THOUSANDS of Christians have asked: How was it possible for Christ and his apostles to deceive the people of Jerusalem? How came the miracles to be believed? Who had the impudence to say that lepers had been cleansed, and that the dead had been raised? How could such impostors have escaped exposure?
I ask: How did Mohammed deceive the people of Mecca? How has the Catholic Church imposed upon millions of people? Who can account for the success of falsehood?
Millions of people are directly interested in the false. They live by lying. To deceive is the business of their lives. Truth is a cripple; lies have wings. It is almost impossible to overtake and kill and bury a lie. If you do, some one will erect a monument over the grave, and the lie is born again as an epitaph. Let me give you a case in point.
A few days ago the MatlockRegister, a paper published in England, printed the following:
CONVERSION OF THE ARCH ATHEIST.
"Mr. Isaac Loveland, of Shoreham, desires us to insert the following:—
"November 27, 1886.
"Dear Mr. Loveland.—A day or two since, I received from Mr. Hine the exhilarating intelligence that through his lectures on the 'Identity of the British Nation with Lost Israel,' in Canada and the United States, that Col. Bob Ingersoll, the arch Atheist, has been converted to Christianity, and has joined the Episcopal Church. Praise the Lord!!! 5,000 of his followershave been won for Christthrough Mr. Hine's grand mission work, the other side of the Atlantic. The Colonel's cousin, the Rev. Mr. Ingersoll, wrote to Mr. Hine soon after he began lecturing in America, informing him that his lectures had made a great impression on the Colonel and other Atheists. I noted it at the time in the Messenger. Bradlaugh will yet be converted; his brother has been, and has joined a British Israel Identity Association. This is progress, and shows what an energetic, determined man (like Mr. Hine), who is earnest in his faith, can do.
"Very faithfully yours,
"H. HODSON RUGG.
"Grove-road, St. John's Wood, London."
How can we account for an article like that? Who made up this story? Who had the impudence to publish it?
As a matter of fact, I never saw Mr. Hine, never heard of him until this extract was received by me in the month of December. I never read a word about the "Identity of Lost Israel with the British Nation." It is a question in which I never had, and never expect to have, the slightest possible interest.
Nothing can be more preposterous than that the Englishman in whose veins can be found the blood of the Saxon, the Dane, the Norman, the Piet, the Scot and the Celt, is the descendant of "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." The English language does not bear the remotest resemblance to the Hebrew, and yet it is claimed by the Reverend Hod-son Rugg that not only myself, but five thousand other Atheists, were converted by the Rev. Mr. Hine, because of his theory that Englishmen and Americans are simply Jews in disguise.
This letter, in my judgment, was published to be used by missionaries in China, Japan, India and Africa.
If stories like this can be circulated about a living man, what may we not expect concerning the dead who have opposed the church?
Countless falsehoods have been circulated about all the opponents of superstition. Whoever attacks the popular falsehoods of his time will find that a lie defends itself by telling other lies. Nothing is so prolific, nothing can so multiply itself, nothing can lay and hatch as many eggs, as a good, healthy, religious lie.
And nothing is more wonderful than the credulity of the believers in the supernatural. They feel under a kind of obligation to believe everything in favor of their religion, or against any form of what they are pleased to call "Infidelity."
The old falsehoods about Voltaire, Paine, Hume, Julian, Diderot and hundreds of others, grow green every spring. They are answered; they are demonstrated to be without the slightest foundation; but they rarely die. And when one does die there seems to be a kind of Cæsarian operation, so that in each instance although the mother dies the child lives to undergo, if necessary, a like operation, leaving another child, and sometimes two.
There are thousands and thousands of tongues ready to repeat what the owners know to be false, and these lies are a part of the stock in trade, the valuable assets, of superstition. No church can afford to throw its property away. To admit that these stories are false now, is to admit that the church has been busy lying for hundreds of years, and it is also to admit that the word of the church is not and cannot be taken as evidence of any fact.
A few years ago, I had a little controversy with the editor of the New YorkObserver, the Rev. Irenaeus Prime, (who is now supposed to be in heaven enjoying the bliss of seeing Infidels in hell), as to whether Thomas Paine recanted his religious opinions. I offered to deposit a thousand dollars for the benefit of a charity, if the reverend doctor would substantiate the charge that Paine recanted. I forced the New YorkObserverto admit that Paine did not recant, and compelled that paper to say that "Thomas Paine died a blaspheming Infidel."
A few months afterward an English paper was sent to me—a religious paper—and in that paper was a statement to the effect that the editor of the New YorkObserverhad claimed that Paine recanted; that I had offered to give a thousand dollars to any charity that Mr. Prime might select, if he would establish the fact that Paine did recant; and that so overwhelming was the testimony brought forward by Mr. Prime, that I admitted that Paine did recant, and paid the thousand dollars.
This is another instance of what might be called the truth of history.
I wrote to the editor of that paper, telling the exact facts, and offering him advertising rates to publish the denial, and in addition, stated that if he would send me a copy of his paper with the denial, I would send him twenty-five dollars for his trouble. I received no reply, and the lie is in all probability still on its travels, going from Sunday school to Sunday school, from pulpit to pulpit, from hypocrite to savage,—that is to say, from missionary to Hottentot—without the slightest evidence of fatigue—fresh and strong, and in its cheeks the roses and lilies of perfect health.
Some person, expecting to add another gem to his crown of glory, put in circulation the story that one of my daughters had joined the Presbyterian Church,—a story without the slightest foundation—and although denied a hundred times, it is still being printed and circulated for the edification of the faithful. Every few days I receive some letter of inquiry as to this charge, and I have industriously denied it for years, but up to the present time, it shows no signs of death—not even of weakness.
Another religious gentleman put in print the charge that my son, having been raised in the atmosphere of Infidelity, had become insane and died in an asylum. Notwithstanding the fact that I never had a son, the story still goes right on, and is repeated day after day without the semblance of a blush.
Now, if all this is done while I am alive and well, and while I have all the facilities of our century for spreading the denials, what will be done after my lips are closed?
The mendacity of superstition is almost enough to make a man believe in the supernatural.
And so I might go on for a hundred columns. Billions of falsehoods have been told and there are trillions yet to come. The doctrines of Malthus have nothing to do with this particular kind of reproduction.
"And there are also many other falsehoods which the church has told, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."—The Truth Seeker, New York, February, 19,1887.
And by the word Liberal I mean, not only free, not only one who thinks for himself, not only one who has escaped from the prisons of customs and creed, but one who is candid, intelligent and kind.
This Liberal editor should not forever play upon one string, no matter how wonderful the music. He should not have his attention forever fixed upon one question—that is to say, he should not look through a reversed telescope and narrow his horizon to that degree that he sees only one thing.
To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist—all this is but the beginning of wisdom. This only lays the foundation for unprejudiced observation. To kill weeds, to fell forests, to drive away or exterminate wild beasts—this is preparatory to doing something of greater value. Of course the weeds must be killed, the forests must be felled, and the beasts must be destroyed before the building of homes and the cultivation of fields.
A Liberal paper should not discuss theological questions alone. Intelligent people everywhere have given up most of the old superstitions. They have pretty well made up their minds what is false, and they want to know some others.
That is to say, liberal toward everything that is true. For this reason, a Liberal paper should keep abreast of the discoveries of the human mind. No science should be neglected; no fact should be overlooked. Inventions should be described and understood. And not only this, but the beautiful in thought, in form and color, should be preserved. The paper should be filled with things calculated to interest thoughtful, intelligent and serious people. There should be a column for children as well as for men.
Above all, it should be perfectly kind and candid. In discussion there is no place for hatred, no opportunity for slander. A personality is always out of place. An angry man can neither reason himself, nor perceive the reason of what another says. The orthodox world has always dealt in personalities. Every minister can answer the argument of an opponent by attacking the character of the opponent. This example should never be followed by a Liberal man. Nobody can be bad enough to prove that the Bible is uninspired, and nobody can be good enough to prove that it is the word of God. These facts have no relation. They neither stand nor fall together.
Nothing should be asserted that is not known. Nothing should be denied, the falsity of which has not been, or cannot be, demonstrated. Opinions are simply given for what they are worth. They are guesses, and one guesser should give to another guesser all the right of guessing that he claims for himself. Upon the great questions of origin, of destiny, of immortality, of punishment and reward in other worlds, every honest man must say, "I do not know." Upon these questions, this is the creed of intelligence. Nothing is harder to bear than the egotism of ignorance and the arrogance of superstition. The man who has some knowledge of the difficulties surrounding these subjects, who knows something of the limitations of the human mind, must, of necessity, be mentally modest. And this condition of mental modesty is the only one consistent with individual progress.
Above all, and over all, a Liberal paper should teach the absolute freedom of the mind, the utter independence of the individual, the perfect liberty of speech. We should remember that the world is as it must be; that the present is the necessary offspring of the past; that the future must be what the present makes it, and that the real work of the reformer, of the philanthropist, is to change the conditions of the present, to the end that the future may be better.
Secular Thought, Toronto, January 8,1887.
SEVERAL people have asked me the meaning of this term.
Secularism is the religion of humanity; it embraces the affairs of this world; it is interested in everything that touches the welfare of a sentient being; it advocates attention to the particular planet in which we happen to live; it means that each individual counts for something; it is a declaration of intellectual independence; it means that the pew is superior to the pulpit, that those who bear the burdens shall have the profits and that they who fill the purse shall hold the strings. It is a protest against theological oppression, against ecclesiastical tyranny, against being the serf, subject or slave of any phantom, or of the priest of any phantom. It is a protest against wasting this life for the sake of one that we know not of. It proposes to let the gods take care of themselves. It is another name for common sense; that is to say, the adaptation of means to such ends as are desired and understood.
Secularism believes in building a home here, in this world. It trusts to individual effort, to energy, to intelligence, to observation and experience rather than to the unknown and the supernatural. It desires to be happy on this side of the grave.
Secularism means food and fireside, roof and raiment, reasonable work and reasonable leisure, the cultivation of the tastes, the acquisition of knowledge, the enjoyment of the arts, and it promises for the human race comfort, independence, intelligence, and above all, liberty. It means the abolition of sectarian feuds, of theological hatreds. It means the cultivation of friendship and intellectual hospitality. It means the living for ourselves and each other; for the present instead of the past, for this world rather than for another. It means the right to express your thought in spite of popes, priests, and gods. It means that impudent idleness shall no longer live upon the labor of honest men. It means the destruction of the business of those who trade in fear. It proposes to give serenity and content to the human soul. It will put out the fires of eternal pain. It is striving to do away with violence and vice, with ignorance, poverty and disease. It lives for the ever present to-day, and the ever coming to-morrow. It does not believe in praying and receiving, but in earning and deserving. It regards work as worship, labor as prayer, and wisdom as the savior of mankind. It says to every human being, Take care of yourself so that you may be able to help others; adorn your life with the gems called good deeds; illumine your path with the sunlight called friendship and love.
Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mummeries, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions. It considers the lilies of the field, and takes thought for the morrow. It says to the whole world, Work that you may eat, drink, and be clothed; work that you may enjoy; work that you may not want; work that you may give and never need.—The Independent Pulpit, Waco, Texas, 1887.
IF one wishes to know what orthodox religion really is—I mean that religion unsoftened by Infidelity, by doubt—let him read "John Ward, Preacher." This book shows exactly what the love of God will do in the heart of man. This shows what the effect of the creed of Christendom is, when absolutely believed. In this case it is the woman who is free and the man who is enslaved. In "Robert Els-mere" the man is breaking chains, while the woman prefers the old prison with its ivy-covered walls.
Why should a man allow human love to stand between his soul and the will of God—between his soul and eternal joy? Why should not the true believer tear every blossom of pity, of charity, from his heart, rather than put in peril his immortal soul?
An orthodox minister has a wife with a heart. Having a heart she cannot believe in the orthodox creed. She thinks God better than he is. She flatters the Infinite. This endangers the salvation of her soul. If she is upheld in this the souls of others may be lost. Her husband feels not only accountable for her soul, but for the souls of others that may be injured by what she says, and by what she does. He is compelled to choose between his wife and his duty, between the woman and God. He is not great enough to go with his heart. He is selfish enough to side with the administration, with power. He lives a miserable life and dies a miserable death.
The trouble with Christianity is that it has no element of compromise—it allows no room for charity so far as belief is concerned. Honesty of opinion is not even a mitigating circumstance. You are not asked to understand—you are commanded to believe. There is no common ground. The church carries no flag of truce. It does not say, Believe you must, but, You must believe. No exception can be made in favor of wife or mother, husband or child. All human relations, all human love must, if necessary, be sacrificed with perfect cheerfulness. "Let the dead bury their dead—follow thou me. Desert wife and child. Human love is nothing—nothing but a snare. You must love God better than wife, better than child." John Ward endeavored to live in accordance with this heartless creed.
Nothing can be more repulsive than an orthodox life—than one who lives in exact accordance with the creed. It is hard to conceive of a more terrible character than John Calvin. It is somewhat difficult to understand the Puritans, who made themselves unhappy by way of recreation, and who seemed to enjoy themselves when admitting their utter worthlessness and in telling God how richly they deserved to be eternally damned. They loved to pluck from the tree of life every bud, every blossom, every leaf. The bare branches, naked to the wrath of God, excited their admiration. They wondered how birds could sing, and the existence of the rainbow led them to suspect the seriousness of the Deity. How can there be any joy if man believes that he acts and lives under an infinite responsibility, when the only business of this life is to avoid the horrors of the next? Why should the lips of men feel the ripple of laughter if there is a bare possibility that the creed of Christendom is true?
I take it for granted that all people believe as they must—that all thoughts and dreams have been naturally produced—that what we call the unnatural is simply the uncommon. All religions, poems, statues, vices and virtues, have been wrought by nature with the instrumentalities called men. No one can read "John Ward, Preacher," without hating with all his heart the creed of John Ward; and no one can read the creed of John Ward, preacher, without pitying with all his heart John Ward; and no one can read this book without feeling how much better the wife was than the husband—how much better the natural sympathies are than the religions of our day, and how much superior common sense is to what is called theology.
When we lay down the book we feel like saying: No matter whether God exists or not; if he does, he can take care of himself; if he does, he does not take care of us; and whether he lives or not we must take care of ourselves. Human love is better than any religion. It is better to love your wife than to love God. It is better to make a happy home here than to sunder hearts with creeds. This book meets the issues far more frankly, with far greater candor. This book carries out to its logical sequence the Christian creed. It shows how uncomfortable a true believer must be, and how uncomfortable he necessarily makes those with whom he comes in contact. It shows how narrow, how hard, how unsympathetic, how selfish, how unreasonable, how unpoetic, the creed of the orthodox church is.
In "Robert Elsmere" there is plenty of evidence of reading and cultivation, of thought and talent. So in "John Ward, Preacher," there is strength, purpose, logic, power of statement, directness and courage. But "The Story of an African Farm" has but little in common with the other two.
It is a work apart—belonging to no school, and not to be judged by the ordinary rules and canons of criticism. There are some puerilities and much philosophy, trivialities and some of the profoundest reflections. In addition to this, there is a vast and wonderful sympathy.
The following upon love is beautiful and profound: "There is a love that begins in the head and goes down to the heart, and grows slowly, but it lasts till death and asks less than it gives. There is another love that blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the sweetness of life and bitter with the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour; but it is worth having lived a whole life for that hour. It is a blood-red flower, with the color of sin, but there is always the scent of a god about it."
There is no character in "Robert Elsmere" or in "John Ward, Preacher," comparable for a moment to Lyndall in the "African Farm." In her there is a splendid courage. She does not blame others for her own faults; she accepts. There is that splendid candor that you find in Juliet in "Measure for Measure." She is asked:
"Love you the man that wronged you?"
And she replies:
"Yes; as I love the woman that wronged him."
The death of this wonderful girl is extremely pathetic.
None but an artist could have written it:
"Then slowly, without a sound, the beautiful eyes closed. The dead face that the glass reflected was a thing of marvellous beauty and tranquillity. The gray dawn crept in over it and saw it lying there."
So the story of the hunter is wonderfully told. This hunter climbs above his fellows—day by day getting away from human sympathy, away from ignorance. He lost at last his fellow-men, and truth was just as far away as ever. Here he found the bones of another hunter, and as he looked upon the poor remains the wild faces said:
"So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands ache nor your heart."
So the death of Waldo is most wonderfully told. The book is filled with thought, and with thoughts of the writer—nothing is borrowed. It is original, true and exceedingly sad. It has the pathos of real life. There is in it the hunger of the heart, the vast difference between the actual and the ideal:
"I like to feel that strange life beating up against me. I like to realize forms of life utterly unlike my own. When my own life feels small and I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see it in a picture, in an instant, a multitude of disconnected, unlike phases of human life—a mediaeval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit trees; little Malay boys playing naked on a shining sea-beach; a Hindoo philosopher alone under his banyan tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the thought of God he may lose himself; a troop of Bacchanalians dressed in white, with crowns of vine-leaves, dancing along the Roman streets; a martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the sky and feeling that already he has the wings that shall bear him up; an epicurean discoursing at a Roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of happiness; a Kafir witch-doctor seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside come the sound of dogs barking and the voices of women and children; a mother giving bread and milk to her children in little wooden basins and singing the evening song. I like to see it all; I feel it run through me—that life belongs to me; it makes my little life larger, it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in."
The author, Olive Schreiner, has a tropic zone in her heart. She sometimes prattles like a child, then suddenly, and without warning, she speaks like a philosopher—like one who had guessed the riddle of the Sphinx. She, too, is overwhelmed with the injustice of the world—with the negligence of nature—and she finds that it is impossible to find repose for heart or brain in any Christian creed.
These books show what the people are thinking—the tendency of modern thought. Singularly enough the three are written by women. Mrs. Ward, the author of "Robert Elsmere," to say the least is not satisfied with the Episcopal Church. She feels sure that its creed is not true. At the same time, she wants it denied in a respectful tone of voice, and she really pities people who are compelled to give up the consolation of eternal punishment, although she has thrown it away herself and the tendency of her book is to make other people do so. It is what the orthodox call "a dangerous book." It is a flank movement calculated to suggest a doubt to the unsuspecting reader, to some sheep who has strayed beyond the shepherd's voice.
It is hard for any one to read "John Ward, Preacher," without hating Puritanism with all his heart and without feeling certain that nothing is more heartless than the "scheme of salvation;" and whoever finishes "The Story of an African Farm" will feel that he has been brought in contact with a very great, passionate and tender soul. Is it possible that women, who have been the Caryatides of the church, who have borne its insults and its burdens, are to be its destroyers?
Man is a being capable of pleasure and pain. The fact that he can enjoy himself—that he can obtain good—gives him courage—courage to defend what he has, courage to try to get more. The fact that he can suffer pain sows in his mind the seeds of fear. Man is also filled with curiosity. He examines. He is astonished by the uncommon. He is forced to take an interest in things because things affect him. He is liable at every moment to be injured. Countless things attack him. He must defend himself. As a consequence his mind is at work; his experience in some degree tells him what may happen; he prepares; he defends himself from heat and cold. All the springs of action lie in the fact that he can suffer and enjoy. The savage has great confidence in his senses. He has absolute confidence in his eyes and ears. It requires many years of education and experience before he becomes satisfied that things are not always what they appear. It would be hard to convince the average barbarian that the sun does not actually rise and set—hard to convince him that the earth turns. He would rely upon appearances and would record you as insane.
As man becomes civilized, educated, he finally has more confidence in his reason than in his eyes. He no longer believes that a being called Echo exists. He has found out the theory of sound, and he then knows that the wave of air has been returned to his ear, and the idea of a being who repeats his words fades from his mind; he begins then to rely, not upon appearances, but upon demonstration, upon the result of investigation. At last he finds that he has been deceived in a thousand ways, and he also finds that he can invent certain instruments that are far more accurate than his senses—instruments that add power to his sight, to his hearing and to the sensitiveness of his touch. Day by day he gains confidence in himself.
There is in the life of the individual, as in the life of the race, a period of credulity, when not only appearances are accepted without question, but the declarations of others. The child in the cradle or in the lap of its mother, has implicit confidence in fairy stories—believes in giants and dwarfs, in beings who can answer wishes, who create castles and temples and gardens with a thought. So the race, in its infancy, believed in such beings and in such creations. As the child grows, facts take the place of the old beliefs, and the same is true of the race.
As a rule, the attention of man is drawn first, not to his own mistakes, not to his own faults, but to the mistakes and faults of his neighbors. The same is true of a nation—it notices first the eccentricities and peculiarities of other nations. This is especially true of religious systems. Christians take it for granted that their religion is true, that there can be about that no doubt, no mistake. They begin to examine the religions of other nations. They take it for granted that all these other religions are false. They are in a frame of mind to notice contradictions, to discover mistakes and to apprehend absurdities. In examining other religions they use their common sense. They carry in the hand the lamp of probability. The miracles of other Christs, or of the founders of other religions, appear unreasonable—they find that they are not supported by evidence. Most of the stories excite their laughter. Many of the laws seem cruel, many of the ceremonies absurd. These Christians satisfy themselves that they are right in their first conjecture—that is, that other religions are all made by men. Afterward the same arguments they have used against other religions were found to be equally forcible against their own. They find that the miracles of Buddha rest upon the same kind of evidence as the miracles in the Old Testament, as the miracles in the New—that the evidence in the one case is just as weak and unreliable as in the other. They also find that it is just as easy to account for the existence of Christianity as for the existence of any other religion, and they find that the human mind in all countries has traveled substantially the same road and has arrived at substantially the same conclusions.
It may be truthfully said that Christianity by the examination of other religions laid the foundation for its own destruction. The moment it examined another religion it became a doubter, a sceptic, an investigator. It began to call for proof. This course being pursued in the examination of Christianity itself, reached the result that had been reached as to other religions. In other words, it was impossible for Christians successfully to attack other religions without showing that their own religion could be destroyed. The fact that only a few years ago we were all provincial should be taken into consideration. A few years ago nations were unacquainted with each other—no nation had any conception of the real habits, customs, religions and ideas of any other. Each nation imagined itself to be the favored of heaven—the only one to whom God had condescended to make known his will—the only one in direct communication with angels and deities. Since the circumnavigation of the globe, since the invention of the steam engine, the discovery of electricity, the nations of the world have become acquainted with each other, and we now know that the old ideas were born of egotism, and that egotism is the child of ignorance and savagery.
Think of the egotism of the ancient Jews, who imagined that they were "the chosen people"—the only ones in whom God took the slightest interest! Imagine the egotism of the Catholic Church, claiming that it is the only church—that it is continually under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and that the pope is infallible and occupies the place of God. Think of the egotism of the Presbyterian, who imagines that he is one of "the elect," and that billions of ages before the world was created, God, in the eternal counsel of his own good pleasure, picked out this particular Presbyterian, and at the same time determined to send billions and billions to the pit of eternal pain. Think of the egotism of the man who believes in special providence. The old philosophy, the old religion, was made in about equal parts of ignorance and egotism. This earth was the universe. The sun rose and set simply for the benefit of "God's chosen people." The moon and stars were made to beautify the night, and all the countless hosts of heaven were for no other purpose than to decorate what might be called the ceiling of the earth. It was also believed that this firmament was solid—that up there the gods lived, and that they could be influenced by the prayers and desires of men.
We have now found that the earth is only a grain of sand, a speck, an atom in an infinite universe. We now know that the sun is a million times larger than the earth, and that other planets are millions of times larger than the sun; and when we think of these things, the old stories of the Garden of Eden and Sinai and Calvary seem infinitely out of proportion.
At last we have reached a point where we have the candor and the intelligence to examine the claims of our own religion precisely as we examine those of other countries. We have produced men and women great enough to free themselves from the prejudices born of provincialism—from the prejudices, we might almost say, of patriotism. A few people are great enough not to be controlled by the ideas of the dead—great enough to know that they are not bound by the mistakes of their ancestors—and that a man may actually love his mother without accepting her belief. We have even gone further than this, and we are now satisfied that the only way to really honor parents is to tell our best and highest thoughts. These thoughts ought to be in the mind when reading the books referred to. There are certain tendencies, certain trends of thought, and these tendencies—these trends—bear fruit; that is to say, they produce the books about which I have spoken as well as many others.
Question. Have you any suggestions to make in regard to remodeling the libel laws?
Answer. I believe that every article appearing in a paper should be signed by the writer. If it is libelous, then the writer and the publisher should both be held responsible in damages. The law on this subject, if changed, should throw greater safeguards around the reputation of the citizen. It does not seem to me that the papers have any right to complain. Probably a good many suits are brought that should not be instituted, but just think of the suits that are not brought.
Personally I have no complaint to make, as it would be very hard to find anything in any paper against me, but it has never occurred to me that the press needed any greater liberty than it now enjoys.
It might be a good thing for a paper to publish each week, a list of mistakes, if this could be done without making that edition too large. But certainly when a false and scandalous charge has been made by mistake or as the result of imposition, great pains should be taken to give the retraction at once and in a way to attract attention.
I suppose the papers are liable to be imposed upon—liable to print thousands of articles to which the attention of the editor or proprietor was not called. Still, that is not the fault of the man whose character is attacked. On the whole I think the papers have the advantage of the average citizen as the law now is.
If all articles had to be signed by the writer, I am satisfied the writer would be more careful and less liable to write anything of a libelous nature. I am willing to admit that I have given but little attention to the subject, probably for the reason that I have never been a sufferer.
It would hardly do to hold only the writer responsible. Suppose a man writes a libelous article, leaves the country, and then the article is published; is there no remedy? A suit for libel is not much of a remedy, I admit, but it is some. It is like the bayonet in war. Very few are injured by bayonets, but a good many are afraid that they may be.
—The Herald, New York, October 26,1888.
I HAVE read the report of the Rev. R. Heber Newton's sermon and I am satisfied, first, that Mr. Newton simply said what he thoroughly believes to be true, and second, that some of the conclusions at which he arrives are certainly correct. I do not regard Mr. Newton as a heretic or sceptic. Every man who reads the Bible must, to a greater or less extent, think for himself. He need not tell his thoughts; he has the right to keep them to himself. But if he undertakes to tell them, then he should be absolutely honest.
The Episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the world. For many, years the foremost members and clergymen in that church have been giving some new meanings to the old words and phrases. Words are no more exempt from change than other things in nature. A word at one time rough, jagged, harsh and cruel, is finally worn smooth. A word known as slang, picked out of the gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes respectable and finally is found in the mouths of the best and purest.
We must remember that in the world of art the picture depends not alone on the painter, but on the one who sees it. So words must find some part of their meaning in the man who hears or the man who reads. In the old times the word "hell" gave to the hearer or reader the picture of a vast pit filled with an ocean of molten brimstone, in which innumerable souls were suffering the torments of fire, and where millions of devils were engaged in the cheerful occupation of increasing the torments of the damned. This was the real old orthodox view.
As man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and less vivid. Finally, some expressed their doubts about the brimstone, and others began to think that if the Devil was, and is, really an enemy of God he would not spend his time punishing sinners to please God. Why should the Devil be in partnership with his enemy, and why should he inflict torments on poor souls who were his own friends, and who shared with him the feeling of hatred toward the Almighty?
As men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn in their minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not have created persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures, or that they were to suffer eternal punishment, because there could be no possible object in eternal punishment—no reformation, no good to be accomplished—and certainly the sight of all this torment would not add to the joy of heaven, neither would it tend to the happiness of God.
So the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a consequence and not an infliction. Then they took another step and concluded that every soul, in every world, in every age, should have at least the chance of doing right. And yet persons so believing still used the word "hell," but the old meaning had dropped out.
So with regard to the atonement. At one time it was regarded as a kind of bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many souls. This was a barbaric view. Afterward, the mind developing a little, the idea got in the brain that the life of Christ was worth its moral effect. And yet these people use the word "atonement," but the bargain idea has been lost.
Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is given to that word depends upon the man who uses it—depends for the most part on the age in which he lives, the country in which he was born. The same is true of the word "freedom." Millions and millions of people boasted that they were the friends of freedom, while at the same time they enslaved their fellow-men. So, in the name of justice every possible crime has been perpetrated and in the name of mercy every instrument of torture has been used.
Mr. Newton realizes the fact that everything in the world changes; that creeds are influenced by civilization, by the acquisition of knowledge, by the progress of the sciences and arts—in other words, that there is a tendency in man to harmonize his knowledge and to bring about a reconciliation between what he knows and what he believes. This will be fatal to superstition, provided the man knows anything.
Mr. Newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing confidence in the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks common sense; that the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and that it is impossible to feel that the innocent can rightfully suffer for the guilty, or that the suffering of innocence can in any way justify the crimes of the wicked. I think he is mistaken, however, when he says that the early church softened or weakened the barbaric passions. I think the early church was as barbarous as any institution that ever gained a footing in this world. I do not believe that the creed of the early church, as understood, could soften anything. A church that preaches the eternity of punishment has within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to make it grow.
So Mr. Newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the organized Christianity of to-day is not the leader in social progress. No one now goes to a synod to find a fact in science or on any subject. A man in doubt does not ask the average minister; he regards him as behind the times. He goes to the scientist, to the library. He depends upon the untrammelled thought of fearless men.
The church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich, of the respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the men who, having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to succeed. The spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as it is in the average club. There is the same exclusive feeling, and this feeling in the next world is to be heightened and deepened to such an extent that a large majority of our fellow-men are to be eternally excluded.
The peasants of Europe—the workingmen—do not go to the church for sympathy. If they do they come home empty, or rather empty hearted. So, in our own country the laboring classes, the mechanics, are not depending on the churches to right their wrongs. They do not expect the pulpits to increase their wages. The preachers get their money from the well-to-do—from the employeer class—and their sympathies are with those from whom they receive their wages.
The ministers attack the pleasures of the world. They are not so much scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating meat on Friday. They regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins. They are not touching the real, vital issues of the day, and their hearts do not throb in unison with the hearts of the struggling, the aspiring, the enthusiastic and the real believers in the progress of the human race.
It is all well enough to say that we should depend on Providence, but experience has taught us that while it may do no harm to say it, it will do no good to do it. We have found that man must be the Providence of man, and that one plow will do more, properly pulled and properly held, toward feeding the world, than all the prayers that ever agitated the air.
So, Mr. Newton is correct in saying, as I understand him to say, that the hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox religion. Neither, in my judgment, has the belief in the existence of a God anything in fact to do with real religion. The old doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.
Man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself; that special providence is a mistake. This being so, the old religions must go down, and in their place man must depend upon intelligence, industry, honesty; upon the facts that he can ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his own efforts. Then religion becomes a thing of this world—a religion to put a roof above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home, a religion that rewards virtue here.
If Mr. Newton's sermon is in accordance with the Episcopal creed, I congratulate the creed. In any event, I think Mr. Newton deserves great credit for speaking his thought. Do not understand that I imagine that he agrees with me. The most I will say is that in some things I agree with him, and probably there is a little too much truth and a little too much humanity in his remarks to please the bishop.
There is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been persecuted for thinking God bad. When any one has said that he believed God to be so good that he would, in his own time and way, redeem the entire human race, and that the time would come when every soul would be brought home and sit on an equality with the others around the great fireside of the universe, that man has been denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked wretch.—New York Herald, December 13,1888.