Joseph.
This is all the evidence we have.
Can we believe that God, the creator of the Universe, learned the trade of a carpenter in Palestine, that he gathered a few disciples about him, and after teaching for about three years, suffered himself to be crucified by a few ignorant and pious Jews?
Christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the Father being the first and the Holy Ghost the third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten—just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and Son, but was equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say, before he existed, but he is of the same age of the other two.
So, it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son God and the Holy Ghost God, and that these three Gods make one God.
According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.
How is it possible to prove the existence of the Trinity?
Is it possible for a human being, who has been born but once, to comprehend, or to imagine the existence of three beings, each of whom is equal to the three?
Think of one of these beings as the father of one, and think of that one as half human and all God, and think of the third as having proceeded from the other two, and then think of all three as one. Think that after the father begot the son, the father was still alone, and after the Holy Ghost proceeded from the father and the son, the father was still alone—because there never was and never will be but one God.
At this point, absurdity having reached its limit, nothing more can be said except: "Let us pray."
V. THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST
IN the New Testament we find the teachings and sayings of Christ. If we say that the book is inspired, then we must admit that Christ really said all the things attributed to him by the various writers. If the book is inspired we must accept it all. We have no right to reject the contradictory and absurd and accept the reasonable and good. We must take it all just as it is.
My own observation has led me to believe that men are generally consistent in their theories and inconsistent in their lives.
So, I think that Christ in his utterances was true to his theory, to his philosophy.
If I find in the Testament sayings of a contradictory character, I conclude that some of those sayings were never uttered by him. The sayings that are, in my judgment, in accordance with what I believe to have been his philosophy, I accept, and the others I throw away.
There are some of his sayings which show him to have been a devout Jew, others that he wished to destroy Judaism, others showing that he held all people except the Jews in contempt and that he wished to save no others, others showing that he wished to convert the world, still others showing that he was forgiving, self-denying and loving, others that he was revengeful and malicious, others, that he was an ascetic, holding all human ties in utter contempt.
The following passages show that Christ was a devout Jew.
"Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem for it is his holy city."
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." "For after all these things, (clothing, food and drink) do the Gentiles seek."
So, when he cured a leper, he said: "Go thy way, show thyself unto the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded."
Jesus sent his disciples forth saying: "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
A woman came out of Canaan and cried to Jesus: "Have mercy on me, my daughter is sorely vexed with a devil"—but he would not answer. Then the disciples asked him to send her away, and he said: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."