THE Governor of New Hampshire, undoubtedly a good and sincere man, issued a Fast-Day Proclamation to the people of his State, in which I find the following paragraph:
"The decline of the Christian religion, particularly in our rural communities, is a marked feature of the times, and steps should be taken to remedy it. No matter what our belief may be in religious matters, every good citizen knows that when the restraining influences of religion are withdrawn from a community, its decay, moral, mental and financial, is swift and sure. To me this is one of the strongest evidences of the fundamental truth of Christianity. I suggest to-day, as far as possible on Fast-Day, union meetings be held, made up of all shades of belief, including all who are interested in the welfare of our State, and that in your prayers and other devotions and in your mutual councils you remember and consider the problem of the condition of religion in the rural communities. There are towns where no church bell sends forth its solemn call from January to January. There are villages where children grow to manhood unchristened. There are communities where the dead are laid away without the benison of the name of the Christ, and where marriages are solemnized only by Justices of the Peace. This is a matter worthy of your thoughtful consideration, citizens of New Hampshire. It does not augur well for the future. You can afford to devote one day in the year to your fellow-men, to work and thought and prayer for your children and your children's children."
These words of the Governor have caused surprise, discussion and danger. Many ministers have denied that Christianity is declining, and have attacked the Governor with the malice of meekness and the savagery of humility. The question is: Is Christianity declining?
In order to answer this question we must state what Christianity is.
Christians tell us that there are certain fundamental truths that must be believed.
We must believe in God, the creator and governor of the universe; in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son; in the Holy Ghost; in the atonement made by Christ; in salvation by faith; in the second birth; in heaven for believers, in hell for deniers and doubters, and in the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. They must also believe in a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, in special providence, and in addition to all this they must practice a few ceremonies. This, I believe, is a fair skeleton of Christianity. Of course I cannot give an exact definition. Christians do not and never have agreed among themselves. They have been disputing and fighting for many centuries, and to-day they are as far apart as ever.
A few years ago Christians believed the "fundamental truths" They had no doubts. They knew that God existed; that he made the world. They knew when he commenced to work at the earth and stars and knew when he finished. They knew that he, like a potter, mixed and moulded clay into the shape of a man and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life. They knew that he took from this man a rib and framed the first woman.
It must be admitted that sensible Christians have outgrown this belief. Jehovah the gardener, the potter, the tailor, has been dethroned. The story of creation is believed only by the provincial, the stupid, the truly orthodox. People who have read Darwin and Haeckel and had sense enough to understand these great men, laugh at the legends of the Jews.
A few years ago most Christians believed that Christ was the son of God, and not only the son of God, but God himself.
This belief is slowly fading from the minds of Christians, from the minds of those who have minds.
Many Christians now say that Christ was simply a man—a perfect man. Others say that he was divine, but not actually God—a union of God and man. Some say that while Christ was not God, he was as nearly like God as it is possible for man to be.
The old belief that he was actually God—that he sacrificed himself unto himself—that he deserted himself; that he bore the burden of his own wrath; that he made it possible to save a few of his children by shedding his own blood; that he could not forgive the sins of men until they murdered him—this frightful belief is slowly dying day by day. Most ministers are ashamed to preach these cruel and idiotic absurdities. The Christ of our time is not the Christ of the New Testament—not the Christ of the Middle Ages; nor of Luther, Wesley or the Puritan fathers.
The Christ who was God—who was his own son and his own father—who was born of a virgin, cast out devils, rose from the dead, and ascended bodily to heaven—is not the Christ of to-day.
The Holy Ghost has never been accurately defined or described. He has always been a winged influence—a divine aroma; a disembodied essence; a spiritual climate; an enthusiastic flame; a something sensitive and unforgiving; the real father of Jesus Christ.
A few years ago the clergy had a great deal to say about the Holy Ghost, but now the average minister, while he alludes to this shadowy deity to round out a prayer, seems ta have but little confidence in him. This deity is and always has been extremely vague. He has been represented in the form of a dove; but this form is not associated with much intelligence.
Formerly it was believed that all men were by nature wicked, and that it would be perfectly just for God to damn the entire human race. In fact, it was thought that God, feeling that he had to damn all his children, invented a scheme by which some could be saved and at the same time justice could be satisfied. God knew that without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin. For many centuries he was satisfied with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves. But the sins continued to increase. A greater sacrifice was necessary. So God concluded to make the greatest possible sacrifice—to shed his own blood, that is to say, to have it shed by his chosen people. This was the atonement—the scheme of salvation—a scheme that satisfied justice and partially defeated the Devil.
No intelligent Christians believe in this atonement. It is utterly unphilosophic. The idea that man made salvation possible by murdering God is infinitely absurd. This makes salvation the blossom of a crime—the blessed fruit of murder. According to this the joys of heaven are born of the agonies of innocence. If the Jews had been civilized—if they had believed in freedom of conscience and had listened kindly and calmly to the teachings of Christ, the whole world, including Christ's mother, would have gone to hell.
Our fathers had two absurdities. They balanced each other. They said that God could justly damn his children for the sin of Adam, and that he could justly save his children on account of the sufferings and virtues of Christ; that is to say, on account of his own sufferings and virtues.
This view of the atonement has mostly been abandoned. It is now preached, not that Christ bought souls with his blood, but that he has ennobled souls by his example. The supernatural part of the atonement has, by the more intelligent, been thrown away. So the idea of imputed sin—of vicarious vice—has been by many abandoned.
Salvation by faith is growing weak. People are beginning to see that character is more important than belief; that virtue is above all creeds. Civilized people no longer believe in a God who will damn an honest, generous man. They see that it is not honest to offer a reward for belief. The promise of reward is not evidence. It is an attempt to bribe.
If God wishes his children to believe, he should furnish evidence. He should not endeavor to make promises and threats take the place of facts. To offer a reward for credulity is dishonest and immoral—infamous.
To say that good people who never heard of Christ ought to be damned for not believing on him is a mixture of idiocy and savagery.
People are beginning to perceive that happiness is a result, not a reward; that happiness must be earned; that it is not alms. It is also becoming apparent that sins cannot be forgiven; that no power can step between actions and consequences; that men must "reap what they sow;" that a man who has lived a cruel life cannot, by repenting between the last dose of medicine and the last breath, be washed in the blood of the Lamb, and become an angel—an angel entitled to an eternity of joy.
All this is absurd, but you may say that it is not cruel. But to say that a man who has lived a useful life; who has made a happy home; who has lifted the fallen, succored the oppressed and battled to uphold the right; to say that such a man, because he failed to believe without evidence, will suffer eternal pain, is to say that God is an infinite wild beast.
Salvation for credulity means damnation for investigation.
At one time the "second birth" was regarded as a divine mystery—as a miracle—a something done by a supernatural power; probably by the Holy Ghost. Now ministers are explaining this mystery. A change of heart is a change of ideas. About this there is nothing miraculous.
This happens to most men and women—happens many times in the life of one man. If this happens without excitement—as the result of thought—it is called reformation. If it occurs in a revival—if it is the result of fright—it is called the "second birth."
A few years ago Christians believed in the inspiration of the Bible. They had no doubts. The Bible was the standard. If some geologist found a fact inconsistent with the Scriptures he was silenced with a text. If some doubter called attention to a contradiction in the Bible he was denounced as an ungodly and blaspheming wretch. Christians then knew that the universe was only about six thousand years old, and any man who denied this was an enemy of Christ and a friend of the Devil.
All this has changed. The Bible is no longer the standard. Science has dethroned the inspired volume. Even theologians are taking facts into consideration. Only ignorant bigots now believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible.
The intelligent ministers know that the Holy Scriptures are filled with mistakes, contradictions and interpolations. They no longer believe in the flood, in Babel, in Lot's wife or in the fire and brimstone storm. They are not sure about the burning bush, the plagues of Egypt, the division of the Red Sea or the miracles in the wilderness. All these wonders are growing foolish. They belong to the Mother Goose of the past, and many clergymen are ashamed to say that they believe them. So, the lengthening of the day in order that General Joshua might have more time to kill, the journey of Elijah to heaven, the voyage of Jonah in the fish, and many other wonders of a like kind, have become so transparently false that even a theologian refuses to believe.
The same is true of many of the miracles of the New Testament. No sensible man now believes that Christ cast devils and unclean spirits out of the bodies of men and women. A few years ago all Christians believed all these devil miracles with all the mind they had. A few years ago only Infidels denied these miracles, but now the theologians who are studying the "Higher Criticism" are reaching the conclusions of Voltaire and Paine. They have just discovered that the objections made to the Bible by the Deists are supported by the facts.
At the same time these "Higher Critics," while they admit that the Bible is not true, still insist that it is inspired.
The other evening I attended Forepaugh & Sell's Circus at Madison Square Garden and saw a magnificent panorama of performances. While looking at a man riding a couple of horses I thought of the "Higher Critics." They accept Darwin and cling to Genesis. They admit that Genesis is false in fact, and then assert that in a higher sense it is absolutely true.
A lie bursts into blossom and has the perfume of truth. These critics declare that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and then establish the truth of the declaration by showing that it is filled with contradictions, absurdities and false prophecies.
The horses they ride, sometimes get so far apart that it seems to me that walking would be easier on the legs.
So, I saw at the circus the "Snake Man." I saw him tie himself into all kinds of knots; saw him make a necktie of his legs; saw him throw back his head and force it between his knees; saw him twist and turn as though his bones were made of rubber, and as I watched him I thought of the mental doublings and contortions of the preachers who have answered me.
Let Christians say what they will, the Bible is no longer the actual word of God; it is no longer perfect; it is no longer quite true.
The most that is now claimed for the Bible by the "Higher Critics" is, that some passages are inspired; that some passages are true, and that God has left man free to pick these passages out.
The ministers are preaching Infidelity. What would Lyman Beecher have thought of a man like Dr. Abbott? he would have consigned him to hell. What would John Wesley have thought of a Methodist like Dr. Cadman? He would have denounced him as a child of the Devil. What would Calvin have thought of a Presbyterian like Professor Briggs? He would have burned him at the stake, and through the smoke and flame would have shouted, "You are a dog of Satan." How would Jeremy Taylor have treated an Episcopalian like Heber Newton?
The Governor of New Hampshire is right when he says that Christianity has declined. The flames of faith are flickering, zeal is cooling and even bigotry is beginning to see the other side. I admit that there are still millions of orthodox Christians whose minds are incapable of growth, and who care no more for facts than a monitor does for bullets. Such obstructions on the highway of progress are removed only by death.
The dogma of eternal pain is no longer believed by the reasonably intelligent. People who have a sense of justice know that eternal revenge cannot be enjoyed by infinite goodness. They know that hell would make heaven impossible. If Christians believed in hell as they once did, the fagots would be lighted again, heretics would be stretched on the rack, and all the instruments of torture would again be stained with innocent blood. Christianity has declined because intelligence has increased.
Men and women who know something of the history of man, of the horrors of plague, famine and flood, of earthquake, volcano and cyclone, of religious persecution and slavery, have but little confidence in special providence. They do not believe that a prayer was ever answered.
Thousands of people who accept Christ as a moral guide have thrown, away the supernatural.
Christianity does not satisfy the brain and heart. It contains too many absurdities. It is unphilosophic, unnatural, impossible. Not to resist evil is moral suicide. To love your enemies is impossible. To desert wife and children for the sake of heaven is cowardly and selfish. To promise rewards for belief is dishonest. To threaten torture for honest unbelief is infamous. Christianity is declining because men and women are growing better.
The Governor was not satisfied with saying that Christianity had declined, but he added this: "Every good citizen knows that when the restraining influences of religion are withdrawn from a community, its decay, moral, mental and financial is swift and sure."
The restraining influences of religion have never been withdrawn from Spain or Portugal, from Austria or Italy. The "restraining influences" are still active in Russia. Emperor William relies on them in Germany, and the same influences are very busy taking care of Ireland. If these influences should be withdrawn from Spain there would be "mental, moral and financial decay." Is not this statement perfectly absurd?
The fact is that religion has reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand organ and Ireland to exile. What are the restraining influences of religion? I admit that religion can prevent people from eating meat on Friday, from dancing in Lent, from going to the theatre on holy days and from swearing in public. In other words, religion can restrain people from committing artificial offences. But the real question is: Can religion restrain people from committing natural crimes?
The church teaches that God can and will forgive sins.
Christianity sells sin on a credit. It says to men and women, "Be good; do right; but no matter how many crimes you commit you can be forgiven." How can such a religion be regarded as a restraining influence! There was a time when religion had power; when the church ruled Christendom; when popes crowned and uncrowned kings. Was there at that time moral, mental and financial growth? Did the nations thus restrained by religion, prosper? When these restraining influences were weakened, when popes were humbled, when creeds were denied, did morality, intelligence and prosperity begin to decay?
What are the restraining influences of religion? Did anybody ever hear of a policeman being dismissed because a new church had been organized?
Christianity teaches that the man who does right carries a cross. The exact opposite of this is true. The cross is carried by the man who does wrong. I believe in the restraining influences of intelligence. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind. If you wish to make men moral and prosperous develop the brain. Men must be taught to rely on themselves. To supplicate the supernatural is a waste of time.
The only evils that have been caused by the decline of Christianity, as pointed out by the Governor, are that in some villages they hear no solemn bells, that the dead are buried without Christian ceremony, that marriages are contracted before Justices of the Peace, and that children go unchristened.
These evils are hardly serious enough to cause moral, mental and financial decay. The average church bell is not very musical—not calculated to develop the mind or quicken the conscience. The absence of the ordinary funeral sermon does not add to the horror of death, and the failure to hear a minister say, as he stands by the grave, "One star differs in glory from another star. There is a difference between the flesh of fowl and fish. Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners," does not necessarily increase the grief of the mourners. So far as children are concerned, if they are vaccinated, it does not make much difference whether they are christened or not.
Marriage is a civil contract, and God is not one of the contracting parties. It is a contract with which the church has no business to interfere. Marriage with us is regulated by law. The real marriage—the uniting of hearts, the lighting of the sacred flame in each—is the work of Nature, and it is the best work that nature does. The ceremony of marriage gives notice to the world that the real marriage has taken place. Ministers have no real interest in marriages outside of the fees. Certainly marriages by Justices of the Peace cannot cause the mental, moral and financial decay of a State.
The things pointed out by the Governor were undoubtedly produced by the decline of Christianity, but they are not evils, and they cannot possibly injure the people morally, mentally or financially. The Governor calls on the people to think, work and pray. With two-thirds of this I agree. If the people of New Hampshire will think and work without praying they will grow morally, mentally and financially. If they pray without working and thinking, they will decay.
Prayer is beggary—an effort to get something for nothing. Labor is the honest prayer.
I do not think that the good and true in Christianity are declining. The good and true are more clearly perceived and more precious than ever. The supernatural, the miraculous part of Christianity is declining. The New Testament has been compelled to acknowledge the jurisdiction of reason. If Christianity continues to decline at the same rate and ratio that it has declined in this generation, in a few years all that is supernatural in the Christian religion will cease to exist. There is a conflict—a battle between the natural and the supernatural. The natural was baffled and beaten for thousands of years. The flag of defeat was carried by the few, by the brave and wise, by the real heroes of our race. They were conquered, captured, imprisoned, tortured and burned. Others took their places. The banner was kept in the air. In spite of countless defeats the army of the natural increased. It began to gain victories. It did not torture and kill the conquered. It enlightened and blessed. It fought ignorance with science, cruelty with kindness, slavery with justice, and all vices with virtues. In this great conflict we have passed midnight. When the morning comes its rays will gild but one flag—the flag of the natural.
All over Christendom religions are declining. Only children and the intellectually undeveloped have faith—the old faith that defies facts. Only a few years ago to be excommunicated by the pope blanched the cheeks of the bravest. Now the result would be laughter. Only a few years ago, for the sake of saving heathen souls, priests would brave all dangers and endure all hardships.
I once read the diary of a priest—one who long ago went down the Illinois River, the first white man to be borne on its waters. In this diary he wrote that he had just been paid for all that he had suffered. He had added a gem to the crown of his glory—had saved a soul for Christ. He had baptized a papoose.
That kind of faith has departed from the world.
The zeal that flamed in the hearts of Calvin, Luther and Knox, is cold and dead. Where are the Wesleys and Whitfields? Where are the old evangelists, the revivalists who swayed the hearts of their hearers with words of flame? The preachers of our day have lost the Promethean fire. They have lost the tone of certainty, of authority. "Thus saith the Lord" has dwindled to "perhaps." Sermons, messages from God, promises radiant with eternal joy, threats lurid with the flames of hell—have changed to colorless essays; to apologies and literary phrases; to inferences and peradventures.
"The blood-dyed vestures of the Redeemer are not waving in triumph over the ramparts of sin and rebellion," but over the fortresses of faith float the white flags of truce. The trumpets no longer sound for battle, but for parley. The fires of hell have been extinguished, and heaven itself is only a dream. The "eternal verities" have changed to doubts. The torch of inspiration, choked with ashes, has lost its flame. There is no longer in the church "a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind;" no "cloven tongues like as of fire;" no "wonders in the heaven above," and no "signs in the earth beneath." The miracles have faded away and the sceptre is passing from superstition to science—science, the only possible savior of mankind.
* Written for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Number of theNew York Truth Seeker, September 3, 1898.
I CONGRATULATEThe Truth Seekeron its twenty-fifth birthday. It has fought a good fight. It has always been at the front. It has carried the flag, and its flag is a torch that sheds light.
Twenty-five years ago the people of this country, for the most part, were quite orthodox. The great "fundamental" falsehoods of Christianity were generally accepted. Those who were not Christians, as a rule, admitted that they ought to be; that they ought to repent and join the church, and this they generally intended to do.
The ministers had few doubts. The most of them had been educated not to think, but to believe. Thought was regarded as dangerous, and the clergy, as a rule, kept on the safe side. Investigation was discouraged. It was declared that faith was the only road that led to eternal joy.
Most of the schools and colleges were under sectarian control, and the presidents and professors were defenders of their creeds. The people were crammed with miracles and stuffed with absurdities. They were taught that the Bible was the "inspired" word of God, that it was absolutely perfect, that the contradictions were only apparent, and that it contained no mistakes in philosophy, none in science. The great scheme of salvation was declared to be the result of infinite wisdom and mercy. Heaven and hell were waiting for the human race. Only those could be saved who had faith and who had been born twice.
Most of the ministers taught the geology of Moses, the astronomy of Joshua, and the philosophy of Christ. They regarded scientists as enemies, and their principal business was to defend miracles and deny facts. They knew, however, that men were thinking, investigating in every direction, and they feared the result. They became a little malicious—somewhat hateful. With their congregations they relied on sophistry, and they answered their enemies with epithets, with misrepresentations and slanders; and yet their minds were filled with a vague fear, with a sickening dread. Some of the people were reading and some were thinking. Lyell had told them something about geology, and in the light of facts they were reading Genesis again. The clergy called Lyell an Infidel, a blasphemer, but the facts seemed to care nothing for opprobrious names. Then the "called," the "set apart," the "Lord's anointed" began changing the "inspired" word. They erased the word "day" and inserted "period," and then triumphantly exclaimed: "The world was created in six periods." This answer satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.
More and more was being found about the history of life, of living things, the order in which the various forms had appeared and the relations they had sustained to each other. Beneath the gaze of the biologist the fossils were again clothed with flesh, submerged continents and islands reappeared, the ancient forest grew once more, the air was filled with unknown birds, the seas with armored monsters, and the land with beasts of many forms that sought with tooth and claw each other's flesh.
Haeckel and Huxley followed life through all its changing forms from monad up to man. They found that men, women, and children had been on this poor world for hundreds of thousands of years.
The clergy could not dodge these facts, this conclusion, by calling "days" periods, because the Bible gives the age of Adam when he died, the lives and ages to the flood, to Abraham, to David, and from David to Christ, so that, according to the Bible, man at the birth of Christ had been on this earth four thousand and four years and no more.
There was no way in which the sacred record could be changed, but of course the dear ministers could not admit the conclusion arrived at by Haeckel and Huxley. If they did they would have to give up original sin, the scheme of the atonement, and the consolation of eternal fire.
They took the only course they could. They promptly and solemnly, with upraised hands, denied the facts, denounced the biologists as irreverent wretches, and defended the Book. With tears in their voices they talked about "Mother's Bible," about the "faith of the fathers," about the prayers that the children had said, and they also talked about the wickedness of doubt. This satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.
The works of Humboldt had been translated, and were being read; the intellectual horizon was enlarged, and the fact that the endless chain of cause and effect had never been broken, that Nature had never been interfered with, forced its way into many minds. This conception of nature was beyond the clergy. They did not believe it; they could not comprehend it. They did not answer Humboldt, but they attacked him with great virulence. They measured his works by the Bible, because the Bible was then the standard.
In examining a philosophy, a system, the ministers asked: "Does it agree with the sacred book?" With the Bible they separated the gold from the dross. Every science had to be tested by the Scriptures. Humboldt did not agree with Moses. He differed from Joshua. He had his doubts about the flood. That was enough.
Yet, after all, the ministers felt that they were standing on thin ice, that they were surrounded by masked batteries, and that something unfortunate was liable at any moment to happen. This increased their efforts to avoid, to escape. The truth was that they feared the truth. They were afraid of facts. They became exceedingly anxious for morality, for the young, for the inexperienced. They were afraid to trust human nature. They insisted that without the Bible the world would rush to crime. They warned the thoughtless of the danger of thinking. They knew that it would be impossible for civilization to exist without the Bible. They knew this because their God had tried it. He gave no Bible to the antediluvians, and they became so bad that he had to destroy them. He gave the Jews only the Old Testament, and they were dispersed. Irreverent people might say that Jehovah should have known this without a trial, but after all that has nothing to do with theology.
Attention had been called to the fact that two accounts of creation are in Genesis, and that they do not agree and cannot be harmonized, and that, in addition to that, the divine historian had made a mistake as to the order of creation; that according to one account Adam was made before the animals, and Eve last of all, from Adam's rib; and by the other account Adam and Eve were made after the animals, and both at the same time. A good many people were surprised to find that the Creator had written contradictory accounts of the creation, and had forgotten the order in which he created.
Then there was another difficulty. Jehovah had declared that on Tuesday, or during the second period, he had created the "firmament" to divide the waters which were below the firmament from the waters above the firmament. It was found that there is no firmament; that the moisture in the air is the result of evaporation, and that there was nothing to divide the waters above, from the waters below. So that, according to the facts, Jehovah did nothing on the second day or period, because the moisture above the earth is not prevented from falling by the firmament, but because the mist is lighter than air.
The preachers, however, began to dodge, to evade, to talk about "oriental imagery." They declared that Genesis was a "sublime poem," a divine "panorama of creation," an "inspired vision;" that it was not intended to be exact in its details, but that it was true in a far higher sense, in a poetical sense, in a spiritual sense, conveying a truth much higher, much grander than simple, fact. The contradictions were covered with the mantle of oriental imagery. This satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.
People were reading Darwin. His works interested not only the scientific, but the intelligent in all the walks of life. Darwin was the keenest observer of all time, the greatest naturalist in all the world. He was patient, modest, logical, candid, courageous, and absolutely truthful. He told the actual facts. He colored nothing. He was anxious only to ascertain the truth. He had no prejudices, no theories, no creed. He was the apostle of the real.
The ministers greeted him with shouts of derision. From nearly all the pulpits came the sounds of ignorant laughter, one of the saddest of all sounds. The clergy in a vague kind of way believed the Bible account of creation; they accepted the Miltonic view; they believed that all animals, including man, had been made of clay, fashioned by Jehovah's hands, and that he had breathed into all forms, not only the breath of life, but instinct and reason. They were not in the habit of descending to particulars; they did not describe Jehovah as kneading the clay or modeling his forms like a sculptor, but what they did say included these things.
The theory of Darwin contradicted all their ideas on the subject, vague as they were. He showed that man had not appeared at first as man, that he had not fallen from perfection, but had slowly risen through many ages from lower forms. He took food, climate, and all conditions into consideration, and accounted for difference of form, function, instinct, and reason, by natural causes. He dispensed with the supernatural. He did away with Jehovah the potter.
Of course the theologians denounced him as a blasphemer, as a dethroner of God. They even went so far as to smile at his ignorance. They said: "If the theory of Darwin is true the Bible is false, our God is a myth, and our religion a fable."
In that they were right.
Against Darwin they rained texts of Scripture like shot and shell. They believed that they were victorious and their congregations were delighted. Poor little frightened professors in religious colleges sided with the clergy. Hundreds of backboneless "scientists" ranged themselves with the enemies of Darwin. It began to look as though the church was victorious.
Slowly, steadily, the ideas of Darwin gained ground. He began to be understood. Men of sense were reading what he said. Men of genius were on his side. In a little while the really great in all departments of human thought declared in his favor. The tide began to turn. The smile on the face of the theologian became a frozen grin. The preachers began to hedge, to dodge. They admitted that the Bible was not inspired for the purpose of teaching science—only inspired about religion, about the spiritual, about the divine. The fortifications of faith were crumbling, the old guns had been spiked, and the armies of the "living God" were in retreat.
Great questions were being discussed, and freely discussed. People were not afraid to give their opinions, and they did give their honest thoughts. Draper had shown in his "Intellectual Development of Europe" that Catholicism had been the relentless enemy of progress, the bitter foe of all that is really useful. The Protestants were delighted with this book.
Buckle had shown in his "History of Civilization in England" that Protestantism had also enslaved the mind, had also persecuted to the extent of its power, and that Protestantism in its last analysis was substantially the same as the creed of Rome.
This book satisfied the thoughtful.
Hegel in his first book had done a great work and it did great good in spite of the fact that his second book was almost a surrender. Lecky in his first volume of "The History of Rationalism" shed a flood of light on the meanness, the cruelty, and the malevolence of "revealed religion," and this did good in spite of the fact that he almost apologizes in the second volume for what he had said in the first.
The Universalists had done good. They had civilized a great many Christians. They declared that eternal punishment was infinite revenge, and that the God of hell was an infinite savage.
Some of the Unitarians, following the example of Theodore Parker, denounced Jehovah as a brutal, tribal God. All these forces worked together for the development of the orthodox brain.
Herbert Spencer was being read and understood. The theories of this great philosopher were being adopted. He overwhelmed the theologians with facts, and from a great height he surveyed the world. Of course he was attacked, but not answered.
Emerson had sowed the seeds of thought—of doubt—in many minds, and from many directions the world was being flooded with intellectual light. The clergy became apologetic; they spoke with less certainty; with less emphasis, and lost a little confidence in the power of assertion. They felt the necessity of doing something, and they began to harmonize as best they could the old lies and the new truths. They tried to get the wreck ashore, and many of them were willing to surrender if they could keep their side-arms; that is to say, their salaries.
Conditions had been reversed. The Bible had ceased to be the standard. Science was the supreme and final test.
There was no peace for the pulpit; no peace for the shepherds. Students of the Bible in England and Germany had been examining the inspired Scriptures. They had been trying to find when and by whom the books of the Bible were written. They found that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses; that the authors of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, and Job were not known; that the Psalms were not written by David; that Solomon had nothing to do with Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, or the Song; that Isaiah was the work of at least three authors; that the prophecies of Daniel were written after the happening of the events prophesied. They found many mistakes and contradictions, and some of them went so far as to assert that the Hebrews had never been slaves in Egypt; that the story of the plagues, the exodus, and the pursuit was only a myth.
The New Testament fared no better than the Old. These critics found that nearly all of the books of the New Testament had been written by unknown men; that it was impossible to fix the time when they were written; that many of the miracles were absurd and childish, and that in addition to all of this, the gospels were found filled with mistakes, with interpolations' and contradictions; that the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not understand the Christian religion as it was understood by the author of the gospel according to John.
Of course, the critics were denounced from most of the pulpits, and the religious papers, edited generally by men who had failed as preachers, were filled with bitter denials and vicious attacks. The religious editors refused to be enlightened. They fought under the old flag. When dogmas became too absurd to be preached, they were taught in the Sunday schools; when worn out there, they were given to the missionaries; but the dear old religious weeklies, the Banners, the Covenants, the Evangelists, continued to feed their provincial subscribers with known mistakes and refuted lies.
There is another fact that should be taken into consideration. All religions are provincial. Mingled with them all and at the foundation of all are the egotism of ignorance, of isolation, the pride of race, and what is called patriotism. Every religion is a natural product—the result of conditions. When one tribe became acquainted with another, the ideas of both were somewhat modified. So when nations and races come into contact a change in thought, in opinion, is a necessary result.
A few years ago nations were strangers, and consequently hated each other's institutions and religions. Commerce has done a great work in destroying provincialism. To trade commodities is to exchange ideas. So the press, the steamships, the railways, cables, and telegraphs have brought the nations together and enabled them to compare their prejudices, their religions, laws and customs.
Recently many scholars have been studying the religions of the world and have found them much the same. They have also found that there is nothing original in Christianity; that the legends, miracles, Christs, and conditions of salvation, the heavens, hells, angels, devils, and gods were the common property of the ancient world. They found that Christ was a new name for an old biography; that he was not a life, but a legend; not a man, but a myth.
People began to suspect that our religion had not been supernaturally revealed, while others, far older and substantially the same, had been naturally produced. They found it difficult to account for the fact that poor, ignorant savages had in the darkness of nature written so well that Jehovah thousands of years afterwards copied it and adopted it as his own. They thought it curious that God should be a plagiarist.
These scholars found that all the old religions had recognized the existence of devils, of evil spirits, who sought in countless ways to injure the children of men. In this respect they found that the sacred books of other nations were just the same as our Bible, as our New Testament.
Take the Devil from our religion and the entire fabric falls. No Devil, no fall of man. No Devil, no atonement. No Devil, no hell.
The Devil is the keystone of the arch.
And yet for many years the belief in the existence of the Devil—of evil spirits—has been fading from the minds of intelligent people. This belief has now substantially vanished. The minister who now seriously talks about a personal Devil is regarded with a kind of pitying contempt.
The Devil has faded from his throne and the evil spirits have vanished from the air.
The man who has really given up a belief in the existence of the Devil cannot believe in the inspiration of the New Testament—in the divinity of Christ. If Christ taught anything, if he believed in anything, he taught a belief in the existence of the Devil..His principal business was casting out devils. He himself was taken possession of by the Devil and carried to the top of the temple.
Thousands and thousands of people have ceased to believe the account in the New Testament regarding devils, and yet continue to believe in the dogma of "inspiration" and the divinity of Christ.
In the brain of the average Christian, contradictions dwell in unity.
While a belief in the existence of the Devil has almost faded away, the belief in the existence of a personal God has been somewhat weakened. The old belief that back of nature, back of all substance and force, was and is a personal God, an infinite intelligence who created and governs the world, began to be questioned. The scientists had shown the indestructibility of matter and force. Büchner's great work had convinced most readers that matter and force could not have been created. They also became satisfied that matter cannot exist apart from force and that force cannot exist apart from matter.
They found, too, that thought is a form of force, and that consequently intelligence could not have existed before matter, because without matter, force in any form cannot and could not exist.
The creator of anything is utterly unthinkable.
A few years ago God was supposed to govern the world. He rewarded the people with sunshine, with prosperity and health, or he punished with drought and flood, with plague and storm. He not only attended to the affairs of nations, but he watched the actions of individuals. He sank ships, derailed trains, caused conflagrations, killed men and women with his lightnings, destroyed some with earthquakes, and tore the homes and bodies of thousands into fragments with his cyclones.
In spite of the church, in spite of the ministers, the people began to lose confidence in Providence. The right did not seem always to triumph. Virtue was not always rewarded and vice was not always punished. The good failed; the vicious succeeded; the strong and cruel enslaved the weak; toil was paid with the lash; babes were sold from the breasts of mothers, and Providence seemed to be absolutely heartless.
In other words, people began to think that the God of the Christians and the God of nature were about the same, and that neither appeared to take any care of the human race.
The Deists of the last century scoffed at the Bible God. He was too cruel, too savage. At the same time they praised the God of nature. They laughed at the idea of inspiration and denied the supernatural origin of the Scriptures.
Now, if the Bible is not inspired, then it is a natural production, and nature, not God, should be held responsible for the Scriptures. Yet the Deists denied that God was the author and at the same time asserted the perfection of nature.
This shows that even in the minds of Deists contradictions dwell in unity.
Against all these facts and forces, these theories and tendencies, the clergy fought and prayed. It is not claimed that they were consciously dishonest, but it is claimed that they were prejudiced—that they were incapable of examining the other side—that they were utterly destitute of the philosophic spirit. They were not searchers for the facts, but defenders of the creeds, and undoubtedly they were the product of conditions and surroundings, and acted as they must.
In spite of everything a few rays of light penetrated the orthodox mind. Many ministers accepted some of the new facts, and began to mingle with Christian mistakes a few scientific truths. In many instances they excited the indignation of their congregations. Some were tried for heresy and driven from their pulpits, and some organized new churches and gathered about them a few people willing to listen to the sincere thoughts of an honest man.
The great body of the church, however, held to the creed—not quite believing it, but still insisting that it was true.
In private conversation they would apologize and admit that the old ideas were outgrown, but in public they were as orthodox as ever. In every church, however, there were many priests who accepted the new gospel; that is to say, welcomed the truth.
To-day it may truthfully be said that the Bible in the old sense is no longer regarded as the inspired word of God. Jehovah is no longer accepted or believed in as the creator of the universe. His place has been taken by the Unknown, the Unseen, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible Something, the Cosmic Dust, the First Cause, the Inconceivable, the Original Force, the Mystery. The God of the Bible, the gentleman who walked in the cool of the evening, who talked face to face with Moses, who revenged himself on unbelievers and who gave laws written with his finger on tables of stone, has abdicated. He has become a myth.
So, too, the New Testament has lost its authority. People reason about it now as they do about other books, and even orthodox ministers pick out the miracles that ought to be believed, and when anything is attributed to Christ not in accordance with their views, they take the liberty of explaining it away by saying "interpolation."
In other words, we have lived to see Science the standard instead of the Bible. We have lived to see the Bible tested by Science, and, what is more, we have lived to see reason the standard not only in religion, but in all the domain of science. Now all civilized scientists appeal to reason. They get their facts, and then reason from the foundation. Now the theologian appeals to reason. Faith is no longer considered a foundation. The theologian has found that he must build upon the truth and that he must establish this truth by satisfying human reason.
This is where we are now.
What is to be the result? Is progress to stop? Are we to retrace our steps? Are we going back to superstition? Are we going to take authority for truth?
Let me prophesy.
In modern times we have slowly lost confidence in the supernatural and have slowly gained confidence in the natural. We have slowly lost confidence in gods and have slowly gained confidence in man. For the cure of disease, for the stopping of plague, we depend on the natural—on science. We have lost confidence in holy water and religious processions. We have found that prayers are never answered.
In my judgment, all belief in the supernatural will be driven from the human mind. All religions must pass away. The augurs, the soothsayers, the seers, the preachers, the astrologers and alchemists will all lie in the same cemetery and one epitaph will do for them all. In a little while all will have had their day. They were naturally produced and they will be naturally destroyed. Man at last will depend entirely upon himself—on the development of the brain—to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature—to the end that he may supply the wants of his body and feed the hunger of his mind.
In my judgment, teachers will take the place of preachers and the interpreters of nature will be the only priests.